34 A View af ihe DiisTIcAL Writers. Let. 3.

man to be a neceſſary agent, and expreſsly aſſerts the materiality and mortality of the human ſoul; and he repreſents the doc- trine concerning the diſtinction between ſoul and hody in man, to be an error contracted by the contagion of the demonology of the Grecks. We may obſerve by the way the great difference there is in this reſpect between Mc. Hobbes and Lord Herbert. This noble writer has reckoned the notion and belief of a future ſtate among the common notices naturally obvious to the minds of all men: but the account Mr. Hobbes is pleaſed to give of it is this, that the belief of a future ſtate after death,“ is a * belief grounded upon other men's ſaying, that they knew it ** ſupernaturally, or that they knew thoſe, that knew them, „ that knew others, that knew it ſupernaturally 1.“

That we may haye the better notion of this extraordinary writer, it may not he amiſs to mention ſome other of his maxims. He aſſerts, that by the law of nature every man hath a right to all things, and over all perſons, and that the natural condition of man is a ftate of war, a war of all men againſt all men: that there is no way ſo reaſonable for any man as to anticipate, that is, by force and wiles to maſter all the perſons of others that he can, ſo long till he ſees no other power great enough to endan- ger him. That the civil laws are the only rules of, good and evil, juſt and unjuſt, honeſt and diſhoneſt; and that antecedently to ſuch laws every action is in its own narure indifferent: that there is nothing good or evil in itfelf, nor any common laws conſtituting what is naturally juſt and, unjuſt; that all things are meaſured by what every man judgeth fit, where there is no civil government, and by the laws of ſociety, where there is one m, That the power otf the ſovereign is abſolute, and that

he is not bound by any compacts with his ſubjects; that nothing.

the ſovereign can do to the ſubject can properly be called inju- rious or wrong; and that the king's word is fufficient to take any thing from any ſubject, if there be need, and the king is judge of that need n,

In Mr. Hobbes we have a remarkable inſtance what ſtrange extravagancies menof wit and genius may fall into, who, whilſt they value themſelves upon their ſuperior penetration, and laugh at popular errors and ſuperſtition, often give into notions ſo wild and ridiculous, as none of the people that govern them- ſelves by plain common ſenſe could be guilty of. It will hardiy

1 m De cive, cap. vi.§ 18. cap. X.§1. cap. Xii.§ 1. Leviath. p. 24, 25. 60, 61, 62, 63. 72. n Lev. P. 90. 100.

be

1 Leviath. p. 74