OF THE INTERNAL CAUSES TENDING TO THE DISSOLUTION
OF ANY GOVERNMENT.
1. That _the judging of good and evil belongs to private persons_ is
a seditious opinion. 2. That _subjects do sin by obeying their
princes_ is a seditious opinion. 3. That _tyrannicide is lawful_
is a seditious opinion. 4. That _those who have the supreme
power are subject to the civil laws_ is a seditious opinion. 5.
That _the supreme power may be divided_ is a seditious opinion.
6. That _faith and sanctity are not acquired by study and
reason, but always supernaturally infused and inspired_, is a
seditious opinion. 7. That _each subject hath a propriety or
absolute dominion of his own goods_ is a seditious opinion. 8.
Not to understand the difference between the people and the
multitude, prepares toward sedition. 9. Too great a tax of
money, though never so just and necessary, prepares toward
sedition. 10. Ambition disposeth us to sedition. 11. So doth the
hope of success. 12. Eloquence alone without wisdom, is the only
faculty needful to raise seditions. 13. How the folly of the
common people, and the elocution of ambitious men, concur to the
destruction of a common-weal.
[Sidenote: That the judgment of good and evil belongs to private
persons, is a seditious opinion.]
1. Hitherto hath been spoken, by what causes and pacts commonweals
are constituted, and what the rights of princes are over their
subjects. Now we will briefly say somewhat concerning the causes
which dissolve them, or the reasons of seditions. Now as in the
motion of natural bodies three things are to be considered, namely,
_internal disposition_, that they be susceptible of the motion to be
produced; the _external agent_, whereby a certain and determined
motion may in act be produced; and the _action itself_: so also in a
commonweal where the subjects begin to raise tumults, three things
present themselves to our regard; first, the _doctrines_ and the
_passions_ contrary to peace, wherewith the minds of men are fitted
and disposed; next, their quality and condition who solicit,
assemble, and direct them, already thus disposed, to take up arms
and quit their allegiance; lastly, the manner how this is done, or
the _faction_ itself. But one and the first which disposeth them to
sedition, is this, _that the knowledge of good and evil belongs to
each single man_. In the state of nature indeed, where every man
lives by equal right, and has not by any mutual pacts submitted to
the command of others, we have granted this to be true; nay, proved
it in chap. I. art. 9. But in the civil state it is false. For it
was shown (chap. VI. art. 9) that the civil laws were the rules of
_good_ and _evil_, _just_ and _unjust_, _honest_ and _dishonest_;
that therefore what the legislator commands, must be held for
_good_, and what he forbids for _evil_. And the legislator is ever
that person who hath the supreme power in the commonweal, that is to
say, the monarch in a monarchy. We have confirmed the same truth in
chap. XI. art. 2, out of the words of Solomon. For if private men
may pursue that as good and shun that as evil, which appears to them
to be so, to what end serve those words of his: _Give therefore unto
thy servant an understanding heart, to judge thy people, that I may
discern between good and evil_? Since therefore it belongs to kings
to discern between _good_ and _evil_, wicked are those, though
usual, sayings, _that he only is a king who does righteously_, and
_that kings must not be obeyed unless they command us just things_;
and many other such like. Before there was any government, _just_
and _unjust_ had no being, their nature only being relative to some
command: and every action in its own nature is indifferent; that it
becomes _just_ or _unjust_, proceeds from the right of the
magistrate. Legitimate kings therefore make the things they command
just, by commanding them, and those which they forbid, unjust, by
forbidding them. But private men, while they assume to themselves
the knowledge of _good_ and _evil_, desire to be even as kings;
which cannot be with the safety of the commonweal. The most ancient
of all God’s commands is, (Gen. ii. 17): _Thou shalt not eat of the
tree of knowledge of good and evil_: and the most ancient of all
diabolical temptations, (Gen. iii. 5): _Ye shall be as gods, knowing
good and evil_; and God’s expostulation with man, (verse 11): _Who
told thee that thou wert naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof
I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?_ As if he had said, how
comest thou to judge that nakedness, wherein it seemed good to me to
create thee, to be shameful, except thou have arrogated to thyself
the knowledge of _good and evil_.
[Sidenote: That subjects do sin in obeying their princes, is a
seditious opinion.]
