§. 13. To this strange doctrine — viz., That in the state of Nature every
one has the executive power of the law of Nature — I doubt not but it will
be objected that it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases,
that self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends; and, on
the other side, ill-nature, passion, and revenge will carry them too far in
punishing others, and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow, and
that therefore God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the
partiality and violence of men. I easily grant that civil government is the
proper remedy for the inconveniences of the state of Nature, which must
certainly be great where men may be judges in their own case, since it is easy
to be imagined that he who was so unjust as to do his brother an injury will
scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it. But I shall desire those who
make this objection to remember that absolute monarchs are but men; and if
government is to be the remedy of those evils which necessarily follow from men
being judges in their own cases, and the state of Nature is therefore not to be
endured, I desire to know what kind of government that is, and how much better
it is than the state of Nature, where one man commanding a multitude has the
liberty to be judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects whatever he
pleases without the least question or control of those who execute his
pleasure? and in whatsoever he doth, whether led by reason, mistake, or
passion, must be submitted to? which men in the state of Nature are not bound
to do one to another. And if he that judges, judges amiss in his own or any
other case, he is answerable for it to the rest of mankind.
