1. It remains to discern the specific functions of sovereign power and their noteworthy features. Most important here are the civil laws, which are the decrees of the sovereign civil authority [summi imperantis civilis], which enjoin upon the Citizens what they should do or not do in civil life.

2. There are two particular senses in which the word ‘civil’ is applied to law: with respect to authority and with respect to origin. In the former sense, all laws are called civil which are the bases for the giving of justice in the civil courts, whatever their origin. In the latter sense, those laws are called civil which proceed from the will of the sovereign and deal with matters which are undefined by natural and divine law but deeply affect the private interests of individual Citizens.

3. Though nothing should be regulated by the authority of the civil laws unless it has a bearing on the public interest, it is of the highest importance for the dignity and peace of civil life that Citizens should properly observe the natural law; and therefore it is a duty of sovereigns to lend it the force and effectiveness of civil law. For there is so much wickedness in the greater part of mankind that neither the obvious benefits of natural law nor fear of divine power is adequate to check it. The sovereign, therefore, may ensure preservation of the moral integrity of civil life by lending to natural laws the force of the civil laws.

4. The force of the civil laws consists in the addition of a penal sanction to precepts to do or not to do, or in defining the penalty in the courts that awaits one who has done what he ought not or not done what he ought. Violations of natural law which have no penal sanctions attached are beyond the reach of human justice, though the divine tribunal still Stands ready to punish.

5. Since civil life is too fragile to allow each man to exact what he believes to be his due by violent self-help, civil laws come to the aid of natural law in providing actions for the obligations of natural law.

1. Treaties which are agreements made between independent sovereign rulers have a function both in wartime and in peacetime. They may be divided, on the basis of their content, into those which define the terms of reciprocal Performance of some duty already enjoined by natural law, and those which go beyond the duties of natural law, or at least put into specific terms what seems indefinite in natural law.

2. Treaties of the first type are those which form an agreement merely about practising simple humanity or refraining from doing harm. To this category belong also treaties which simply give formal expression to friendly relations without any requirements or which confirm the right of diplomacy and commerce insofar as it is laid down by natural law.

3. Treaties of the second type are either equal or unequal. An equal treaty is the same for both parties. It involves equality in the content of the promises made on each side, either simply or with due regard to differences of strength, and equality in the manner of the promises, so that neither party may be in an inferior position to the other or subject to him.

4. Treaties are unequal when the Performances promised by the parties are unequal or when one party is in an inferior position to the other. Unequal promises are made either by the more powerful party to the treaty or by the less powerful. The first is the case if the greater power promises help to the other party without a stipulation in return, or if it makes promises on a larger scale than the other. The second is the case if the weaker party is obliged to give more than it gets back.

5. Some of the obligations of a weaker party to a treaty involve some loss of sovereignty, for example if it is agreed that the weaker ally may not exercise some part of his sovereign power without the consent of the more powerful.

1. When property has come to Citizens from sovereigns, the right by which they hold it depends on the discretion of the sovereign. By contrast, property of which Citizens have obtained full ownership by their own industry or in any other way is subject to three principal rights which, by the nature of states and as necessary to their purpose, belong to sovereigns.

2. The first right is that sovereigns may make laws obliging the Citizens to accommodate their use of their property to the interest of the State; or defining the extent and nature of possessions, and the method of transferring property to others, and other matters of this kind.

3. The second right is that the sovereign may collect a fraction of the Citizens’ property as tribute or tax. For since their lives and fortunes are to be defended by the State, it is appropriate that they contribute to meeting the expenses necessary to this end. It is totally unscrupulous to attempt to enjoy the protection and convenience the State affords while refusing to contribute either Service or property to its preservation. And yet prudent rulers would be wise to take into consideration the resentment felt by ordinary people, and to make an effort to give as little offence as possible in collecting taxes, observing fairness above all and imposing taxes that are moderate and flexible rather than massive and uniform.

4. The third right is eminent domain, which means that in a national emergency sovereigns may seize and apply to public use the property of any subject which the crisis particularly requires, even if the property seized far exceeds the amount which had been fixed as his normal obligatory contribution to his country's expenses. For this reason, however, as much of the excess as possible should be refunded to him from the public treasury or by a levy on the rest of the Citizens.

5. Besides these three rights, there is in many states a distinct public property, which usually goes under the name of the country's or the kingdom's patrimony. This is again divided in various places into the patrimony of the prince and that of the country, or into the privy purse and the treasury.

