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Red
OUTLINES OF LECTURES
ON
POLITICAL SCIENCE
BEING MAINLY A REVIEW OF THE
POLITICAL THEORIES OF HOBBES
BY YE LATE
w! Jy? "CAMPION, M.A.
TUTOR OF KEBLE COLLEGE, OXFORD
FIFTH EDITION, REVISED
PRIVATELY PRINTED
Copies may be obtained from
B. H. BLACKWELL
50 & 51 BROAD STREET
OXFORD
1902
Je
153
OXFORD
PRINTED BY B. H. BLACKWELL
50 AND 51 BROAD STREET
[PRINTED 1892]
[RE-PRINTED 1894]
[RE-PRINTED 1895]
[RE-PRINTED 1898]
[RE-PRINTED 1902]
PREFACE.
t
THESE pages contain the substance of a course of lectures delivered by
Mr. Campion, on behalf of the Modern History Tutors' Association, to
Undergraduates reading for the Honour School of Modern History and
intended to serve as an introduction to their study of Political Science.
The books on this subject prescribed by the regulations of the Modern
History School are necessarily limited in number and in scope, and con-
sisted, at the time at which these lectures were delivered, of Bluntschli's
Theory of the State, Maine's Ancient Law, Aristotle's Politics, and the
chapters on the Social Contract in Hobbes' Leviathan. Among these Mr.
Campion chose Hobbes ás forming the best available material on which
to base a course of introductory lectures which should try to map out for
beginners the characteristic features of the country upon which they were
just entering. The substance, and to a great extent the form, of the lectures
were accordingly dictated to him by the exigencies of the examination, and
those who knew Mr. Campion the best will feel the most keenly how in-
adequately the following pages represent the richness of his mind or the
completeness of his knowledge on the subjects of which he is treating.
They form but a fragment of a fragment of his Oxford work, and occupied
but a few hours comparatively speaking of his Oxford life, but there was
no part of his work in which he took a more zealous and genuine interest,
no part of his time which he more willingly surrendered than that which
he passed with his History pupils in the study of Political Science, for to
his mind the acquisition of right views of political and social thinking was
the first step towards the right solution of those political and social problems
which lay so near his heart.
It is thought that these Notes, rough and incomplete as in many cases
they are, may be found useful to some who are beginning to read Political
Science by helping to clear the ground for future study.
H. 0. W.
Oxford, 1892.
CONTENTS.
19
Lecture I.
THE PRECURSORS or HOBBES.
Lecture II.
HOBBES' LIFE. Thr: INFLUENCES BROUGHT TO BEAR ON HIM.
His GENERAL POSITION AND SYSTEM.
Lecture III.
The Social. CONTRACT.
Lecture IV.
HOBIES' THEORY OF SOVEREIGNTY.
Lecture V.
THE TRUE BASIS OF THE STATE.
Lecture VI.
THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.
Lecture VII.
FORMS ON GOVERNMENT.
Lecture VIII.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL CONTRACT SCHOOL
AFTER HOBBES.
NOTES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Lecture I.
THE PRECURSORS OF HOBBES.
It is always difficult to know where to begin in History. We
have to make beginnings; there are none such in History
itself. The beginning I choose therefore is arbitrary; I can-
not justify it; it must justify itself if at all. I do not propose
at first to go back into the middle ages, not because there is
nothing worth recording on political science between Aristotle
and Hobbes : the human mind was not at rest for those 2000
years. But I would say this much. (1) That one main
interest of mediaeval political science is to trace the way in
which the re-discovery of Aristotle's Politics gave the impulse
to an attempt to bring its teaching into relation to Christian
theology (e.g. in St. Thomas Aquinas on the ecclesiastical
side in the thirteenth, and Marsilio of Padua on the imperial
side in the fourteenth centuries). (2) That one new question
of first-rate importance came necessarily into the field of view
of the mediaeval political thinkers. In Aristotle's time there
was no Church, and you could not adopt Aristotle's view of
the State as a moral agency, without considering what were
its relations to the Christian Church. Thus the middle ages
bequeathed to all subsequent thinkers on the State the problem
of the relations of Church and State as one of those with
which they had to deal. This is well illustrated by the fact
that Hobbes has for the subject of the Third Book of The
Leviathan ‘Of a Christian Commonwealth.'
Our detailed study shall begin with three writers to whom
I believe Hobbes to have been most largely indebted. It is
impossible to say how far that debt was direct, because he
rarely quotes or gives references. But he reproduces their
points of view or modes of thought. These three are !
Macchiavelli, Bodin, Hooker. Hobbes has in common with i X
Macchiavelli the distinctively modern scientific method in
politics, and his conception of the depravity of mankind;
with Bodin an absolutist theory of sovereignty; with Hooker
his theory of the State as resting on a contract.
11. MACCHIAVELLI marks the rise of a new epoch. The !
mediaeval world is passing away: the modern world is
coming on the scene. The difference may be put as follows:
The notes of Mediaeval thought were (1) the excessive defer-
ence to authority of all kinds, whether of Greek philosophers
1-


like Aristotle or Christian doctors like Augustine; and (2) the
attempt to organize into a complete system all that was
thought or known. The notes of Renaissance thought are-
(1) absolutely free inquiry on grounds of human reason; and
(2) the separation of the different spheres of thought, e.g.,'
politics from ethics and from theology. The change is often
exaggerated. Mediaeval modes of thought survived, e.g., in
Bacon, who is often represented as the prophet of a new era
in science; and again in Hobbes as we shall see later. But
Macchiavelli represents the new ways of thinking in their
most sharply accentuated form.
(1) His Writings. His writings on political science are
The Prince and the Discorsi or Lectures on Livy. The Prince
was written for a special purpose, to win the favour of Julian
de Medicis, and to regain the employment which he had
previously had for fifteen years in the service of the State
of Florence. The Discorsi were not published till after his
death, and are therefore the best clue to his real views.
(2) His Method is characteristic. He writes with the
passionless curiosity of a man of science, observing the con-
nexion of causes and effects in human nature, not as it ought
to be, but as it is. And yet he is no speculative theorist, but
a man of government. He notes his result for use. He might
have adopted Bacon's saying, 'Scientia propter potentium
(3) His Views. (a) As to the origin of government, he
comes really though not formally very near to Hobbes.
There is no such sharp distinction between a state of nature
and a state of society. Nor is there any explicit theory of
a social contract. But he is like Hobbes in biolding that all
x men are naturally bad, and will show the utmost malignity as
often as they have occasion withi security; like him in holding
that justice has its root in positive and actual law, and not
vice-versa, and that accordingly it is law which makes nen
good, though he admits that you cannot have good laws
without good customs.
(6) As to forms of government Macchiavelli follows Aristotle
in classifying into three good forms and three perverted
forms, but he lays little stress on this; the particular form
depends on the character of the people and is unimportant.
What is important is the rapid circulation of States through
an historical cycle ranging between extreme tyranny and
extreme licentiousness. All forms of government are weak
and unstable: perhaps the best is a mixed form giving scope
alike to prince, nobles, and people. Here Macchiavelli lis
in direct issue with Hobbes, who holds that an absolute
monarchyras the most highly centralized form of government
is the best. Where they agree is in the need for a strong
and permanent government.
(c) Thus as to the aim of government, Macchiavelli holds

that its one aim is to secure permanence for the State. Here
he was influenced by what he saw around him. It is not
true that Macchiavelli recommended tyranny as such. His
preference was for a Free State. But the explanation of
the attitude he takes up in The Prince is to be found in the
circumstances of his time. He saw Italy under a number of
petty governments perpetually struggling against internal
and external violence and fraud. His attitude may be illus-
trated by his complaint of the temporal power of the Popes
that it is the cause of the cantonization of Italy, because it is
not strong enough to conquer Italy nor weak enough to allow
someone else to do it. Nor is any of the Republics 'strong
enough to undertake the needed task. What is wanted is
a strong central power to weld Italy into a kingdom able to
resist French and Spanish Invaders.
With this sense of the need of a strong and permanent
State, he was certainly not over scrupulous in the means
he recommended. He divorced politics from ethics. The
statesman, he taught, has no business with moral rules or
abstract rights. To him good faith and justice, clemency and
religion, are simply tools which he uses when convenient.
His one concern is for what makes for the strength and power
of the State.
2. JEAN BODIN. Macchiavelli died in 1532. Speculations
on government spread in the remaiaing years of the sixteenth
century. Political pamphlets became common. The lines of
political speculation were not very clearly defined. Men in
the spirit of Macchiavelli made their political system to suit i
their interests. But in the main it is true to say that two-
great lines of thought marked themselves out: (i.) that which
grounded sovereignty on the direct gift of God, and therefore
made it absolute and perpetual; (ii.) that which grounded it
on the consent of the people, and therefore made it limited
and revocable if the conditions on which it was given were
not fulfilled. And the first or absolutist theory was as a rule
that of the lawyers, and the second or more democratic theory
as a rule that of the ecclesiastics.
Jean Bodin was one of those who held the first view.
He lived like Hobbes in the midst of civil war and in an
atmosphere saturated with Macchiavellism. His great work,
· The Republic, was published in 1577, was widely read, and
had a great influence in England, where it was lectured on
both at London and Cambridge.
Bodin is not, like Macchiavelli, monarchial by accident,
but through and through. He traces back the origin of
society to the family which he regards as a kind of natural
monarchy under the authority of its head. The father is the
image of God, who is the all-powerful and universal Father.
The sovereign fills the same place in the State that the
14
1
father does in the family. All sovereignty may be defined
as supreme and absolute power subject to no law. Those
who hold temporary and revocable powers are guardians and
not sovereigns. The true sovereign gives laws to the people
without their consent. It is true that Bodin, like Hobbes,
admits that this sovereignty may be held by the people
(democracy), or by the nobles (aristocracy), but, like Hobbes
again, he holds that the unity of the State is best secured by
a succession of hereditary kings.
*Are there then no limits to the sovereign's power? The
sovereign as the source of human law is above all ordinary
human law. But (i.) he is bound by the law of nature, which
is the law of God and of reason; (ii.) he is further bound by
certain organic and fundamental laws of the State, e.g., by
the Salic Law in France. This goes beyond any concession
by Hobbes on the same point.
3. HOOKER. Just about the time that Bodin was giving
shape to the absolutist theory of sovereignty, the opposite
theory of sovereignty, as resting on the consent of the people,
was taking definite form and crystallizing itself in the theory
that government originated in a social contract or compact.
Contract as the source of government was in the air; we
find it in the Vindiciae Contra Tyrannosi ascribed to Hubert
Languet, 1579, or again in Althusius of Emden (1557-1638);
we find it lastly in the Ecclesiastical Polity of Richard Hooker,
Books I. and VIII., published about 1593.