2. Whatsoever any man doth against his conscience, is a sin; for he
who doth so, contemns the law. But we must distinguish. That is my
sin indeed, which committing I do believe to be my sin; but what I
believe to be another man’s sin, I may sometimes do that without any
sin of mine. For if I be commanded to do that which is a sin in him
who commands me, if I do it, and he that commands me be by right
lord over me, I sin not. For if I wage war at the commandment of my
prince, conceiving the war to be unjustly undertaken, I do not
therefore do unjustly; but rather if I refuse to do it, arrogating
to myself the knowledge of what is just and unjust, which pertains
only to my prince. They who observe not this distinction, will fall
into a necessity of sinning, as oft as anything is commanded them
which either is, or seems to be unlawful to them: for if they obey,
they sin against their conscience; and if they obey not, against
right. If they sin against their conscience, they declare that they
fear not the pains of the world to come; if they sin against right,
they do, as much as in them lies, abolish human society and the
civil life of the present world. Their opinion therefore who teach,
_that subjects sin when they obey their prince’s commands which to
them seem unjust_, is both erroneous, and to be reckoned among those
which are contrary to civil obedience; and it depends upon that
original error which we have observed above, in the foregoing
article. For by our taking upon us to judge of _good_ and _evil_, we
are the occasion that as well our obedience, as disobedience,
becomes sin unto us.
[Sidenote: That tyrannicide is lawful, is a seditious opinion.]
3. The third seditious doctrine springs from the same root, that
_tyrannicide is lawful_; nay, at this day it is by many divines, and
of old it was by all the philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero,
Seneca, Plutarch, and the rest of the maintainers of the Greek and
Roman anarchies, held not only lawful, but even worthy of the
greatest praise. And under the title of _tyrants_, they mean not
only monarchs, but all those who bear the chief rule in any
government whatsoever; for not Pisistratus only at Athens, but those
Thirty also who succeeded him, and ruled together, were all called
_tyrants_. But he whom men require to be put to death as being _a
tyrant_, commands either by right or without right. If without
right, he is an enemy, and by right to be put to death; but then
this must not be called the _killing a tyrant_, but an _enemy_. If
by right, then the divine interrogation takes place: _Who hath told
thee that he was a tyrant? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I
commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?_ For why dost thou call
him a _tyrant_, whom God hath made a _king_, except that thou, being
a private person, usurpest to thyself the knowledge of _good_ and
_evil_? But how pernicious this opinion is to all governments, but
especially to that which is _monarchical_, we may hence discern;
namely, that by it every _king_, whether good or ill, stands exposed
to be condemned by the judgment, and slain by the hand of every
murderous villain.
[Sidenote: That even they who have the supreme power are subject to
the civil laws, is a seditious opinion.]
4. The fourth opinion adversary to civil society, is their’s who
hold, _that they who bear rule are subject also to the civil laws_.
Which hath been sufficiently proved before not to be true, in chap
VI. art. 14, from this argument: that a city can neither be bound to
itself, nor to any subject; not to itself, because no man can be
obliged except it be to another; not to any subject, because the
single wills of the subjects are contained in the will of the city;
insomuch that if the city will be free from all such obligation, the
subjects will so too; and by consequence she is so. But that which
holds true in a city, that must be supposed to be true in a man, or
an assembly of men who have the supreme authority; for they make a
city, which hath no being but by their supreme power. Now that this
opinion cannot consist with the very being of government, is evident
from hence; that by it the knowledge of what is _good_ and _evil_,
that is to say, the definition of what is, and what is not against
the laws, would return to each single person. Obedience therefore
will cease, as oft as anything seems to be commanded contrary to the
civil laws, and together with it all coercive jurisdiction; which
cannot possibly be without the destruction of the very essence of
government. Yet this error hath great props, Aristotle and others;
who, by reason of human infirmity, suppose the supreme power to be
committed with most security to the laws only. But they seem to have
looked very shallowly into the nature of government, who thought
that the constraining power, the interpretation of laws, and the
making of laws, all which are powers necessarily belonging to
government, should be left wholly to the laws themselves. Now
although particular subjects may sometimes contend in judgment, and
go to law with the supreme magistrate; yet this is only then, when
the question is not what the magistrate may, but what by a certain
rule he hath declared he would do. As, when by any law the judges
sit upon the life of a subject, the question is not whether the
magistrate could by his absolute right deprive him of his life; but
whether by that law his will was that he should be deprived of it.
