第89章 OF CRIMES,EXCUSES,AND EXTENUATIONS(3)
As for the passions,of hate,lust,ambition,and covetousness,what crimes they are apt to produce is so obvious to every man's experience and understanding as there needeth nothing to be said of them,saving that they are infirmities,so annexed to the nature,both of man and all other living creatures,as that their effects cannot be hindered but by extraordinary use of reason,or a constant severity in punishing them.For in those things men hate,they find a continual and unavoidable molestation;whereby either a man's patience must be everlasting,or he must be eased by removing the power of that which molesteth him:the former is difficult;the latter is many times impossible without some violation of the law.Ambition and covetousness are passions also that are perpetually incumbent and pressing;whereas reason is not perpetually present to resist them:
and therefore whensoever the hope of impunity appears,their effects proceed.And for lust,what it wants in the lasting,it hath in the vehemence,which sufficeth to weigh down the apprehension of all easy or uncertain punishments.
Of all passions,that which inclineth men least to break the laws is fear.Nay,excepting some generous natures,it is the only thing (when there is appearance of profit or pleasure by breaking the laws)that makes men keep them.And yet in many cases a crime may be committed through fear.
For not every fear justifies the action it produceth,but the fear only of corporeal hurt,which we call bodily fear,and from which a man cannot see how to be delivered but by the action.A man is assaulted,fears present death,from which he sees not how to escape but by wounding him that assaulteth him;if he wound him to death,this is no crime,because no man is supposed,at the making of a Commonwealth to have abandoned the defence of his life or limbs,where the law cannot arrive time enough to his assistance.But to kill a man because from his actions or his threatenings I may argue he will kill me when he can (seeing I have time and means to demand protection from the sovereign power)is a crime.Again,a man receives words of disgrace,or some little injuries,for which they that made the laws had assigned no punishment,nor thought it worthy of a man that hath the use of reason to take notice of,and is afraid unless he revenge it he shall fall into contempt,and consequently be obnoxious to the like injuries from others;and to avoid this,breaks the law,and protects himself for the future by the terror of his private revenge.This is a crime:for the hurt is not corporeal,but fantastical,and (though,in this corner of the world,made sensible by a custom not many years since begun,amongst young and vain men)so light as a gallant man,and one that is assured of his own courage,cannot take notice of.Also a man may stand in fear of spirits,either through his own superstition or through too much credit given to other men that tell him of strange dreams and visions;and thereby be made believe they will hurt him for doing or omitting diverse things which,nevertheless,to do or omit is contrary to the laws;and that which is so done,or omitted,is not to be excused by this fear,but is a crime.For,as I have shown before in the second Chapter,dreams be naturally but the fancies remaining in sleep,after the impressions our senses had formerly received waking;and,when men are by any accident unassured they have slept,seem to be real visions;and therefore he that presumes to break the law upon his own or another's dream or pretended vision,or upon other fancy of the power of invisible spirits than is permitted by the Commonwealth,leaveth the law of nature,which is a certain offence,and followeth the imagery of his own or another private man's brain,which he can never know whether it signifieth anything or nothing,nor whether he that tells his dream say true or lie;which if every private man should have leave to do (as they must,by the law of nature,if any one have it),there could no law be made to hold,and so all Commonwealth would be dissolved.
From these different sources of crimes,it appears already that all crimes are not,as the Stoics of old time maintained,of the same alloy.There is place,not only for excuse,by which that which seemed a crime is proved to be none at all;but also for extenuation,by which the crime,that seemed great,is made less.
For though all crimes do equally deserve the name of injustice,as all deviation from a straight line is equally crookedness,which the Stoics rightly observed;yet it does not follow that all crimes are equally unjust,no more than that all crooked lines are equally crooked;which the Stoics,not observing,held it as great a crime to kill a hen,against the law,as to kill one's father.
That which totally excuseth a fact,and takes away from it the nature of a crime,can be none but that which,at the same time,taketh away the obligation of the law.For the fact committed once against the law,if he that committed it be obliged to the law,can be no other than a crime.
The want of means to know the law totally excuseth:for the law whereof a man has no means to inform himself is not obligatory.But the want of diligence to enquire shall not be considered as a want of means;nor shall any man that pretendeth to reason enough for the government of his own affairs be supposed to want means to know the laws of nature;because they are known by the reason he pretends to:
only children and madmen are excused from offences against the law natural.
Where a man is captive,or in the power of the enemy (and he is then in the power of the enemy when his person,or his means of living,is so),if it be without his own fault,the obligation of the law ceaseth;because he must obey the enemy,or die,and consequently such obedience is no crime:for no man is obliged (when the protection of the law faileth)not to protect himself by the best means he can.