1. We come now to the duties which a man must perform towards other men. Some result from the common Obligation by which the Creator has willed that all men be bound as men; others derive from a particular custom which has been introduced or accepted, or from a particular adventitious State. The former are to be shown by every man to every man, the latter only towards certain men on the basis of a particular condition or State. Hence you may call the former absolute, the latter hypothetical.

2. First among the absolute duties is the duty not to harm others. This is at once the most far-reaching of all duties, extending as it does to all men as men, and the easiest, since it consists of mere omission of action, except insofar as passions in conflict with reason must sometimes be restrained. It is also the most essential duty, since without it human social life would be utterly impossible. For I can live at peace with a man who does me no positive Service, and with a man who does not exchange even the commonest duties with me, provided he does me no harm. In fact, this is all we desire from mankind at large; it is only within a fairly small circle that we impart good things to each other. By contrast, there is no way that I can live at peace with one who does me harm. For nature has implanted in each man such a tender love of himself and of what is his, that he cannot but repel by every means one who offers to do harm to either.

3. This duty affords protection not only to what we have from nature, as life, body, limbs, chastity, liberty, but also to what we have acquired on the basis of some institution and human Convention. Hence this precept forbids that anything which is ours by legitimate title be taken, spoiled, damaged or removed from our use in whole or in part. By this precept all crimes are understood to be forbidden by which harm is inflicted on another, as, killing, wounding, beating, robbery, theft, fraud and other forms of violence, whether inflicted directly or indirectly, in person or through an agent.

1. By *duty’ [offcium] here I mean human action in conformity with the commands of law on die ground of Obligation. To explain this, one must first discuss the nature of human action and the nature of laws in general.

2. By ‘human action’ I do not mean any motion which has its origin in man's faculties [facultas] but only such as is begun and directed by the faculties which the great and good Creator has given to mankind above and beyond the animals. I mean motion initiated in the light of understanding and at the command of will.

3. It has been given to man to become acquainted with the diverse multiplicity of objects that he meets in this world, to compare them, and to form new notions about them. But he has also the ability to envisage his future actions, to set himself to achieve them, to fashion them to a specific norm and purpose, and to deduce the consequences; and he can tell whether past actions conform to rule. Moreover, human faculties are not all in constant and uniform Operation; some of them are aroused by an internal impulse and after arousal are brought under control and direction. Finally, a man is not attracted to all objects indifferently; some he seeks, others he avoids. Often, too, he checks a motion despite the presence of the object of action; and he often selects one of several objects before him, rejecting the rest.

4. The faculty of comprehension and judgement is called understanding [intellectus]. It must be taken as certain that any adult of sound mind has natural light enough to enable him, with instruction and proper reflection, to achieve adequate comprehension of at least the general precepts and principles which make for a good and peaceful life in this world; and to recognize their conformity with human nature. If this is not granted, at least in the court of man, men could hide all their wrongdoing behind a plea of invincible ignorance, since no one can be condemned in the court of man for violating a rule which is beyond his capacity to understand.

1. Everyone knows how useful, how simply necessary, an instrument of human society language [sermo] is. Indeed, it has often been argued, on the basis of this faculty alone, that man is intended by nature to live a social life. The legitimate and profitable use of language for human society is based upon this duty prescribed by natural law: no man should deceive another by language or by other signs which have been established to express the sense of his mind [sensa animi].

2. A more profound grasp of the nature of language requires a knowledge of the double Obligation incurred by using it whether in Speech or in writing. The first is that users of any given language [lingua] must employ the same words for the same objects following the usage of that language. For since neither sounds nor particular letter-shapes naturally signify anything (for if they did, all languages or forms of writing would necessarily converge), the use of a language would become meaningless if everyone could give an object any name he wanted. To prevent this, it is necessary for a tacit agreement to be made among users of the same language to denote each thing with one particular word and not another. For without an accord on the consistent employment of sounds, it is impossible to understand from what someone says the sense of his mind. By virtue of this agreement everyone is obliged to use words in his common discourse in the sense they bear in the accepted usage of that language. It follows from this too that, although the sense of a man's mind may be at variance with what he says, yet in the afFairs of human life everyone is assumed to have meant what his words indicate, even if it deviates perhaps from the inner intention of his mind. For we can know nothing of his mind except by signs; and therefore all use of language would be rendered futile if an internal mental reservation, which each man can form as he pleases, could undermine the usual force of signs in social life.

1. Reputation in general is the value of persons in common life [vita communis] by which they may be measured against others or compared with them and either preferred or put after them.