But his will was, he should, if he brake the law; else his will was,
he should not. This therefore, that a subject may have an action of
law against his supreme magistrate, is not strength of argument
sufficient to prove, that he is tied to his own laws. On the
contrary, it is evident that he is not tied to his own laws; because
no man is bound to himself. Laws therefore are set for Titius and
Caius, not for the ruler. However, by the ambition of lawyers it is
so ordered, that the laws to unskilful men seem not to depend on the
authority of the magistrate, but their prudence.
[Sidenote: That the supreme power may be divided, is a seditious
opinion.]
5. In the fifth place, _that the supreme authority may be divided_,
is a most fatal opinion to all commonweals. But diverse men divide
it diverse ways. For some divide it, so as to grant a supremacy to
the civil power in matters pertaining to peace and the benefits of
this life; but in things concerning the salvation of the soul they
transfer it on others. Now, because justice is of all things most
necessary to salvation, it happens that subjects measuring justice,
not as they ought, by the civil laws, but by the precepts and
doctrines of them who, in regard of the magistrate, are either
private men or strangers, through a superstitious fear dare not
perform the obedience due to their princes; through fear falling
into that which they most feared. Now what can be more pernicious to
any state, than that men should, by the apprehension of everlasting
torments, be deterred from obeying their princes, that is to say,
the laws; or from being just? There are also some, who divide the
supreme authority so as to allow the power of war and peace unto one
whom they call a _monarch_; but the right of raising money they give
to some others, and not to him. But because monies are the sinews of
war and peace, they who thus divide the authority, do either really
not divide it at all, but place it wholly in them in whose power the
money is, but give the name of it to another: or if they do really
divide it, they dissolve the government. For neither upon necessity
can war be waged, nor can the public peace be preserved without
money.
[Sidenote: That faith and holiness are not acquired by study and
reason, but are ever supernaturally infused and inspired,
is a seditious opinion.]
6. It is a common doctrine, _that faith and holiness are not
acquired by study and natural reason, but are always supernaturally
infused and inspired into men_. Which, if it were true, I understand
not why we should be commanded to give an account of our faith; or
why any man, who is truly a Christian, should not be a prophet; or
lastly, why every man should not judge what is fit for him to do,
what to avoid, rather out of his own inspiration, than by the
precepts of his superiors or right reason. A return therefore must
be made to the private knowledge of _good_ and _evil_; which cannot
be granted without the ruin of all governments. This opinion hath
spread itself so largely through the whole Christian world, that the
number of apostates from natural reason is almost become infinite.
And it sprang from sick-brained men, who having gotten good store of
holy words by frequent reading of the Scriptures, made such a
connexion of them usually in their preaching, that their sermons,
signifying just nothing, yet to unlearned men seemed most divine.
For he whose nonsense appears to be a divine speech, must
necessarily seem to be inspired from above.
[Sidenote: That single subjects have any propriety or absolute
dominion over their own goods, is a seditious opinion.]
7. The seventh doctrine opposite to government, is this; _that each
subject hath an absolute dominion over the goods he is in possession
of_: that is to say, such a _propriety_ as excludes not only the
right of all the rest of his fellow-subjects to the same goods, but
also of the magistrate himself. Which is not true; for they who have
a _lord_ over them, have themselves no _lordship_, as hath been
proved chap. viii. art. 5. Now the magistrate is lord of all his
subjects, by the constitution of government. Before the yoke of
civil society was undertaken, no man had any _proper right_; all
things were _common_ to all men. Tell me therefore, how gottest thou
this _propriety_ but from the magistrate? How got the magistrate it,
but that every man transferred his right on him? And thou therefore
hast also given up thy right to him. Thy _dominion_ therefore, and
_propriety_, is just so much as he will, and shall last so long as
he pleases; even as in a family, each son hath such _proper_ goods,
and so long lasting, as seems good to the father. But the greatest
part of men who profess civil prudence, reason otherwise. We are
equal, say they, by nature; there is no reason why any man should by
better right take my goods from me, than I his from him. We know
that money sometimes is needful for the defence and maintenance of
the public; but let them who require it, show us the present
necessity, and they shall receive it. They who talk thus know not,
that what they would have, is already done from the beginning, in
the very constitution of government; and therefore speaking as in a
dissolute multitude and yet not fashioned government, they destroy
the frame.
[Sidenote: Not to know the difference between a people and a
multitude, prepares to sedition.]
