The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 03 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
4. The law of nature, and the civil law, contain each other, and are of
equal extent. For the laws of nature, which consist in equity, justice,
gratitude, and other moral virtues on these depending, in the condition
of mere nature, as I have said before in the end of the fifteenth
chapter, are not properly laws, but qualities that dispose men to peace
and obedience. When a commonwealth is once settled, then are they
actually laws, and not before; as being then the commands of the
commonwealth; and therefore also civil laws: for it is the sovereign
power that obliges men to obey them. For in the differences of private
men, to declare, what is equity, what is justice, and what is moral
virtue, and to make them binding, there is need of the ordinances of
sovereign power, and punishments to be ordained for such as shall break
them; which ordinances are therefore part of the civil law. The law of
nature therefore is a part of the civil law in all commonwealths of the
world. Reciprocally also, the civil law is a part of the dictates of
nature. For justice, that is to say, performance of covenant, and giving
to every man his own, is a dictate of the law of nature. But every
subject in a commonwealth, hath convenanted to obey the civil law;
either one with another, as when they assemble to make a common
representative, or with the representative itself one by one, when
subdued by the sword they promise obedience, that they may receive life;
and therefore obedience to the civil law is part also of the law of
nature. Civil, and natural law are not different kinds, but different
parts of law; whereof one part being written, is called civil, the other
unwritten, natural. But the right of nature, that is, the natural
liberty of man, may by the civil law be abridged, and restrained: nay,
the end of making laws, is no other, but such restraint; without the
which there cannot possibly be any peace. And law was brought into the
world for nothing else, but to limit the natural liberty of particular
men, in such manner, as they might not hurt, but assist one another, and
join together against a common enemy.
[Sidenote: Provincial laws are not made by custom, but by the sovereign
power.]