Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/98

the state: that is right which the law permits, that wrong which it forbids; good means that which is conducive to the general welfare. In the state of nature nothing is forbidden; nature gives every man a right to everything, and right is coextensive with might. What, then, induces man to abandon the state of nature and enter the state of citizenship? The opinion of Aristotle and Grotius that the state originates in the social impulse is false; for man is essentially not social, but selfish, and nothing but regard for his own interests bids him seek the protection of the state; the civil commonwealth is an artificial product of fear and prudence. The highest good is self-preservation; all other goods, as friendship, riches, wisdom, knowledge, and, above all, power, are valuable only as instruments of the former. The precondition of well-being, for which each man strives by nature, is security for life and health. This is wanting in the state of nature, in which the passions govern; for the state of nature is a state of war of everyone against everyone (bellum omnium contra omnes). Each man strives for success and power, and, since he cannot trust his fellow, seeks to subdue, nay, to kill him; each looks upon his fellow as a wolf which he prefers to devour rather than submit himself to the like operation. Now, as no one is so weak as to be incapable of inflicting on his fellows that worst of evils, death, and thus the strongest is unsafe, reason, in the interest of everyone, enjoins a search after peace and the establishment of an ordered community. The conditions of peace are the "laws of nature," which relate both to politics and to morals but which do not attain their full binding authority until they become positive laws, injunctions of the sovereign power. Peace is attainable only when each man, in return for the protection vouchsafed to him, gives up his natural right to all. The compact by which each renounces his natural liberty to do what he pleases, provided all others are ready for the same renunciation,—to which are added, further, the laws of justice (sanctity of covenants), equity, gratitude, modesty, sociability, mercifulness, etc., whose opposites would bring back the state of nature,—this compact is secured against violation by the transfer of the general power and freedom to a single