If it were Right that ruled in the world, a man would have done enough in building his house, and would need no other protection than the right of possessing it, which would be obvious. But since Wrong is the order of the day, it is requisite that the man who has built his house should also be able to protect it. Otherwise his Right is _de facto_ incomplete; the aggressor, that is to say, has the right of might--_Faustrecht_; and this is just the conception of Right which Spinoza entertains. He recognises no other. His words are: _unusquisque tantum juris habet quantum potentia valet_;[1] each man has as much right as he has power. And again: _uniuscujusque jus potentia ejus definitur_; each man's right is determined by his power.[2] Hobbes seems to have started this conception of Right,[3] and he adds the strange comment that the Right of the good Lord to all things rests on nothing but His omnipotence. [Footnote 1: _Tract. Theol. Pol_., ch. ii., § 8.] [Footnote 2: _Ethics_, IV., xxxvii., 1.] [Footnote 3: Particularly in a passage in the _De Cive_, I, § 14.] Now this is a conception of Right which, both in theory and in practice, no longer prevails in the civic world; but in the world in general, though abolished in theory, it continues to apply in practice. The consequences of neglecting it may be seen in the case of China. Threatened by rebellion within and foes without, this great empire is in a defenceless state, and has to pay the penalty of having cultivated only the arts of peace and ignored the arts of war.