2. Reputation is either simple or intensive. Both are viewed with reference on the one hand to men living in natural liberty and on the other hand to men in the civil State.

3. Simple reputation among those who live in natural liberty consists primarily in each man's making himself and being taken to be such a man as may be dealt with as a good man and who is fit to live with others by the prescript of natural law.

4. Reputation of this kind is held to be intact, so long as one does not knowingiy, willingly and with evil intent violate the law of nature with respect to others by a malicious or outrageous act. Hence everyone is taken to be a good man, until the contrary is proved.

5. Reputation of this kind is diminished by malicious commission of outrageous crimes contrary to the law of nature, the effect of which is that one needs to show more caution in dealing with such a man. However, this stain may be purged by making voluntary reparation for the loss caused and by giving evidence of sincere repentance.

6. Similarly, reputation is utterly destroyed by a manner and way of life which aims directly at indiscriminate harm to others and at profiting by open wrongdoing. Men of this nature (so long as they show no signs of repentance) may be treated as public enemies by all who are in any way affected by their wickedness. They may however repair their reputation by abjuring their vicious manner of life and entering on an honourable course, after making restitution for loss or obtaining forgiveness.

7. Simple reputation among those who live in states is not to have been declared by the law and custom of the State a vicious member of the same, and to be regarded as a person of some Standing.

1. Self-love is implanted deep in man; it compels him to have a careful concern for himself and to get all the good he can in every way. In view of this it seems superfluous to invent an Obligation of self-love. Yet from another point of view a man surely does have certain obligations to himself. For man is not born for himself alone; the end for which he has been endowed by his Creator with such excellent gifts is that he may celebrate His glory and be a fit member of human society. He is therefore bound so to conduct himself as not to permit the Creator's gifts to perish for lack of use, and to contribute what he can to human society. So, by analogy, though a person's ignorance is his own shame and loss, yet the master is right to flog the pupil who neglects to learn such skills as his capacity allows.

2. Furthermore, man consists of two parts, soul [anima] and body. The soul has the function of ruler, the body of servant and instrument; consequently we employ the mind [animus] for government and the body for service. We must care for both, but particularly for the former. Above all the mind [animus] must be formed to accept social life with ease; it must be steeped in a sense and a love of duty and goodness. Every man must also receive some education in accordance with his capacity and fortune, so that no one shall be a useless burden on the earth, a problem to himself and a nuisance to others. He must also choose in due time an honest way of life in accordance with his natural bent, his mental and physical abilities, the condition of his birth, his fortune, his parents’ wishes, the commands of the civil rulers, opportunity or necessity.

3. Since the mind depends upon support from the body, we must strengthen and preserve the powers of the body with appropriate food and exercise. We should not weaken them by intemperance in food or drink or by unseasonable and unnecessary toil or by any other means. For the same reason we must avoid gluttony, drunkenness, excessive sex, and so on.

1. We have next to inquire into the means by which states have been instituted and what are their internal bonds of cohesion. In the first place it is clear that the individual finds in other men a more useful and effective defence against the evils that human depravity threatens to inflict on him than in fortifications, weapons or dumb animals; and since a man's power is of limited extent, it was necessary for him to combine with other men to achieve that end.

2. It is equally obvious that a combination of two or three cannot provide that kind of security against other men. For it is easy for enough persons to conspire to overcome these few as would give them full assurance of victory; and their expectation of success and impunity would also give the conspirators the confidence to make the attempt. It is therefore necessary to this end, that there be a union of an overwhelming number of men so that the accession of a few to the enemy would not tip the scales towards victory for the latter.

3. Among these many individuals who come together for this purpose, there has to be a consensus on adopting means likely to achieve it. If they do not agree among themselves, but are distracted in their opinions and tend to different ends, they will achieve nothing, no matter how many they are. Alternatively, there may be a temporary agreement under the impulse of a passion, but they will soon go their separate ways, men's minds and inclinations being as changeable as they are. Though they may promise on the basis of agreement that each will bring his individual strength to the common defence, yet even this method will not provide a guarantee that the group will last. Rather, those who have once consented to peace and mutual help for the common good must be prohibited from dissenting thereafter, whenever their own private good seems to be in conflict with the public good.

1. Agreements [pacta] form a kind of bridge between the absolute and the hypothetical duties. For all duties, apart from those already discussed, seem to presuppose agreements, whether express or tacit. This then is the place to discuss the nature of agreements and what should be observed by those entering into them.