Hooker's theory of government is in the main based on that
of Thomas Aquinas. Hooker is unlike Macchiavelli before
him and Hobbes after him, in finding the ultimate ground
of society, not in human depravity, but like Aristotle and
Aquinas, in the social nature of man. Even if man had
remained innocent, it was only the formation of a common-
wealth which would have given him a life worthy of him.
But the depravation of man increased the need. Thus the
evils of a Stateless society became intolerable. The only way
out is ‘by growing into composition and agreement among
themselves by ordering some kind of government, and yielding
themselves thereto.' Now notice,
(1) That in this statement you have the idea of a social
contract, but it is only in process of formation. It combines
Aristotle's idea of the origin of society through a natural
growth with the idea of the formation of society by "com-
position and agreement among its members,' but it does not
say, as later upholders of the social contract did, that that
'composition and agreement' took place at one definite time
once and for all.
1 English Historical Review, Vol. IV. E. Armstrong on Political Theories
of the Huguenots, pp. 28–34.
(2) That it is an attempt to give historical setting to a
theory of the nature of society which Hooker held, viz., as
resting on consent. Thus he finds the sanction of positive
law in consent, which may be given either through repre-
sentatives directly, or indirectly by tacit acquiescence. The
ultimate power of making laws binding on a society always
lies in the whole of that society.
(3) That the contract, as shadowed out by Hooker, is one
which imposes obligations over ruler as well as ruled. The
sovereign is under law. Some things he can only do with the
explicit consent of Lords and Commons, and in general his
power is derivative and abridged and restrained by the laws
of the realm. Hooker's idea of the nature of the social
contract agrees with that of Locke rather than with that
of Hobbes.
-
-
-
-
Lecture II.
TT
HOBBES' LIFE.
THE INFLUENCES BROUGHT TO BEAR ON HIM.
HIS GENERAL POSITION AND SYSTEM.
LII
HOBBES was born in the year of the great Armada. The last
of his writings was issued posthumously in the year of the
English Revolution, 1688, a century later. Thus his life
covered the period in which the great question of the nature
of political authority was fought out in England.
1. Hobbes was naturally a recluse. He wanted quiet and
peace to read and think. He lived in one of the most turbu-
lent periods of English history. Many of his friends were
killed in the civil war. His physical timidity and his love of
a student life made him look with positive abhorrence on the
time of the Commonwealth. He thought that England was
reduced to primitive savagery, and that the whole fabric of
order and civilization was broken in pieces. It is this which
is always in his mind when he speaks of thelstate of mature as
a state of war. For Hobbes, the one great heed of his time,
'which stood far ahead of everything else, was the need of an
ordered and settled government.
2. He was sent to Oxford as a young man and resided at
Magdalen Hall from 1603-8. Magdalen Hall was during that
time the home of the rising Puritanism, having 200 members,
and holding a prominent place in the University. At Oxford
Hobbes learned little ; he did not care for either formal logic
or mediaeval physics. He did however acquire a certain
amount of scholarship. But the influences which moulded his
thought came later, except in one respect; he came away
from Oxford with a strong view already formed as to the
danger of the antinomian elements in Puritanism, and the
need of subjecting religion to State authority. Lastly, it was
at Oxford, I am' afraid, that he learned his contempt for the
learning of the Universities: it seems indeed to have been
a time of great disorder: even Responsions had collapsed.
3. Hobbes lived abroad in France, Germany, and Italy,
during twenty years of his life, especially at Paris. He had,
therefore, great opportunity for political observation, and
especially of studying the working of Italian statecraft-the
statecraft of Macchiavelli—and the attempt of Richelieu to
establish absolutism in France. Hobbes' foreign experience
: widened his outlook and enabled him to shake loose from
English ways of thought. He seems to me the most
i
un-English of the great English thinkers, with his love of
paradox, his clear-cut intellectual workmanship, his disregard
of practical consequences..
4. But further, both abroad and in England, Hobbes came
into contact with the leaders in the great forward intellectual
movement of his time. At Florence he met Galileo; later he
corresponded with Descartes. At Paris he lived in the society
of the group of scientists who gathered round Mersenne.
Lastly, in England he was the intimate friend and secretary-
of Lord Bacon, in the last years of his life, after his disgrace,
when he was giving his whole time and thought to philosophy
and science.
Hobbes' general position and system. Kuno Fischer, in
his History of Philosophy, says that the work of Hobbes was
to apply to the moral and political world the same methods -
that Bacon applied to the natural world. This seems
an exaggeration of Hobbes' debt to Bacon. There is no
doubt he was largely indebted to Bacon. No young man could
have been brought under Bacon's influence without being so.
There is no doubt that Bacon trained him in those habits of?
analysis, observation and exact definition, which he did apply
to moral and political science. But Hobbes was a man who
developed late in life. He did not read Euclid till he was over
forty. He did not publish his first book on Political Science
till he was sixty. And it would seem that the prevailing
influences belong to a period later than Bacon, when the.
impulse to scientific study was specially calling men's atten-
tion to mathematics and niechanics. The Cartesian Philosophy ·
is mathematical in character. Galileo's discovery of the helio-
centric system was probably the greatest scientific discovery.
Hobbes himself was a diligent and learned student of optics. -
It seems that Hobbes' general view of the world is definitely
mechanical in character. He regards human opinions and
actions, just as much as the processes of the natural world, as
systems of forces, which you can discover by analysis, and
with which, when discovered, you can produce the required
effect. Thus 'in the well governing of men's motives con-
sisteth the well governing of men's actions. And the aim of
reason was 'to fly about among the creatures and bring back
a true report of their order, causes, and effects.
I say that Hobbes' general view of lhe world, moral or natural.;
was izchanical, because Hobbes' aim was to produce a com-V
plete systemom. It was still the age of system. Bacon 'took
all knowledge for his province'; Descartes thought of -
knowledge as a tree. The idea of specialization which
Macchiavelli had introduced had not yet borne much fruit.
We must not forget that the part of Hobbes we read is a frag-
ment of a fragment: it is only a part of his political theory, and
that again is only a part of his theory of the world as a whole.
1 2
Now the subject of Hobbes' system was Body, but body
conceived mechanically.
The world then consists of bodies--but these bodies are of
two kinds, (i.) bodies natural, whether living or not, and (ii.)
bodies political, which are not natural, but formed by human
art, i.e., human Societies or States. Accordingly Knowledge
falls into two parts, Natural Philosophy and Civil Philosophy
(cf. Leviathan, Bk. I. ch. 9, table). Subsequently he made a
different division, the three parts of his system treating (i.) of
Body, (ii.) of Man, (iii.) of Citizen-Man being regarded as a
sort of middle term between the natural and the political body.
Analogy of the Body Polític to the Human Body. You
will find on the title-page of The Leviathan, a picture (printed
in the original edition of 1651, and reproduced in Moles-
worth's edition) of the Leviathan or political body, made
up of a number of men and with various other symbols. The
analogy is worked out in great detail and runs through the
whole political system. But note :-
(1) It is not original with Hobbes. I believe that the
analogy is first found in a Roman Treatise, the Institutio
Trajini of the later Empire. From this treatise it was adopted
by John of Salisbury, the Secretary of Thomas Becket. He
compares the State to a living body, the soul represented by
religion, the head by the prince. The senate is the heart, the
soldiery the hands, the husbandmen and artisans the feet, and
the judges the eyes. He compares the administration of
finance to the stomach, always inclined to bring disorders
on the rest of the body. Hobbes had very likely read the
Polykraticus of John of Salisbury—or he may have re-invented
the analogy which is a fairly obvious one.
(2) By using the analogy of Society to the body, Hobbes.
does not imply what we should by it-simply that society is
not organic. On the contrary he regards body itself as mechanical,
as a system of joints and pulleys. He only uses the analogy
as a convenient framework, and it does not seem to have
really influenced his thought.
Value and Defects of the Analogy in Modern Political
Science. Since Darwin the comparison of the body politic
to the human body has become the governing ideal of social
science. This is due to the fact that biology has been the
moving science, and that biological methods and ideas have
spread over all fields of thought. Just as Sir Heniy Maine
shows how conceptions of natural law were in Hobbes' time
the dominant conceptions in all science, so it is at present
with biological ideas. The social organism has taken the
place of the social contract, the organic of the mechanical
idea of society.
There are great gains in the change.
(i.) The idea of society as an organism brings out the fact
13
111
that though each of the individual men in the social body is
in a sense independent, yet he only lives the full life of a man
by being a member of society. A man, says Aristotle, who
could live out of society would be a beast or a god, below or
above the ordinary conditions of human nature.
(ii.) It also follows that the growth of the State is a natural
and not an artificial one, and thus that it is nearer to a living
being than to a machine.
Both these truths were touched by Aristotle, but in view !
of theories of social contract it was necessary that they
should be re-emphasized : only there are serious dangers
underlying the phrase, which have become more apparent as
its use has become general-
1. Society is a moral organism, and the attributes of the
living body cannot without the most careful scrutiny be ascribed
to it. It does grow in a sense. It is continually changing,
and yet through all its changes there remains a common
character. Its successive stages are not disconnected-its past
history influences every common decision of its members.
But it does not grow as a sheep grows, still less as a
shrub grows. The physicial conditions which surround it
no doubt influence its life, but only by acting on human
characters, i.e., by ceasing to be merely physical and
becoming moral. The State, therefore, which is an organized
form of Society, may be said to have a life and conscience
of its own, in a sense; but that life is simply the free
play, the action and reaction, of the wills and characters
of individuals, and that conscience is the outcome of the
collision of individual ideas of right and justice.
2. The phrase, "Social Organism,' or the saying that
Society is organic is true, so far as it teaches us that the
individual is not there fully fashioned before the State comes
to him, but that from the beginning he is formed and
fashioned by the State and its institutions. On the other
hand it may lead us to omit the complementary truth that
the State is composed of individuals, and that the important
thing is not to make men conform to certain laws, but to v
make them better in themselves. As against this view I
lought to mention that Herbert Spencer, the great upholder of
the social organism theory, is also the strenuous maintainer
of the rights of individuals. · But none the less I believe that
Herbert Spencer is inconsistent, and that the organic idea 7
of society unduly favours socialism as against individualism.
3. You can illustrate a higher by a lower sphere, and
social by physical science. But it is after all only an
illustration, and to argue from it as a valid starting-point
reduces the higher to the level of the lower.
[For a critique of the conception of a social organism, see Mackenzie's
ntroduction to Social Philosophy.]
Lecture III.
THE SOCIAL CONTRACT.
STT
The earliest part of Hobbe's system was written the last.
