bloodshed.  If any mischief come in such cases, it is not to be 
charged upon him who defends his own right, but on him that 
invades his neighbours.  If the innocent honest man must quietly 
quit all he has, for peace sake, to him who will lay violent 
hands upon it, I desire it may be considered, what a kind of 
peace there will be in the world, which consists only in violence 
and rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of 
robbers and oppressors.  VVho would not think it an admirable 
peace betwix the mighty and the mean, when the lamb, without 
resistance, yielded his throat to be torn by the imperious wolf?  
Polyphemus's den gives us a perfect pattern of such a peace, and 
such a government, wherein Ulysses and his companions had nothing 
to do, but quietly to suffer themselves to be devoured.  And no 
doubt Ulysses, who was a prudent man, preached up passive 
obedience, and exhorted them to a quiet submission, by 
representing to them of what concernment peace was to mankind; 
and by shewing the inconveniences might happen, if they should 
offer to resist Polyphemus, who had now the power over them.

     Sec. 229.  The end of government is the good of mankind; and 
which is best for mankind, that the people should be always 
exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers 
should be sometimes liable to be opposed, when they grow 
exorbitant in the use of their power, and employ it for the 
destruction, and not the preservation of the properties of their 
people?

     Sec. 230.  Nor let any one say, that mischief can arise from 
hence, as often as it shall please a busy head, or turbulent 
spirit, to desire the alteration of the government.  It is true, 
such men may stir, whenever they please; but it will be only to 
their own just ruin and perdition: for till the mischief be grown 
general, and the ill designs of the rulers become visible, or 
their attempts sensible to the greater part, the people, who are 
more disposed to suffer than right themselves by resistance, are 
not apt to stir.  The examples of particular injustice, or 
oppression of here and there an unfortunate man, moves them not.  
But if they universally have a persuation, grounded upon manifest 
evidence, that designs are carrying on against their liberties, 
and the general course and tendency of things cannot but give 
them strong suspicions of the evil intention of their governors, 
who is to be blamed for it?  Who can help it, if they, who might 
avoid it, bring themselves into this suspicion?  Are the people 
to be blamed, if they have the sense of rational creatures, and 
can think of things no otherwise than as they find and feel them?  
And is it not rather their fault, who put things into such a 

posture, that they would not have them thought to be as they are?  
I grant, that the pride, ambition, and turbulency of private men 
have sometimes caused great disorders in commonwealths, and 
factions have been fatal to states and kingdoms.  But whether the 
mischief hath oftener begun in the peoples wantonness, and a 
desire to cast off the lawful authority of their rulers, or in 
the rulers insolence, and endeavours to get and exercise an 
arbitrary power over their people; whether oppression, or 
disobedience, gave the first rise to the disorder, I leave it to 
impartial history to determine.  This I am sure, whoever, either 
ruler or subject, by force goes about to invade the rights of 
either prince or people, and lays the foundation for overturning 
the constitution and frame of any just government, is highly 
guilty of the greatest crime, I think, a man is capable of, being 
to answer for all those mischiefs of blood, rapine, and 
desolation, which the breaking to pieces of governments bring on 
a country.  And he who does it, is justly to be esteemed the 
common enemy and pest of mankind, and is to be treated 
accordingly.

         Sec. 231.  That subjects or foreigners, attempting by 
force on the properties of any people, may be resisted with 
force, is agreed on all hands.  But that magistrates, doing the 
same thing, may be resisted, hath of late been denied: as if 
those who had the greatest privileges and advantages by the law, 
had thereby a power to break those laws, by which alone they were 
set in a better place than their brethren: whereas their offence 
is thereby the greater, both as being ungrateful for the greater 
share they have by the law, and breaking also that trust, which 
is put into their hands by their brethren.

         Sec. 232.  Whosoever uses force without right, as every 
one does in society, who does it without law, puts himself into a 
state of war with those against whom he so uses it; and in that 
state all former ties are cancelled, all other rights cease, and 
every one has a right to defend himself, and to resist the 
aggressor.  This is so evident, that Barclay himself, that great 
assertor of the power and sacredness of kings, is forced to 
confess, That it is lawful for the people, in some cases, to 
resist their king; and that too in a chapter, wherein he pretends 
to shew, that the divine law shuts up the people from all manner 
of rebellion.  Whereby it is evident, even by his own doctrine, 
that, since they may in some cases resist, all resisting of 
princes is not rebellion.  His words are these.  Quod siquis 
dicat, Ergone populus tyrannicae crudelitati & furori jugulum 
semper praebebit?  Ergone multitude civitates suas fame, ferro, & 
flamma vastari, seque, conjuges, & liberos fortunae ludibrio & 
tyranni libidini exponi, inque omnia vitae pericula omnesque 
miserias & molestias a rege deduci patientur?  Num illis quod 
omni animantium generi est a natura tributum, denegari debet, ut 
sc. vim vi repellant, seseq; ab injuria, tueantur?  Huic breviter 
responsum sit, Populo universo negari defensionem, quae juris 
naturalis est, neque ultionem quae praeter naturam est adversus