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A HISTORY OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
 INSTITUTE

CARNEGIE

THE

COURTESY

Tue Oxp Kine, by Georges Rouault

A History of
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

HENRY J. SCHMANDT
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Wisconsin — Milwaukee

G.M. ELLIOTT LIBRARY |

Cincinnati Christian University

THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY Milwaukee

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 60-—10556

© 1960 THe Bruce Pusiisntnc CoMPANY

MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 PREFACE

THE subject of politics involves more than the administration of public

affairs, more than the structure and organization of governments, more
than the periodic and colorful election campaigns. It embraces human
aspirations, ideals, beliefs, and values. It deals with theory as well as
practice, philosophy as well as technical skills. Politics is dynamic and
pervasive; its hand can be observed in all the social strivings of mankind.
Behind governmental institutions and processes lie tradition, theory, and
philosophy which provide deep and sophisticated insight into political
reality. From Plato’s academy to the great universities and colleges of
today, the study of political philosophy — of the ideas that helped to
shape our social heritage— has received warm and appreciative reception.
The present volume is primarily an historical treatment and analysis
of political philosophy as it has found expression in the writings of major
theorists. The works chosen for discussion are those that have been
influential in developing the political thought of the western world.
They range from the social speculations of the ancient Greeks to the
modern efforts to formulate a political theory based wholly on empirical
research. They include the ethics of Aristotle and the amoralism of
Machiavelli, the constitutionalism of Cicero and the totalitarianism of
Stalin, the natural law of Thomas Aquinas and the economic determinism
of Marx, the democracy of Attlee and the dictatorship of Hitler.
Selection and emphasis in a survey that covers almost 2500 years in
time inevitably give rise to difficult decisions. Personal predilection cannot
fail but influence the author’s judgment and choice. Some of the material
that he includes, others would omit as of little consequence; some that
he neglects, others would feel indispensable to the subject. The area of
discretion is large, the opportunity for error great. Regardless of individual
choice, a survey of this nature must give an integrated and meaningful
picture of the field if it is to serve its purpose. Efforts have therefore
been made in this volume to concentrate on those aspects of political
thinking that are (1) fundamental to an understanding of the state
and man’s relation to it; and (2) relevant to contemporary political life.
An attempt has also been made to set the entire work within a common
Vv
vi PREFACE

frame of reference so that comparison and evaluation of the various

theories can be more readily made.
The author makes no pretense to originality of interpretation or pro-
fundity of analysis. A Hisrory or PoxrricaL PuiLosopuy is intended
principally as a text for the college student, although it is hoped that
the general reader who is interested in political fundamentals will find
it of value. The book is designed for either a one or two semester course
in the political science, history, or general social science curriculum. If
used in a two semester course, more extensive assignments can be made
in the original works. For this purpose references to pertinent selections
from the originals are included in the Appendix. These materials supple-
ment the text and provide an excellent means for acquainting the reader
with the great theorists themselves. No treatment or commentary, regard-
less of its adequacy, can take the place of original sources. Fortunately,
there is now available a growing list of inexpensive paper-bound editions
of important political treatises that make supplemental reading of original
materials more feasible and convenient for classroom use. A partial list
of these is also contained in the Appendix.
The author wishes to thank his former colleagues in the Department
of Government at St. Louis University who contributed valuable sugges-
tions, advice, and criticism for this volume. He also wishes to acknowledge
his indebtedness to the many scholars who have dealt extensively with
specific phases of the total field of political theory and from whom he
has borrowed heavily. Others, including the students in his political
science classes, have aided in one way or another in the preparation of
this manuscript. Appreciation is due to all of them for their kindness,
patience, and assistance.
Henry J. SCHMANDT
 CONTENTS

PREFACE

Part One | INTRODUCTION

I. PoxrricAL Puitosopyy: Its MEANING AND

SIGNIFICANCE

THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE

Part Two | ANCIENTS
I]. ‘THe Greek City-STATE . ,
III. Prato: Tue Science or Royat RuLE
IV. AristoTLe: THE SCIENCE oF POLITICS
V. Tue PoriticaL THoucut or RomME

THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE

Part Three | MEDIEVALISTS
VI. Tue Earty CurisTIAN PERIOD 107
VII. Tue Two Sworps . : . : / 27
VIII. St. THomas Aguinas: THEOLOGIAN AS POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHER 144

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY DURING THE ERA

Part Four | oF TRANSITION
IX. Tue PouiricAL THOUGHT OF THE RENAISSANCE AND
REFORMATION . 167
X. MaAcHIAVELLI: THE New ScIENCE OF POLITICS 187
XI. THe SOVEREIGN STATE 206
Vili CONTENTS

) THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE

Part Five | sociIAL CONTRACT ERA
XII. Hossrs: Tue Sovereign LEVIATHAN i)SJ
XIII. Joun Locke: Tue Strate Limrirep
XIV. THe AGE oF ENLIGHTENMENT . +A
oOON

XV. RovussEAu: PoLiTICAL ROMANTICISM NN

WN
N 10)oe)

THE SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL

Part Six
PHILOSOPHY
XVI. EpmMunp Burke: POLitTIcAL CONSERVATISM 311
XVII. Tue Utimirarians .
XVIII. Tue Iprauist THEORY OF THE STATE

Part Seven | CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

XIX. “Screntiric” SocraLism

XX. Mopern COMMUNISM
XXI. Democratic SocIALIsM
XXII. Fascism
XXIII. Tue Ponrirtcart. Socrio.ocists

APPENDIX

INDEX
PART ONE INTRODUCTION
 Chapter |

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: ITS MEANING AND

SIGNIFICANCE

“Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser”

(Prov. 9:9).

From the time that speculation about the nature of the social, as dis-
tinguished from the physical, universe first began over 2500 years ago,
political theory has attracted the great minds of all ages. No field of
human knowledge and culture has been left untouched by the passion
for political speculation. Included in the imposing list of those who have
sought to probe into the nature of political phenomena are theologians,
such as St. Augustine, Maimonides, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Calvin;
philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Maritain; poets
as famous as Dante and Coleridge; novelists as different as Dostoevski,
Hawthorne, and Orwell; scientists of the eminence of Priestley and
Huxley; mathematicians as noted as Einstein; and statesmen of the caliber
of Cicero, Burke, Calhoun, and Wilson. This deep interest and concern
is hardly surprising since man is, as Aristotle described him, a political
animal. Wherever he is found, he exists in a political society of some
sort. So intimately is his whole life woven into the complex fabric of
this society that it would indeed be strange if he did not seek to explore
beneath the surface of social realities.
Men have always asked questions about themselves, their environment,
their role in the universe, and the purpose and end of their existence.
It is as though they have been led by an innate and impelling necessity to
seek the answers to these fundamental queries. And from this never ending
but persistent quest for truth, a treasury of thought has emerged — chal-
lenging, provocative, stimulating, and enlightening — that has broadened
the vista of human knowledge and understanding. Occupying a pivotal
3
5“ INTRODUCTION

position in this process has been the speculation about man as a political
animal, a member of civil society.

