[Author's Endnotes] to the Treatise.





[16:0] CHAPTER XVI - OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF A STATE; OF THE
NATURAL AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS; AND OF THE
RIGHTS OF THE SOVEREIGN POWER.

(1) Hitherto our care has been to separate philosophy from theology, and to
show the freedom of thought which such separation insures to both. (2) It is
now time to determine the limits to which such freedom of thought and
discussion may extend itself in the ideal state. (3) For the due
consideration of this question we must examine the foundations of a State,
first turning our attention to the natural rights of individuals, and
afterwards to religion and the state as a whole.

(16:4) By the right and ordinance of nature, I merely mean those natural
laws wherewith we conceive every individual to be conditioned by nature, so
as to live and act in a given way. (5) For instance, fishes are naturally
conditioned for swimming, and the greater for devouring the less; therefore
fishes enjoy the water, and the greater devour the less by sovereign natural
right. [16:1] (6) For it is certain that nature, taken in the abstract, has
sovereign right to do anything, she can; in other words, her right is co-
extensive with her power. (7) The power of nature is the power of God, which
has sovereign right over all things; and, inasmuch as the power of nature
is simply the aggregate of the powers of all her individual components, it
follows that every, individual has sovereign right to do all that he can; in
other words, the rights of an individual extend to the utmost limits of his