As regards the former, self-preservation, Cumberland does not admit either that men have a primary and inalienable right to preserve themselves, or that the desire of self-preservation is naturally their ruling motive. He says, in chapter i, "Of the Nature of Things": "It cannot be known that any one has a right to preserve himself, unless it be known that this will contribute to the common good, or that it is at least consistent with it. … A right even to self-defence cannot be understood without respect had to the concessions of the Law of Nature, which consults the good of all."[1] This is nothing if not explicit; but it is to be noticed that we are here concerned only with the question as to what is to be regarded as the ultimate ethical principle. As regards our mode of action, this very 'good of all,' which is the ethical ultimate, demands that (in all ordinary circumstances) "every one should study his own preservation, and further perfection."[2] The degree to which one should subordinate one's own interests to the common good, depends, of course, upon circumstances. That it may extend even to the sacrifice of one's life, Cumberland would have been the last to deny. In such a case he would have maintained his general thesis, that the good of all and the good of each coincide, by insisting upon the benefits already received by the individual at the hands of society.[3] We have already seen that this does not really prove his point.
Passing now to Cumberland's deduction of the right to personal property, we must remember that he was confronted with Hobbes's doctrine that, in a state of nature, each had a 'right' to all. His argument, which practically is, that society could not exist without proprietorship in the case of at least some things, however sound it may be in itself, can hardly be called the conclusive answer to Hobbes that he himself supposed it to be. The difference between the two was primarily regarding the nature of man, and not so much regarding the conditions under which society could exist. For it was just Hobbes's contention that society could not exist in what he chose to call a 'state of nature'; hence the absolute need of