THE MEANING OF POLITICAL THEORY

The term “political theory” is used in various senses. It may mean a

set of hypotheses about governmental processes or institutions, or it may
refer to the moral principles and norms that regulate political behavior.
In either case, it denotes an organized set of ideas which seek to explain
reality. Political theory, moreover, may be used for different objectives.
It may simply seek a better understanding of governmental functions;
it may attempt to provide the policy makers with principles that will
aid them in coping with specific sociopolitical problems; or it may
endeavor to provide a set of norms for judging what is ethically good
in political life.
As originally understood, the study of political theory was an attempt
to acquire genuine knowledge about political fundamentals. These fun-
damentals included, as professor Leo Strauss has observed, two groups
of subject matter: (1) the nature of political institutions and forces such
as governmental organizations, laws, programs, interest groups, power,
and social custom; and (2) the morally proper or just political order.”
In modern times there has been a tendency to regard these two aspects
of political theory as completely separate fields of inquiry. The first has
come to be referred to as political science (or causal theory as one writer
recently called it?); the second as political philosophy.
In terms of the above distinction, we are in the realm of political
philosophy as soon as we begin to ask the question, “what is the common
good or the good society.” ‘This type of theory examines the moral prem-
ises and postulates that underlie the political and social system. It is
concerned with ends and goals that ought to be pursued by political
society. It seeks to answer questions dealing with the purpose of the state,
the moral justification of political power, and the dividing line between
governmental authority and human freedom. It inquires into the manner
in which political power ought to be used and the moral limitations that
should be placed upon it. Since these are questions that deal primarily
with ends or final values, the answers to them cannot be empirically
1 “On Classical Political Philosophy,” Social Research, Feb., 1945, p. 98.
2 See David Easton, The Political System (New York: Knopf and Co., 1953), p. 52.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 5

verified; they can only be presented in the light of man’s nature and his
place in the universe. Catlin describes political theory of this kind as
part of the “seamless robe of philosophy, philosophy speaking with a
social emphasis.”?
Used in the causal sense, political theory refers to a set of concepts
about political facts and the relations among them. Its objective is to
bring order and meaning to a mass of data that would otherwise remain
disconnected and purposeless. It pursues its task by constructing certain
hypotheses about the processes of government from empirical investigations
(by observation and experience) into political phenomena. Robert
Michels’ “iron law of oligarchy” is an illustration of theoretical formula-
tion in the political sphere just as the law of diminishing returns is in
the field of economics. From a study of political parties and social groups,
Michels concludes that all organizations tend to concentrate power into
the hands of a small group of elite.t His so-called law is a theory since
it seeks to explain the phenomenon of power in all organized groups and
not merely in those which he actually investigated.
While it is helpful in the interests of clarity and orderly research to
distinguish between political philosophy and causal theory, it is also
important to keep in mind that each is a facet of political science in the
broad sense of the term. All thinking about ends and moral norms takes
place within an historical context while all political behavior has ethical
implications. Classical thought regards the relationship between political
science and political philosophy not as that between one field of inquiry
and another but as between the way and the goal. Any comprehensive
political theory, in the traditional meaning, must consist of a set of
logically related propositions about what is and what ought to be the
case in civic matters. The political philosopher as well as the political
scientist is interested in knowing whether selected means will accomplish
given ends. Causal theory is necessary to show the connection between
the means used and the end to be pursued. What procedures, for example,
or what institutional devices will best assure that political power will be
used for the common good and not for the selfish interests of a few?
The political philosopher may hold that the ultimate goal of the state
is the creation of a social and cultural environment in which each indi-
3 George Catlin, “Political Theory: What Is It?” Political Science Quarterly, Mar.,
NOE we Be
4 Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern
Democracy (Glencoe: Free Press, 1949).
6 INTRODUCTION

