HKB
necessity, and would justify the lazy sophism. For the absolute necessity of the sequence of causes would in this matter add nothing to the infallible certainty of a hypothetical necessity.
In the first place, therefore, it must be agreed that it is permitted to kill a madman when one cannot by other means defend oneself. It will be granted also that it is permitted, and often even necessary, to destroy venomous or very noxious animals, although they be not so by their own fault.
Secondly, one inflicts punishments upon a beast, despite its lack of reason and freedom, when one deems that this may serve to correct it: thus one punishes dogs and horses, and indeed with much success. Rewards serve us no less in the managing of animals: when an animal is hungry, the food that is given to him causes him to do what otherwise would never be obtained from him.
Thirdly, one would inflict even on beasts capital punishments (where it is no longer a question of correcting the beast that is punished) if this punishment could serve as an example, or inspire terror in others, to make them cease from evil doing. Rorarius, in his book on reason in beasts, says that in Africa they crucified lions, in order to drive away other lions from the towns and frequented places, and that he had observed in passing through the province of Juelich that they hanged wolves there in order to ensure greater safety for the sheepfolds. There are people in the villages also who nail birds of prey to the doors of houses, with the idea that other birds of the same kind will then not so readily appear. These measures would always be justified if they were of any avail.
Then, in the fourth place, since experience proves that the fear of chastisements and the hope of rewards serves to make men abstain from evil and strive to do good, one would have good reason to avail oneself of such, even though men were acting under necessity, whatever the necessity might be. The objection will be raised that if good or evil is necessary it is useless to avail oneself of means to obtain it or to hinder it: but the answer has already been given above in the passage combating the lazy [161] sophism. If good or evil were a necessity without these means, then such means would be unavailing; but it is not so. These goods and evils come only with the aid of these means, and if these results were necessary the means would be a part of the causes rendering them necessary, since experience teaches us that often fear or hope hinders evil or advances good. This objection, then, differs hardly at all from the lazy sophism, which we raise against the certainty as well as the necessity of future events. Thus one may say that these objections are directed equally against hypothetical necessity and absolute necessity, and that they prove as much against the one as against the other, that is to say, nothing at all.
There was a great dispute between Bishop Bramhall and Mr. Hobbes, which began when they were both in Paris, and which was continued after their return to England; all the parts of it are to be found collected in a quarto volume published in London in the year 1656. They are all in English, and have not been translated as far as I know, nor inserted in the Collection of Works in Latin by Mr. Hobbes. I had already read these writings, and have obtained them again since. And I had observed at the outset that he had not at all proved the absolute necessity of all things, but had shown sufficiently that necessity would not overthrow all the rules of divine or human justice, and would not prevent altogether the exercise of this virtue.