of nature, that men are naturally inclined to each other, and that they need each other's help in order to attain the kind of a life that they desire; but also it is true that men are naturally selfish and sensual, and that they would, if unrestrained, be constantly quarreling with each other. "Strifes and troubles would be endless, except they gave their common consent all to be ordered by some whom they should agree upon."42 Thus men need defense and security against each other. The law of nature, however morally binding, is often violated unless some political power is erected to enforce it. The state is justified by the valuable service it renders.

(b) The particular fashion by which the state came into being was discussed. What just basis is there for the exercise of power by one. man over his fellows? Such power does not come as an extension of parental authority. To be sure, parents properly have complete control over their children when the children in early life are of unripe judgment, and even retain partial control while the children, though mature, continue to abide in the father's house. Yet any person, as soon as he becomes a reasonable being and wishes to direct his own life, is free to do so and is equal in his rights to all of his fellows.43 Political power is quite distinct from parental authority. Hooker recognized but one legitimate claim by which a ruler can justify his government over his subjects,-an express agreement between ruler and ruled. He opposed Aristotle's view that the noble and wise have an inherent right to govern, even without the assent of the common people. Usurped power is altogether unlawful. No one who has not the consent of the social group is morally entitled to exercise power over it.44 Grotius and Pufendorf also accepted this "contract theory" of the origin of the state. But unlike Hooker they recognized other legitimate bases of political power. A ruler can justify his government on the ground that he obtained it through a just war of conquest, that he came to the rescue of a people when nothing but his assistance could have saved them, that he admitted them to dwell on his territory on condition that they be subservient, etc.45 Yet in all these cases except that of a rule based on just conquest, the people have some voice in the matter. Only in the one case where they have by some crime justly exposed themselves to the wrath of

42 Hooker: op. cit. I, 10, 4, 6. Pufendorf, in discussing Hobbes's state of war, insisted that the state of nature is one of peace. Cf. Of the Law of Nature and Nations, II, 2, 5-7. But he used the phrase, "state of peace," only by way of antithesis to Hobbes's extreme position. He did not mean to deny that man's selfishness led to much inconvenience and discord when it was unrestrained by civil authority. His views came out more clearly in his shorter work where he did not set them over against the doctrine of Hobbes. Cf. The Whole Duty of Man, II, 5,4–7.

43 Grotius: op. cit. II, 5, 1–6. Pufendorf: The Whole Duty of Man, II, 3, 5-8, Cf. Grotius: op. cit. I, 3,8. Pufendorf: op. cit. I, 2,

44 Hooker: op. cit. I, 10,4. 45 Grotius: op. cit., I, 3,a.

Pufendorf: op. cit., I, 2, o, II, 9,7.

2, 6; II, 6,7-9.

an invading army, have the people lost all claim to some part in the establishment of the government over them.

(c) The degree of authority which a ruler is entitled to exercise varies from case to case. Where the government is founded on contract, the people may grant their ruler full power in perpetuity, full power for a limited time, limited power in perpetuity (i. e., “usufructuary right"), or limited power for a limited time. Where the government is founded on just conquest, the victor's power is quite absolute.46 Consequently, different governments are justified in aiming at different ends. When the state rests on a contract, the ruler must fulfil his part of the bargain. He must aim to secure the welfare of the people, their security and peace, or any other benefits specified in the contract. But the ruler often has rights over against his subjects. Some governments are for the joint welfare of governors and governed; and some, for the sole benefit of the supreme governor himself. The nature of the origin of the state determines the extent of the power and the obligation of the ruler.47

(d) Yet once the government is established, it is supreme. The sovereign power does not rest in the people, great mischief would result from the adoption of such a principle. The sovereign power rests in the ruler alone, or in the government as constituted by the contract. Once a people have chosen a form of government and transferred power to a ruler, they are bound to obedience. They cannot resume at pleasure rights which they have bargained away. They cannot withdraw from the contract on the ground that the government is unsatisfactory; for all governments have their inconveniences, yet are better than a wholly unorganized society. Nor can a people claim to be free from obligation to obey the ruler on the ground that they were not party to a contract made generations before their birth. For the consent of those who live today was involved in the consent of those who founded the society of which we are a part. "We were then alive in our predecessors, and they in their successors do live still."48 Thus a government, once formed, has rights over generations yet unborn. It is "unaccountable to all the world."49

(e) This theory of the supremacy of the state forced Grotius and Pufendorf to examine the alleged right of subjects to resist their rulers, i. e., "the right of revolution." They did not question that an individual is entitled to use force in defense of his own rights, when other individuals so assault them that recourse to a judge is impossible.50 But the use of force to oppose the legally constituted

46 Grotius: op. cit., 1, 3,11. Pufendorf: op. cit., II, 9,7.

47 Grotius: op. cit., I, 3,8.

48 Hooker: op. cit., I, 10,8.

49 Pufendorf: op, cit., II, 9,2. Cf. II, 6,3. Also Grotius: op. cit., I, 3,8.

50 Grotius: op. cit., I, 3,1-2. Pufendorf: op. cit., I, 5,16-18,

rulers is quite another matter. In discussing this point, Grotius and his followers should have been ready to fall back upon the law of nature as a solution. But they did so only partially. They were unwilling to carry their fundamental ethical principle out to its logical conclusion. They recommended that the minor faults of a prince be overlooked, especially as no one can claim to be in all things perfect. But if the commands of a ruler are clearly contrary to the law of nature, obedience is as wrong as open rebellion would be. A good subject, placed in such a position, will adopt one of two remedies. Either he will flee out of the country, or he will use passive resistance. In the latter case, he will patiently submit to the penalties attached to a failure to perform the commands of the prince. And since acceptance of the penalties is offered as an alternative to performance of the commands, he who uses passive resistance cannot be accused of disobedience to the prince. The majesty of the state is maintained, and the peace of the commonwealth is not disturbed.51

