Note 4 — Chapter II · OF THE LAW OF NATURE CONCERNING CONTRACTS.

Right reason.] By right reason in the natural state of men, I understand not, as many do, an infallible faculty, but the act of reasoning, that is, the peculiar and true ratiocination of every man concerning those actions of his, which may either redound to the damage or benefit of his neighbours. I call it peculiar, because although in a civil government the reason of the supreme, that is, the civil law, is to be received by each single subject for the right; yet being without this civil government, in which state no man can know right reason from false, but by comparing it with his own, every man’s own reason is to be accounted, not only the rule of his own actions, which are done at his own peril, but also for the measure of another man’s reason, in such things as do concern him. I call it true, that is, concluding from true principles rightly framed, because that the whole breach of the laws of nature consists in the false reasoning, or rather folly of those men, who see not those duties they are necessarily to perform towards others in order to their own conservation. But the principles of right reasoning about such like duties, are those which are explained in the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh articles of the first chapter.