171 



follows that for him there is neither right nor wi'ong, for the idea of 

 right he has already assumed to proceed from the idea of law, and for 

 the absolute despot there can be no law, — " the king can do no 

 wrong." 



Such is Hobbes's political theory. Actuated as man is by that desire 

 of power (which he affirms to be the ruling principle of humanity), his 

 first most natural state is a state of constant warfare, or if not of war, 

 of mutual mistrust and suspicion. Fear and desire, however, inclining 

 men to peace, laws spring up ; and as for the execution of these laws some 

 personal authority is necessary, the multitude agree to resolve their 

 wills into the absolute will of one individual person, or a collective 

 assembly of persons. He ace (thus do extremes meet) absolute Despotism 

 is the best and most natural mode of government, and next to that, 

 Republicanism. The feelings of right and wrong* spring up afterwards 

 from the constitution of laws, and are nothing more than a sense of 

 conformity to, or transgression from, the wiU of the majority. The 

 result he comes to is, that the subject owes allegiance to the monarch 

 only so long as the latter is able to protect him. This result he 

 expresses in the following language : — "To resist the sword of the 

 Commonwealth, in defence of another guilty or innocent man, no man 

 hath liberty, because such liberty takes away from the commonwealth 

 the means of protecting us ; and is, therefore, destructive of the very 

 essence of government. But in case a great many men have already 

 resisted the sovereign power unjustly, or committed some capital crime 

 for which every one of them expecteth death, whether they have not the 

 liberty then to join together, and assist to defend one another ? 

 Certainly they have ; for they but defend their lives, which the guilty 

 man may do as well as the innocent. There was, indeed, injustice in 

 the first breach of their dmij. Their bearing of arms subsequent to it, 

 though it be to maintain what they have done, is no new unjust act." 

 And having educed so much from his principle of force and fear, being 



the basis of all institutions, he proceeds, " Since the end or 



design of men in the introduction of restraint upon them- 

 selves is the foresight of their own preservation, 



the obligation of the sovereign is understood to last so long, and 

 no longer than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them." 

 From these passages alone we might have inferred what Hobbes 

 himself told Clarendon, that he had a mind to go home and 

 transfer his allegiance to Cromwell. 



It is by no means to the credit of litei-ature tliat a scholar — a man 



• He inalios the idou ol wioug to precede iLat of right. 



