which Spinoza entertains. He recognises no other. His words are:
_unusquisque tantum juris habet quantum potentia valet_;[1] each man
has as much right as he has power. And again: _uniuscujusque jus
potentia ejus definitur_; each man's right is determined by his
power.[2] Hobbes seems to have started this conception of Right,[3]
and he adds the strange comment that the Right of the good Lord to all
things rests on nothing but His omnipotence.

[Footnote 1: _Tract. Theol. Pol_., ch. ii., § 8.]

[Footnote 2: _Ethics_, IV., xxxvii., 1.]

[Footnote 3: Particularly in a passage in the _De Cive_, I, § 14.]

Now this is a conception of Right which, both in theory and in
practice, no longer prevails in the civic world; but in the world
in general, though abolished in theory, it continues to apply in
practice. The consequences of neglecting it may be seen in the case
of China. Threatened by rebellion within and foes without, this great
empire is in a defenceless state, and has to pay the penalty of having
cultivated only the arts of peace and ignored the arts of war.

There is a certain analogy between the operations of nature and those
of man which is a peculiar but not fortuitous character, and is based
on the identity of the will in both. When the herbivorous animals had
taken their place in the organic world, beasts of prey made their
appearance--necessarily a late appearance--in each species, and
proceeded to live upon them. Just in the same way, as soon as by
honest toil and in the sweat of their faces men have won from the
ground what is needed for the support of their societies, a number of