(¶ 18.7)
[Margin: Sovereign Power not so hurtful as the want of it, and the hurt
proceeds for the greatest part from not submitting readily, to a lesse]
But a man may here object that the condition of subjects is very
miserable, as being obnoxious to the lusts and other irregular
passions of him or them that have so unlimited a power in their hands.
And commonly they that live under a monarch think it the fault of
monarchy; and they that live under the government of democracy, or
other sovereign assembly, attribute all the inconvenience to that form
of Commonwealth; whereas the power in all forms, if they be perfect
enough to protect them, is the same: not considering that the estate
of man can never be without some incommodity or other; and that the
greatest that in any form of government can possibly happen to the
people in general is scarce sensible, in respect of the miseries and
horrible calamities that accompany a civil war, or that dissolute
condition of masterless men without subjection to laws and a
coercive power to tie their hands from rapine and revenge: nor
considering that the greatest pressure of sovereign governors
proceedeth, not from any delight or profit they can expect in the
damage weakening of their subjects, in whose vigour consisteth their
own strength and glory, but in the restiveness of themselves that,
unwillingly contributing to their own defence, make it necessary for
their governors to draw from them what they can in time of peace
that they may have means on any emergent occasion, or sudden need,
to resist or take advantage on their enemies. For all men are by
nature provided of notable multiplying glasses (that is their passions
and self-love) through which every little payment appeareth a great
grievance, but are destitute of those prospective glasses (namely
moral and civil science) to see afar off the miseries that hang over
them and cannot without such payments be avoided.