In 1640 he circulated a little treatise called The Elements
of Law, Moral, and Political, in which he gives the main
points of his theory of man and of society. But the first at
all complete instalment was the De Cive, published in 1642,
containing all the main points of his theory of society. This
was followed in 1651 by The Leviathan; in English, fuller
still than the De Cive on the theory of society, with an
introductory part on the theory of man.
The reason why he inverted the natural order and wrote
the De Cive before the De Corpore and the De Homine was
i the pressing need he felt for a new theory of government
which should afford a firm basis for authority. I can best
give you an idea of the arguments by which the Stuart cause
was being upheld by a brief sketch of Filmer's Patriarcha,
not published till 1680, but written about the same time as
the Leviathan or rather earlier. v Filmer was a defender of
the divine right of kings. In theory he was as thorough as
Laud and Strafford were in action. He objects to admitting
the natural liberty or equality of mankind and their right to
choose what form of government they please. .Confute this
first erroneous principle, and the whole fabric of sedition
will fall to the ground. Men are not naturally free, for
they are born in subjection to their parents.
The government of the State grows out of the government
rof the family. The King is universal father. The first
monarch was Adam, who received from God lordship over
the whole world. This lordship descended from him to
the patriarchs and so to modern kings.
Thus the only true form of government is a monarchy, al
others are mere perversions, for a monarchy secures the best
order, the greatest strength, the most stability, the easiest
government. Men talk of the danger of tyranny, but there
is no tyranny like the tyranny of a multitude.
Thus there are no limits to the king's power. The kingly
power is due to the will of God, and no inferior power may
limit it. The king is above the law, which only derives its
authority from him, and is simply a shorthand method to
į save him the trouble of continually deciding on particulai
cases. Nor may the people join with the king in the govern
15
.
C
ment, because it is exactly the having all authority in himself
which makes him to be a king. Nor again has any nation
any rights or privileges or liberties whatever except those
which are due to the bounty of its prince. After all, the
greatest liberty in the world for any people is just this,
to live, under a monarchy.
Now what Hobbes felt was that no such theory of authority,
as this, deriving its source entirely from above, could hold in
the seventeenth century. He was as strong an absolutist as
Filmer, he was as firm a believer, though he makes more
qualifications, in the excellence of monarchy; but he believed
that if monarclıy was to be saved, some concession must be l
made to the widespread belief that authority sprang from
within, from the people themselves. That is the idea
with which Hobbes sets out on his task, and that is the
explanation of the strange juxtaposition of a theory of the
origin of authority which rests it on contract, i.e., on the
formal consent of the people, and ends in making it absolute,
unlimited, and irrevocable. -
* Bearing this in mind, as the clue to Hobbes' general aim,
let us see
1. What is Hobbes' view of human action in general?
He regards everything that men do as motived by the
desire for some imagined pleasure or the aversion to some
imagined pain. Thus all actions, good or bad, are due to a?
few simple passions or appetites such as love, hate, joy, grief.
But as a rule, a struggle of different appetites precedes i
action—then deliberation takes place; we hesitate ; thelle
appetite which ultimately prevails is called will. When .
the choice has been made, reason comes in to show us : j'
how to calculate the means to the desired ends.
Now note that the effect of this is to reduce all human
action to a more or less successful selfishness. Will has
become simply an appetite-Reason the slave of passion."
It is man brought down to his lowest terms, the creatures
of impulse, whom we are to start with, and not man as we
know him, made moral by being brought into social relations.
We start with an imaginary savage, an unreal man.
2. This being the nature of man, what will be the
characteristics of a state of nature, in which men live together
entirely free from all social obligations ?
It is clear that in a state of nature selfishness will have
free play. For a state of nature is the sphere of liberty
in which all artificial restraints are absent. Ing-state
of nature and in this alone men are absolutely free to
display their real naturë..
Again, by nature all men are born equal, both in bodily and
mental powers. Being equal, one man has as much a right
to satisfy his desires as another. In fact, every one has a
Dri
Pr.
16
right to everything. But then, what if two men want the same
thing? They quarrel, and there is no superior to decide
í between them. Force then will be the sole arbiter. Accord-
ingly a state of nature is a state of war. There is a general
desire for security against others, for gain, for reputation; and
this produces a constant struggle to obtain and keep possession
against all comers of these desirable things.
Now in such a state there is no sovereignty; all men are
equal, all men are free; and since there is no sovereignty
therefore there is no justice. Justice is assumed only to exist
where there is a sovereign to enforce it. Where there is no
common power, there is no law; and where there is no law,
there is no justice.'
Further, in a state of nature there is no morality in the
Lordinary sense. 'In a state of nature force and fraud are the
Ttwo cardinal virtues.'
Lastly, there can be no property, 'no mine and thine dis-
tinct, but only that to be every man's which he can get, and
for so long as he can keep it.'
The question naturally arises, did such a state of nature
ever exist as an historical fact? Hobbes will admit that there
is no historical period at which it can be said that a state of
war of every man against every man generally existed. But,
on the other hand, he maintains that it exists even now.
(1) in the case of savage tribes, (2) in the case of sovereigns
who are subject to no common superior. War is the arbiter
between nations. Further, he habitually speaks of it as the
invariable antecedent of all civil community.
3. The next question then is as to the transition from such
a state of nature to civil communities. What was the origin
of organized society?
The ultimate end of all human action is self-preservation-
that is the desire of desires, and a man has by nature the
right to take all means which in his opinion are necessary
to self-preservation. Now it is found by experience that a
state of nature is not favourable to self-preservation, for two
reasons-(1) there is no security for life, (2) there is no se-
curity for property, which is a necessity for commodious
living-in fact, property, as we have seen, cannot be said to
exist in a state of nature.
Thus the state of nature, looked at as an experiment in
living, turns out a failure. The right to everything is found to
be a right to nothing. Complete freedom reduces man to a
mere animal–Homo homini lupus.
What remedy is to be found ? Now it is the business of
reason to suggest means to satisfy desires. How are the
desires for greater security of life and property to be met ?
The means which reasons suggest may be called articles of
peace, since they lead to peace, or, from another point of view,
-
-.
.
.
.. .
.
-
-
.
.
.
.
.
- -
-
-
-
-
17
į Nicare
S
ht. Rem
aws of nature, since they are means to the end, suggested
sy tira deepest human desire—that of self-preservation.
Law i. is fundamental-'to seek peace and ensue it, and v. pero
ailing this, by all means we can to defend ourselves.'
Law ii. follows, 'that a man be willing to give up his v.7**
liberty and right to all things so far as other men will do the
same.' Note, however, that this law, like the first, is a
means to self-preservation. It is therefore not absolute, but
limited, for when the result of this giving up one's liberty is
contrary to self-preservation, the law becomes void. No man
can give up his right to resist death, imprisonment, or bonds.
The importance of this qualification will be seen afterwards.
Now in this second law you have the social contract, which
is the foundation of all social and political life. Remark its
exact form. · There is to be an absolute surrender on the part
of every man of his liberty and natural rights. The character-
istic mark of the state of nature was the hopeless unending
collision of will to will, i.e., of desire to desire. The only
possible way out of this seemed to Hobbes to be the complete ole
surrender by all of their wills through a mutual covenant.
The surrender was to be made to a single person or body,
called the sovereign, so that only one single will was left.
The social contract is the ground of all social union, in
whatever form it takes place, the ground alike of the family,
the rule of master over slave, and of the State. But, further,
it is the basis of morality. As we have seen, there is no
morality in a state of nature. 'Force and fraud are the two
cardinal virtues. But from the two fundamental laws of
nature, quoted above, there follow certain secondary laws,
which are generally called virtues. Thus morality is subse-
quent to the social contract: it depends on the previous
yxistence of the State— Where there is no common power,
here is no law; and where no law, no justice.
Justice is, in fact, the keeping of covenants,' and 'cove-
mants without the sword are mere words.' That is to say,
justice can only exist where there is a coercive power strong
enough to compel men to keep their covenant by the dread of
l punishment greater than the benefits they hope to secure
by breaking them. The only binding motive to be just is
fear. Even in a state of nature the fear of God may secure
something which at all events comes near to morality. But
it is to the fear of man that Hobbes looks as the passion to
be reckoned upon to secure justice.' The whole view bears
a legal and formal character. It goes on the assumption that
men only do right because the law commands it. In the same
way Hobbes deduces with great ingenuity the other virtues-
gratitude, modesty, equity, mercy, and so forth, from the
primitive covenant.
Further we find that in the social community there arises

TX
property, for the social contract supposes that men on entering
into it will be willing to accept for themselves the same tcims
as are imposed on others—i.e., that all the contractors enter
on equal terms. Thus all things which are sought after must
be either (1) divided equally, (2) enjoyed in common, or (3) if
neither of these is possible, they must be assigned by lot as
the only available means of equal distribution. This does not
necessarily mean the actual casting of lots, which is arbitrary
lot, but the matter may be decided by one of the forms of natural
lot, i.e., either by primogeniture or by first seizure, i.e., by the
principle of first possession. Since all men are by nature
equal, equity requires this equality in the distribution of
property. But it is only in a state of society that property,
in a strict sense, can be said to exist at all.
How far is Hobbes original, and how far is he consistent
in his doctrine of social contract ?
(1) Original. The idea of a social contract is certainly not
first found in Hobbes. Not to go back to ancient times, where
both the Sophists and Epicurus have something very like it; it
is found at the end of the XVIth century, in Hubert Languet's
Vindiciae contra tyrannos,' in Althusius and in Hooker.
Hobbes' originality lies, not in the idea of a social contract as
the foundation of society, but in the specific form he gave to
the contract. Former writers had conceived it, as Locke did
afterwards, as a contract by which sovereign and subjects
were equally bound. They had used the theory as a defence
against tyranny (vindiciae contra tyrannos). Hobbes conceives
it as a contract by which the subjects are absolutely bound,
and the sovereign left absolutely free. This was the brilliancy
of Hobbes' argument: he marched boldly into the enemy's
camp, seized their own weapon, and used it against them.
Here in the democratic idea of contract he finds the soliſ
ground on which to rest a defence of absolute sovereignty
To a sovereign claiming divine right the answer may alway
be we do not recognize your right as divine,' 'we do not
consent to your rule;' but once rest sovereignty on a consent
given in the past once and for all, and its claims become
irresistible. It is the turn Hobbes gives to the previously
existing idea of social contract which is the critical point of
his whole argument.
(2) But further, is Hobbes consistent in his account of the
social contract? We note that his conception is not an easy
one to hold. If you asked any one now whether he would
absolutely surrender all his rights and claims (except that of
defending himself against death and bonds), his answer would
probably be in the negative. And it is difficult to conceive a
1 See Political Theories of the Huguenots by E. Armstrong, in English
Historical Review, vol. IV. pp. 48–54.
