1. The Moral and Natural law is normally also called the Divine law. And that is right, for two reasons: because reason, which is the law of nature itself, has been given to each and every man directly by God as a Rule for his actions; and because the precepts for living derived from it are the same as the precepts which have been promulgated by God's own Majesty as the laws of the Kingdom of heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ and the holy Prophets and Apostles. So we shall attempt in this chapter to confirm from holy scripture the understanding of natural law which we arrived at above by process of reasoning.

2. In the first place we shall point to the passages which declare that the divine law lies in right reason. Psalm. 36.30–1: The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom, and his tongue shall speak justice, the law of God shall be in his heart. Jerem. 31.33: I will give my law in their entrails, and will write it in their heart. Psal. 18.8: The law of the Lord is immaculate converting the soul, v. 9. The Lord's precept is lucid, enlightening the eyes. Deut. 30.11: This command which I give you this day is not above you nor is it set far away, etc., v. 14: But the word is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart.

1. It is self-evident that men's actions proceed from their wills and their wills from their hopes and fears; hence they willingly break the law, whenever it seems that greater good or lesser evil will come to themselves from breaking it. Each man's hope therefore of security and preservation, lies in using his strength and skill to stay one step ahead of his neighbour either openly or by stratagems. One sees from this that the natural laws do not guarantee their own observance as soon as they are known; consequently, as long as a person has no guarantee of security from attack, his primeval Right remains in force to look out for himself in whatever ways he will and can, i.e. a Right to all things, or a Right of war; he will satisfy the requirements of natural law if he is ready to welcome peace when it can be had.

2. It is a commonplace that laws are silent among arms. This is true not only of the civil laws but also of natural law, if it is applied (by ch. III, art. 27) to actions rather than to state of mind, and if the war in question is understood to be the war of every man against every man. Such is the state of pure nature, though in wars between nations a degree of restraint has normally been observed.

1. The second of the derivative laws of nature is: Stand by your agreements, or keep faith. In the last chapter it was shown, that the law of nature instructs each and every man, as the necessary means of securing peace, to make a reciprocal transfer of certain of their own rights; it was also shown that when the transfer is to take place in the future, it is called an agreement. This is instrumental to securing peace, since by the very fact of agreement, we are doing (or not doing) what we agree should be done (or not done); and agreements would be pointless if we did not stand by them. Since standing by Agreements or keeping faith is necessary for securing peace, it will take its place, by chapter II, article 2, as a precept of natural law.

2. In this matter, we may not make any exception among the persons with whom we make agreements, for instance, if they do not themselves keep faith with others and do not believe in doing so, or have any other fault. For in making an agreement, one denies by the very act of agreeing that the act is meaningless. And it is against reason knowingly to take away the meaning of anything. If he does not believe the agreement should be fulfilled, by the very fact that he so believes he affirms that the agreement is meaningless.

1. In the old Testament there are many plain prophecies about our Saviour Jesus Christ; who was to restore the Kingdom Of God by a new agreement; some of them predict his Royal dignity, some his humility and suffering. Among the prophecies of his dignity are these: God, blessing Abraham, promises him a son, Isaac, and adds, And the Kings of the peoples shall spring from him (Gen. 17.16). Jacob blessing his son Judah says, The sceptre shall not be taken from Judah (Gen. 49.10). God to Moses: I will raise up for them, he says, a prophet like you from the midst of his brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall tell them all that I shall instruct him. And I will take revenge upon anyone who refuses to hear the words which he shall speak in my name (Deut. 18.18[–19]). Isaiah: The Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive and shall give birth to a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (Isa. 7.14). Isaiah again: A little child has been born to us, and a son has been given to us, and a princedom has been put upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, mighty God, Father of the age to come, the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9.6).