2. It is quite clear that men had to enter into agreements with each other. For although duties of humanity pervade our lives, there is no way that one could derive from that source alone every benefit that men might legitimately expect to receive from each other to their mutual advantage. In the first place, not everyone has such goodness of heart that from sheer humanity he would be willing to give others whatever would do them good without looking for an equal return. Again, benefits we might derive from others are often such that we cannot without a feeling of shame require them to be simply given to us. Often too it is not appropriate to our person or position to be beholden to another for such a kindness, so that just as the other is unable to give, so we are unwilling to accept, unless he takes something equal from us in return. Finally, it happens from time to time that others are simply not aware how they may serve our ends.

It was therefore necessary for men to make agreements with each other so that the duties which they perform for each other (and this is the advantage of sociality) might be performed more frequently and in accordance with what one might call fixed rules. This is particularly true of the mutual provision of the sort of things which a man could not surely count on getting from others on the basis of the law of humanity alone. Hence a prior determination had to be made as to what one man should do for another and what he should expect in return and might claim in his own right. This is done by means of promises and agreements.

1. Every authority [imperium] by which a State [civitas] in its entirety is ruled, whatever the form of government, has the characteristic of supremacy [summum]. That is, its exercise is not dependent on a superior; it acts by its own will and judgement; its actions may not be nullified by anyone on the ground of superiority.

2. Hence it is that authority in this sense is unaccountable [anhupeunthunos], i.e. not obliged to account to any man on condition that if it should not render him a satisfactory account it would be liable for that reason to human penalty or punishment from him as from a superior.

3. Conformably with this, the sovereign authority [summum imperium] is superior to human and civil laws as such, and thus not directly bound by them. For these laws depend in their origins and duration on the sovereign authority. Hence it cannot be that it is bound by them itself, for if it were, the very same power would be superior to itself. Yet, when the sovereign has enjoined certain things on the Citizens by law, whose scope extends to him too, it would be appropriate for him to conform of his own free will; this would also tend to strengthen the authority of the law.

4. Sovereign authority, finally, has also its own particular sanctity. It is therefore morally wrong for the Citizens to resist its legitimate commands. But beyond this even its severity must be patiently borne by Citizens in exactly the same way as good children must bear the ill temper of their parents. And even when it has threatened them with the most atrocious injuries, individuals will protect themselves by flight or endure any injury or daniage radier than draw their swords against one who remains the father of their country, however harsh he may be.

5. In monarchies and aristocracies particularly, sovereign authority occurs in absolute form [absolutum imperium]; elsewhere it occurs in limited form.

Absolute authority is said to be held by a monarch who can wield it according to his own judgement, not by following the rule of fixed, Standing Statutes, but as the actual condition of affairs seems to require, and who uses his own judgement in protecting the security of his country as its circumstances require.

1. In its general sense an agreement [pactum] is the consent and concurrence of two or more men to the same intent [placitum]. But a distinction is often drawn between simple agreements and contracts [contractus], and the essence of the distinction seems to be that those agreements are called contracts which deal with things and actions of commercial significance and which consequently rest on a presupposition of ownership and value in things. Concurrence on other matters takes the common name of agreements, although to some of them the terms ‘agreement’ and ‘contract’ are applied indifferently.

2. Contracts may be divided into gratuitous and onerous. Gratuitous contracts confer a benefit on only one of the contracting parties, for example, mandate, loan for use, deposit. Onerous contracts bind both parties to an equal ‘burden'; their characteristic is that something is given or some Performance made for the purpose of getting the equivalent in return.

3. A requirement of all onerous contracts is that equality should prevail in them, or that both contracting parties receive equal benefit. Where inequality occurs, a right arises for the party which has received less to claim that his loss be made good, or simply to terminate the contract. This occurs particularly in states, since there the prices of things are determined by the custom of the market or by law. The essential requirement for discovering and determining this equality is that both contracting parties have knowledge of the thing which is the object of contract and of all its relevant qualities. Hence too in the process of passing a thing to another person by contract, one must point out its faults and defects as well as its good qualities. Without this a fair price cannot be settled. However one does not need to point out circumstances which in themselves do not affect the thing, nor need one indicate faults which are known to both parties. Anyone who knowingly acquires a faulty object has only himself to blame.

1. There are various methods of dissolving obligations based on agreement the effect of which is the extinction of the duties derived from them. The most natural is die fulfilment or payment of what was agreed upon. It is normally the debtor who is obliged to pay; but the Obligation is also dissolved if Performance is made by another party in the name of the person who contracted the Obligation, if in fact it would not make any difference who satisfies the agreement. There is a condition, however, that the person who pays for another without the intention of making it a gift may claim from him what he has spent.

