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Because Silver And Gold Have Their Value From The Matter Itself, They Have First This Privilege, That The Value Of Them Cannot Be Altered By The Power Of One, Nor Of A Few Commonwealths, As Being A Common Measure Of The Commodities Of All Places. But Base Money May Easily Be Enhanced Or Abased.

-Thomas Hobbes

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Because Silver And Gold

Thomas Hobbes

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Because Silver And Gold Have Their Value From The Matter Itself, They Have First This Privilege, That The Value Of Them Cannot Be Altered By The Power Of One, Nor Of A Few Commonwealths, As Being A Common Measure Of The Commodities Of All Places. But Base Money May Easily Be Enhanced Or Abased.

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No Man Can Be Judge To His Own Cause.

He That Is To Govern A Whole Nation , Must Read In Himself, Not This, Or That Particular Man; But Mankind; Which Though It Be Hard To Do, Harder Than To Learn Any Language, Or Science; Yet, When I Shall Have Set Down My Own Reading Orderly, And Perspicuously, The Pains Left Another, Will Be Only To Consider, If He Also Find Not The Same In Himself. For This Kind Of Doctrine, Admitteth No Other Demonstration.

The Reputation Of Power Is Power.

I Am About To Take My Last Voyage, A Great Leap In The Dark.

This Is That Law Of The Gospel; Whatsoever You Require That Others Should Do To You, That Do Ye To Them.

Nature (the Art Whereby God Hath Made And Governs The World) Is By The Art Of Man, As In Many Other Things, So In This Also Imitated, That It Can Make An Artificial Animal. For Seeing Life Is But A Motion Of Limbs, The Beginning Whereof Is In Some Principal Part Within; Why May We Not Say, That All Automata (engines That Move Themselves By Springs And Wheels As Doth A Watch) Have An Artificial Life?

For If I Should Not Believe All That Is Written By Historians, Of The Glorious Acts Of Alexander, Or Caesar; I Do Not Think The Ghost Of Alexander, Or Caesar, Had Any Just Cause To Be Offended; Or Any Body Else, But The Historian. If Livy Say The Gods Made Once A Cow Speak, And We Believe It Not; We Distrust Not God Therein, But Livy. So That It Is Evident, That Whatsoever We Believe, Upon No Other Reason, Then What Is Drawn From Authority Of Men Only, And Their Writings; Whether They Be Sent From God Or Not, Is Faith In Men Only.

If Men Are Naturally In A State Of War, Why Do They Always Carry Arms And Why Do They Have Keys To Lock Their Doors?

Whatsoever Therefore Is Consequent To A Time Of War, Where Every Man Is Enemy To Every Man, The Same Consequent To The Time Wherein Men Live Without Other Security Than What Their Own Strength And Their Own Invention Shall Furnish Them Withal. In Such Condition There Is No Place For Industry... No Knowledge Of The Face Of The Earth; No Account Of Time; No Arts; No Letters; No Society; And Which Is Worst Of All, Continual Fear, And Danger Of Violent Death; And The Life Of Man, Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, And Short.

From Whence It Happens, That They Which Trust To Books, Do As They That Cast Up Many Little Sums Into A Greater, Without Considering Whether Those Little Sums Were Rightly Cast Up Or Not; And At Last Finding The Error Visible, And Not Mistrusting Their First Grounds, Know Not Which Way To Clear Themselves; But Spend Time In Fluttering Over Their Books, As Birds That Entering By The Chimney, And Finding Themselves Enclosed In A Chamber, Flutter At The False Light Of A Glass Window, For Want Of Wit To Consider Which Way They Came In.

The World Is Governed By Opinion.

I Mean By The Universe, The Aggregate Of All Things That Have Being In Themselves; And So Do All Men Else. And Because God Has A Being, It Follows That He Is Either The Whole Universe, Or Part Of It. Nor Does His Lordship Go About To Disprove It, But Only Seems To Wonder At It.

The Oath Adds Nothing To The Obligation. For A Covenant, If Lawful, Binds In The Sight Of God, Without The Oath, As Much As With It; If Unlawful, Bindeth Not At All, Though It Be Confirmed With An Oath.

When Two, Or More Men, Know Of One And The Same Fact, They Are Said To Be Conscious Of It One To Another; Which Is As Much As To Know It Together.

Science Is The Knowledge Of Consequences, And Dependence Of One Fact Upon Another: By Which, Out Of That We Can Presently Do, We Know How To Do Something Else When We Will, Or The Like, Another Time

Curiosity Draws A Man From Consideration Of The Effect, To Seek The Cause.

The Right Of Nature... Is The Liberty Each Man Hath To Use His Own Power, As He Will Himself, For The Preservation Of His Own Nature; That Is To Say, Of His Own Life.

Men Looke Not At The Greatnesse Of The Evill Past, But The Greatnesse Of The Good To Follow.

How Could A State Be Governed, Or Protected In Its Foreign Relations If Every Individual Remained Free To Obey Or Not To Obey The Law According To His Private Opinion.