1. We have explained what Democracy, Aristocracy and Monarchy are. We must now compare them to see which of them is more suited to preserve the citizens' peace and secure advantages for them. But first let us compare the advantages and disadvantages [commoda & incommoda] of the commonwealth in general, so that no one will believe it would be better for everyone to live at his own discretion than to make a commonwealth at all. Outside the circumstances of a commonwealth [statum civitatis] each man does indeed have the most complete liberty, but it does him no good. And the reason is that he who does all things of his own free will because he has his liberty, also suffers all things at the will of others, because they have their liberty. But once a commonwealth is formed, every citizen retains as much liberty as he needs to live well in peace, and enough liberty is taken from others to remove the fear of them. Outside the commonwealth every man has a right to all things, but on the terms that he may enjoy nothing. In a commonwealth every man enjoys a limited right in security. Outside the commonwealth anyone may be killed and robbed by anyone; within a commonwealth by only one person. Outside the commonwealth, we are protected only by our own strength; within by the strength of all.

1. The first and crucial question is this: what actually is a Crowd (Multitudo] (*) of men (who unite by their own decision in a single commonwealth)? For they are not a single entity but a number of men, each of whom has his own will and his own judgement about every proposal. Although each man has his own right and property by particular contracts, so that one man may say of one thing and another of another thing that it is his own, there will be nothing about which the whole crowd, as a person distinct from every individual, can rightly say, this is mine more than another's. Nor is there any action which should be attributed to the crowd as their action; but (if all or several of them reach an agreement) it will not be one action but as many actions as there are men. For despite the fact that it is commonly said of some great rebellion that the people of the commonwealth has taken up arms, it is only true of those who have actually taken up arms or are in league with them. For a commonwealth which is one person cannot take up arms against itself. So whatever is done by a crowd must be understood as being done by each of those who make up that crowd.

1. At VI.2 we derived the origin of a commonwealth by design, or political commonwealth, from an agreement by a number of men, in such terms that it is apparent that all must consent or be regarded as enemies. Such was the origin of God's Kingdom over the Jews instituted by Moses. If you shall hear my voice, etc. you will be to me a Priestly kingdom, etc. Moses came, and calling together the elders of the people, etc. and all the people replied together: we will do all that the Lord has spoken (Exod. 19.5–8). Such too was the beginning of Moses' power under God, or his viceregal power. The whole people saw the voices and the lights, etc. saying to Moses: ‘speak to us and we will hear’ (Exod. 20.18–19). The beginning of the reign of Saul was similar. But, seeing that Naas, King of the sons of Ammon, had come against you, you said to me, ‘No way, but a king shall command us’, although your Lord was reigning over you. Now therefore your king is here whom you have chosen and asked for (1 Sam. 12.12). And when they did not all give their agreement, though the majority did, (for there were the sons of Belial, who said, Surely he won's be able to save us? and they despised him, 1 Sam. 10.27), those who did not agree were put to death as enemies.

1. Aware of their own weakness and in wonder at natural events, the human race has developed an almost universal belief that an invisible God is the Workman who has made all visible things; they also fear him, believing that they do not have adequate self-protection in themselves. But their imperfect use of reason and the vigour of their passions have prevented them from worshipping him rightly. The fear of the invisible, when separated from right reason, is superstition. Without special assistance from God, it proved almost impossible to avoid the twin rocks of Atheism and superstition; for the latter proceeds from fear without right reason, the former from an opinion of reason without fear. So the greater part of mankind has readily succumbed to Idolatry; and almost every Nation has worshipped God by way of images and in the shapes of finite things, and has worshipped spectres or Phantoms, and called them demons. But it pleased God's majesty (as we read it written in the sacred History) to call out of the human race one man, Abraham, in order to bring mankind through him to a true worship of himself; it pleased him to reveal himself to him supernaturally; and to enter into that famous agreement with him and his descendants which is called the Old Agreement, the Old Covenant and the Old Testament.

1. The faculties of human nature may be reduced to four kinds: Physical force, Experience, Reason, Passion. They are the starting point of the doctrine which follows. We shall first describe the attitude men have towards each other, being endowed with these faculties; and ask whether they are born fit [apti nati] for society and for preserving themselves from each other's violence, and which faculty makes them so. We shall go on from there to explain the policy which they had inevitably to adopt for that purpose, and to lay out the conditions of society and Peace among men, which are simply the fundamental laws of nature under another name.