Payment must be made to the creditor, or to one whom he has delegated to accept the debt in his name.

Finally, Performance or payment must be exactly what was agreed upon, not something else instead; it must be whole, not damaged, not merely a part and not divided; and it must be at the time and place agreed. However, the creditor's humanity or the debtor's inability to pay may often force an extension of the payment date or acceptance of something else instead.

2. Obligations are also extinguished by compensation. This is a reciprocal adjustment of credit and debt, or the liberation of the debtor for the reason that the creditor evidently owes him in his turn something of the same kind and value. For ‘so much’ is ‘the same\ particularly in the case of fungibles, and in the case of a reciprocal debt I would have to give straight back what I have just received. Therefore to avoid unnecessary transactions the most convenient way of making the payment is for both parties to keep what they have.

It is obvious that compensation in the strict sense is properly made where it is a question of fungible objects of the same kind whether at the due time for payment or later, but not where it is a question of other things or other types of Performance, unless on both sides they are reduced to an estimate of their value, that is to money.

3. An Obligation is also ended by release, or remission offered by the person to whom the debt was due and who had an interest in the fulfilment of the Obligation.

1. It is certainly true that one's Obligation in matters enjoined by authority is limited to what the authority intended, just as one's own voluntary commitments extend no further than one's intention. But a man cannot teil another man's will except from acts and signs apparent to his senses. Hence one's obligations, so far as human judgement goes, are held to consist in what a correct interpretation of the signs indicates. It is therefore a great contribution to a proper understanding of laws and agreements, and of doing one's duty on the basis of them, to draw up rules of sound interpretation, and particularly the interpretation of words, since words are the commonest signs.

2. The rule about words in common use is: words are normally to be taken in their own proper and accepted sense, the sense which they have not so much from strict propriety or grammatical analogy or similarity of derivation as from common usage. ‘Common usage is the arbiter, the law and the norm of Speech.'

3. Terms of art are to be explained according to the definitions of the experts in each art. But if terms of art are differently defined by different experts, it will tend to avoid disputes if we express in ordinary words what we understand by any particular term.

4. Conjectures are needed to extract the real meaning, if words or expressions are ambiguous, or if certain parts of a piece seem to contradict each other, provided that they can be reconciled by skilful exegesis. For where there is a certain and obvious contradiction, the later passage supersedes the earlier.

5. Conjectures about the intention and correct sense of an ambiguous or intricate passage are made on the basis of subject-matter, effect and related passages.

The rule on subject-matter is: words are normally to be understood in the light of the subject. For the Speaker is presumed always to have in mind the subject of his discourse; and therefore the meanings of the words should always be appropriate to it.

6. The rule on effect and consequences is: if the words taken in a simple, literal sense would have no effect or an absurd effect, one should diverge from the commonly accepted sense only so far as is necessary to avoid meaninglessness or absurdity.

1. Human actions arise from the will. But the acts of will of an individual are not consistent in themselves; and the wills of different men tend in different directions. For mankind to have achieved order and decency therefore, there must have been some rule to which those wills might conform. For otherwise if each man, amid so much liberty to will and such diversity of inclinations and desires, had done whatever came into his mind without reflective reference to a fixed rule, the result would inevitably have been great confusion among men.

2. This rule is called law [lex]. Law is a decree by which a superior obliges one who is subject to him to conform his actions to the superior's prescript [praescriptum].

3. To understand this definition better, one must answer these questions: what is Obligation? what is its origin? who can incur Obligation, and who can impose Obligation on another? Obligation is commonly defined as a bond of right by which we are constrained by the necessity of making some Performance. That is,

Obligation places a kind of bridle on our liberty, so that, though the will can in fact take different directions it yet finds itself imbued by it with an internal sense (so to speak), so that it is compelled to recognize that it has not acted rightly if the subsequent action does not conform to the prescribed rule. Consequently, if anything bad happens to a man for that reason, he judges that he deserves it, since he could have avoided it by following the rule, as he should have done.

4. There are two reasons why man is fit to incur Obligation: (1) he has a will capable of moving in various directions and so able to conform to the rule; and (2) he is not free from the authority of a superior. For there is no expectation of free action where an agent's powers are tied by nature to a uniform mode of behaviour; and it is pointless to prescribe a rule to one who can neither understand nor conform to it.