Government Is Necessary, Not Because Man Is Naturally Bad... But Because Man Is By Nature More Individualistic Than Social.

Life In The State Of Nature Is Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, And Short.

To Understand This For Sense It Is Not Required That A Man Should Be A Geometrician Or A Logician, But That He Should Be Mad.

As A Draft-animal Is Yoked In A Wagon, Even So The Spirit Is Yoked In This Body

The Scripture Was Written To Shew Unto Men The Kingdom Of God; And To Prepare Their Minds To Become His Obedient Subjects; Leavingthe World, And The Philosophy Thereof, To The Disputation Of Men, For The Exercising Of Their Natural Reason.

By This We May Understand, There Be Two Sorts Of Knowledge, Whereof The One Is Nothing Else But Sense, Or Knowledge Original (as I Have Said At The Beginning Of The Second Chapter), And Remembrance Of The Same; The Other Is Called Science Or Knowledge Of The Truth Of Propositions, And How Things Are Called, And Is Derived From Understanding.

So That In The Nature Of Man, We Find Three Principal Causes Of Quarrel. First, Competition; Secondly, Diffidence; Thirdly, Glory. The First Maketh Men Invade For Gain; The Second, For Safety; And The Third, For Reputation. The First Use Violence, To Make Themselves Masters Of Other Men's Persons, Wives, Children, And Cattle; The Second, To Defend Them; The Third, For Trifles, As A Word, A Smile, A Different Opinion, And Any Other Sign Of Undervalue, Either Direct In Their Persons Or By Reflection In Their Kindred, Their Friends, Their Nation, Their Profession, Or Their Name.

For It Is With The Mysteries Of Our Religion, As With Wholesome Pills For The Sick, Which Swallowed Whole, Have The Virtue To Cure; But Chewed, Are For The Most Part Cast Up Again Without Effect.

Desire Of Praise Disposeth To Laudable Actions.

Do Not That To Another, Which Thou Wouldst Not Have Done To Thyself.

The Interpretation Of The Laws Of Nature In A Common-wealth, Dependeth Not On The Books Of Moral Philosophy. The Authority Of Writers, Without The Authority Of The Commonwealth, Maketh Not Their Opinions Law, Be They Never So True.

Passions Unguided Are For The Most Part Mere Madness.

The First Cause Of Absurd Conclusions I Ascribe To The Want Of Method.

Religions Are Like Pills, Which Must Be Swallowed Whole Without Chewing.

When All The World Is Overcharged With Inhabitants, Then The Last Remedy Of All Is War, Which Provideth For Every Man, By Victory Or Death.

When It Happeneth That A Man Signifieth Unto Us Two Contradictory Opinions Whereof The One Is Clearly And Directly Signified, Andthe Other Either Drawn From That By Consequence, Or Not Known To Be Contradictory To It; Then (when He Is Not Present To Explicate Himself Better) We Are To Take The Former Of His Opinions; For That Is Clearly Signified To Be His, And Directly, Whereas The Other Might Proceed From Error In The Deduction, Or Ignorance Of The Repugnancy.

Humans Are Driven By A Perpetual And Restless Desire Of Power.

If We Could Suppose A Great Multitude Of Men To Consent To The Observation Of Justice, And Other Laws Of Nature, Without A Common Power To Keep Them All In Awe; We Might As Well Suppose All Mankind To Do The Same; And Then There Neither Would Be Nor Need To Be Any Civil Government Or Commonwealth At All, Because There Would Be Peace Without Subjection.

For All Uniting Of Strength By Private Men, Is, If For Evil Intent, Unjust; If For Intent Unknown, Dangerous To The Publique, And Unjustly Concealed.

That Wee Have Of Geometry, Which Is The Mother Of All Naturall Science, Wee Are Not Indebted For It To The Schools.

Appetite, With An Opinion Of Attaining, Is Called Hope; The Same, Without Such Opinion, Despair.

No Man Is Bound By The Words Themselves, Either To Kill Himselfe, Or Any Other Man.

But All This Language Gotten, And Augmented By Adam And His Posterity, Was Again Lost At The Tower Of Babel , When By The Hand Of God, Every Man Was Stricken For His Rebellion, With An Oblivion Of His Former Language.

And Therefore, As When There Is A Controversy In An Account, The Parties Must By Their Own Accord, Set Up For Right Reason, The Reason Of Some Arbitrator, Or Judge, To Whose Sentence, They Will Both Stand, Or Their Controversy Must Either Come To Blows, Or Be Undecided, For Want Of A Right Reason Constituted By Nature; So Is It Also In All Debates Of What Kind Soever.

The Papacy Is Not Other Than The Ghost Of The Deceased Roman Empire, Sitting Crowned Upon The Grave Thereof.

But They That Hold God To Be [an Incorporeal Substance]do Absolutely Make God To Be Nothing At All. But How? Were They Atheists? No. For Though By Ignorance Of The Consequence They Said That Which Was Equivalent To Atheism, Yet In Their Hearts They Thought God A Substanceso That This Atheism By Consequence Is A Very Easy Thing To Be Fallen Into, Even By The Most Godly Men Of The Church.

