The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 (of 11) — Thomas Hobbes — John Shaqi
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
10. Every man by nature hath right to all things, that is to say, to
do whatsoever he listeth to whom he listeth, to possess, use, and
enjoy all things he will and can. For seeing all things he willeth,
must therefore be good unto him in his own judgment, because he
willeth them, and may tend to his preservation some time or other,
or he may judge so, and we have made him judge thereof, section 8,
it followeth, that all things may rightly also be done by him. And
for this cause it is rightly said, _Natura dedit omnia omnibus_,
that Nature hath given all things to all men; insomuch, that _jus_
and _utile_, right and profit, is the same thing. But that right of
all men to all things, is in effect no better than if no man had
right to any thing. For there is little use and benefit of the right
a man hath, when another as strong, or stronger than himself, hath
right to the same.
[Sidenote: War and peace defined.]
11. Seeing then to the offensiveness of man’s nature one to another,
there is added a right of every man to every thing, whereby one man
invadeth with right, and another man with right resisteth, and men
live thereby in perpetual diffidence, and study how to preoccupate
each other; the estate of men in this natural liberty, is the estate
of war. For _war_ is nothing else but that time wherein the will and
contention of contending by force, is either by words or actions
sufficiently declared; and the time which is not war, is _peace_.
[Sidenote: Men by nature in the state of war.]
12. The estate of hostility and war being such, as thereby nature
itself is destroyed, and men kill one another, (as we know also that
it is, both by the experience of savage nations that live at this
day, and by the histories of our ancestors the old inhabitants of
Germany, and other now civil countries, where we find the people
few, and short lived, and without the ornaments and comforts of
life, which by peace and society are usually invented and procured)
he therefore that desireth to live in such an estate as is the
estate of liberty and right of all to all, contradicteth himself.
For every man by natural necessity desireth his own good, to which
this estate is contrary, wherein we suppose contention between men
by nature equal, and able to destroy one another.
[Sidenote: In manifest inequality might is right.]