ABSTRACT
Agreement on the laws of nature is not sufficient to remove people from the radical form of their natural condition because obedience to them is not sufficient to do the job; hence Hobbes's point that the laws of nature bind only in foro interna in our natural condition. The natural law and the civil law contain each other, and the natural law needs the civil law if it is to be effective. One of the roles of the sovereign is to interpret the laws of nature and make them effective. Hobbes's claim that the laws of nature are easy to see, so that violators have no excuse for their violation, warrants some comment. Some of Hobbes's later laws of nature are concerned simply with what people are to do as a matter of applying the earlier laws, but others, of which this is one, are more concerned with the usefulness of certain sorts of motivation.