Corporations Are May Lesser Commonwealths In The Bowels Of A Greater, Like Worms In The Entrails Of A Natural Man.

He That Is Taken And Put Into Prison Or Chains Is Not Conquered, Though Overcome; For He Is Still An Enemy.

A Man Cannot Lay Down The Right Of Resisting Them That Assault Him By Force, To Take Away His Life.

A Wise Man Should So Write (though In Words Understood By All Men) That Wise Men Only Should Be Able To Commend Him.

No Discourse Whatsoever, Can End In Absolute Knowledge Of Fact.

Opinion Of Ghosts, Ignorance Of Second Causes, Devotion To What Men Fear, And Talking Of Things Casual For Prognostics, Consisteth The Natural Seeds Of Religion

War Consisteth Not In Battle Only, Or The Act Of Fighting; But In A Tract Of Time, Wherein The Will To Contend By Battle Is Sufficiently Known.

When A Man Tells Me God Hath Spoken In A Dream, I Know He Dreamt That God Spoke To Him.

He That Has Most Experience [is] So Much More Prudent Than He That Is New, As Not To Be Equalled By Any Advantage Of Natural And Extemporary Wit- Though Many Young Men Think The Contrary.

Because Waking I Often Observe The Absurdity Of Dreams, But Never Dream Of The Absurdities Of My Waking Thoughts, I Am Well Satisfied That Being Awake, I Know I Dream Not; Though When I Dream, I Think Myself Awake.

Time, And Industry, Produce Everyday New Knowledge.

It Is Manifest Therefore That They Who Have Sovereign Power, Are Immediate Rulers Of The Church Under Christ, And All Others But Subordinate To Them. If That Were Not, But Kings Should Command One Thing Upon Pain Of Death, And Priests Another Upon Pain Of Damnation, It Would Be Impossible That Peace And Religion Should Stand Together.

What Reason Is There That He Which Laboreth Much, And, Sparing The Fruits Of His Labor, Consumeth Little, Should Be More Charged Than He That, Living Idly, Getteth Little And Spendeth All He Gets, Seeing The One Hath No More Protection From The Commonwealth Than The Other?

And As In Other Things, So In Men, Not The Seller, But The Buyer Determines The Price.

A Man's Conscience And His Judgment Is The Same Thing; And As The Judgment, So Also The Conscience, May Be Erroneous.

All Men, Among Themselves, Are By Nature Equal. The Inequality We Now Discern Hath Its Spring From The Civil Law.

A Covenant Not To Defend My Selfe From Force, By Force, Is Always Voyd.

In A Democracy, Look How Many Demagogs That Is How Many Powerful Orators There Are With The People.

There Is More In Mersenne Than In All The Universities Together.

Faith Is A Gift Of God, Which Man Can Neither Give Nor Take Away By Promise Of Rewards Or Menace Of Torture.

In Sum, All Actions And Habits Are To Be Esteemed Good Or Evil By Their Causes And Usefulness In Reference To The Commonwealth, And Not By Their Mediocrity, Nor By Their Being Commended. For Several Men Praise Several Customs, And, Contrarily, What One Calls Vice, Another Calls Virtue, As Their Present Affections Lead Them.

For After The Subject Is Removed Or The Eye Shut, We Still Retain An Image Of The Things Seen, Though More Obscure Than When We See It...imagination, Therefore, Is Nothing More Than Decaying Sense.

For Such Is The Nature Of Men, That Howsoever They May Acknowledge Many Others To Be More Witty, Or More Eloquent, Or More Learned, Yet They Will Hardly Believe There Be Many So Wise As Themselves, For They See Their Own Wit At Hand, And Other Men's At A Distance. But This Proveth Rather That Men Are In That Point Equal, Than Unequal. For There Is Not Ordinarily A Greater Sign Of The Equal Distribution Of Any Thing Than That Every Man Is Contented With His Share.

It's My Turn, To Take A Leap Into The Darkness!

The First And Fundamental Law Of Nature, Which Is, To Seek Peace And Follow It.

Prudence Is A Presumption Of The Future, Contracted From The Experience Of Time Past.

The Power Of A Man Is His Present Means To Obtain Some Future Apparent Good.

Nature Itself Cannot Err

The Pacts And Covenants, By Which The Parts Of This Body Politique Were At First Made, Set Together, And United, Resemble That Fiat, Or The Let Us Make Man, Pronounced By God In The Creation.

Emulation Is Grief Arising From Seeing One's Self, Exceeded Or Excelled By His Concurrent, Together With Hope To Equal Or Exceed Him In Time To Come, By His Own Ability. But Envy Is The Same Grief Joined With Pleasure Conceived In The Imagination Of Some Ill-fortune That May Befall Him.

