§. 11. From these two distinct rights (the one of punishing the crime, for
restraint and preventing the like offence, which right of punishing is in
everybody, the other of taking reparation, which belongs only to the injured
party) comes it to pass that the magistrate, who by being magistrate hath the
common right of punishing put into his hands, can often, where the public good
demands not the execution of the law, remit the punishment of criminal offences
by his own authority, but yet cannot remit the satisfaction due to any private
man for the damage he has received. That he who hath suffered the damage has a
right to demand in his own name, and he alone can remit. The damnified person
has this power of appropriating to himself the goods or service of the offender
by right of self-preservation, as every man has a power to punish the crime to
prevent its being committed again, by the right he has of preserving all
mankind, and doing all reasonable things he can in order to that end. And thus
it is that every man in the state of Nature has a power to kill a murderer,
both to deter others from doing the like injury (which no reparation can
compensate) by the example of the punishment that attends it from everybody,
and also to secure men from the attempts of a criminal who, having renounced
reason, the common rule and measure God hath given to mankind, hath, by the
unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against
all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or a tiger, one of those
wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security. And upon
this is grounded that great law of nature, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by
man shall his blood be shed." And Cain was so fully convinced that every
one had a right to destroy such a criminal, that, after the murder of his
brother, he cries out, "Every one that findeth me shall slay me," so
plain was it writ in the hearts of all mankind.
