wolves and depredators of their liberty, unless the forest that lodged them were grubbed up by the roots. 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. In the one, there is some analogy of similitude with the Deity; to wit, justice and charity, the twin sisters of peace. But in the other, good men must defend themselves by taking to them for a sanctuary the two daughters of war, deceit and violence: that is, in plain terms, a mere brutal rapacity. Which although men object to one another as a reproach, by an inbred custom which they have of beholding their own actions in the persons of other men, wherein, as in a mirror, all things on the left side appear to be on the right, and all things on the right side to be as plainly on the left; yet the natural right of preservation, which we all receive from the uncontrolable dictates of necessity, will not admit it to be a vice, though it confess it to be an unhappiness. Now that with Cato himself, a person of so great a renown for wisdom, animosity should so prevail instead of judgment, and partiality instead of reason, that the very same thing which he thought just in his popular state, he should censure as unjust in a monarchical; other men perhaps may have leisure to admire. But I have been long since of this opinion; that

there was never yet any more than vulgar prudence, that had the luck of being acceptable to the giddy people; but either it hath not been understood, or else having been so hath been levelled and cried down. The more eminent actions and apothegms, both of the Greeks and Romans, have been indebted for their eulogies not so much to the reason, as to the greatness of them; and very many times to that prosperous usurpation, (with which our histories do so mutually upbraid each other), which as a conquering torrent carries all before it, as well public agents as public actions, in the stream of time. Wisdom, properly so called, is nothing else but this: the perfect knowledge of the truth in all matters whatsoever. Which being derived from the registers and records of things ; and that as it were through the conduit of certain definite appellations; cannot possibly be the work of a sudden acuteness, but of a well-balanced reason; which by the compendium of a word, we call philosophy. For by this it is that a way is opened to us, in which we travel from the contemplation of particular things to the inference or result of universal actions. Now look, how many sorts of things there are, which properly fall within the cognizance of human reason; into so many branches does the tree of philosophy divide itself. And from the diversity of the matter about which they are conversant, there hath been given to those branches a diversity of names too. For

treating of figures, it is called geometry; of motion, physic; of natural right, morals; put altogether, and they make up philosophy. Just as the British, the Atlantic, and the Indian seas, being diversely christened from the diversity of their shores, do notwithstanding all together make up the ocean. And truly the geometricians have very admirably performed their part. For whatsoever assistance doth accrue to the life of man, whether from the observation of the heavens or from the description of the earth, from the notation of times, or from the remotest experiments of navigation; finally, whatsoever things they are in which this present age doth differ from the rude simpleness of antiquity, we must acknowledge to be a debt which we owe merely to geometry. If the moral philosophers had as happily discharged their duty, I know not what could have been added by human industry to the completion of that happiness, which is consistent with human life. For were the nature of human actions as distinctly known as the nature of quantity in geometrical figures, the strength of avarice and ambition, which is sustained by the erroneous opinions of the vulgar as touching the nature of right and wrong, would presently faint and languish; and mankind should enjoy such an immortal peace, that unless it were for habitation, on supposition that the earth should grow too narrow for her inhabitants, there would hardly be left any pretence for war. But now on the con

trary, that neither the sword nor the pen should be allowed any cessation; that the knowledge of the law of nature should lose its growth, not advancing a whit beyond its ancient stature; that there should still be such siding with the several factions of philosophers, that the very same action should be decried by some, and as much elevated by others; that the very same man should at several times embrace his several opinions, and esteem his own actions far otherwise in himself than he does in others: these, I say, are so many signs, so many manifest arguments, that what hath hitherto been written by moral philosophers, hath not made any progress in the knowledge of the truth; but yet hath took with the world, not so much by giving any light to the understanding as entertainment to the affections, whilst by the successful rhetorications of their speech they have confirmed them in their rashly received opinions. So that this part of philosophy hath suffered the same destiny with the public ways, which lie open to all passengers to traverse up and down or the same lot with highways and open streets, some for divertisement, and some for business; so that what with the impertinences of some and the altercations of others, those ways have never a seed time, and therefore yield never a harvest. The only reason of which unluckiness should seem to be this; that amongst all the writers of that part of philosophy there is not

one that hath used an idoneous principle of tractation. For we may not, as in a circle, begin the handling of a science from what point we please. There is a certain clue of reason, whose beginning is in the dark; but by the benefit of whose conduct, we are led as it were by the hand into the clearest light. So that the principle of tractation is to be taken from that darkness; and then the light to be carried thither for irradiating the doubts. As often therefore as any writer doth either weakly forsake that clue, or wilfully cut it asunder; he describes the footsteps, not of his progress in science, but of his wanderings from it. And from this it was, that when I applied my thoughts to the investigation of natural justice, I was presently advertised from the very word justice, (which signifies a steady will of giving every one his own), that my first enquiry was to be, from whence it proceeded that any man should call anything rather his own, than another man's. And when I found that this proceeded not from nature, but consent; (for what nature at first laid forth in common, men did afterwards distribute into several impropriations); I was conducted from thence to another inquiry ; namely, to what end and upon what impulsives, when all was equally every man's in common, men did rather think it fitting that every man should have his inclosure. And I found the reason was, that from a community of goods there must needs arise contention, whose enjoyment should be great