19
whole body of people in the past uniting in a surrender which
would certainly not be made in the present. The conception
of the social contract is an artificial and abstract one, and
therefore difficult to hold when brought close to actual fact.
Thus when Hobbes comes to deal with Dominion Paternal
and Despotical' in Part II., ch. 20, 2.C., with the family and
slavery, he slips back into the other idea of contract as one
between superior and subjects and not between subject and
subject. The child owes its life to the parent who preserved
it, and therefore is supposed to promise obedience to him
or her. The conquered owes his life to the conqueror's
clemency, in return for which he covenants to give obedience.
No difference, it is true, is made in the rights of the sovereign.
But the contract is here between sovereign and subject, and
not, as in the State, between subject and subject. In fact, it
would be hard to imagine the children of a family meeting
together and agreeing with one another to give up their liberty
to their parents.
But then putting aside the question of consistency, let us
ask how far the social contract can hold as an account of the
origin of society.
I. Is it historical ? Did society, as a matter of fact, have
its origin in such a contract, following on such a state of
na :ure as Hobbes described ?
(a) When we examine the historical evidence for the begin-
nings of society there is much that is doubtful. But what
seems clear is that we must look either to the family or some v
loose form of union such as the horde, rather than to the in-
dividual, for the unit of primitive society. Later researches
have confirmed Aristotle's view that we cannot trace man .
behind the most elementary kolvwvía, or social ties. There is
no trace of a State of Nature' nor of an original contract.
We hear indeed of contracts between tribes and between
states. Rome seems to have had its origin in some such con-
tract. And we hear of contracts between princes and their
subjects, and again between different classes in the com-
munity; never of an original contract between individuals. »
States did not arise like trading companies.
(6) Nor do individuals renew the contract. They are
born and educated as members of a particular state. In
the vast majority of cases there is no conscious choice
about the state to which a man belongs.
(c) Lastly, contract is so far from being the beginning of
social life, that it only appears at a late stage of development.
It is an highly artificial product of civilized society. Status,
as Sir Henry Main teaches us, precedes contract. The duties
and rights involved in the primitive relations of family and
social life are at first taken for granted. It is only later that
they are explicitly recognised and turned into formal agree-
B 2
20
meant. He was society diety:
--
-
--
-
ments. The progress of early society, whatever may be
the case with the later, is from status to contract.
2. But then, it may be urged, that is not what Hobbes
meant. He was not trying to give an historical account
of the origin of society, but a philosophical analysis of the
primary elements of society.
Take that ground, and the theory is stronger. The objec-
tion to it now is not so much that it is untrue, as that it
is one-sided and abstract. It is quite true that there is
an element of consent in all social union; explicitly or im-
plicitly no society can hold together without the consent of
the people forming it.
But (1) consent is not the only element in the social union.
Force is another and important element, especially in
primitive societies. And it is surely not philosophical to
base the state of nature entirely on force, and the state of
society entirely on consent.
(2) The truth which there is in the theory is obscured when
the consent is crystallized into a formal contract. For while
consent does not imply a superior to enforce, a contract does.
And therefore no such contract is thinkable when made by
individuals living outside of society. Hobbes is throwing
into an artificial and legal form a consent which was given
naturally and at first unconsciously.
Lecture IV.
HOBBES' THEORY OF SOVEREIGNTY, -
-
We have seen the form · which Hobbes gave to the social
contract. It was a contract, not between prince and subjects,
but between the subjects, by which they agreed to an absolute
surrender of their Hatural rights and liberty to one man or
body of men. The effect of this surrender was more than
mere temporary consent or concord, it was the absolute re-
duction of all the struggling wills to one will and a real unity
of them all in one person. This person is called by Hobbes
the great Leviathan or mortal god, and is the Sovereign. :
It was this special form given by Hobbes to the social con-
tract which enabled him to base upon it the absolutist theory
of sovereignty which he had learnt from Bodin. That theory
had been confirmed not only by his English experience in the
time of the Civil War, but also by his observation of the drift
of things in France and elsewhere abroad, the break-up of
local government, the formation of strong central govern-
ments, and, amid the general unsettlement, the hope of order
in kingly power. Thus Hobbes thinks of local groups able
to contest the power with the central sovereign as being like
parasites preying on the human body, weakening its forces,
and hindering its circulation. What was wanted was a sover-
eign, supreme in all cases and over all causes, able to alter all
laws, subject to no human power.
Thus the power of the sovereign is absolute. It cannot be
forfeited by breach of contract, for the sovereign makes no
contract with the subjects. Nor can the sovereign, whatever
be his actions, be said to injure the subjects, for each of them
is the author of all he does. He is supreme legislator and
may make and alter all laws. He is the supreme executive
authority, and may take any means he thinks necessary to
secure good government. This includes the regulation of all
opinion publicly taught, for 'in the well governing of opinions
consisteth the well governing of men's actions. He is the
ultimate judicial authority, and the judges only act as his
delegates. Lastly, he is personally inviolable and cannot be
punished.
***These rights of the sovereign are indivisible and cannot
be granted away, The only limit of the sovereign power
Hobbes finds in the law of nature by which he is bound to
provide for the welfare of the people, that being the end for
which he is trusted with the sovereign power. But for

22
obedience to this law he is responsible to God alone-no
human power can call him to account.
Note (1) the reference throughout, while the general form
is kept, to the questions which had arisen between Charles I
and the parliament;
(2) that this centralized theory of sovereignty was not for
long allowed to hold the field alone. A very different theory
of sovereignty underlies the speculations of Montesquieu in
the next century. Hobbes found the safety of the State in
the concentration of the powers of government, Montesquieu
in their division. And it was Montesquieu's theory and not
Hobbes' which moulded the greatest political experiment
of modern times—the Constitution of the United States of
America. On the other hand, the Constitution of England
has approximated more and more nearly to Hobbes' ideal,
and in the Parliament of England you have a sovereign such
as Hobbes imagined, free from all constitutional restraint,
subject to no human superior, able to make and un-make
laws. (See Dicey, Law of the Constitution, lect. ii.)
The reverse side of Hobbes' theory of sovereignty is to
be found in his account of liberty.
1. Where a sovereign does not exist, i.e., in a state of
nature, there is absolute liberty. The state of nature is the
sphere of liberty. And when Rome and Athens are spoken
of as free commonwealths, this is what is really meant: they
were free because they were subject to no external sovereign
and therefore in a state of nature in regard to other common-
wealths. This freedom is common to monarchies and popular
governments, in fact, to all independent states. But freedom
in the sense of the right of the individual to resist the sover-
eign, his own representative, no more existed in Athens and
Rome than elsewhere. Teachers like Aristotle held that:
liberty in this sense was a mark of democracy, but their
object was simply to encourage the Athenians who lived
under a democracy to be satisfied therewith.
2. But still, even in a state of society, whether the govern-
ment be monarchical or otherwise, liberty exists in certain
senses.
(a) All actions are in one sense free which are not done
under actual physical compulsion. The fact that an action is
done from fear of the law does not destroy its freedom in this
sense.
(6) Again, there are certain matters on which the law has
not spoken, and here men are absolutely free, as much as in
a state of nature. The liberty of subjects in this sense
depends on the silence of princes. On the other hand, the
sovereign does no injury to the subject if he afterwards
punishes him, even with death, for what he was at liberty
to do—for the sovereign never wanteth right to do anything
he wills.
23
(c) But passing on to the fullest sense of liberty, let us ask
what are the things which, though commanded by the sover-
eign, the subject may without injustice refuse to do? And
here the limitation we noticed to the social contract, otherwise
absolute, comes in. No man can transfer by covenant the
ultimate and inalienable right of self-preservation, because
covenants are simply means to self-preservation. Thus no
man is bound to kill himself or to abstain from defending
himself, or to confess a crime he has committed. Nor, fur-
ther, is a man bound to kill another man, unless his refusal
frustrate the end for which sovereignty is instituted. This
exception is extended to cover the case of a man declining to
act as a soldier, if he provides a substitute, so that the end of
national defence is attained.
* Lastly, and this is the most important limitation, if the
sovereign ceases to be de facto sovereign, and fails to give
protection to person and property, then the subject is ipso
facto released from his contract, and falls back on his natural
right to self-preservation. Short of this, no subject is free to
break the contract once entered into by himself or by his
ancestor on his behalf. For in so doing he returns to the
confusion of a disunited multitude.
Thus Hobbes does not absolutely deny the right of resist- !
ance, but it is limited to three cases-
(1) Where it is necessary to defend one's own life or to
protect oneself from physical injury:
(2) Where a command of the sovereign to take 'another
man's life, e.g., in war, can be disobeyed without imperilling
the end for which sovereignty exists :
(3) Where the sovereign is so weak, that he cannot secure
law or order.
Hobbes raises here the question of the right of resistance
to the sovereign or the state. Is it in any case justifiable ?
or, in other words, are there any cases in which it is a duty to
resist?
Let us clear the ground by saying that there is no special
right in a majority as such to resist an obnoxious decision.
If the right, or rather the duty, existed at all, it would equally
be the duty of a minority.
But under a thoroughly constitutional government, where,
if public opinion is sufficiently aroused, the law is altered at
once, it would seem to be the duty of the good citizen in ordi-
nary cases to submit and to try to get the law altered. The
(evils of resistance would be greater than the good. This would
apply to matters ecclesiastical as well as civil supposing that
the Church is regarded as a branch of State administration,
and that is the underlying assumption of the outcry against
some of the clergy for not obeying the law. If, however, the
Church is regarded as in any sense a corporation independent
24
.
of and parallel to the State, then quite a different order of
questions would arise, as to whether the Church has freedom
of self-government, and whether the State may not be impos-
ing on her conditions which she ought not to accept and
would not accept if she had free utterance. But putting
aside these questions, on the other hand supposing there are
no constitutional means provided of getting the law altered,
the questions would be
(1) Is there a possibility of arousing a strong and intelli-
gent public opinion in favour of resistance, and could the
change be made without overthrowing the government ?
(2) If not, would the overthrowing of the government in-
volve a state of anarchy worse than any possible evil resulting
from submitting ?
(3) Or, is the government so riddled with private interests
that it is better to risk anything than allow it to go on?
(4) Or lastly, does the individual believe that as a matter of
conscience he ought to offer at least a passive resistance to the
law by refusing to comply, and bearing the punishment which
the law inflicts, rather than to give assent by compliance to
what he believes morally wrong? In such cases you cannot
say he is wrong, though often you may think him unwise.
Three consequences from Hobbes' theory of sovereignty
may be followed out here.
(1) The centralized theory of sovereignty involves the
absolute subjection of the spiritual power to the temporal.
