§. 181. Though in all war there be usually a complication of force and damage,
and the aggressor seldom fails to harm the estate when he uses force against
the persons of those he makes war upon, yet it is the use of force only that
puts a man into the state of war. For whether by force he begins the injury, or
else having quietly and by fraud done the injury, he refuses to make
reparation, and by force maintains it, which is the same thing as at first to
have done it by force; it is the unjust use of force that makes the war. For he
that breaks open my house and violently turns me out of doors, or having
peaceably got in, by force keeps me out, does, in effect, the same thing;
supposing we are in such a state that we have no common judge on earth whom I
may appeal to, and to whom we are both obliged to submit, for of such I am now
speaking. It is the unjust use of force, then, that puts a man into the state
of war with another, and thereby he that is guilty of it makes a forfeiture of
his life. For quitting reason, which is the rule given between man and man, and
using force, the way of beasts, he becomes liable to be destroyed by him he
uses force against, as any savage ravenous beast that is dangerous to his
being.
