Midterm Practice

Prompt:
“Fear [sic], and Liberty are consistent . . . . And generally all actions which men do [sic] in Common-wealths, for fear [sic] of the law, are actions, which the doers had liberty to omit […]. Liberty and Necessity are Consistent [. . .]. [B]ecause they proceed from their will, proceed from liberty; and yet, because every act of man’s [sic] will, and every desire, and inclination proceeds [sic] from some cause, and that from another cause, in a continual [sic] chain [sic], (whose first link in the hand of God the first of all causes,) they proceed from necessity.”
- Thomas Hobbes

Everyone lives in fear. Hobbes believes that natural liberty results in such a fear, and was thus omitted via the ways of commonwealth. Yet, he was mistaken in such a thought for those who joined the commonwealth did not always practice the sacrifice of their freedoms for safety they receive. Though law is to diminish terror, it can never destroy fear.

Hobbes has made governance a clear matter of unity throughout his Leviathan. But this direct quotation of his text state that, in simplest of terms that liberty of men is war (which is, in his terms, every man against every man) for no man can govern himself appropriately for the good of mankind without a peaceful covenant (society) to guide him. And this war is made up of his needs, as thus it "proceed[s] from necessity", or, in a sense, all their liberties (and thus their lives) stem from their necessities and absolute need for their procuration. Each man must, himself, acquire enough to continue his survival, and that soon takes precedence over that of his fellow's survival, stealing whatever he may need from said fellow (even so much as their life) via liberties acquired through the natural state of man. Adversely, those from whom the necessities are acquired live in a state of fear, wondering, as they continue to survive- weather struggling or doing such easily - if they will wake up the next morn. Hobbe's continues, though, that in commonwealths it becomes the fear of the law that pushes man to find more peaceful relations and omit the liberties he would have otherwise used to attain these necessities. Thus, it is not so much that "Fear [sic], and Liberty are consistent..." and "Liberty and Necessity are Consistent...", rather that fear and necessity are bound together and thus consistent to the ties brought on by man's liberty (both individual and that of the commonwealth).

And though these liberties were to be omitted in conjoining with the commonwealth, there are still those whom strive to keep them. Bound to the commonwealth they have become and seek haven amongst it, but they dissent from what they must give in return in order to create a true commonwealth, a power of all united in one. These people are known as criminals, using their natural liberties - which have been willingly relinquished in the creation of the commonwealth - to meet their own necessities and selfish gains. In the sense of the consistencies between liberty, needs, and fear Hobbes was correct; yet, in belief that the only fear in the omition of their liberty would be to the law was erroneous. For, those who have their necessities must arm themselves with what the commonwealth will allow to protect themselves from these dissenters, in both the manner of bodily injury and economic loss. These peoples (and those who have little of their needs met) must live in fear of what will soon happen to them by ways of these criminals, who, as would brutes, will murder and steal to gain what they wish. When omitted, these liberties cause no fear, but dissenters of the commonwealth practice them still, scorching away the peace which was once commonwealth.

As thus, the fears derived by natural liberty were never vanquished. Necessity is met by ways of force via the powers of freedom in man. Laws are a testament to find peaceful ways to meet such needs within the covenants of security that bind the commonwealth, with the dread of disobeying such laws omitting certain peoples liberties in relation of that. But, laws do not stop all, and there are still those whom practice their natural born freedoms as they dissent the commonwealths of security to which they are bound. Man has thus not surrendered himself to the higher power of religion, justice, or even society. To each his own, the unwritten law of humanity, for it defines each and every action.