compensate the damage which they mutually do to each other, in
proportion as they become better informed of the services which they
ought to do; or whether, upon the whole, they would not be much
happier in a condition, where they had nothing to fear or to hope from
each other, than in that where they had submitted to an universal
subserviency, and have obliged themselves to depend for everything
upon the good will of those, who do not think themselves obliged to
give anything in return.

But above all things let us beware concluding with Hobbes, that man,
as having no idea of goodness, must be naturally bad; that he is
vicious because he does not know what virtue is; that he always
refuses to do any service to those of his own species, because he
believes that none is due to them; that, in virtue of that right which
he justly claims to everything he wants, he foolishly looks upon
himself as proprietor of the whole universe. Hobbes very plainly saw
the flaws in all the modern definitions of natural right: but the
consequences, which he draws from his own definition, show that it is,
in the sense he understands it, equally exceptionable. This author, to
argue from his own principles, should say that the state of nature,
being that where the care of our own preservation interferes least
with the preservation of others, was of course the most favourable to
peace, and most suitable to mankind; whereas he advances the very
reverse in consequence of his having injudiciously admitted, as
objects of that care which savage man should take of his preservation,
the satisfaction of numberless passions which are the work of society,
and have rendered laws necessary. A bad man, says he, is a robust
child. But this is not proving that savage man is a robust child; and
though we were to grant that he was, what could this philosopher infer
from such a concession? That if this man, when robust, depended on