Desire , To Know Why, And How, Curiosity; Such As Is In No Living Creature But Man ; So That Man Is Distinguished, Not Only By His Reason; But Also By This Singular Passion From Other Animals ; In Whom The Appetite Of Food, And Other Pleasures Of Sense, By Predominance, Take Away The Care Of Knowing Causes; Which Is A Lust Of The Mind, That By A Perseverance Of Delight In The Continual And Indefatigable Generation Of Knowledge, Exceedeth The Short Vehemence Of Any Carnal Pleasure.

If Nobody Makes You Do It, It Counts As Fun.

The Characters Of Man's Heart, Blotted And Confounded As They Are With Dissembling, Lying, Counterfeiting, And Erroneous Doctrines, Are Legible Only To Him That Searcheth Hearts.

Prudence Is But Experience, Which Equal Time Equally Bestows On All Men In Those Things They Equally Apply Themselves Unto.

I Put For The General Inclination Of All Mankind, A Perpetual And Restless Desire Of Power After Power, That Ceaseth Only In Death.

Authority And Power

No Mans Error Becomes His Own Law; Nor Obliges Him To Persist In It.

The Obligation Of Subjects To The Sovereign Is Understood To Last As Long, And No Longer, Than The Power Lasteth By Which He Is Able To Protect Them.

For As To The Strength Of Body, The Weakest Has Strength Enough To Kill The Strongest, Either By Secret Machination Or By Confederacy With Others That Are In The Same Danger With Himself

Can It Then Be Doubted, But That God, Who Is Infinitely Fine Spirit, And Withal Intelligent, Can Make And Change All Species And Kind Of Body As He Pleaseth? But I Dare Not Say, That This Is The Way By Which God Almighty Worketh, Because It Is Past My Apprehension: Yet It Serves Very Well To Demonstrate, That The Omnipotence Of God Implieth No Contradiction.

Every Man May Think His Own Cause Just Till It Be Heard And Judged.

All Generous Minds Have A Horror Of What Are Commonly Called 'facts'. They Are The Brute Beasts Of The Intellectual Domain.

Immortality Is A Belief Grounded Upon Other Men's Sayings, That They Knew It Supernaturally; Or That They Knew Those Who Knew Them That Knew Others That Knew It Supernaturally.

There Is No Such Thing As Perpetual Tranquility Of Mind While We Live Here.

The Errors Of Definitions Multiply Themselves According As The Reckoning Proceeds; And Lead Men Into Absurdities, Which At Last They See But Cannot Avoid, Without Reckoning Anew From The Beginning.

Words Are The Counters Of Wise Men, But The Money Of Fools.

Such Truth, As Opposeth No Man's Profit, Nor Pleasure, Is To All Men Welcome.

Wisdom, Properly So Called, Is Nothing Else But This: The Perfect Knowledge Of The Truth In All Matters Whatsoever.

It Is Not Wisdom But Authority That Makes A Law

The End Of Knowledge Is Power ... The Scope Of All Speculation Is The Performing Of Some Action Or Thing To Be Done.

The Present Only Has A Being In Nature; Things Past Have A Being In The Memory Only, But Things To Come Have No Being At All; The Future But A Fiction Of The Mind.

And Seeing Every Man Is Presumed To Do All Things In Order To His Own Benefit, No Man Is A Fit Arbitrator In His Own Cause

Laughter Is Nothing Else But Sudden Glory Arising From Some Sudden Conception Of Some Eminency In Ourselves, By Comparison With The Infirmity Of Others, Or With Our Own Formerly.

The Source Of Every Crime, Is Some Defect Of The Understanding; Or Some Error In Reasoning; Or Some Sudden Force Of The Passions. Defect In The Understanding Is Ignorance; In Reasoning, Erroneous Opinion.

Subjects Have No Greater Liberty In A Popular Than In A Monarchial State. That Which Deceives Them Is The Equal Participation Of Command.

Science Is The Knowledge Of Consequences, And Dependence Of One Fact Upon Another.

Sudden Glory Is The Passion Which Maketh Those Grimaces Called Laughter.

We Are Not To Renounce Our Senses And Experience, Nor (that Which Is The Undoubted Word Of God) Our Natural Reason. For They Are The Talents Which He Hath Put Into Our Hands To Negotiate, Till The Coming Again Of Our Blessed Savior, And Therefore Not To Be Folded Up In The Napkin Of An Implicate Faith, But Employed In The Purchase Of Justice, Peace, And True Religion. For Though There Be Many Things In God's Word Above Reason--that Is To Say, Which Cannot By Natural Reason Be Either Demonstrated Or Confuted--yet There Is Nothing Contrary To It.

Corporations Are "worms In The Body Politic"

For If All Things Were Equally In All Men, Nothing Would Be Prized.

It's Not The Pace Of Life I Mind. It's The Sudden Stop At The End.

For War, Consisteth Not In Battle Only, Or The Act Of Fighting; But In A Tract Of Time, Wherein The Will To Content By Battle Is Sufficiently Known.... So The Nature Of War, Consisteth Not In Actual Fighting; But In The Known Disposition Thereto, During All The Time There Is No Assurance To The Contrary. All Other Time Is Peace.