Any such view as that of Lord Bacon that they have separate
spheres assigned to them, and must not interfere with one
another's provinces, leads, according to Hobbes' point of
view, to anarchy, i.e., to two ultimate powers not subject to
any common superior. Thus Hobbes was, as Von Ranke
points out, one of the greatest opponents of hierarchical rule
that ever existed. The sovereign is to decide what doctrines
are fitting to be taught, the subjects are bound to obey,
though not necessarily to believe, what is declared by the
law of the Commonwealth to be the Divine law. As he puts
it with his usual irony, there is no reason why subjects should
be less bound to obey the law, when it is propounded in the
name of God.
(2) A second consequence which flows from Hobbes' account
of sovereignty, is his theory of punishment. Punishment, he
holds, is not grounded on any direct concession or gift of the
subjects, in the social contract or otherwise, but on the
sovereign's natural right of self-preservation. The subjects
also in a state of nature had the right to inflict any injury on
one another which they thought necessary to their self-pre-
servation. They have surrendered that right : the sovereign
alone retains it. It was not given but left to him, and to him
alone. And he has the right of using it (within the limits
25
fixed by the law of nature) as freely as he would have done in
the state of universal war.
This is the ground of punishment, and its object is, as we
should expect with Hobbes, purely deterrent or preventive.
All punishment for simple revenge is bad, and a good punish-
ment is one which succeeds in creating sufficient terror in the
subjects to prevent the further infringement of the law.
Hobbes' account of the ground of punishment can hardly
be accepted. In the first place, it practically assumed that the
sovereign is a single individual. The right to inflict injury
could not be said to be left to a body, because they never had
it. Then, the right of the State to punish does not rest on the
right of private vengeance existing in a state of nature. In
fact the State steps in not to adopt, but first to regulate, and
then to abolish the right of private vengeance. Hobbes
admits this when he says that, in a state of society, any
punishment which is not deterrent is a piece of private revenge,
and so is to be regarded as an act of hostility rather than of
punishment. The ground on which the State punishes is that
it is its business to prevent the infringement of those rights
which it secures to all its citizens, in other words to prevent
the infringement of the just and regulated freedom of one
citizen by another. But it is a mere fiction to suppose that
this right is the continuance of the rights of individuals or
grows out of them. In fact in a state of nature, if we could
conceive it, there would be no rights. Rights are essentially
dependent on the existence of a regulated and ordered society.
On the other hand, Hobbes would seem to have fixed on
the principal object of punishment in making it deterrent.
Other aims of punishment that have been suggested are (1)
Tetribution, (2) restoration or cure of the evildoer. The
idea of retribution is no doubt prominent in early ideas of
punishment-an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But
this belongs to the stage when punishment has still clinging
to it ideas of private revenge, either of individual against
individual or more commonly of group against group, and
is simply regulated by the State, e.g. by fixing the wergild.
As punishment has passed more completely into the hands
of the State the idea of an offended person has necessarily
(except so far as the State is held to be a person) vanished,
and with it the virdictive or retributive action of punishment.
As Plato puts it, vindiclive punishment is useless, because
that which is done cannot be undone.
On the other hand, punishment may be said to be retributive
in this sense, that the evildoer suffers the amount and kind of
punishment which he himself must recognize, though perhaps
he would not admit it, as the necessary and natural consequence
of his deeds, if the order of society and its settled system of
rights is to be maintained. The retribution is not based on
what is abstractly just, but on the particular idea of justice
embodied in a certain state of society and its laws.
1 But the main object of punishment, as Hobbes points out
is to be deterrent or preventive. This does not mean what
Hobbes would seem to imply, that the government may use
any kind of terror which will induce men to act according
to its wishes. On the contrary, its business is to maintain a
system of ordered rights, and excessive or arbitrary punish-
ment would be as much an infringement in one direction as
anarchy and disorder in another.
But it does mean that what the administrators of law have
first of all to consider is not the amendment of the criminal or
his exact moral delinquency, but whether the crime which he
has committed is dangerous to human society, and whether
it is one alarmingly prevalent. Punishments for the same
offence may thus justly differ at different times, according to
the state of the society in which they are inflicted.
But though the restoration or cure of the criminal is not
the primary aim of State punishment, as is seen, e.g., by
the case of capital punishment, yet the remedial agency of
punishment is one that may fairly be kept in view as a
secondary aim. Here again Plato helps us. “It is better
for the evil doer to be found out and punished than to remain
undetected.' Punishment is for the good of the evil doer,
though that is not its primary aim when inflicted by the
State. This, I think, may be defended even in the extreme
case of capital punishment, though here it can hardly be said
to be the primary object. The remedial aim of punishment
would thus come in, when the amount of punishment has
been fixed on other grounds, in deciding as between two
forms of punishment for the one most likely to lead to moral
reformation. Yet even here it is not so much moral reforma-
tion as such that the State should have in view, but rather
the fitting of the individual for the restoration of his suspended
rights as speedily as may be. Further, the same aim would
lead to the turning of the prison into a reformatory, so far as
is consistent with keeping the deterrent character of punish-
ment. We certainly have not reached that point in England.
[For what may be done in this way read the State Reformatory at Elmiri,
by A. Winter (Social Science Series).
On the general subject see Bentham, Principles, Ch. 13; T. H. Green,
Phil. Works, Vol. 2, p: 486; Lotze, Practical Phil., Ch. 7.]
(3) From Hobbes' view of the sovereign as the binding
power, without which men are in a state of nature with
regard to one another, flows also his view of the relations
of States to one another. No political theory is complete
without somehow indicating the mutual relations of States, for,
after all, society is organised as a number of States, not as one
State. And so even Hobbes admits international relations,
27
but he admits them only to put them outside the pale of
ordered social life. Independent nations have no common
superior: they are therefore in the same position as men
living in a state of nature, i.e. of universal war. The same
atomism which appeared in Hobbes' treatment of the natural
relations of men appears also in his treatment of the relations
of States. Thus the law of nations is the law of nature.
This last conclusion is not peculiar to Hobbes: it is the
ordinary postulate of writers on international law (see Maine,
Ancient Law, Ch. 4). But writers like Grotius do not use it
in Hobbes' sense. What they mean is that in the absence of
contractual relations you fall back on the law of nature and
of God, i.e., on the moral law binding on all human beings.
But I may point out here Hobbes' curious inversion of the
term. As it came down to Hobbes from Stoic Philosophy,
through Roman Law and mediaeval Theology, it meant a law
unchangeable, universally valid and binding on all rational
beings. And Hobbes speaks of it quite in the way of Thomas
Aquinas or Hooker, as eternal, immutable, and binding on all
men. But it is clear that he only means on all men living in
civil commonwealths, because, as we have seen before, in a
state of nature 'force and fraud are the two cardinal virtues,'
and even now all persons not having a common superior are
living in a state of nature with regard to one another. Fur-
ther, it is not binding as a moral law on all men's consciences,
except so far as directly revealed by God, but only binding
because, given the end--which is peace—you are bound to
take the necessary means thereto. But peace is only the end
when men have decided to leave the state of nature. Thus
the law of nature, meaning the moral law, is not-binding in a
state of nature--but only the law of nature as meaning the
duty of self-preservation. Hobbes plays double with these
two senses of natural law.
I.
/
Lecture V.
LY
THE TRUE BASIS OF THE STATE.
The theory of sovereignty raises the question—which is the
ultimate question of Political Science-as to the true basis of
the State, -on what in the last resort does it rest? What is
the ultimate analysis of the principle or principles in human
nature from which it springs ?
Two principal answers have been given to these questions.
The first is force, the second is consent, and these I propose
to discuss. Hobbes, as we have seen, recognizes both these
principles though not both at the same time, first force in a
state of nature, then consent as the beginning of society, then
force again after the formation of society by the social con-
tract. But it will be convenient to consider the development
given to the two parts of his theory, the theory of sover-
eignty, and the social contract, separately.
Hobbes' theory of sovereignty was taken up by Bentham
in his Fragment on Government, published in the year 1776,
and Bentham's analysis was carried on and drawn out by
John Austin in his Province of Jurisprudence Determined.
The centre of Austin's theory is the account of sovereignty
in Chapter VI. His principal thesis is this, “That in every
independent political community there is a determinate human
superior having supreme coercive force, to whom habitual
obedience is rendered by the bulk of the society, and who is
not subject to any superior power. The determinate human
superior may be a person or group of persons, and is in either,
case called the sovereign.'
Let us try and draw out the points of this definition of
sovereignty.
(1) The sovereign is a determinate human superior. This
excludes any such idea of sovereignty as is implied in the
phrases sovereignty of the people-sovereignty of public
opinion.
(2) The sovereign must receive an habitual obedience.
The formed habit of the society must be to obey---obedience
only given at intervals or when the sovereign did not do
certain things, would not satisfy the definition.
(3) The bulk of the society must obey, not necessarily all,
but at least a considerable majority ; otherwise you have a
state of anarchy, which must ultimately break up the society.
When, however, the break-up is over, there will be in each of
29
1
VY1
the separate parts, if they are independent, a sovereign such
as is described in definition.
(4) The sovereign must be subject to no other human
power. Thus a dependent State is not in Austin's sense a
State at all. Further, within the State the sovereign power
admits of no limitation whatever, nor of any division of the
executive and legislative powers. The only possible distinc-
tion of powers is that between the supreme power on the one
hand, and subordinate delegated powers on the other.
(5) Lastly, the one attribute ascribed to the sovereign is
that of force, 'having supreme coercive force. Accordingly
terms like obligation, law, duty, right, rest simply on force,
i.e., on the commands of the sovereign issued with sanctions
annexed, these sanctions being punishments which will be
incurred by those who do not obey the commands.
Austin's theory has been examined and criticized by Sir
Henry Maine in the last two chapters of his Early History of
Institutions, and by Professor Green in his lectures on the
Ground of Political Obligation.
Their criticism may be conveniently summed up under two
heads-(i.) that Austin's account of sovereignty does not
apply to all independent political communities; (ii.) that even
in those societies to which it does apply, it is abstract and
needs supplementing by further considerations.
1. Austin's account of the sovereign is stated as a fact. In
every independent society there is a sovereign. Therefore
our first question is whether this is true, and we find-
(a) That Austin himself admits that there are groups not
numerous enough to be political. We need not therefore
consider such early forms of social union as the family in the
patriarchal stage:
(6) That there are States in which there is no determinate
human superior in Austin's sense, but the habitual obedience
of the society is rendered to immemorial usage administered
by village elders and priests under traditional and religious
sanctions. This obedience is only varied by the occasional
interference of a despotic ruler levying taxes, and issuing
occasional commands. This system prevailed in the great
ancient Empires and in the provinces of the Roman Empire.
