Fact Be Vertuous, Or Vicious, As Fortune

For If All Things Were Equally In All Men, Nothing Would Be Prized.

True And False Are Attributes Of Speech, Not Of Things. And Where Speech Is Not, There Is Neither Truth Nor Falsehood.

And In These Four Things, Opinion Of Ghosts , Ignorance Of Second Causes, Devotion Towards What Men Fear , And Taking Of Things Casual For Prognostics , Consisteth The Natural Seed Of Religion ; Which By Reason Of The Different Fancies, Judgments And Passions Of Several Men, Has Grown Up Into Ceremonies So Different, That Those Which Are Used By One Man, Are For The Most Part Ridiculous To Another.

So That In The First Place, I Put For A General Inclination Of All Mankind A Perpetual And Restless Desire Of Power After Power, That Ceaseth Only In Death. And The Cause Of This Is Not Always That A Man Hopes For A More Intensive Delight Than He Has Already Attained To, Or That He Cannot Be Content With A Moderate Power: But Because He Cannot Assure The Power And Means To Live Well, Which He Hath Present, Without The Acquisition Of More.

The Obligation Of Subjects To The Sovereign Is Understood To Last As Long, And No Longer, Than The Power Lasteth By Which He Is Able To Protect Them.