Let A Man (as Most Men Do) Rate Themselves As The Highest Value They Can; Yet Their True Value Is No More Than It Is Esteemed By Others.

Leisure Can Be One Of The Mothers Of Philosophy.

Ignorance Of The Law Is No Good Excuse, Where Every Man Is Bound To Take Notice Of The Laws To Which He Is Subject.

Intemperance Is Naturally Punished With Diseases; Rashness, With Mischance; Injustice; With Violence Of Enemies; Pride, With Ruin; Cowardice, With Oppression; And Rebellion, With Slaughter.

And This Feare Of Things Invisible, Is The Naturall Seed Of That, Which Every One In Himself Calleth Religion; And In Them That Worship, Or Feare That Power Otherwise Than They Do, Superstition.

Seeing Then That Truth Consisteth In The Right Ordering Of Names In Our Affirmations, A Man That Seeketh Precise Truth, Had Need To Remember What Every Name He Uses Stands For; And To Place It Accordingly; Or Else He Will Find Himself Entangled In Words, As A Bird In Lime-twigs; The More He Struggles, The More Belimed.

There Is No Action Of Man In This Life That Is Not The Beginning Of So Long A Chain Of Consequences As No Human Providence Is High Enough To Give A Man A Prospect In The End. And In This Chain, There Are Linked Together Both Pleasing And Unpleasing Events In Such Manner As He That Will Do Anything For His Pleasure Must Engage Himself To Suffer All The Pains Annexed To It.

Heresy Is A Word Which, When It Is Used Without Passion, Signifies A Private Opinion. So The Different Sects Of The Old Philosophers, Academians, Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, &c., Were Called Heresies.

But His Lordship [tells]us That God Is Wholly Here, And Wholly There, And Wholly Every Where; Because He Has No Parts. I Cannot Comprehend Nor Conceive This. For Methinks It Implies Also That The Whole World Is Also In The Whole God, And In Every Part Of God. Norcan I Find Anything Of This In The Scripture. If I Could Find It There, I Could Believe It; And If I Could Find It In The Public Doctrine Of The Church, I Could Easily Abstain From Contradicting It.

... It Is One Thing To Desire, Another To Be In Capacity Fit For What We Desire.

Competition Of Praise Inclineth To A Reverence Of Antiquity. For Men Contend With The Living, Not With The Dead.

For It Is Not The Bare Words, But The Scope Of The Writer That Giveth True Light, By Which Any Writing Is To Bee Interpreted; And They That Insist Upon Single Texts, Without Considering The Main Designe, Can Derive No Thing From Them Clearly; But Rather By Casting Atomes Of Scripture, As Dust Before Mens Eyes, Make Everything More Obscure Than It Is; An Ordinary Artifice Of Those Who Seek Not The Truth, But Their Own Advantage.

A Free Man Is He That, In Those Things Which By His Strength And Wit He Is Able To Do, Is Not Hindered To Do What He Has A Will To.

A Naturall Foole That Could Never Learn By Heart The Order Of Numerall Words, As One , Two , And Three , May Observe Every Stroak Of The Clock, And Nod To It, Or Say One, One, One; But Can Never Know What Houre It Strikes.

The Law Is The Public Conscience.

A Democracy Is No More Than An Aristocracy Of Orators. The People Are So Readily Moved By Demagogues That Control Must Be Exercised By The Government Over Speech And Press.

So That In The First Place, I Put For A General Inclination Of All Mankind A Perpetual And Restless Desire Of Power After Power, That Ceaseth Only In Death. And The Cause Of This Is Not Always That A Man Hopes For A More Intensive Delight Than He Has Already Attained To, Or That He Cannot Be Content With A Moderate Power: But Because He Cannot Assure The Power And Means To Live Well, Which He Hath Present, Without The Acquisition Of More.

Such Is The Nature Of Men, That Howsoever They May Acknowledge Many Others To Be More Witty, Or More Eloquent, Or More Learned; Yet They Will Hardly Believe There Be Many So Wise As Themselves.

And In These Four Things, Opinion Of Ghosts , Ignorance Of Second Causes, Devotion Towards What Men Fear , And Taking Of Things Casual For Prognostics , Consisteth The Natural Seed Of Religion ; Which By Reason Of The Different Fancies, Judgments And Passions Of Several Men, Has Grown Up Into Ceremonies So Different, That Those Which Are Used By One Man, Are For The Most Part Ridiculous To Another.

And If A Man Consider The Original Of This Great Ecclesiastical Dominion, He Will Easily Perceive, That The Papacy , Is No Other Than The Ghost Of The Deceased Romane Empire , Sitting Crowned Upon The Grave Thereof: For So Did The Papacy Start Up On A Sudden Out Of The Ruines Of That Heathen Power.

Whatsoever Is The Object Of Any Man's Appetite Or Desire; That Is It Which He For His Part Calleth Good: And The Object Of His Hate And Aversion, Evil.

