3. Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently
all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community,
in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury; and all this
only for the public good.
II OF THE STATE OF NATURE
4. To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state
all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose
of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking
leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.
A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than
another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously
born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one
amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by
any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear
appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.
5. This equality of men by nature, the judicious Hooker looks upon as so evident in itself, and beyond
all question, that he makes it the foundation of that obligation to mutual love amongst men, on which
he builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence he derives the great maxims of justice and
charity. His words are:
‘The like natural inducement hath brought men to know that it is no less their duty, to love others than
themselves; for seeing those things which are equal, must needs all have one measure; if I cannot but
wish to receive good, even as much at every man’s hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should
I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire,
which is undoubtedly in other men. We all being of one and the same nature; to have any thing offered
them repugnant to this desire, must needs in all respects grieve them as much as me; so that if I do harm,
I must look to suffer, there being no reason that others should shew greater measure of love to me, than
they have by me shewed unto them; my desire therefore to be loved of my equals in nature, as much as possible
may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection; from which relation
of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason
hath drawn, for direction of life, no man is ignorant. |
