thinks fit, _within the
limits prescribed by the law of nature_; but he soon loses sight of
this all-important limitation, from which natural liberty derives its
form and beauty. Hence it becomes in his mind a power to act as one
pleases, without the restraint or control of any law whatever, either
human or divine. The sovereign will and pleasure of the individual
becomes the only rule of conduct, and lawless anarchy the condition
which it legitimates. Thus, having loosed the bonds and marred the
beauty of natural liberty, he was prepared to see it, now become so
"wild and savage," offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of civil
liberty.

This, too, was the great fundamental error of Hobbes. What Blackstone
thus did through inadvertency, was knowingly and designedly done by the
philosopher of Malmesbury. In a state of nature, says he, all men have a
right to do as they please. Each individual may set up a right to all
things, and consequently to the same things. In other words, in such a
state there is no law, exept that of force. The strong arm of power is
the supreme arbiter of all things. Robbery and outrage and murder are as
lawful as their opposites. That is to say, there is no such thing as a
law of nature; and consequently all things are, in a state of nature,
equally allowable. Thus it was that Hobbes delighted to legitimate the
horrors of a state of nature, as it is called, in order that mankind
might, without a feeling of indignation or regret, see the wild and
ferocious liberty of such a state sacrificed to despotic power. Thus it
was that he endeavoured to recommend the "Leviathan," by contrasting it
with the huger monster called Natural Liberty.

This view of the state of nature, by which all law and the great
Fountain of all law are shut out of the world, was perfectly agreeable
to the atheistical philosophy of Hobbes. From one who had extinguished
the light of nature, and given dominion to the powers of darkness, no
better could have been expected; but is it not deplorable that a
Christian jurist should, even for a moment, have forgotten the great
central light of his own system, and drawn his arguments from such an
abyss of darkness?

Blackstone has thus lost sight of truth, not only in regard to his
general propositions, but also in regard to particular instances. "The
law," says he, "which restrains a man from doing mischief to his
fellow-citizens diminishes the natural liberty of mankind." Now, is