vidual has the material and educational means to maximize his inherent
potentialities. But how are the means to be selected for attaining this
objective? Here we must turn to causal theory or political science (as
narrowly defined) for guidance.
Legitimate inquiry into political morality cannot take place in a vacuum.
Such investigation requires knowledge about the phenomena of political
life; it can be explored only in relation to factual conditions. No worth-
while theory was ever derived from an analysis of human nature con-
sidered apart from its particularization in a changing time and space
context. However, since political philosophy deals with the moral ideals
embodied in political institutions, and political science with the oper-
ations and effects of these institutions, it is possible to orient a treatment
of political theory toward one or the other. The present text is weighted
on the side of political philosophy. It is interested in penetrating (through
the speculations of the great thinkers) into the ideas and purposes that
social institutions embody and the ethical values they represent. In this
way, it seeks to obtain a “comprehensive picture of political life that
relates our living together in a common political entity with our private
and general ends and our final aims.”®
It has been charged that political theory as an academic discipline
has been intellectually sterile because of its historical preoccupation with
the ethical study of politics. Although there is a measure of truth in this
criticism, the analysis of the crucial moral questions of political society
can never become outdated. Unlike the subject matter of the physical
disciplines, the subject matter of political science has moral dimensions
that cannot be disregarded by the investigator. Moreover, an approach
which stresses political philosophy need not avoid involvement with
causal theory. On the contrary, it can endeavor to relate such theory
to the matter of ultimate ends and goals. There is no incompatibility
between the idea of man as a free moral agent and the existence of regu-
larities in political life that are capable of formulation as empirical laws.
It is true that most of the basic problems posed by the masters of
political thought have been ethical in nature. Yet questions pertaining
to the effects of environmental factors on government, the balancing or
separation of political power, the role of parties and interest groups, the
factors which generate social unrest and revolution, and the influence

5 David G. Smith, “Political Science and Political Theory,” American Political

Science Review, Sept., 1957, p. 746.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY if

of economics on the political process have figured prominently in their

writings. Modern society owes a heavy debt to the classical theorists not
only for their formulation of basic political issues and concepts, but also
for their penetrating insights into matters of political science proper.

AN APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Political philosophy is not an historical discipline, even though it can-

not exclude the historical dimension. It is more than a mere recital of
the ideas of social and political thinkers or a survey of ideas concerning
public morality. The question as to the nature of political reality cannot
be mistaken for the question of how this or that writer discussed or
answered the problems involved. What these men thought is important
to the student of political philosophy only in so far as it leads to a better
understanding of political life, its nature, its goals, and its right guidance.
Historical perspective, for example, can often suggest important hypothe-
ses about social phenomena that might be overlooked by those busily
engrossed with current events.®
The social philosopher must do more than record the political theories
of the past, important as they have been in forming the mentality of
modern civilization. He must seek in them logical evidence for answering
the great questions of man and the state. He must measure and compare
them in the light of his own philosophical and religious predispositions,
and he must endeavor to ascertain their relevancy to contemporary politi-
cal circumstances. In the process, he may find added support and justifi-
cation for his own views; he may discover solutions to problems which
have baffled him; he may clarify and sharpen his own thinking; or he may
be led to modify his original beliefs and assumptions. ‘lo immerse oneself
in the thought of the masters is a great intellectual experience, but the
student of politics cannot be content to stop at this point.
The present text endeavors to set forth a framework for analyzing and
evaluating the basic ideas of the various writers. These ideas are con-
sidered in the light of their fidelity to a suggested standard or set of
criteria. The model proposed is one which, in the opinion of the author,
constitutes a pattern of critically tenable concepts or a rationally accept-
able political philosophy. It is based on the classical Greek-Christian
6See in this connection, Leo Strauss, “Political Philosophy and History,” Journal
of the History of Ideas, Jan., 1949, p. 30 ff.
8 INTRODUCTION

tradition as it has found expression in western thought and in western

institutions. The standard should prove of some use as a frame of refer-
ence even to the reader who does not regard it as valid, or who does
not fully agree with the description of it as given.
The classical tradition is primarily concerned with ends and final
values, with political philosophy; yet it does not neglect political science
or causal theory as evidenced by its interest in the institutions and oper-
ations of government. Traditional theory does not overlook the fact that
the body politic functions in an historical environment. It consequently
offers many significant insights into the processes of government — insights
that are important to the systematic study of political phenomena.

