part of mankind, and so must be kept in severely by many restraints, that
it may not break out beyond the bounds that are set to it; the other is
the peculiar virtue of princes, which, as it is more majestic than that
which becomes the rabble, so takes a freer compass, and thus lawful and
unlawful are only measured by pleasure and interest. These practices of
the princes that lie about Utopia, who make so little account of their
faith, seem to be the reasons that determine them to engage in no
confederacy. Perhaps they would change their mind if they lived among
us; but yet, though treaties were more religiously observed, they would
still dislike the custom of making them, since the world has taken up a
false maxim upon it, as if there were no tie of nature uniting one nation
to another, only separated perhaps by a mountain or a river, and that all
were born in a state of hostility, and so might lawfully do all that
mischief to their neighbours against which there is no provision made by
treaties; and that when treaties are made they do not cut off the enmity
or restrain the licence of preying upon each other, if, by the
unskilfulness of wording them, there are not effectual provisoes made
against them; they, on the other hand, judge that no man is to be
esteemed our enemy that has never injured us, and that the partnership of
human nature is instead of a league; and that kindness and good nature
unite men more effectually and with greater strength than any agreements
whatsoever, since thereby the engagements of men's hearts become stronger
than the bond and obligation of words.



OF THEIR MILITARY DISCIPLINE


They detest war as a very brutal thing, and which, to the reproach of