But as
for the ruler, he ought to be absolute, and is above all such
circumstances; because he has a power to do more hurt and wrong, it is
right when he does it. To ask how you may be guarded from or injury on
that side, where the strongest hand is to do it, is presently the
voice of faction and rebellion. As if when men, quitting the state
of Nature, entered into society, they agreed that all of them but
one should be under the restraint of laws; but that he should still
retain all the liberty of the state of Nature, increased with power,
and made licentious by impunity. This is to think that men are so
foolish that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them
by polecats or foxes, but are content, nay, think it safety, to be
devoured by lions.
94. But, whatever flatterers may talk to amuse people's
understandings, it never hinders men from feeling; and when they
perceive that any man, in what station soever, is out of the bounds of
the civil society they are of, and that they have no appeal, on earth,
against any harm they may receive from him, they are apt to think
themselves in the state of Nature, in respect of him whom they find to
be so; and to take care, as soon as they can, to have that safety
and security, in civil society, for which it was first instituted, and
for which only they entered into it.
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