8. In the state of nature, where every man is his own judge, and differeth from other concerning the names and appellations of things, and from those differences arise quarrels and breach of peace, it was necessary there should be a common measure of all things, that might fall in controversy. As for example; of what is to be called right, what good, what virtue, what much, what little, what _meum_ and _tuum_, what a pound, what a quart, &c. For in these things private judgments may differ, and beget controversy. This common measure, some say, is _right reason_: with whom I should consent, if there were any such thing to be found or known _in rerum naturâ_. But commonly they that call for _right reason_ to decide any controversy, do mean their own. But this is certain, seeing _right reason_ is not existent, the reason of some man or men must supply the place thereof; and that man or men, is he or they, that have the sovereign power, as hath been already proved; and consequently the civil laws are to all subjects the measures of their actions, whereby to determine, whether they be right or wrong, profitable or unprofitable, virtuous or vicious; and by them the use and definition of all names not agreed upon, and tending to controversy, shall be established. As for example, when upon occasion of some strange and deformed birth, it shall not be decided by Aristotle, or the philosophers, whether the same be a man, or no, but by the laws; the civil law containing in it the ecclesiastical, as a part thereof, proceeding from the power of ecclesiastical government, given by our Saviour to all Christian sovereigns, as his immediate vicars, as hath been said Part II. chap. VII. sect. 10. [Sidenote: Martial law is civil law.] 9. But seeing it hath been said, that all laws are either natural or civil, it may be demanded, to which of these shall be referred that law, which is called martial law, and by the Romans, _disciplina militaris_? And it may seem to be the same with the law of nature; because the laws by which a multitude of soldiers are governed in an army are not constant, but continually changing with the occasion; and that is still a law, which is reason for the present, and reason is the law of nature. It is nevertheless true, that martial law is civil law, because an army is a body politic, the whole power whereof is in the General, and the laws thereof made by him; and though they still follow and change as reason requireth, yet it is not, as the reason of every private man, but as the reason of the General requireth. [Sidenote: Written laws, Unwritten, &c. Customs, and Opinions, &c.]