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Concerning my Method, I thought it not sufficient to use a plain and evident style in what I had to deliver, except I took my begining from the very matter of civill government, and thence proceeded to its generation, and form, and the first beginning of justice; for every thing is best understood by its constitutive causes; for as in a watch, or some such small engine, the matter, figure, and motion of the wheeles, cannot well be known, except it be taken in sunder, and viewed in parts; so to make a more curious search into the rights of States, and duties of Subjects, it is necessary, (I say not to take them in sunder, but yet that) they be so considered, as if they were dissolved, (i.e.) that wee rightly understand what the quality of humane nature is, in what matters it is, in what not fit to make up a civill government, and how men must be agreed among themselves, that intend to grow up into a well-grounded State. Having therefore followed this kind of Method; In the first place I set down for a principle by experience known to all men, and denied by none, to wit, that the dispositions of men are naturally such, that except they be restrained through feare of some coercive power, every man will distrust and dread each other, and as by naturall right he may, so by necessity he will be forced to make use of the strength hee hath, toward the preservation of himself You will object perhaps, that there are some who deny this; truly so it happens, that very many do deny it. But shall I therefore seem to fight against my self because I affirm that the same men confesse, and deny the same thing? In truth I do not, but they do, whose actions disavow what their discourses approve; of We see all countries though they be at peace with their neighbours, yet guarding their Frontiers with armed men, their Townes with Walls and ports, and keeping constant watches. To what purpose is all this, if there be no feare of the neighbouring power? Wee see even in well-governed States, where there are lawes and punishments appointed for offendors, yet particular men travell not without their Sword by their sides, for their defences, neither sleep they without shutting not only their doores against their fellow Subjects, but also their Trunks and Coffers for feare of domestiques. Can men give a clearer testimony of the distrust they have each of other, and all, of all? How since they doe thus, and even Countreyes as well as men, they publiquely professe their mutuall feare and diffidence; But in disputing they deny it, thats as much as to say, that out of a desire they have to contradict others, they gainsay themselves. Some object that this principle being admitted, it would needs follow, not onely that all men were wicked (which perhaps though it seeme hard, yet we must yeeld to, since it is so clearly declar'd by holy writ) but also wicked by nature (which cannot be granted without impiety). But this, that men are evill by nature, followes not from this principle; for though the wicked were fewer then the righteous, yet because we cannot distinguish them, there is a necessity of suspecting, heeding, anticipating, subjugating, selfe-defending, ever incident to the most honest, and fairest condition'd; much lesse do's it follow that those who are wicked are so by nature, for though from nature, that is from their first birth, as they are meerly sensible Creatures, they have this disposition, that immediately as much as in them lies, they desire and doe whatsoever is best pleasing to them, that either through feare they fly from, or through hardnesse repell those dangers which approach them, yet are they not for this reason to be accounted wicked; for the affections of the minde which arise onely from the lower parts of the soule are not wicked themselves, but the actions thence proceeding may be so sometimes, as when they are either offensive, or against duty. Unlesse you give Children all they aske for, they are peevish, and cry, I and strike their parents sometimes, and all this they have from nature, yet are they free from guilt, neither may we properly call them wicked; first, because they cannot hurt; next, because wanting the free use of reason they are exempted from all duty; these when they come to riper yeares having acquired power whereby they may doe hurt, if they shall continue to doe the same things, then truly they both begin to be, and are properly accounted wicked; In so much as a wicked man is almost the same thing with a childe growne strong and sturdy, or a man of a childish disposition; and malice the same with a defect of reason in that age, when nature ought to be better governed through good education and experience. Unlesse therefore we will say that men are naturally evill, because they receive not their education and use of reason from nature, we must needs acknowledge that men may derive desire, feare, anger, and other passions from nature, and yet not impute the evill effects of those unto nature. The foundation therefore which I have laid standing firme, I demonstrate in the first place, that the state of men without civill society (which state we may properly call the state of nature) is nothing else but a meere warre of all against all; and in that warre all men have equall right unto all things; Next, that all men as soone as they arrive to understanding of this hatefull condition, doe desire (even nature it selfe compelling them) to be freed from this misery. But that this cannot be done except by compact, they all quitt that right which they have unto all things. Furthermore I declare, and confirme what the nature of compacts is; how and by what meanes the right of one might be transfer'd unto another to make their compacts valid; also what rights, and to whom they must necessarily be granted for the establishing of peace, I meane what those dictates of reason are, which may properly be term'd the Lawes of nature; and all these are contain'd in that part of this booke which I entitle Liberty. These grounds thus layd, I shew farther what civill government, and the supreme power in it, and the divers kinds of it are; by what meanes it becomes so, & what rights particular men, who intend to constitute this civill government, must so necessarily transfer from themselves on the supreme power, whether it be one man, or an assembly of men, that except they doe so it will evidently appeare to be no civill government, but the rights which all men have to all things, that is the rights of tarre will still remaine. Next, I distinguish the divers kindes of it, to wit, Monarchie, Aristocratie, Democratie, and paternall Dominion, and that of Masters over their Servants; I declare how they are constituted, and I compare their severall conveniences and inconveniences each with. other. furthermore, I unfold what those things are which destroy it, and what his or their duty is who rule in chiefe. Last of all, I explicate the natures of the Law, and of sinne, and I distinguish Law from Counsell, from compact, from that which I call Right; all which I comprehend under the title of Dominion.

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