Free Political Propositions

that the prosperity of the lesser the common people can thereby be notoriously opposed and hindered: For although it is firmly established that in a well-ordered Republic, one human—according to the requirement of his superior quality—may indeed fare better than another of lesser condition or worth; yet it remains no less certain that no one, however humble, can ever fare poorly through any disorder of that same Republic. And where no one, with regard to the state of the Republic, can be said to fare poorly, there they may truly, in that same regard, all be said to fare well. From which legitimate descriptions of a Commonwealth, I conclude (against all high-flying and off-track drivers of a Commonwealth, who want one to pursue and advocate for the Commonwealth without regard for its particular goods, without being able to see and notice through their confused reflections on a Commonwealth that the Commonwealth is the sum or the entire assembly of every particular good, and that no one of the members may or can be excluded without injury to the common) that by no one who is of sound mind can a Commonwealth be considered or pursued other than to better obtain his particular good and prosperity. And in so far as we can notice and understand that no particular good outside of the common can be deemed or said to be truly pleasant or sustainable; so much the more and more zealously will the general prosperity be pursued by every righteous soul. The bodily interests then are (and in which the most agreement among humans is found, as all agree and accord therein) that they, outside of any physical coercion and threat, may well be protected and fed in healthy soundness, enjoying the fulfillment of all reasonable desires and inclinations with the greatest mutual security. According to the soul, they also all agree here as well, and which consequently may be placed as a first general interest: that no one wishes to be deceived. For which reason, from their very nature, the Lie, the Liar, and the Deceiver appear; but all, one less, the other more, crave and strive to hear, to hold onto, and to support the truth and its proclaimers and clear presenters. But through their nature of unlimited desires, they are usually—and before their judgment is ripe and stable—beset and taken in by many false opinions and prejudices by their crafty, honor- and wealth-seeking fellow humans, so that they are, so to speak, mostly all drowned before they know water. To prevent this with the most profit and safely, we wish, contrary to all pretender political writers, that all deceit and violence be opposed and warded off from a free Republic with the closest care and oversight: For it has, in this world, been a common way of acting until now, by most of all who brought any assembly of humans to any kind of policy or initial change and improvement, that they first recommended and tried to establish their pretended religions—in fact, a collection of feigned superstitions—in order. The human, thus being done to him with a thousand types of terrors, fears, and unfounded hopes, finds himself robbed of all his rightful thoughts of measure, so that he is made entirely fit to be led and steered toward all slavish extremities for the pleasure of the Deceivers and Tyrants.