A Digression on the Nature, Usefulness, and Necessity of Wars and Quarrels.

This being a matter of great consequence, the author intends to treat it methodically and at large in a treatise¹ apart, and here to give only some hints of what his large treatise contains. The state of war, natural to all creatures. War is an attempt to take by violence from others a part of what they have and we want. Every man, fully² sensible of his own merit, and finding it not duly regarded by others, has a natural right to take from them all that he thinks due to himself; and every creature, finding its own wants more than those of others, has the same right to take everything its nature requires. Brutes³, much more modest in their pretensions⁴ this way than men, and mean men more than great ones. The higher one raises his pretensions this way, the more bustle⁵ he makes about them, and the more success he has, the greater hero. Thus greater souls, in proportion to their superior merit, claim a greater right to take everything from meaner folks. This the true foundation of grandeur⁶ and heroism⁷, and of the distinction of degrees among men. War, therefore, necessary to establish subordination, and to found cities, kingdoms, &c., as also to purge⁸ bodies politic⁹ of gross humours. Wise princes find it necessary to have wars abroad to keep peace at home. War, famine, and pestilence¹⁰, the usual cures for corruption¹¹ in bodies politic. A comparison of these three — the author is to write a

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