2. The majority of previous writers on public Affairs either assume or seek to prove or simply assert that Man is an animal (*) born fit for Society, – in the Greek phrase, Ζῶον πολιτικὸν. On this foundation they erect a structure of civil doctrine, as if no more were necessary for the preservation of peace and the governance of the whole human race than for men to give their consent to certain agreements and conditions which, without further thought, these writers call laws. This Axiom, though very widely accepted, is nevertheless false; the error proceeds from a superficial view of human nature. Closer observation of the causes why men seek each other's company and enjoy associating with each other, will easily reach the conclusion that it does not happen because by nature it could not be otherwise, but by chance.

1. Those who do not scrupulously weigh the force of words at times confuse law [lex] with advice [consilium], at times with Agreement [Pactum] and sometimes with right [jus]. They confuse law with advice when they think that it is the monarch's duty not only to listen to advisors but also to obey them. As if there was no point in seeking advice unless one were to follow it. The distinction between advice and law is to be sought in the difference between advice and command [mandatum]. advice is an instruction or precept [praeceptum] in which the reason for following it is drawn from the matter itself. But a command is an instruction in which the reason for following it is drawn from the will of the instructor. For one can only properly say: This is what I want, this is my order, if will stands for reason. But since laws are obeyed not for their content, but because of the will of the instructor, law is not advice but command, and is defined thus: law is a command of that person (whether man or council) whose instruction is the reason for obedience. So that the following are to be called laws: God's precepts with respect to men, the commonwealth's to its citizens, and in general the instructions of all powerful people to those who are unable to offer resistance. Law and advice, then, differ from each other in many ways.

1. Socrates is a man, therefore also an animal, is a valid reasoning and utterly evident, since all that one needs, to recognize the truth of the conclusion, is to understand the word man, because animal is in the definition of man; and everyone supplies the missing proposition, man is an animal. Sophroniscus is the father of Socrates, therefore also his Master [Dominus] is also perhaps a valid inference, but not totally evident, because Master is not in the definition of father. To make it evident, one needs to explicate the relation between father and Master. Those who have attempted in the past to assert the Dominion of a father over his children have only come up with the argument of generation [parenthood] as if it were self-evident that what I have generated is mine. This is the same as supposing that if something is a triangle, it is immediately apparent, without any reasoning, that its angles are equal to two right angles. Besides, since Dominion, i.e. sovereign power, is indivisible, so that no one can serve two masters, but generation requires the cooperation of two persons, a Male and a female, it is impossible for Dominion to be wholly acquired by generation alone. At this point therefore we must take a more careful look at the origin of Paternal Dominion.

2. And so we must return to the natural state, in which because of the equality of nature, all adults are to be taken as equal to each other.

1. From what has been said so far, the duties of citizens and subjects in each kind of commonwealth and the powers of sovereigns over them are now clear. We have not yet spoken of the duties of sovereigns [imperantium] and of how they should behave towards citizens. We must distinguish between the right and the exercise of sovereign power; for they can be separated; for instance, he who has the right may be unwilling or unable to play a personal role in conducting trials or deliberating issues. For there are occasions when kings cannot manage affairs because of their age, or when even though they can, they judge it more correct to content themselves with choosing ministers and counsellors, and to exercise their power through them. When right and exercise are separated, the government of the commonwealth is like the ordinary government of the world, in which God the first mover of all things, produces natural effects through the order of secondary causes. But when he who has the right to reign wishes to participate himself in all judgements, consultations and public actions, it is a way of running things comparable to God's attending directly to every thing himself, contrary to the order of nature. So we shall speak briefly and summarily in this chapter of the duties of those who exercise sovereign power whether in their own right or by someone else's.

In May 1650 an old friend of Hobbes, Robert Payne, who had been purged from his Oxford fellowship by the victorious parliamentary army but continued to live near the town, heard that an English translation of De Cive was about to be published. He had kept in touch with Hobbes in Paris, and he apparently knew that Hobbes had not authorized any such translation: