‘Of the arguments from reason, the first is that which his Lordship saith is drawn from Zeno’s beating of his man, which is therefore called _Argumentum Baculinum_, that is to say, a wooden argument. The story is this: Zeno held that all actions were necessary: his man therefore being for some fault beaten, excused himself upon the necessity of it: to avoid this excuse, his master pleaded likewise the necessity of beating him. So that not he that maintained, but he that derided the necessity was beaten, contrary to that his Lordship would infer. ‘The second argument is taken from certain inconveniences which his Lordship thinks would follow such an opinion. ‘The first inconvenience, he says, is this, that the laws which prohibit any action will be unjust. ‘2. That all consultations are vain. ‘3. That admonitions to men of understanding are of no more use than to children, fools, and madmen. ‘4. That praise, dispraise, reward and punishment are in vain. ‘5 and 6. That counsels, arts, arms, books, instruments, study, tutors, medicines are in vain.’ Hobbes’s answer to these conclusions is I think quite satisfactory. He says— ‘To which arguments his Lordship, expecting I should answer by saying, “the ignorance of the event were enough to make us use the means,” adds (as it were a reply to my answer foreseen) these words, “_Alas! how should our not knowing the event be a sufficient motive to make us use the means?_” Wherein his Lordship says right: but my answer is not that which he expecteth. I answer: ‘First, that the necessity of an action doth not make the laws that prohibit it unjust. To let pass that not the necessity, but the will to break the law maketh the action unjust, because the law regardeth the will and no other antecedent cause of action, and to let pass that no law can possibly be unjust, inasmuch as every man maketh (by his consent) the law he is bound to keep, and which consequently must be just, unless a man can be unjust to himself;—I say, what necessary cause soever precede an action, yet if the action be forbidden, he that doth it willingly may be justly punished. For instance, suppose the law on pain of death prohibit stealing, and that there be a man who by the strength of temptation is necessitated to steal, and is thereupon put to death, does not this punishment deter others from stealing? Is it not a cause that others steal not? Doth it not frame and make their wills to justice? To make the law is therefore to make a cause of justice, and to necessitate justice, and consequently ’tis no injustice to make such a law. The intention of the law is not to grieve the delinquent for what is past and not to be undone; but to make him and others just that else would not be so; and respecteth not the evil act past, but the good to come. Insomuch as without the good intention for the future, no past act of a delinquent would justify his killing in the sight of God.