It is still a form of government in the East, e.g., in India. No
analysis can discover in such States a sovereign in Austin's
sense.
(c) Thus Austin's theory is limited to a few small ancient
States, such as some of the City States of Greece, and to
modern States, 1.6., to the States founded on the ruins of the
Roman Empire; in which there has been greater 'trituration'
1 Philosophical Works, Vol. II.; and also published separately, with
preface by B. Bosanquet (Longmans).
30
of the component parts and increased centralization. Thus
the sovereign appears as acting more from outside the lesser
groups, and the attribute of force is more prominent. But
even here it is not always easy to discover a sovereign in
Austin's sense, e.g., in the United States of America Austin
finds the true sovereign in a three-fourths majority of the
States, who alone can alter the constitution. But for fifty
years that sovereign slept, no change being made in the con-
stitution, and it may safely be said that no ordinary American
ever thinks of three-fourths of the States as the sovereign. It
is a true analysis on Austin's assumption, but it is rather a
distorted way of looking at the facts. Austin's definition, it
is clear, does not apply as naturally to a federation of States
as to an unified State like England.
Again, there will only be an Austinian sovereign when the
following conditions are satisfied : (1) Common or customary
law must have been almost completely done away with, so
that what remains can be said really and not merely by a
legal fiction to come under the maxim what the sovereign
permits he commands :'
(2) Further, no great questions or points of possible dispute
between the State and the lesser groups must be left open;
because, in that case, it is clear that the power of the sovereign
to alter everything may, if applied to these questions, fail.
It is true, however, that the modern type of State tends
more and more to satisfy these conditions. Even in America
the trend is in the direction of a closer national unity between
the States. The later State constitutions are more favourable
to the Nation and less favourable to the States than the
earlier ones. And thus it would seem that the type of State
towards which we are moving is one in which the Austinian
sovereign, a person or persons able to alter everything and
having supreme coercive force does exist. The Parliament
(King, Lords and Commons) in England is a body of that
kind.
2. The further question arises whether even in such a
society it is an exhaustive explanation of the facts ?
We see at once when we ask this question-
(1) That the force at the back of law is not exercised at
the good will and pleasure of the person or small body of
persons who legislate and govern, but that their actions are
moulded by that whole mass of moral influences, defining
what they may do and what they may not do, which we call
public opinion. This public opinion is partly expressed in
conventions which though unwritten are quite as binding as
actual statute law, and partly shows itself in resistance
through the press and public meetings to any unpopular
measure, partly in the choice between two different pro-
grammes made in elections :
31
(2) Further, that it is not the force which the sovereign
exercises which is the habitual determinant of the odedience
of the bulk of the people. Austin is carried away here by
his lawyer point of view, just as Hobbes was by his strong
belief in human depravity. The habitual obedience, e.g., of
the bulk of Englishmen to the law, is because they believe
that what the law commands is best for the society as a whole,
in fact because they give their consent.
We have to consider next the application of the other
element of Hobbes' theory, that of the social contract, to give
a connected theory of sovereignty as based on consent.
This application was given by Rousseau. Like Hobbes, he
regards society as formed by an original contract, but he did
not regard the function of consent as exhausted in that initial
step. The consent of the people appears also (1) in the
subsequent and distinct act by which a government is
appointed. Hobbes had also held that this was the case.
First the social contract was made, and then it was left to the
majority to choose the sovereign. But in Hobbes' theory the
distinction is blurred and inconspicuous, in Rousseau's it is
more prominent: (2) in the renewal of that act at stated
intervals by a decision of the whole people on the two follow-
ing points, (a) whether the present form of government is to
be continued, (b) whether the present governors are to con-
tinue in office.
The sovereign with Rousseau is thus the general will of the
people, which is to be exercised, not as in Hobbes once and
for all, but constantly, or rather at regularly recurring inter-
vals. When, however, we examine the difficulties to which
this theory of sovereignty is exposed, we find it as abstract,
as much dependent on fictions, as that which grounded sove-
reignity solely on force.
(1) The question at once arises—What is to be done with a
refractory minority ? It is true that unanimity is required for
the original contract,, but not for subsequent acts of the
sovereign people. Thus after the first generation there may
be individuals in the State who have not consented to any of
its acts. Rousseau's answer is that if the will of the indi-
vidual conflicts with that of the sovereign, it is only because
his particular interests conflict with the general interest. But
the general interest represents his true will. And therefore
in such cases, for his own good, he must be forced to be
free.' This is very likely true, but is it consistent with the
theory of consent ?
(2) Again, is every decision of the sovereign people an
expression of the general will ? How then about two con-
tradictory decisions ? To this question Rousseau answers-
(1) That it is quite true that the will of all as expressed in
particular decisions may differ from the general will. The

32
1)
sovereign may be led astray (a) by lack of information, or
(6) by the existence of parties and cliques giving certain
private interests, which ought to neutralise one another, an
undue weight. Thus the sovereign may go astray and decide
contrary to the true or general will of the people. On the
other hand, (2) it is impossible for the sovereign to lay on
the subjects any command which is not for the good of the
community. These two positions are inconsistent, and the
second presumes infallibility on the part of the sovereign
people. It is certainly true that the sovereign always ought
to act for the good of the community. But it is also clear
that it does not always do so. And therefore the theory that
it represents the truer self of the governed and always
decides, as they would decide if they were perfectly en-
lightened and totally free from the pressure of class interests,
breaks down.
Thus as an analysis of actually existing societies, the
theory of the State as based on consent cannot hold. It
neglects the fact that in no existing State do all the people
share in legislation. It leaves us in doubt as to what the
decisions of the true sovereign are; for the sovereigns of
existing States are not sovereigns in Rousseau's sense. In
fact so clear is this, that Rousseau has been practically inter-
preted to mean, not that in all States the actual sovereign is
the general will of the people, but that the only legitimate
sovereign is the general will, and the only true form of
government a democracy.
It would seem that we get nearest to the truth by regarding
the force theory and the consent theory as each expressing
sides of the truth and so as complementary to one another,
1. On the one hand, any State without force or not needing
force is an impossible abstraction. Such a State would
require (1) that there were no bad men, (2) that there were no
differences of opinion on matters of general interest, or that
if there were, the minority would at once give way to the
majority without compulsion, and (3) that society could
dispense with the formative action of law on public opinion.
Law, in fact, acts by crystallizing the moral judgments of the
community. It gives them expression in a series of precise
formulæ, and enforces them with the whole power of the
community. In that way it is the means by which average
opinion fixes a minimum of morality, below which it will not
allow members of the society to sink without punishment.
But further, note its indirect effects. For good citizens it
fixes a far higher standard than that which it actually enforces:
for they will abstain from any course of action likely in its
possible consequences to bring them into collision with the
law. Law, though it only enforces a minimum of mortality,
yet suggests a moral standard considerably higher than that
33
which it actually formulates. (See Dicey, Law of the Consti-
tution, last chapter.)
Such conditions are not satisfied in modern States. Still
less were they satisfied in primitive States. 'Behind the
fairest show of order, right dealing, and courtesy, stands the
armed force of the community'(Walker), or better, 'the armed
conscience of the community' (Bradley).
The armed Conscience. For,
2. Force is not the ultimate thing. Force is only effectual,
except perhaps for some brief periods of usurpation, when it
stands as the symbol of something else. To the Greek the
name by which a rule of mere force was known, was tyranny.
The tyrant or despot was one who recognized no rights in
others, and who therefore was himself outside the pale of
right. You killed him if you met him, and were a better
citizen for doing it. Tyranny, as Aristotle points out, is the
most shortlived of all forms of government.
Even in primitive States where force appears in its crudest
forms, it is only effectual when consent is given to its exer-
cise. And that consent is only given because it is felt in
some dim way to be the minister of right, because it is used
to secure rights necessary to the common good. Where
Rousseau helps us is that he sees this. Professor Green's
judgment is that the permanent valuable thing in Rousseau
is the conception of the State as representing a general
will and having a claim to obedience on that account.' No
doubt Rousseau's use of the word sovereign is misleading.
It was already in use in a precise legal sense, and he uses it
in a vague general one. But the truth remains, when the
question of terms had been disposed of, that it is exactly this
floating body of opinion, this general will, which Rousseau
calls the sovereign, to which the State gives expression, and
on which it ultimately rests.
Lecture VI.
THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.
The weakest point of the social contract school is the con-
fusion between the historical question as to the origin of
society, and the philosophical question as to the nature and
fundamental elements of society. The result of this confusion
is that the historical study of the genesis of society is
obscured by reading back into it preconceived ideas, and the
philosophical analysis is weakened by the necessity of repre-
senting in successive stages elements whose relations and
mutual interaction should be studied in order to appreciate
the whole of the problem.
Philosophy, therefore, as well as history, has gained by the
separation of the historical from the philosophical question.
This service we owe principally to the historical method.
Montesquieu was the first in modern times to attempt the
study of society by the method of comparison and apart from
abstract preconceptions. Burke stated the philosophical
principles on which the historical method rests. The first to
apply it on a large scale was Savigny, the great German
lawyer. The first to give admirable examples of its applica-
tion was the English student of law, Sir Henry Maine.
Among the problems which he deals with by the historical
method is this of the origin of society. He first handled it in
Ancient Law (1861), (ch. v. "Primitive Society and Ancient
Law') and he returns to it again in Early Law and Custom
(1883), (ch. vii. 'Theories of Primitive Society') in view of the
new evidence discovered in the interval and of the objections
raised to his conclusions in Ancient Law.
The main conclusion of Ancient Law was that 'the effect
of the evidence derived from comparative Jurisprudence is to
establish that view of the primaeval condition of the human
race which is known as the Patriarchal Theory. The Patri-
archal Theory was suggested by the Semitic Old Testament
writings, but its main support is found by Sir H. Maine
to lie in the evidence of the primitive law of Indo-European
or Aryan races. The characteristic mark of the patriarchal
group was the supremacy of the eldest male ascendant,
extending even to the power of life and death, and giving ·
him control of the family property for the benefit of the
family.
Sir H. Maine's general account of the development of
35
society is that it began in patriarchal groups of this kind,
such as those described by Homer as characteristic of the
Cyclopes—the types of an alien and less advanced civilization
than the Greek: 'Each rules his children and wives, and
they take no heed of one another. The second stage consists
of an aggregation of families, regarded by early law as per-
petual and inextinguishable corporations; the offenccs of any
individual are regarded as the offences of the group to which
he belongs; crime is a corporate act. The third stage con-
sists of more closely knit communities or commonwealths, but
these, too, are simply the natural extension of the family
groups by means of the legal fiction of adoption.
