13. The question whether of two men be the more worthy, belongs not to the natural, but civil state. For it hath been showed before (Chap. I. Art. 3) that all men by nature are equal; and therefore the inequality which now is, suppose from riches, power, nobility of kindred, is come from the civil law. I know that Aristotle, in his first book of Politics, affirms as a foundation of the whole political science, that some men by nature are made worthy to command, others only to serve; as if lord and servant were distinguished not by consent of men, but by an aptness, that is, a certain kind of natural knowledge or ignorance. Which foundation is not only against reason, (as but now hath been showed), but also against experience. For neither almost is any man so dull of understanding as not to judge it better to be ruled by himself, than to yield himself to the government of another; neither if the wiser and stronger do contest, have these always or often the upper hand of those. Whether therefore men be equal by nature, the equality is to be acknowledged; or whether unequal, because they are like to contest for dominion, it is necessary for the obtaining of peace, _that they be esteemed as equal_; and therefore it is in the eighth place a precept of the law of nature, _that every man be accounted by nature equal to another_; the contrary to which law is _pride_. [Sidenote: The ninth law, of humility.] 14. As it was necessary to the conservation of each man that he should part with some of his rights, so it is no less necessary to the same conservation that he retain some others, to wit, the right of bodily protection, of free enjoyment of air, water, and all necessaries for life. Since therefore many common rights are retained by those who enter into a peaceable state, and that many peculiar ones are also acquired, hence ariseth this ninth dictate of the natural law, to wit, that what rights soever any man challenges to himself, he also grant the same as due to all the rest; otherwise he frustrates the equality acknowledged in the former article. For what is it else to acknowledge an equality of persons in the making up of society, but to attribute equal right and power to those whom no reason would else engage to enter into society? But to ascribe _equal things to equals_, is the same with giving things _proportional_ to _proportionals_. The observation of this law is called _meekness_, the violation πλεονεξὶα; the breakers by the Latins are styled _immodici et immodesti_. [Sidenote: The tenth law of equity, or against acceptance of persons.]