Observations, censures, and confutations of notorious errours in Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan and other his bookes to which are annexed occasionall anim-adversions on some writings of the Socinians and such hæreticks of the same opinion with him / by William Lucy ...

Sect. 1.

1. I Come now to Number 7. which begins thus [And because where a man hath right to the end, and the end cannot be attained without the meanes, that is, without such things as are necessary to the end, it is consequent that it is not against reason, and therefore right, for a man to use all meanes, and doe whatsoever action is necessary for the preser∣vation of his body.] How vile and illogicall is this; had he proved that the body were the end of man: or, in∣stead of body, had he said, for the preservation of that end, his axiome, explained thus, might have borne him out in it; but, as it is pu••, there is no connexion; for suppose a man hath right to the end, his own happiness, and by that right likewise to all meanes which conduce to it; yet unlesse this body can be proved to be that end, his appli∣cation of it to the body is of no force. Well; I will examine his Aphorisme. First he, who hath right to

the end, hath not right to all meanes of getting it, is ap∣parent;* 1.1 for he who hath right to an estate, or an house, hath not right to take it by force, he must onely use legall meanes for the obtaining and preserving it, and so, though a man have right to his body or life, yet he hath no right to preserve it by unlawfull actions; It is a most just rule of law, that a man must so use his owne, as he must not hurt another; a man hath right to water and a Meadow, but he must not so use his water and his meadow, as by over∣flowing his meadow he should drowne his neighbours Corne. So although a man have right to his life, yet this right is not of such a transcendent power as to enable him, for the preservation of that life, to hurt others and destroy their lives.

But once again, for further and clearer explication of that rule he gives concerning an end let us observe,* 1.2 that it hath no truth but concerning the last end, and in that it hath; for since all mens actions are for an end, that is, his summum bonum, his happiness, every man, out of necessity of nature, doth, what he doth, for it, and the utmost he can for it; but this life or body is not mans happiness, and for any second end, there being no neces∣sity of the end it self, there is much less of any means which conduce to it; and therefore of such ends, of which nature mans temporall life and body are, there is no man∣ner of truth in it, no more then if we should say, it were right for a man to doe what he can, any thing to obtain pleasure, or profit, upon which he sets his heart.

Notes

• * 1.1

  He that hath right to the end, hath not right to all means what∣soever in the attaining that end.
• * 1.2

  The ultimate end excepted.