Nature Hath Made Men So Equal In The Faculties Of Body And Mind, As That Though There Be Found One Man Sometimes Manifestly Stronger In Body, Or Of Quicker Mind Than Another, Yet When All Is Reckoned Together, The Difference Between Man And Man Is Not So Considerable As That One Man Can Thereupon Claim To Himself Any Benefit To Which Another May Not Pretend As Well As He.

Silence Is Sometimes An Argument Of Consent.

But If One Subject Giveth Counsell To Another, To Do Anything Contrary To The Lawes, Whether That Counsell Proceed From Evil Intention, Or From Ignorance Onely, It Is Punishable By The Common-wealth; Because Igorance Of The Law, Is No Good Excuse, Where Every Man Is Bound To Take Notice Of The Lawes To Which He Is Subject.

The Science Which Teacheth Arts And Handicrafts Is Merely Science For The Gaining Of A Living; But The Science Which Teacheth Deliverance From Worldly Existence, Is Not That The True Science?

Obligation Is Thraldom, And Thraldom Is Hateful.

The Privilege Of Absurdity; To Which No Living Creature Is Subject, But Man Only.

For It Is Not The Shape, But Their Use, That Makes Them Angels.

Curiosity Is The Lust Of The Mind.

Unnecessary Laws Are Not Good Laws, But Traps For Money.

Understanding Is By The Flame Of The Passions Never Enlightened, But Dazzled.

If This Superstitious Fear Of Spirits Were Taken Away, And With It, Prognostiques From Dreams, False Prophecies, And Many Other Things Depending Thereon, By Which, Crafty Ambitious Persons Abuse The Simple People, Men Would Be Much More Fitted Then They Are For Civill Obedience.

Love Is A Person's Idea About His/her Needs In Other Person What You Are Attracted To.

The Cause Of Sense, Is The External Body, Or Object, Which Presseth The Organ Proper To Each Sense, Either Immediately, As In Thetaste And Touch; Or Mediately, As In Seeing, Hearing, And Smelling: Which Pressure, By The Mediation Of Nerves, And Other Strings, And Membranes Of The Body, Continued Inwards To The Brain, And Heart, Causeth There A Resistance, Or Counter- Pressure, Or Endeavor Of The Heart, To Deliver It Self: Which Endeavor Because Outward, Seemeth To Be Some Matter Without.

Because Silver And Gold Have Their Value From The Matter Itself, They Have First This Privilege, That The Value Of Them Cannot Be Altered By The Power Of One, Nor Of A Few Commonwealths, As Being A Common Measure Of The Commodities Of All Places. But Base Money May Easily Be Enhanced Or Abased.

For It Can Never Be That War Shall Preserve Life, And Peace Destroy It.

The First Author Of Speech Was God Himself, That Instructed Adam How To Name Such Creatures As He Presented To His Sight.

It Is Fairer To Tax People On What They Extract From The Economy, As Roughly Measured By Their Consumption, Than To Tax Them On What They Produce For The Economy, As Roughly Measured By Their Income.

To Be Seduced By Orators, As A Monarch By Flatterers.

From What Cause The Rite Of Baptism First Proceeded Is Not Expressed Formally In The Scripture, But It May Be Probably Thought To Be An Imitation Of The Law Of Moses Concerning Leprosy, Wherein The Leprous Man Was Commanded To Be Kept Out Of The Camp Of Israel For A Certain Time, After Which Time Being Judged By The Priest To Be Clean, He Was Admitted Into The Camp After A Solemn Washing. And This May Therefore Be A Type Of The Washing In Baptism, Wherein Such Men As Are Cleansed Of The Leprosy Of Sin By Faith, Are Received Into The Church With The Solemnity Of Baptism.

The Enemy Has Been Here In The Night Of Our Natural Ignorance, And Sown The Tares Of Spiritual Errors.

To Say That God Is An Incorporeal Substance, Is To Say In Effect There Is No God At All. What Alleges He Against It, But The School-divinity Which I Have Already Answered? Scripture He Can Bring None, Because The Word Incorporeal Is Not Found In Scripture.

The Most Part Of Men, Though They Have The Use Of Reasoning A Little Way, As In Numbering To Some Degree; Yet It Serves Them To Little Use In Common Life; In Which They Govern Themselves, Some Better, Some Worse, According To Their Differences Of Experience, Quickness Of Memory, And Inclinations To Several Ends; But Specially According To Good Or Evil Fortune, And The Errors Of One Another.

A Covenant Not To Defend Myself From Force, By Force, Is Always Void. For... No Man Can Transfer Or Lay Down His Right To Save Himself From Death.

If I Had Read As Much As Other Men I Would Have Known No More Than They.

I Shall Be Glad Then To Find A Hole To Creep Out Of The World.

By Consequence, Or Train Of Thoughts, I Understand That Succession Of One Thought To Another Which Is Called, To Distinguish It From Discourse In Words, Mental Discourse. When A Man Thinketh On Anything Whatsoever, His Next Thought After Is Not Altogether So Casual As It Seems To Be. Not Every Thought To Every Thought Succeeds Indifferently.

