Page:Two Treatises of Government.djvu/216

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202
Of Civil-Government.

damage he has received. That, he who has ſuffered the damage has a right to demand in his own name, and he alone can remit: the damnified perſon has this power of appropriating to himſelf the goods or ſervice of the offender, by right of ſelf-preſervation, as every man has a power to puniſh the crime, to prevent its being committed again, by the right he has of preſerving all mankind, and doing all reaſonable things he can in order to that end: and thus it is, that every man, in the ſtate of nature, has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like injury, which no reparation can compenſate, by the example of the puniſhment that attends it from every body, and alſo to ſecure men from the attempts of a criminal, who having renounced reaſon, the common rule and meaſure God hath given to mankind, hath, by the unjuſt violence and ſlaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war againſt all mankind, and therefore may be deſtroyed as a lion or a tyger, one of thoſe wild ſavage beaſts, with whom men can have no ſociety nor ſecurity: and upon this is grounded that great law of nature, Whoſo ſheddeth man's blood, by man ſhall his blood be ſhed. And Cain was ſo fully convinced, that every one had a right to deſtroy ſuch a criminal, that after the murder of his brother, he cries out, Every one that findeth

me,