I have acquainted your Lordship withal in private discourse, and which by your command I have here put into a method. To examine cases thereby between sovereign and sovereign, or between sovereign and subject, I leave to them that shall find leisure. and encouragement thereto. For my part, I present this to your Lordship for the true and only foundation of such science. For the style, it is therefore the worse, because, whilst I was writing, I consulted more with logic than with rhetoric: but for the doctrine, it is not slightly proved; and the conclusions thereof of such nature, as, for want of them, government and peace have been nothing else, to this day, but mutual fears; and it would be an incomparable benefit to commonwealth, that every one held the opinion concerning law and policy here delivered. The ambition therefore of this book, in seeking by your Lordship's countenance to insinuate itself with those whom the matter it containeth most nearly concerneth, is to be excused. For myself, I desire no greater honour than I enjoy already in your Lordship's favour, unless it be that you would be pleased, in continuance thereof, to give me more exercise in your commands; which, as I am bound by your many great favours, I shall obey, being,

My most honoured Lord,

Your most humble and most obliged Servant,

THOMAS HOBBES.

May 9, 1640.

IN LIBELLUM PRESTANTISSIMI

THOME HOBBII,

VIRI VERE PHILOSOPHI,

"DE NATURA HOMINIS."

QUÆ magna cœli moenia, et tractus maris Terræque fines, siquid aut ultra est, capit, Mens ipsa tandem capitur: omnia hactenus Quæ nosse potuit, nota jam primum est sibi.

Accede, Lector, disce quis demum sies; Et inquilinam jecoris agnoscas tui, Qua propius hæret nil tibi, et nil tam procul.

Non hic scholarum frivola, aut cassi logi,
Quales per annos forte plus septem legit;
Ut folle pleno prodeat, rixæ artifex;
Vanasque merces futili lingua crepet :
Sed sancta rerum pondera, et sensus graves,
Quales parari decuit, ipsa cum fuit
Pingenda ratio, et vindici suo adstitit.

Panduntur omnes machinæ gyri tuæ,
Animæque vectes, trochleæ, cunei, rotæ ;
Qua concitetur arte, quo sufflamine
Sistatur illa rursus, et constet sibi :
Nec, si fenestram pectori humano suam
Aptasset ipse Momus, inspiceret magis.
Hic cerno levia affectuum vestigia,
Gracilesque sensus lineas; video quibus
Vehantur alis blanduli cupidines,
Quibusque stimulis urgeant iræ graves.
Hic et dolores, et voluptates suos
Produnt recessus; ipse nec timor latet.

xvi

Has norit artes, quisquis in foro velit
Animorum habenas flectere, et populos cupit
Aptis ligatos nexibus jungi sibi.

Hic Archimedes publicus figat pedem,
Siquando regna machinis politicis
Urgere satagit, et feras gentes ciet,
Imisque motum sedibus mundum quatit:
Facile domabit cuncta, qui menti imperat.

Consultor audax, et Promethei potens
Facinoris anime! quis tibi dedit Deus
Hæc intueri sæculis longe abdita,
Oculosque luce tinxit ambrosia tuos?
Tu mentis omnis, at tuæ nulla est capax.
Hac laude solus fruere: divinum est opus
Animam creare; proximum huic, ostendere.

RAD. BATHURST, A.M.

COL. TRIN. OXON.

HUMAN NATURE:

OR THE

FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS

OF POLICY.

CHAPTER I.

Introduction.

1. THE true and perspicuous explication of the CHAP. I. elements of laws natural and politic (which is my present scope) dependeth upon the knowledge of what is human nature, what is body politic, and what it is we call a law; concerning which points, as the writings of men from antiquity downwards have still increased, so also have the doubts and controversies concerning the same and seeing that true knowledge begetteth not doubt nor controversy, but knowledge, it is manifest from the present controversies, that they, which have heretofore written thereof, have not well understood their own subject.

2. Harm I can do none, though I err no less than they; for I shall leave men but as they are, in doubt and dispute: but, intending not to take any principle upon trust, but only to put men in mind of what they know already, or may know by their

VOL. IV.

B

CHAP. I. own experience, I hope to err the less; and when I do, it must proceed from too hasty concluding, which I will endeavour as much as I can to avoid.

Introduction.

3. On the other side, if reasoning aright win not consent, which may very easily happen, from them that being confident of their own knowledge weigh not what is said, the fault is not mine, but theirs; for as it is my part to shew my reasons, so it is theirs to bring attention.

4. Man's nature is the sum of his natural faculties and powers, as the faculties of nutrition, motion, generation, sense, reason, &c. These powers we do unanimously call natural, and are contained in the definition of man, under these words, animal and rational.

5. According to the two principal parts of man, I divide his faculties into two sorts, faculties of the body, and faculties of the mind.

6. Since the minute and distinct anatomy of the powers of the body is nothing necessary to the present purpose, I will only sum them up in these three heads, power nutritive, power motive, and power generative.

7. Of the powers of the mind there be two sorts, cognitive, imaginative, or conceptive and motive; and first of cognitive.

For the understanding of what I mean by the power cognitive, we must remember and acknowledge that there be in our minds continually certain images or conceptions of the things without us, insomuch that if a man could be alive, and all the rest of the world annihilated, he should nevertheless retain the image thereof, and all those things which he had before seen or perceived in it;