The evidence for this view is derived from the observation
of the extent to which early law is affected by the patria
potestas, both aniong the Romans, the Germans, and the
natives of India.
The history of early law is the history of the attempts made
to limit the patria potestas which was felt to be too harsh and
severe as civilization advanced. Thus, to take an instance,
the father's power over the son's property which at first was
absolute was gradually limited by the exception of (1) certain
small personal savings (peculium); (2) the wages which the
son earned as a soldier (castrense peculium); (3) the salary
which he earned in the civil employment of the State. Along
with this remission of the father's hold on the son's property
went also a weakening of his disciplinary powers. The son
in his capacity of public officer was exempt from the control
of his father, whose superior, indeed, he might be.
But, allowing for all this, the patria potestas remained,
though in a weakened from, as an important fact of Roman life,
and the extension of Roman citizenship throughout the pro-
vinces carried with it a general bracing up of the family bond.
In later law, these traces of the patria potestas are found :
(1) In Agnatic relationship in which descent was traced
only through males—hence the legal maxim, 'mulier est finis
familiae.' Examples of this may be found in the omission of
the names of women in Hindoo genealogies, and again in
Europe in the Salic law in France, and in the customary law
of Normandy which forbade sons of the same mother, but not
of the same father, to succeed to one another's land. Agnatic
relationship lost, however, its hold on Europe owing to the
influence of the later Roman Law, which held that cognation
was the true form of relationship.
(2) In the Status of Women-a woman could never exercise
patria potestas. Hence she was kept always in bondage
either to her father, her brother, or her husband; or failing
these, to guardians named by her father. This is known as
the perpetual tutelage of woman, and appears in India as well
as among Teutonic and Scandinavian nations. But here
C
2
36
again the influence of ideas of natural law on later Roman
law led to the opposite conclusion of the equality of the sexes,
and so hindered, along with other causes, the spread of the
tutelage of women in Europe.
Now Sir H. Maine holds that these facts from the History
of Law show us the patria potestas as the central principle
of social relations at the earliest period we can go back to;
and illustrate its extraordinary powers of survival even among
ideas quite contradictory to it. From these facts we are
justified in inferring an earlier stage in which the supremacy
of the eldest male ascendant was the predominant force.
He also points out two other quarters from which evidence
may be drawn as to the primitive condition of society:
(1) The reports of observers belonging to a more advanced
civilization of primitive societies existing by their side, e.g.
Tacitus' Germania. Unfortunately there are few such mono-
graphs as the Germania surviving, and we have lost Aristotle's
study of barbarian states.
(2) National traditions as to the primitive history of the
nation. But these, as he points out, are of little value,
because they are highly coloured by national vanity and
distorting interests.
But between his two books which bear on this subject there
grew up almost a new science, that of sociology, which applies
the methods of observation and comparison to the savage
races still existing, and to the survivals of primitive customs
in memorial of the past in traditions and in literature. The
principal investigators in this field were McLennan and
Morgan. They unite in believing that the earliest form of
society was not the family—but the horde, a loose form of
union without permanent family relations. This Morgan calls
the gens and McLennan the exogamous totemkin-totemkin
because the group claimed descent from some plant, or
animal, or natural object which they worshipped and tattoed
on their bodies-exogamous because marriage within the
group was forbidden: the men had to capture women from
other groups. Further, descent was traced through the
mother, owing to the uncertainty of paternity
Sir H. Maine criticises the new evidence and arguments in
his Early Law and Custom. He objects to the horde theory
(1) that the physiological evidence seems to show that a group
living in these loose relations would gradually die out; (2) that
it requires us to assume that the sexual jealousy which is
undoubtedly found in the higher animals, e.g. monkeys, and
leads to the separation of families among them, is suddenly
suspended in the lower men.
But at the same time, he feels the force of the various facts
alleged, though he cannot admit the theory based on them.
How are they to be accounted for ?
37
(1) Some help may be got from Darwin's conjecture that
they belong to a later period when men had advanced in their
intellectual powers, but degraded in their instincts.
(2) McLennan's hypothesis that in certain parts of society
for considerable periods and especially in early times there
has been a great deficiency of women compared with men,
due to female infanticide, seems to cover a great many of the
facts, and would naturally lead in the absence of any strong
restraint acting in favour of monogamy, to such a state as he
and Morgan describe.
The conclusions of Sir H. Maine's review of the position
may be summarized thus :-
(1) There is no one way in which society grew up. No
doubt the horde stage is found in some retrograde races, as
a temporary thing, and at different periods in history. But it
cannot justly be called a stage in the normal development of
the stronger Aryan and Seniitic races—the winning races of
the world. It is just in their case that the sociological evi-
dence is weak, the only undoubted evidence of the important
point, descent through the mother, being a reference in Hero-
dotus I. 173 (since confirmed by inscriptions) to female descent
among the Lycians as peculiar to them.
(2) On the other hand, the patriarchal theory is probably
nearer to the truth in most cases, and has the merit of
emphasizing two important truths :-
(i.) That power is the source of new forms of social kinship.
It created the family, as it has created, through war, the
nation.
(ii.) That the motive which led to this exercise of power in
the case of the family was sexual jealousy.
Three points may be suggested: (1) That Maine has con-
siderably modified the position taken up in Ancient Law.
(2) That all the legal evidence would show that there was a
patriarchal stage : it would not bear out a previous horde
stage. (3) That ultimately the matter is one of evidence
rather than of argument.
Lecture VII.
FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.
POLITICAL Science may be studied in two ways, either from
the side of history or from the side of theory. The two
methods of study are complementary, not contrary to one
another.
1. From the side of History it may be studied in two
ways, either (i.) by tracing the growth and progress of
political ideas as embodied in the systems of political philo-
sophers, e. g., the social contract theory may be traced through
the writings of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau: or (ii.) by
tracing the gradual modifications of political institutions
which are introduced to adapt them to changing circum-
stances.
2. From the side of Theory, Political Science falls into
two main divisions(i.) the analysis of the nature of the
State, its ground in human nature, and its relation to the
individuals that compose it : (ii.) the examination of the forms
and structure of the State, the action and reaction of its
different powers, legislative, judicial and executive.
So far we have been mainly concerned with the first of
these two divisions—the nature of the State. Now we pass
to the second-the forms and structure of government.
Hobbes divides Commonwealths into two main classes.
(A) Commonwealths by institution, which are based on mutual
agreement–i.e. what we call States : (B) Commonwealths by
acquisition, which are based primarily on natural force-
i.e. what we call Families.
(A) Of States or Commonwealths by institution he gives
the three usual forms distinguished by the composition of
the sovereign-i.e. monarchy, aristocracy, democracy. These
are the only three forms which he recognizes. Other forms
of government are either (a) different names for these three
forms affixed to them by their enemies, e.g: monarchy is
called tyranny, or aristocracy oligarchy. Or else (6) they are
thought to be different through some misapprehension-so
for instance with elective monarchy. The elected king, who
has no right to appoint his successor, is not really sovereign
at all. The sovereignty resides in those who elect him.
Again, a king with limited powers is not really sovereign.
The sovereignty lies in those who impose the limitations.
Hobbes, like Austin, denies the possibility of a mixed
39
monarchy. To give to the king the executive power, to the
parliament the right of levying money, and to the two, with
the consent of some one else, the legislative power, is not to
frame a Commonwealth but three factions not one sovereign
but three.
Of the three forms which Hobbes admits, he has no doubt
that monarchy is the best on the ground that it best secures
the great end of government-peace. This position he justi-
fies by three main arguments.
(1) The private interest of the king coincides with the
public interest, for his own riches, honour and power are
bound up with those of the State; whereas in the two other
forms private interests often lead a man counter to the public
welfare.
(2) A king can get counsel from whom he will and in
secret: an assembly only from its own members and in
public.
(3) A king is less fickle than an assembly which is of
shifting composition, and he cannot disagree with himself,
as an assembly may, and so produce civil war.
Lastly, Hobbes answers the main objections against mon-
archy by showing that there are as many or more objections
to government by assembly-
Thus--(a) A monarch may have a favourite, but an assembly
generally has many favourites. (B) Inheritance by an infant
is no doubt a weak point in hereditary monarchiy, for there at
once arises a struggle for the guardianship, and he is not able
himself to decide between rival claimants. On the other hand,
an assembly is at all times exposed to similar danger in the
struggle between factions, and it may be said to be always
under tutors and governors.
Of these various arguments all, except the second in favour
of monarchy, point to that which was no doubt in Hobbes'
mind, the greater risk of disunion and of struggle of wills,
with its consequent relapse into a state of nature, in the case
of an assembly than of a single head. His arguments are
therefore one-sided and do not sufficiently state the strong
points of government by assembly. Thus with regard to
(1), in an assembly the private interests of the members, if
an assembly is really representative, counteract one another:
whereas a king, who does not rise to his position, has free
scope for his private interests. So of (3): this is true, if the
king has a strong will and maintains his purposes. On the
other hand, an assembly is more truly representative than
most kings, and differences of opinion there mirror differences
in the nation, and are valuable in preventing legislation before
the public mind is settled as to the lines which it should take.
Nor again does he meet the objections against monarchy
very successfully. No doubt an assembly has many favourites
40
but there is safety in numbers. The second objection to
monarchy is met by an argument which is practically the
same as the third argument in favour of monarchy.
Argument (2) in favour of monarchy is met by a considera-
tion of the system of permanent officials, who are skilled
specialists in their own departments, and who advise the
responsible Ministers and through them advise Parliament.
No doubt secret counsel has some great advantages over
public counsel. Considerations can be stated in private
which could not be urged in public, and the adviser need
only consider the wisdom of his counsel, not its effect on
the public mind. On the other hand, public counsel has the
great indirect advantage that it instructs and educates public
opinion, and so circulates among the mass of electors the
wisdom of the few. Government by a wise and farseeing
king advised by a privy council of specialists is probably the
ideal government, if we consider simply the excellence of
government apart from its educative functions. But govern-
ment by public assembly, with all its admitted weaknesses,
trains and developes the political faculties of a nation as no
other form does.
(B) Commonwealths by acquisition include the rule of father
over children and of masters over slaves. They are at first
sight based on natural force, but examine them more closely
and you find that they ultimately depend on the consent of
the governed. They thus differ in reality from States only
in two respects
(a) The consent is given from a different motive. In the
case of States it was given because men feared one another,
and so submitted to the Sovereign. Here it is given by
children and slaves who fear not one another, but their
father and their conqueror respectively, and so submit for
fear of him.
(6) The comparative weakness of a family prevents it
providing for the safety of its members so securely as a
State does for the safety of its citizens.
Otherwise the case of a Family and of a State is the same.
They both rest on consent, the rights of the sovereign are the
same in both.
