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. 3.

He goe's on page 33. above all things I find in my self a mighty study (summum studium is his Phrase) his chief and principall study of keeping himself safe and sound,* 1.1 as we may speak, salvum & incolumem are his words.

I believe him, he would never else have writ this Book;* 1.2 but although he do so, yet all men do not; for although there is in every man, in every thing, a desire of being, yet some beings, to some men, are surrounded with so many incommodities and troubles, that it is better not to be, then to be such. I have treat∣ed of this in my censures upon the fourteenth Chapter of Mr. Hobbes's his Leviathan, and in that handled his Book de corpore politico; but because the language of this Gentleman doth vary from Mr. Hobbes, and there∣fore those expressions made there may not be applicable so perfectly to him, I shall turn my self to this discourse before me.

To this study, saith he, do serve the appetites of eating and drinking, of revenge, the effects of love and grief, and, to conclude, all the passions of the soul, and the whole fa∣brick of the body. Yet, for all this, a beast, if he could

speak, might say as much for himself as this is (as I have shewed before,* 1.3) and it were strange if man's parts and faculties had no higher a design then a beast's have; in the universe they, and all the rest, were made subservi∣ent to man in this great world, and in this little world, man, no doubt, but they are framed so likewise to be serviceable to that which is humane; and as God hath made man a Ruler over them, so those humane parts of reason and will to govern these beastly sensuall affecti∣ons; and, it is as unseemingly, yea unnaturall, for a man's reason to subject it self to those passions and sensu∣all desires, as for a beast to govern a man.

You may observe a goodly Room in a house,* 1.4 the timber, stones, gilding, or whatsoever adorne's it, are all made and contrived for the necessity or beautifying that Room; yet it may hap, that afterwards that may be discerned to be unuseful, yea hurtfull, to that house; that Room must be plucked down, yea the house it self, when it shall offend the street it stand's in, and the street, if noisome to the City, to which it belong's; alwayes the Lesser good, and privater interest, must submit to the greater and more publick benefit; so must it be with man and these parts, they are usefull to this man, this man to the City, that City to the Kingdom; when we see these parts disposed to the advance and preservation of man's life, we know man's life must be cared for, but not when a more publick end of the City, in which he live's, shall be prejudiced or hurt by it, and to this end indeed God hath given man reason, by which he may master his private and particular desires, and rule and direct them to their more publick end, so that then, in a Logicall discourse, we see his reason answered which was thus; That which hath so many passions, appe∣tites,

bodily parts subservient to it, must be preserved; But the life of man, &c. ergo.

You may discern the answer ou•• of that hath been already set down, that as those passions, &c. are in themselves usefull to man's life, so man's life is usefull to that City or Society where he live's; and as these passions are to be refrain'd and kept under from ruling men's actions, when they, or either of them, are hurt∣full to man's life, unto which in their creation they were disposed; so man's life its self is not to be desired, but to be laid aside, when it is useless or hurtfull to that Society, or farther end, to which it was intended; this, with what hath been delivered against Mr Hobbes his 13. and 14. Chapters, I think abundantly sufficient for an∣swer to this Argument of his; I will pass over many loose buildings, which he hath raised upon this weak foundation, but concern not me, and come now to page 98. where he enter's upon another conclusion of Mr. Hobbes, which I have opposed in my piece upon the 14. Chapter of Leviathan; and he begin's thus.

Notes

• * 1.1

  His study of it as to his own particular.
• * 1.2

  All men may not have like reason to be so intent.
• * 1.3

  The parts and faculties of men not to be levelled with those of beasts.
• * 1.4

  The publick interest to be prefer'd and preserv'd be∣fore the per∣sonal or more private.