the laws of our reason.

(16:22) Nevertheless, no one can doubt that it is much better for us to live
according to the laws and assured dictates of reason, for, as we said, they
have men's true good for their object. (23) Moreover, everyone wishes to
live as far as possible securely beyond the reach of fear, and this would be
quite impossible so long as everyone did everything he liked, and reason's
claim was lowered to a par with those of hatred and anger; there is no one
who is not ill at ease in the midst of enmity, hatred, anger, and deceit,
and who does not seek to avoid them as much as he can. [16:3] (24) When we
reflect that men without mutual help, or the aid of reason, must needs live
most miserably, as we clearly proved in Chap. V., we shall plainly see that
men must necessarily come to an agreement to live together as securely and
well as possible if they are to enjoy as a whole the rights which naturally
belong to them as individuals, and their life should be no more conditioned
by the force and desire of individuals, but by the power and will of the
whole body. (25) This end they will be unable to attain if desire be
their only guide (for by the laws of desire each man is drawn in a different
direction); they must, therefore, most firmly decree and establish that they
will be guided in everything by reason (which nobody will dare openly to
repudiate lest he should be taken for a madman), and will restrain any
desire which is injurious to a man's fellows, that they will do to all as
they would be done by, and that they will defend their neighbour's rights as
their own.

(16:26) How such a compact as this should be entered into, how ratified and
established, we will now inquire.

(27) Now it is a universal law of human nature that no one ever neglects
anything which he judges to be good, except with the hope of gaining a