1. Hitherto of the causes why, and the manner how, men have made commonwealth. In this chapter I shall show briefly by what causes, and in what manner, they be again destroyed; not meaning to say anything concerning the dissolution of a commonwealth, from foreign invasions, which is as it were the violent death thereof. I shall speak only of sedition, which is also the death of the commonwealth, but like to that which happeneth to a man from sickness and distemper. To dispose men to sedition, three things concur. The first is discontent; for as long as a man thinketh himself well, and that the present government standeth not in his way to hinder his proceeding from well to better, it is impossible for him to desire the change thereof. The second is pretence of right; for though a man be discontent, yet if in his own opinion there be no just cause of stirring against, or resisting the government established, nor any pretence to justify his resistance, and to procure aid, he will never show it. The third is hope of success; for it were madness to attempt without hope, when to fail, is to die the death of a traitor. Without these three, discontent, pretence, and hope, there can be no rebellion: and when the same are all together, there wanteth nothing thereto, but a man of credit to set up the standard, and to blow the trumpet. [Sidenote: Discontent that disposeth to sedition, consisteth partly in fear of want, or punishment:] 2. And as for discontent, it is of two sorts: for it consisteth either in bodily pain present or expected, or else in trouble of the mind; which is the general division of pleasure and pain, _Human Nature_, chap. VII. sect. 8. The presence of bodily pain disposeth not to sedition; the fear of it doth. As for example; when a great multitude, or heap of people, have concurred to a crime worthy of death, they join together, and take arms to defend themselves for fear thereof. So also the fear of want, or in present want, the fear of arrests and imprisonment dispose to sedition. And therefore great exactions, though the right thereof be acknowledged, have caused great seditions. As in the time of Henry VII. the seditions of the Cornish men, that refused to pay a subsidy, and, under the conduct of the Lord Audley, gave the King battle upon Blackheath; and that of the northern people, who in the same king’s time, for demanding a subsidy granted in parliament, murdered the Earl of Northumberland in his house. [Sidenote: Partly in ambition.]