8. In the last place, it is a great hindrance to civil government,
especially monarchical, that men distinguish not enough between a
_people_ and a _multitude_. The _people_ is somewhat that is _one_,
having _one will_, and to whom _one action_ may be attributed; none
of these can properly be said of a multitude. The _people_ rules in
all governments. For even in _monarchies_ the _people_ commands; for
the _people_ wills by the will of _one man_; but the multitude are
citizens, that is to say, subjects. In a _democracy_ and
_aristocracy_, the citizens are the _multitude_, but the _court_ is
the _people_. And in a _monarchy_, the subjects are the _multitude_,
and (however it seem a paradox) the king is the _people_. The common
sort of men, and others who little consider these truths, do always
speak of a _great number_ of men as of the _people_, that is to say,
the _city_. They say, that the _city_ hath rebelled against the
_king_ (which is impossible), and that the _people_ will and nill
what murmuring and discontented subjects would have or would not
have; under pretence of the _people_ stirring up the _citizens_
against the _city_, that is to say, the _multitude_ against the
_people_. And these are almost all the opinions, wherewith subjects
being tainted do easily tumult. And forasmuch as in all manner of
government majesty is to be preserved by him or them, who have the
supreme authority; the _crimen læsæ majestatis_ naturally cleaves to
these opinions.
[Sidenote: Too great a tax of money, though never so just and
necessary, disposeth men to sedition.]
9. There is nothing more afflicts the mind of man than _poverty_, or
the want of those things which are necessary for the preservation of
life and honour. And though there be no man but knows, that riches
are gotten with industry, and kept by frugality, yet all the poor
commonly lay the blame on the evil government, excusing their own
sloth and luxury; as if their private goods forsooth were wasted by
public exactions. But men must consider, that they who have no
patrimony, must not only labour that they may live, but fight too
that they may labour. Every one of the Jews, who in Esdras’ time
built the walls of Jerusalem, did the work with one hand, and held
the sword in the other. In all government, we must conceive that the
hand which holds the sword, is the _king_ or _supreme council_,
which is no less to be sustained and nourished by the subjects’ care
and industry, than that wherewith each man procures himself a
private fortune; and that _customs_ and _tributes_ are nothing else
but their reward who watch in arms for us, that the labours and
endeavours of single men may not be molested by the incursion of
enemies; and that their complaint, who impute their poverty to
public persons, is not more just, than if they should say that they
are become in want by paying of their debts. But the most part of
men consider nothing of these things. For they suffer the same thing
with them who have a disease they call an _incubus_; which springing
from gluttony, it makes men believe they are invaded, oppressed, and
stifled with a great weight. Now it is a thing manifest of itself,
that they who seem to themselves to be burthened with the whole load
of the commonweal, are prone to be seditious; and that they are
affected with change, who are distasted at the present state of
things.
[Sidenote: Ambition disposeth men to sedition:]
10. Another noxious disease of the mind is theirs, who having little
employment, want honour and dignity. All men naturally strive for
honour and preferment; but chiefly they, who are least troubled with
caring for necessary things. For these men are invited by their
vacancy, sometimes to disputation among themselves concerning the
commonweal, sometimes to an easy reading of histories, politics,
orations, poems, and other pleasant books; and it happens that hence
they think themselves sufficiently furnished both with wit and
learning, to administer matters of the greatest consequence. Now
because all men are not what they appear to themselves; and if they
were, yet all (by reason of the multitude) could not be received to
public offices; it is necessary that many must be passed by. These
therefore conceiving themselves affronted, can desire nothing more,
partly out of envy to those who were preferred before them, partly
out of hope to overwhelm them, than ill-success to the public
consultations. And therefore it is no marvel, if with greedy
appetites they seek for occasions of innovations.
[Sidenote: So doth hope of success.]
11. _The hope of overcoming_ is also to be numbered among other
seditious inclinations. For let there be as many men as you will,
infected with opinions repugnant to peace and civil government; let
there be as many as there can, never so much wounded and torn with
affronts and calumnies by them who are in authority; yet if there be
no _hope of having the better of them_, or it appear not sufficient,
there will no sedition follow; every man will dissemble his
thoughts, and rather content himself with the present burthen than
hazard a heavier weight. There are four things necessarily requisite
to this _hope_. Numbers, instruments, mutual trust, and commanders.
