Book cover Leviathan

A Rule, By Which The Laws Of Nature May Easily Be Examined

Leviathan
Published by:
Thomas Hobbes
Block: 246ba2b86e764bef909e7599044762d3

A Rule, By Which The Laws Of Nature May Easily Be Examined

And though this may seem too subtile a deduction of the Lawes of Nature, to be taken notice of by all men; whereof the most part are too busie in getting food, and the rest too negligent to understand; yet to leave all men unexcusable, they have been contracted into one easie sum, intelligible even to the meanest capacity; and that is, “Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thy selfe;” which sheweth him, that he has no more to do in learning the Lawes of Nature, but, when weighing the actions of other men with his own, they seem too heavy, to put them into the other part of the ballance, and his own into their place, that his own passions, and selfe-love, may adde nothing to the weight; and then there is none of these Lawes of Nature that will not appear unto him very reasonable.