THE CLASSICAL TRADITION

In the long course of western political thought certain basic concepts

have played a dominant role. Not all of these ideas have been consistent
with one another; some of them have varied only in their accidental
attributes, others have been diametrically opposed. Nevertheless, in the
maze of political speculation to which the West has fallen heir, it is .
possible to discern a common thread running through the checkered
pattern. This thread is what many have chosen to call the classical or
Christian tradition.
The classical tradition is not a static, reactionary transmission of the
past. It is a growing, dynamic, and vigorous body of law, custom, and
ideas that has helped to shape the course of western civilization. It is
akin to the western genius which has been described as “not simply a
finished product, consisting of intellectual achievements and institutions
which can be handed down unchanged from generation to generation,”
but “a design or blueprint, which possesses an organic, continuous life,
and which must be ever freshly realized according to the changing con-
ditions of each new era.”? Classical tradition embodies in it Greek and
Hebraic as well as Christian thought and culture, although Christianity
has been the chief instrumentality for transmitting this heritage to the
modern world. As Professor Foster has noted, “through all the countless
channels by which it has exercised its pervading and penetrating influence,
Christianity has been the means of bringing to bear in the shaping of

7 Josef Pieper, “The Christian West,” Commonweal, Mar. 15, 1957, p. 608.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 9

the minds of modern men not only the civilization of the Hebrews but
the Greek and Roman elements which Christianity absorbed.”®
The major premises of the classical tradition as applicable to the
development of western political philosophy can be reduced to six in
number: (1) the rational, moral, and religious character of man; (2) the
existence of a natural moral law; (3) the organic nature of the state;
(4) the necessity of constitutional government; (5) the desirability of
subsidiarity as an operative principle of government; and (6) the validity
of democratic rule. Although this list does not exhaust the conceptual
ideas that have helped to shape western political thought, it does include
those (either expressly or by implication) which have been most vital
to the development of the Christian political tradition.
Not all of these premises were present full-bodied from the beginning.
Some of them gradually emerged or became more clearly formulated as
the pattern of western thought developed. Their acceptance, moreover,
has not been unanimous. Some of the prominent thinkers of the West
have challenged one or more of them. Yet in the main, these character-
istics have demonstrated an enduring vitality and a continuing capacity
to win wide acceptance.

The Rational Nature of Man

The history of political thought amply illustrates the intimate connec-
tion between an individual’s concept of the nature of man and his political
philosophy. It is trite but none the less important to note that every
social and political order must ultimately rest upon a philosophy contain-
ing certain basic assumptions and beliefs about man. So also must every
political treatise be set in some conception of the nature of the universe.
Since the political community is designed to further the ends of man,
it becomes important to learn what these ends are. If we know what
man is, we can then determine how he should act and what objectives
he should pursue. And if we possess this knowledge, we are in a position
to ascertain the role that the state should play and the goals it should
seek. Political philosophy, therefore, must start with man. The theoretical
structure which any thinker designs will, in final analysis, be determined
by his concept of man’s nature and end.
Lying at the center of the western tradition is the conception of man
8M. B. Foster, Masters of Political Thought (London: Harrap and Co., 1942),
p. 26.
10 INTRODUCTION

as a rational creature with a free and self-determinative will, and with

an ultimate destiny that transcends the political and social processes in
which he is involved. As a moral being endowed with reason and will,
and living in a world at the center of which is a Divine Reason holding
and directing all, the human individual aspires to truth and happiness.
By following the paths marked out for him by the dictates of his reason,
he acquires human dignity, finds his true freedom, and fulfills his person-
ality. The task of perfection is not an easy one since man is also influenced
in his behavior by prejudice and passion. But in western thought, reason-
ing man, complemented by faith in God, is capable of making at least
substantial strides toward his natural end.