Train Of Thought

For To Accuse Requires Less Eloquence, Such Is Man's Nature, Than To Excuse; And Condemnation, Than Absolution, More Resembles Justice.

To Speak Impartially, Both Sayings Are Very True: That Man To Man Is A Kind Of God; And That Man To Man Is An Arrant Wolf. The First Is True, If We Compare Citizens Amongst Themselves; And The Second, If We Compare Cities.

The Passions Of Men Are Commonly More Potent Than Their Reason.

For Seeing Life Is But A Motion Of Limbs... Why May We Not Say, That All Automata (engines That Move Themselves By Springs And Wheels As Doth A Watch) Have An Artificial Life?

And As To The Faculties Of The Mind, Setting Aside The Arts Grounded Upon Words, And Especially That Skill Of Proceeding Upon Generall, And Infallible Rules, Called Science; Which Very Few Have, And But In Few Things; As Being Not A Native Faculty, Born Within Us; Nor Attained, (as Prudence,) While We Look After Somewhat Else.

The Imagination That Is Raised In Man (or Any Other Creature Imbued With The Faculty Of Imagining) By Words, Or Other Voluntary Signs, Is That We Generally Call Understanding; And Is Common To Man And Beasts.

Moral Philosophy Is Nothing Else But The Science Of What Is Good, And Evil, In The Conversation, And Society Of Mankind. Good, And Evil, Are Names That Signify Our Appetites, And Aversions; Which In Different Tempers, Customs, And Doctrines Of Men, Are Different.

The Object Of Man's Desire Is Not To Enjoy Once Only, And For One Instant Of Time; But To Assure For Ever, The Way Of His Future Desires.

If God Bestowed Immortality On Every Man Then When He Made Him, And He Made Many To Whom He Never Purposed To Give His Saving Grace, What Did His Lordship Think That God Gave Any Man Immortality With Purpose Only To Make Him Capable Of Immortal Torments? It Is A Hard Saying, And I Think Cannot Piously Be Believed. I Am Sure It Can Never Be Proved By The Canonical Scripture.

The Secret Thoughts Of A Man Run Over All Things, Holy, Profane, Clean, Obscene, Grave, And Light, Without Shame Or Blame.

It Is Not Easy To Fall Into Any Absurdity, Unless It Be By The Length Of An Account; Wherein He May Perhaps Forget What Went Before. For All Men By Nature Reason Alike, And Well, When They Have Good Principles.

Where There Is No Common Power, There Is No Law

Men Measure Not Only Other Men, But All Other Things, By Themselves.

True And False Are Attributes Of Speech, Not Of Things. And Where Speech Is Not, There Is Neither Truth Nor Falsehood.

So That Every Crime Is A Sinne; But Not Every Sinne A Crime.

The Praise Of Ancient Authors Proceeds Not From The Reverence Of The Dead, But From The Competition And Mutual Envy Of The Living.

Whatsoever Accidents Or Qualities Our Senses Make Us Think There Be In The World, They Are Not There, But Are Seemings And Apparitions Only. The Things That Really Are In The World Without Us, Are Those Motions By Which These Seemings Are Caused. And This Is The Great Deception Of Sense, Which Also Is By Sense To Be Corrected. For As Sense Telleth Me, When I See Directly, That The Colour Seemeth To Be In The Object; So Also Sense Telleth Me, When I See By Reflection, That Colour Is Not In The Object.

And Because The Condition Of Man, (as Hath Been Declared In The Precedent Chapter) Is A Condition Of Warre Of Every One Against Everyone; In Which Case Every One Is Governed By His Own Reason; And There Is Nothing He Can Make Use Of, That May Not Be A Help Unto Him, In Preserving His Life Against His Enemyes; It Followeth, That In Such A Condition, Every Man Has A Right To Every Thing; Even To One Anothers Body.

It Is Many Times With A Fraudulent Design That Men Stick Their Corrupt Doctrine With The Cloves Of Other Mens Wit.

Of All Discourse , Governed By Desire Of Knowledge, There Is At Last An End , Either By Attaining, Or By Giving Over.

Men Are Not Therefore Put To Death, Or Punished For That Their Theft Proceedeth From Election; But Because It Was Noxious And Contrary To Men's Preservation, And The Punishment Conducing To The Preservation Of The Rest, Inasmuch As To Punish Those That Do Voluntary Hurt, And None Else, Frameth And Maketh Men's Wills Such As Men Would Have Them.

To Conclude, The Light Of Humane Minds Is Perspicuous Words, But By Exact Definitions First Snuffed, And Purged From Ambiguity; Reason Is The Pace; Encrease Of Science, The Way; And The Benefit Of Man-kind, The End.

The Value Of All Things Contracted For, Is Measured By The Appetite Of The Contractors, And Therefore The Just Value Is That Which They Be Contented To Give.

Thoughts Are To The Desires As Scouts And Spies, To Range Abroad, And Find The Way To The Things Desired.