On the use of actual armed resistance, Grotius and Pufendorf seem to have been quite unwilling to render an explicit answer. Grotius would never permit rebellion except when it is made in the interests of the whole people, without any great commotion or bloodshed, and without the destruction of many innocent persons. He even seems to have made this limited right of rebellion contingent upon an original reservation of such right to the people at the time when the state was first founded. And finally he did not so much express approval of rebellion under such circumstances as say that he did "not dare condemn indifferently" the use of arms as a last refuge.52 In other sections of his treatise Grotius was somewhat more explicit. A free people may resist, and even punish by death, a prince who violates his contract with them. And a king who seeks “with a mind truly hostile, the destruction of the whole body of the nation,” may be resisted; for the violence of revolt would in such a case be not greater than the violence of submission.53 Pufendorf was even less willing to face the issue clearly. The section in his longer work which deals with this subject 54 is utterly equivocal. If a prince maliciously tries to destroy an innocent subject and there is no possiblity of escape, many persons, he asserted, would sanction armed resistance. But he avoided agreement by insisting that it is hardly possible to find instances of such a prince. He went so far as to suggest that it is better to obey a command contrary to the law of nature than to resist; and he even advised men to prefer to be killed than to kill. Thus

51 Grotius: op. cit., I, 4,1–2. Pufendorf: op. cit. II, 9,4.

52 Grotius: op; cit., I, 4,7.

53 Grotius: op. cit., I, 4,8-14

54 Pufendorf: Of the Law of Nature and Nations, VII, 8,5.

the right of revolution is either reduced to a negligible minimum or entirely denied.

5. In criticism of the writers who based their moral and political philosophy on the principle of the law of nature, not much need here be said. Two important steps forward in ethical theory were made, (1) in setting forth as the ultimate test of right and wrong a law of reason, which is morally prior to all positive enactments, divine as well as human, and is applicable to all conditions of life,—and (2) in recognizing man's social nature and needs, and the consequent necessity for some form of social organization or government. However, there were many weak points which were to require further serious consideration. There was a crying need for an epistemology which would fill in the abstract law of nature with an empirical content. Above all, there was need for a consistent application of reason to political problems without so much conservative bias. Grotius and Pufendorf were primarily jurists; and they had legal, at times almost legalistic, minds. They valued the established order, placing peace ahead of liberty, and thus inevitably tending to sanction the status quo. Living as they did in an era of incessant and ruinous warfare, they were led to overstress the dangers of violence. They applied the law of nature rigorously to the relations between different nations where there was no other available means of maintaining peace; but they fell back on external compulsion as a surer means of keeping peace within any one nation. Looking upon questions of origin rather than present utility as the important factor, they were prejudiced in their treatment of popular sovereignty, the supremacy of the state, the extent of the power of a ruler, the right of revolution. Determining the law of nature by the universal consent of nations, they continually tended to slip into the error of confusing morality with legal precedent. As long as questions of origin and contract were stressed, it would be difficult to decide just what rights the people in the various states of Europe were entitled to exercise, which rulers were absolute and which limited in power. On Grotius's own statement, the right of revolution would hinge largely on historical evidence. Yet in spite of such legalism, the advocates of the law of nature furnished a principle which in other hands was to become a means of more successful achievement.

CHAPTER II

THE DEISTS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

1. Another source whence Locke drew inspiration and material for his ethical philosophy was the deistic movement. Indeed he stood so close to the deists that he has sometimes been classified as one of their number. Yet his historic relations to the development of deism have not usually been properly defined.

Locke has generally been treated as one who came at the beginning of the deistic movement and prepared the way for the theological radicalism which was to develop in the two or three generations after his death. Though he was decidedly a liberal for his day and stood with the broadest of the churchmen, he was not one of those who felt hostility to traditional Christianity. He did, to be sure, attempt to reduce the required credal statements of the Church to a bare minimum; he rejected many articles of Calvinistic theology, such as predestination and original sin; he took a skeptical attitude to such a central doctrine as that of the Trinity; he set up an empirical test for knowledge which made it difficult to insist upon those doctrines which rested on mysteries;1 and he stood for the complete and generous toleration of all Protestant sects. And yet at the same time he retained many of the accepted doctrines of orthodoxy, such as the virgin birth and justification by faith; he regarded the Scriptures as the infallible revelation of the divine will; he accepted the belief in miracle and the supernatural origin of the Christian religion. He was essentially constructive in his emphasis, and took a sympathetic attitude toward historic Christianity. Thus he presents a sharp contrast to the radicals who flourished in the eighteenth century. And consequently he is usually treated as a forerunner of deism, who only suggested the direction which theological speculation was about to take. That is, he is regarded as more of a cause than an effect in the history of the development of deism.

Yet such a view of Locke's relation to deism is only half of the truth. For deism, though mainly an eighteenth century product, was not wholly so. Most of the important deistic works came out after Locke's

1 Probably it was Locke's theory of knowledge with its insistence on the empirical test for the validity of ideas, rather than any specifically religious views, which forwarded the deistic movement. His epistemology furnished the later deistic writers with a working tool in their controversies, and with an excuse for sheltering themselves behind the prestige of his revered name. His influence is especially to be seen in Toland's Christianity not Mysterious (1696), pp. 7–22, and in Wollaston's Religion of Nature Delineated (1724), pp. 69-87.