Natural Law

For more than 2000 years the concept of natural law has played a
prominent role in political and social thought. The idea that the political
order must be based on a moral code which transcends the vagaries of
time and place furnishes the key to an understanding of the Christian
tradition. For at the basis of this tradition is the firm conviction that
morals, in the sense of the choice of right means to rationally determined
ends, constitutes the foundation of politics.
If man is to have a standard for measuring the ultimate legitimacy of
social institutions and the propriety of political behavior, he must seek
that standard either in some objective order which is not subject to
human tampering or he must look to himself as the source and creator
of it. By accepting the latter position, he rejects the existence of an
objective basis for upholding the validity of his moral views. Ethical
norms in such a context become nothing more than individual or group
preferences. All that can then be said about a particular view is that it
represents or deviates from the predominant preference of the controlling
group at any given time. A study of political philosophy within such a
framework could be little more than an historical description of past
moral ideas rather than a constructive search for an objective pattern of
human values.
The theory that social and political values are but the reaction of
human preferences to social and political facts did not come into promi-
nence until the nineteenth century. This new view, with its moral
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY I!

relativism, ran counter to the overwhelming espousal of natural law in

prior thinking and belief. As such, it constituted a direct repudiation
of the Greek-Christian position with its normative foundation.
Since various meanings have become attached to the term “natural
law,” it is important when speaking of it to distinguish the particular
meaning that is intended. As it was universally understood throughout
the Christian era until the seventeenth century, natural law is what John
Wild describes as the “authentic doctrine of natural Jaw,” a universal
pattern of action applicable to all men everywhere, required by human
nature itself for its completion.® So conceived, the principal characteristics
of this law are:
1. Its essential prescriptions are embedded in the very nature, the onto-
logical structure, of things and are discoverable by observation. Maritain
refers to it as “the normality of functioning proper to a given nature.”
Each individual entity is marked by an essential nature which it shares
in common with other members of its species. There is a certain order
of inclinations in each being which moves it toward its end, the fulfillment
of its specific nature. From the observation of this internal source of
motion and these innate tendencies, a system of law emerges which must
be followed if the nature of the particular being is to be fully realized.
So far as these tendencies are directed toward their natural fulfillment,
the entity is healthy and good; so far as they are perverted or obstructed,
it is unhealthy and evil.
Animate being, other than man, has its intrinsic principles of motion
and rest (the physical laws of nature) which move it automatically toward
its end. Man, in addition to these tendencies, is capable by virtue of his
rationality not only of apprehending the end, as other being is not, but
also of acting on his own choice to realize or frustrate this end. Thus
while the physical laws apply to the necessary and automatic, to agents
incapable of choosing between alternative courses of action, the natural
moral laws apply to the contingent, to acts performed by free agents
capable of deliberation and choice.
2. Its normative pattern is not made by man as a legislative assembly
enacts law, but is discoverable in human nature. Through knowing what
he is, man obtains knowledge of what he ought to do. By studying his
9 Plato’s Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 64.
12 INTRODUCTION

nature and the world about him, he is able to form judgments concerning
human actions. In this way he realizes that certain acts tend to make
him more perfect while others degrade him. By doing the former he
moves toward the fulfillment of his being; by committing the latter he acts
in a manner unbefitting his character as a rational creature.
The investigation of natural law calls for the study of man historically
and psychologically. It involves an examination of individual good in
the context of the common good, and it entails a painstaking examination
of the practical workings of society. As understood in this traditional
sense, the moral law furnishes an objective standard that is not found
in the heavens (“a brooding omnipresence in the sky” as Justice Holmes
called it) but in the nature and structure of man.
3. It is not a code rolled up in the mind of man which perfectly equips
him with a complete set of rules covering every phase of human life.
Exponents of the classical theory of natural law do not claim the existence
of an ideal body of specific rules tailored in detail to fit particular situ-
ations. They do contend that there are certain fundamental principles
of justice and morality governing all human conduct. While they hold
that the general course which must be followed for human development .
is found in the factual structure of man’s nature, they are fully aware that
men exist in a changing historical environment. They recognize that indi-
viduals are confronted with many varied factors and circumstances in
any given situation, and that it is in these concrete and particular in-
stances that decisions must be made.
As conceived by the traditionalists, the natural law can provide man
only with the general and universal principles that he must follow in his
quest for perfection. The application of these broad precepts to individual
cases is more than an intellectual exercise. It demands experience, pru-
dence, and practical judgment. The classical thinkers stressed the vital
importance of natural law to the political life of man because of its broad
normative structure. They were convinced that practical acts and policies
could be formulated within this framework to meet the demands of the
historical environment in such a way as to promote the fulfillment of
human nature. They felt that in the absence of an objective moral law
there could be little assurance that human society would not ultimately
be committed to the Greek sophists’ position, that morality is simply
social convention while justice is nothing else than the interest of the
stronger.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 13