This is an inversion of the natural order as given by
Aristotle, who shows how States grew out of Families. The
reason apparently for the inversion is that while Hobbes'
social-contract theory applies easily and naturally to States,
it is only in a forced sense that it applies to Families.
Lecture VIII.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL CONTRACT SCHOOL
AFTER HOBBES.
71
JOHN LOCKE published in 1680 a treatise on government,
consisting of two books-book i. containing a criticism of
Filmer and other defenders of divine right, book ii. giving
his own views of the theory of government.
· Locke's own life was bound up with the English Revolution.
His father had been a captain in the parliamentary army; he
himself went into exile with Shaftesbury in 1682. He writes
to justify the principles of the Revolution.
1. His criticism is directed to showing that Filmer fails to
maintain the rigour of his principle of Divine Right based
on Fatherhood. For (1), Filmer leaves us uncertain whether
he means the absolute natural powers of Fatherhood to reside
(i) in all fathers, (ii) in all kings, even if usurpers, or (iii) in
the actual governors, whoever they may be. Further (2)
Filmer sets property alongside of family as the ground and
principle of government, and so far deserts the integrity of
his principle.
2. On his relation to Hobbes, cf. Ranke, History of England,
III, pp. 576—579. Locke's whole method is different from
that of Hobbes. Hobbes is always perfectly-clear and abso-
lutely ruthless as to consequences. Locke is.confused and
involved and afraid of general principles.
Allowing for this difference, Locke at first sight seems to
be near Hobbes, but he introduces very important modifi-
cations, and the total effect is very different.
I. He differs in his account of the state of nature. The
state of nature he thinks is not necessarily a state of war.
It is simply the state in which men live, who have no common
superior. In this state they are free and equal, but that
does not mean that they are free from the law of nature,
i.e. the moral law. On the contrary, no one ought to harm
another in his life, health, liberty, or property. So far Locke
is at a very different standpoint from Hobbes, who thought
that the state of nature was necessarily a state of war,
and that the law of nature (as distinct from and correcting
the law of selfishness) did not run in a state of nature.
But Locke admits that if any individual transgresses thel
law of nature, since there is no superior to enforce it,'
perio plythe he
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every man has a right to punish him, and thus to become
on his own account a judge and executioner of the law of
nature. Thus if war begins, it is likely to continue. Practi-
cally Locke's position so far does not greatly differ from
that of Hobbes, but the recognition of the moral law in
a state of nature is an important and fruitful difference of
theory.
(2) As we have seen, Locke, as against Hobbes, recognizes
the right of property as existing in a state of nature. Thus
property is a natural right, and the state is founded to
preserve it.
(3) Further, Locke differs from Hobbes in the exact form
) which he gives to the primitive contract. Hobbes made it
a contract between subject and subject, which left the
sovereign entirely free from obligations. It is true that he
admits that the choice of the sovereign will be a separate
and distinct act from the foundation of the State. And so
far he recognizes the supremacy of the whole society. But
he habitually thinks of the two acts as two aspects of one
and the same transaction. With Locke as with Rousseau
they are separate. (a) The surrender of individuals is made
to the whole body of the people, which is the true sovereign;
and (6) the majority entrust certain limited powers to one
man or a body of men who are the government or acting
sovereign.
(4) Thus while Hobbes uses the social contract as a justifi-
cation of absolute monarchy, Locke bases on it a defence of
constitutional monarchy. Absolute monarchy he holds is
inconsistent with civil society. For an absolute prince has
no common superior with his subjects, and is therefore in a
state of nature with regard to them, and in a state of nature
we know any man may execute the law of nature, if he
thinks it broken. Thus the social contract is void unless
every man, prince as well as subjects, agrees to be bound
by the will of the majority. Every man, including the prince,
gives a tacit consent to the laws and government by holding
property or enjoying privileges within the society, or even
by living within its territory.
(5) Lastly, Locke differs from Hobbes in his view of the
relations of Church and State. Hobbes made the Church
one department of the State. Locke separates the two,
and makes each supreme in its own sphere-pressing on
the one hand the duty of the State to tolerate all opinions
not positively anti-social, and on the other hand the gain
to religion by entire freedom from State-control.
- The effects of these differences on Locke's theory are
considerable.
1. The supreme power is always with the majority of the
community. But it may delegate its power or powers. The
43
powers so conferred are however always limited. Accord-
ingly Locke works out the limitations of the royal power.
The prince is not arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of
the people, but must proceed by standing laws and known
judges; and can only take the property of the citizens for
The power conferred on him is not transferable, and may
be altered or taken away by the people, if he fails to fulfil
his trust.
2. This ultimate power of the society as represented by
a majority is generally hidden from view, but it becomes
apparent when the existing government is dissolved. In that
case society does not cease to exist, as Hobbes held, but the
majority decide on a new government.
MONTESQUIEU. Locke's theory was made known abroad
partly by Montesquieu (Esprit des Lois, 1748) who had
resided several years in England and carefully studied Locke
as well as other English writers, and partly by Rousseau.
Montesquieu differs from Locke (1) in his comparative
method, which leads him to collect instances of forms of
government and social usages from all parts of the world,
with a preference for those that are abnormal. Thus he
holds that there is no abstractly best government, but that
every law or constitution which is suitable to the nature of
the people is good.
(2) He differs further in the marked emphasis he lays on
the importance of the division of the powers of government,
especially of the judicial from the executive and legislative.
Here we see the difference between the French lawyer and
the English thinker coming out.
But he is at one with Locke in his account of the origin
of society in his view that the natural laws of justice and
equity are prior to the formation of States. Lastly, among
modern States, he has the greatest affection for the English
and regards it as his ideal of political freedom.
ROUSSEAU. So far the social contract theory has been
the property of philosophers. Rousseau flings it broadcast
to the people of France. The contrast which he drew of an
ideal state of nature with the suffering present roused men
to a burning indignation. The theory of a state of nature
as embodied in his writings became the centre of the prin-
ciples of 1789. He was the prophet of the French Revolution
as Locke was of the English. His principal formal writings
are the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, 1754, and the
Social Contract, 1762. But see also La Nouvelle Héloise, 1761,
and Emile, 1762.
We have already seen and examined Rousseau's main
position as giving the most concrete form to the sovereignty
of the whole people. It remains to notice his points of

44
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----
difference and advance on Hobbes and on Locke. He is
directly influenced by them both. He has in common with
thiem both the doctrine of a social contract as the origin of
society. But it is almost all he has in common with Hobbes.
Hobbes regarded_man as naturally bad, and only to be
coerced into goodness by the strait waistcoat of the State.com
Rousseau rëgårds him as naturally good, and only kept from
goodness by the artificial conventions of society. Hobbes
accordingly thought that the state of nature was a state of
war. Rousseau pictures it as a state of ideal innocence and
peace. Hobbes-dismisses consent.when civilised life begins.in
Rousseau introduces it at regular periods, and as often as
possible. Hobbes' ideal government is absolutism; Rousseau's
democracy, and so on. The social contract remains, but all
that rests on it has swung clean round.
To Locke Rousseau is far nearer. In his analysis of
sovereignty as residing permanently in the people, he wa...
only putting more clearly what Locke had already said.
But he strips off Locke's qualifications. He is as much ir
favour of unlimited sovereignty as Hobbes, but his sovereign
is the people. He recognises no divided power. Indeed
legislative power cannot be even delegated at all, or executed
through representatives. It is an expression of the common
will made by the people as a whole met in general assembly
Executive power cai be delegated in any way the people
decide, to one or few.or many, and the government so formed
is intermediary between the sovereign and the citizens.
But in either case the power rests with the people, and no
ultimate division of the powers of government is possible.
While Montesquieu fixed on the limitations with which
Locke hedged in the theory of the sovereignty of the
people, Rousseau fixes on the theory itself, applies it to the
method of Hobbes, and makes it clear, logical, and consistent.
In his hands it became the intellectual ground of the French
Revolution.


INDEX
PAGE.
:
:::
.
.
:::
38
Althusius
... ... 8, 18
Aquinas, Thomas,
.... .... 5, 8, 27
Aristotle ...
5, 6, 8, 13, 19, 22, 33, 40
Austin, John, his Theory of Sovereignty
Bacon, Lord ...
... 6
Bentham, Jeremy
28
Bodin, Jean ..
5, 7, 8, 21
Body Politic, The, Analogy of, to the Human Body
1. 12, 13
Church and State, Hobbes' Theory of ...
Locke's ...
Consent, Theory of, as the basis of the State
9, 31, 32
Contract, Theory of, as the origin of States
Darwin
12, 37
Descartes ...
Discorsi, The ...
Filmer
Fischer, Kuno ...
Force, Theory of, as the basis of the State
Galileo
Government, Forms of, according to Hobbes
Green, T. H. ... ...
26, 29, 33
Hobbes, Thomas, his life
system of Philosophy
1 Analogy of the Body Politic to the
Human Body ...
1. Theory of the State of Nature
View of the Laws of Nature ...
Social Contract
Originality
Consistency ...
18
Theory of Sovereignty
21
Liberty ...
the Relations of Church and
State ... ...
24, 42
Punishment : ...
International Relations
Monarchy
Hooker, Richard
5, 8, 9, 18,
Horde Theory
Institutio Trajani
John of Salisbury
Justice, Hobbes' Theory of
::::
IO
II
42
18
::
22
26
:
ii
.
INDEX.
ii
12.
:
::::
22,
Languet, Hubert
Law, The function of ...
Leviathan, The ..
Locke, John, his Treatise on Government ...
, , his Theory of the State of Nature
Social Contract
Relations of Church and State
1 Sovereignty
Macchiavelli, Niccolo ...
... 5, 6, 7, 8, 10
Maine, Sir Henry ...
,
his Criticism of Austin
,
. Patriarchal Theory
McLellan, his Horde Theory
Monarchy, as a form of Government
Montesquieu ... ...
Morgan, his Horde Theory
Nations, The Law of ...
Nature, The State of, according to Hobbes
„ . Locke
.. Rousseau
... Laws of
Organic Theory of Society, The ... ...
Origin of Society, The ...
Patriarcha, The
Patriarchal Theory, The
Prince, The ...
Punishment, the Theory of
24-26
Resistance, The Right of
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, his Theory of Sovereignty
the Social Contract
Salic Law, The
Social Contract, Theory of the, according to Hobbes
Hooker
Locke ...
Rousseau
Society, The Origin of, according to Maine ...
n and McLellan
Society as an Organism, The Theory of ... ...
Sovereignty, The Theory of, according to Austin ...
Hobbes ...
Locke
:
.
::
8,
::::
MO
1
:::::::
Rousseau
Spencer, Herbert
Vindiciae contra tyrannos

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