To resist public magistrates without a great number, is not
sedition, but desperation. By instruments of war, I mean all manner
of arms, munition, and other necessary provision: without which
number can do nothing. Nor arms neither, without mutual trust. Nor
all these, without union under some commander, whom of their own
accord they are content to obey; not as being engaged by their
submission to his command; (for we have already in this very
chapter, supposed these kind of men not to understand being obliged
beyond that which seems right and good in their own eyes); but for
some opinion they have of his virtue, or military skill, or
resemblance of humours. If these four be near at hand to men grieved
with the present state, and measuring the justice of their actions
by their own judgments; there will be nothing wanting to sedition
and confusion of the realm, but one to _stir up_ and _quicken them_.
[Sidenote: Eloquence alone without wisdom is the only faculty
needful to raise seditions.]
12. Sallust’s character of Cataline, than whom there never was a
greater artist in raising seditions, is this: _that he had great
eloquence, and little wisdom_. He separates _wisdom_ from
_eloquence_; attributing this as necessary to a man born for
commotions; adjudging that as an instructress of peace and
quietness. Now eloquence is twofold. The one is an elegant and clear
expression of the conceptions of the mind; and riseth partly from
the contemplation of the things themselves, partly from an
understanding of words taken in their own proper and definite
signification. The other is a commotion of the passions of the mind,
such as are _hope_, _fear_, _anger_, _pity_; and derives from a
metaphorical use of words fitted to the passions. That forms a
speech from true principles; this from opinions already received,
what nature soever they are of. The art of that is logic, of this
rhetoric; the end of that is truth, of this victory. Each hath its
use; that in deliberations, this in exhortations; for that is never
disjoined from _wisdom_, but this almost ever. But that this kind of
powerful _eloquence_, separated from the true knowledge of things,
that is to say, from wisdom, is the true character of them who
solicit and stir up the people to innovations, may easily be
gathered out of the work itself which they have to do. For they
could not poison the people with those absurd opinions contrary to
peace and civil society, unless they held them themselves; which
sure is an ignorance greater than can well befall any wise man. For
he that knows not whence the laws derive their power, which are the
rules of _just_ and _unjust_, _honest_ and _dishonest_, _good_ and
_evil_; what makes and preserves peace among men, what destroys it;
what is _his_, and what _another’s_; lastly, what he would have done
to himself, that he may do the like to others: is surely to be
accounted but meanly wise. But that they can turn their auditors out
of fools into madmen; that they can make things to them who are
ill-affected, seem worse, to them who are well-affected, seem evil;
that they can enlarge their hopes, lessen their dangers beyond
reason: this they have from that sort of eloquence, not which
explains things as they are, but from that other, which by moving
their minds, makes all things to appear to be such as they in their
minds, prepared before, had already conceived them.
[Sidenote: How the folly of the common people, and the eloquence of
ambitious men, concur to the dissolution of a
commonweal.]
13. Many men, who are themselves very well affected to civil
society, do through want of knowledge co-operate to the disposing of
subjects’ minds to _sedition_, whilst they teach young men a
doctrine conformable to the said opinions in their schools, and all
the people in their pulpits. Now they who desire to bring this
disposition into act, place their whole endeavour in this: first,
that they may join the ill-affected together into _faction_ and
_conspiracy_; next, that themselves may have the greatest stroke in
the _faction_. They gather them into _faction_, while they make
themselves the relators and interpreters of the counsels and actions
of single men, and nominate the persons and places to assemble and
deliberate of such things whereby the present government may be
reformed, according as it shall seem best to their interests. Now to
the end that they themselves may have the chief rule in the
_faction_, the _faction_ must be kept in a _faction_; that is to
say, they must have their secret meetings apart with a few, where
they may order what shall afterward be propounded in a general
meeting, and by whom, and on what subject, and in what order each of
them shall speak, and how they may draw the powerfullest and most
popular men of the _faction_ to their side. And thus when they have
gotten a faction big enough, in which they may rule by their
eloquence, they move it to take upon it the managing of affairs. And
thus they sometimes oppress the commonwealth, namely, where there is
no other faction to oppose them; but for the most part they rend it,
and introduce a civil war. For _folly_ and _eloquence_ concur in the
subversion of government, in the same manner (as the fable hath it)
as heretofore the daughters of Pelias, king of Thessaly, conspired
with Medea against their father. They going to restore the decrepit
old man to his youth again, by the counsel of Medea they cut him
into pieces, and set him in the fire to boil; in vain expecting when
he would live again. So the common people, through their folly, like
the daughters of Pelias, desiring to renew the ancient government,
being drawn away by the _eloquence_ of ambitious men, as it were by
the witchcraft of Medea; divided into _faction_ they consume it
rather by those flames, than they reform it.
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