in himself than he does in others: these, I say, are so many signs, so many manifest arguments, that what hath hitherto been written by moral philosophers, hath not made any progress in the knowledge of the truth; but yet hath took with the world, not so much by giving any light to the understanding as entertainment to the affections, whilst by the successful rhetorications of their speech they have confirmed them in their rashly received opinions. So that this part of philosophy hath suffered the same destiny with the _public ways_, which lie open to all passengers to traverse up and down: or the same lot _with highways and open streets_, some for divertisement, and some for business; so that what with the impertinences of some and the altercations of others, those ways have never a seed time, and therefore yield never a harvest. The only reason of which unluckiness should seem to be this; that amongst all the writers of that part of philosophy there is not one that hath used an idoneous principle of tractation. For we may not, as in a circle, begin the handling of a science from what point we please. There is a certain clue of reason, whose beginning is in the dark; but by the benefit of whose conduct, we are led as it were by the hand into the clearest light. So that the principle of tractation is to be taken from that darkness; and then the light to be carried thither for irradiating the doubts. As often therefore as any writer doth either weakly forsake that clue, or wilfully cut it asunder; he describes the footsteps, not of his progress in science, but of his wanderings from it. And from this it was, that when I applied my thoughts to the investigation of natural _justice_, I was presently advertised from the very word justice, (which signifies a steady will of giving every one his _own_), that my first enquiry was to be, from whence it proceeded that any man should call anything rather his _own_, than _another man’s_. And when I found that this proceeded not from nature, but consent; (for what nature at first laid forth in common, men did afterwards distribute into several _impropriations_); I was conducted from thence to another inquiry; namely, to what end and upon what impulsives, when all was equally every man’s in common, men did rather think it fitting that every man should have his inclosure. And I found the reason was, that from a community of goods there must needs arise contention, whose enjoyment should be greatest. And from that contention all kind of calamities must unavoidably ensue, which by the instinct of nature every man is taught to shun. Having therefore thus arrived at two maxims of human nature; the one arising from the _concupiscible_ part, which desires to appropriate to itself the use of those things in which all others have a joint interest; the other proceeding from the _rational_, which teaches every man to fly a contra-natural dissolution, as the greatest mischief