The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
Again, we have here two distinctions that are no distinctions, but
made to seem so by terms invented by I know not whom to cover
ignorance, and blind the understanding of the reader: for it cannot
be conceived that there is any liberty greater, than for a man to do
what he will. One heat may be more intensive than another, but not
one liberty than another; he that can do what he will, hath all
liberty possible, and he that cannot, hath none at all. Also
_liberty_, as his Lordship says the Schools call it, of _exercise_,
which is as I have said before, a liberty to do or not to do, cannot
be without a _liberty_, which they call, of _specification_, that is
to say, a liberty to do, or not to do this or that in particular.
For how can a man conceive he hath liberty to do anything, that hath
not liberty to do this, or that, or somewhat in particular? If a man
be forbidden in Lent to eat this, and that, and every other
particular kind of flesh, how can he be understood to have a liberty
to eat flesh, more than he that hath no licence at all? You may by
this again see the vanity of distinctions used in the _Schools_, and
I do not doubt but that the imposing of them, by authority of
_doctors_ in the _Church_, hath been a great cause that men have
laboured, though by sedition and evil courses, to shake them off;
for nothing is more apt to beget hatred, than the tyrannizing over
men’s reason and understanding, especially when it is done, not by
the Scriptures, but by the pretence of learning, and more judgment
than that of other men.
In the next place his Lordship bringeth two arguments against
distinguishing between _free from compulsion_ and _free from
necessitation_.