The Flesh Endures The Storms Of The Present Alone; The Mind, Those Of The Past And Future As Well As The Present. Gluttony Is A Lust Of The Mind.

And Beasts That Have Deliberation , Must Necessarily Also Have Will .

To Say God Spake Or Appeared As He Is In His Own Nature, Is To Deny His Infiniteness, Invisibility, Incomprehensibility.

Covenants Without Swords Are But Words.

And Whereas Many Men, By Accident Unevitable, Become Unable To Maintain Themselves By Their Labour; They Ought Not To Be Left To The Charity Of Private Persons; But To Be Provided For, (as Far-forth As The Necessities Of Nature Require,) By The Lawes Of The Common-wealth. For As It Is Unchariablenesse In Any Man, To Neglect The Impotent; So It Is In The Soveraign Of A Common-wealth, To Expose Them To The Hazard Of Such Uncertain Charity.

And For Incoherent Speech, It Was Amongst The Gentiles Taken For One Sort Of Prophecy, Because The Prophets Of Their Oracles, Intoxicated With A Spirit, Or Vapor From The Cave Of The Pythian Oracle At Delphi, Were For A Time Really Mad, And Spake Like Mad-men; Of Whoose Loose Words A Sense Might Be Made To Fit Any Event, In Such Sort, As All Bodies Are Said To Be Made Of Materia Prima .

Leisure Is The Mother Of Philosophy.

Words Are Wise Men's Counters, They Do But Reckon By Them: But They Are The Money Of Fools, That Value Them By The Authority Of An Aristotle, A Cicero, Or A Thomas, Or Any Other Doctor Whatsoever, If But A Man.

Reason Is The Soul Of The Law.

As In The Presence Of The Master, The Servants Are Equall, And Without Any Honour At All; So Are The Subjects, In The Presence Of The Soveraign. And Though They Shine Some More, Some Lesse, When They Are Out Of His Sight; Yet In His Presence, They Shine No More Than The Starres In Presence Of The Sun.

Leisure Is The Mother Of Philosophy; And Commonwealth, The Mother Of Peace And Leisure.

For There Are Very Few So Foolish Who Would Not Rather Govern Themselves Than Be Governed By Others.

Fear Of Power Invisible, Feigned By The Mind Or Imagined From Tales Publicly Allowed, Is Religion; Not Allowed, Superstition.

Baptism Is The Sacrament Of Allegiance Of Them That Are To Be Received Into The Kingdom Of God, That Is To Say, Into Eternal Life, That Is To Say, To Remission Of Sin. For As Eternal Life Was Lost By The Committing, So It Is Recovered By The Remitting Of Men's Sins.

Understanding Is Nothing Else Than Conception Caused By Speech.

I Know Not How The World Will Receive It, Nor How It May Reflect On Those That Shall Seem To Favor It. For In A Way Beset With Those That Contend, On One Side For Too Great Liberty , And On The Other Side For Too Much Authority , 'tis Hard To Passe Between The Points Of Both Unwounded.

There Is No Such Thing As Perpetual Tranquillity Of Mind While We Live Here; Because Life Itself Is But Motion, And Can Never Be Without Desire, Nor Without Fear, No More Than Without Sense.

And I Profess Still, That Whatsoever The Church Of England (the Church, I Say, Not Every Doctor) Shall Forbid Me To Say In Matterof Faith, I Shall Abstain From Saying It, Excepting This Point, That Jesus Christ, The Son Of God, Died For My Sins. As For Other Doctrines, I Think It Unlawful, If The Church Define Them, For Any Member Of The Church To Contradict Them.

Good And Evil Are Names That Signify Our Appetites And Aversions, Which In Different Tempers, Customs, And Doctrines Of Men, Are Different: And Diverse Men Differ Not Only In Their Judgment, On The Senses Of What Is Pleasant And Unpleasant To The Taste, Smell, Hearing, Touch, And Sight, But Also Of What Is Conformable, Or Disagreeable To Reason, In The Actions Of The Common Life. Nay, The Same Man, In Diverse Times, Differs From Himself, And One Time Praiseth, That Is, Calleth Good, What Another Time He Dispraiseth, And Calleth Evil.

Those Men That Are So Remissly Governed That They Dare Take Up Arms To Defend Or Introduce An Opinion, Are Still In War, And Their Condition Not Peace, But Only A Cessation Of Arms For Fear Of One Another, And They Live As It Were In The Precincts Of Battle Continually.

Life Is Nasty, Brutish, And Short

They That Are Discontented Under Monarchy, Call It Tyranny; And They That Are Displeased With Aristocracy, Call It Oligarchy: So Also, They Which Find Themselves Grieved Under A Democracy, Call It Anarchy, Which Signifies The Want Of Government; And Yet I Think No Man Believes, That Want Of Government, Is Any New Kind Of Government.

When The Nature Of The Thing Is Incomprehensible, I Can Acquiesce In The Scripture: But When The Signification Of Words Is Incomprehensible, I Cannot Acquiesce In The Authority Of A Schoolman.

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