least, there are set up two sorts of justice; the one
is mean, and creeps on the ground, and therefore becomes none but the
lower part of mankind, and so must be kept in severely by many
restraints that it may not break out beyond the bounds that are set to
it. The other is the peculiar virtue of princes, which as it is more
majestic than that which becomes the rabble, so takes a freer compass;
and thus lawful and unlawful are only measured by pleasure and interest.
These practices of the princes that lie about Utopia, who make so little
account of their faith, seem to be the reasons that determine them to
engage in no confederacies; perhaps they would change their mind if they
lived among us; but yet though treaties were more religiously observed,
they would still dislike the custom of making them; since the world has
taken up a false maxim upon it, as if there were no tie of Nature
uniting one nation to another, only separated perhaps by a mountain or a
river, and that all were born in a state of hostility, and so might
lawfully do all that mischief to their neighbours against which there is
no provision made by treaties; and that when treaties are made, they do
not cut off the enmity, or restrain the license of preying upon each
other, if by the unskilfulness of wording them there are not effectual
provisoes made against them. They, on the other hand, judge that no man
is to be esteemed our enemy that has never injured us; and that the
partnership of the human nature is instead of a league. And that
kindness and good-nature unite men more effectually and with greater
strength than any agreements whatsoever; since thereby the engagements
of men's hearts become stronger than the bond and obligation of words.

OF THEIR MILITARY DISCIPLINE.

They detest war as a very brutal thing; and which, to the reproach of
human nature, is more practised by men than by any sort of beasts. They,
in opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations, think that
there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war.
And therefore though they accustom themselves daily to military
exercises and the discipline of war, in which not only their men but
their women likewise are trained up, that in cases of necessity they may
not be quite useless; yet they do not rashly engage in war, unless it be
either to defend themselves, or their friends, from any unjust
aggressors; or out of good-nature or in compassion assist an