The Organic Nature of the State

Most theories concerning the nature of the state fall into two major
categories: organic and mechanistic. The works of Plato, Aristotle, and
Burke are typical representations of the former; those of the social con-
tract theorists, of the latter. Of the two, the organic theory has prevailed
throughout most of the history of western thought. According to this
view, the state is an ethical institution with a moral end. It is a human
society, a community of persons, united in a co-operative effort to attain
mutual ends. Its members interact with one another with a common
perception of their goals and purposes, although disagreement over the
means of attaining them may at times give rise to group conflict.
The organic theory holds that the unity of the body politic is derived
from the innate predisposition in man which impels him toward associa-
tion with his fellow creatures. As rational beings men realize that it
is the state which makes life possible and productive for them. A social
or moral unity results from their collective will to join together and
function as members of a community. It is this unity which gives political
society its organic character.
The mechanistic theory tends to ignore the social character of man
by viewing the state as an artificial institution based on the claims of
individuals. It regards the state merely as a tool or machine which arises
as a result of agreement among individuals who are bent on satisfying
their particular desires and who are not concerned with any shared ends
involving other members of the group. At the base of this theory is
a conception of the universe as a mechanism operating in accordance
with certain fixed laws which automatically bring about a natural harmony
of interests. Thus, each individual in pursuing his own interests best
serves those of the community.
Like natural law, the organic theory has acquired many meanings
over the course of time. Political thinkers with such diverse ideas about
the state and society as Aristotle and Hegel have been referred to as
supporters of the organic view. The difficulty is more semantic than
substantive. Since basically different concepts have been labeled “organic,”
it is necessary to determine what each writer means when he uses the
term. It is misleading to place in the same category all theories which
are today referred to as “organic.” Some writers, for example, have gone
so far as to depict the state as a biological organism or a distinct and
4 INTRODUCTION

superior entity in which the individual is totally subordinated to the

political body as a mere cell to the physical body. ‘This conception, some-
times called “organic,” is patently at odds with the meaning of the term
in classical thought.?°
The main stream of traditional thought regards the state as a con-
sciously organized group whose members propose a common end. The
good of the whole group is dependent on the proper functioning of the
members, and these in turn profit from the existence of the social whole.
The latter, however, has no existence independent from that of the mem-
bers who compose it. These members, on the other hand, have an end
of their own separate and distinct from the social whole of which they
are a part. Each member performs his separate function under an order
that is directed toward the good of the whole. The function of politics
is the direction of this common life.

Constitutional Government
Implicit in the idea of constitutional government or constitutionalism
is a theory of limitations upon the sphere of public authority. The belief
that governmental acts should be subject to certain restrictions and not .
left wholly to the discretion and whims of those who hold political
power has been one of the most notable and persistent features of western
political history. In the eyes of the ancient Greeks, the political con-
stitution was analogous to that of the human body: it consisted of the
operative principles inherent in and regulating the civic community.
Aristotle referred to it variously as “a community of interests” which
the citizens of a state have, and as “the common way of living” which
a people has chosen. Viewed in this light a constitution includes the
whole matrix and scheme of living of the state. Just as the physician
must observe the nature and composition of the human body in treating
it, so must the ruler follow the constitution of the body politic in
governing it.
During the middle ages, the concept of constitutionalism became closely
linked to that of natural law. There was explicit recognition in theory
that the king was limited by the natural law and by the customs of
10 In order to distinguish between the two uses of the term, some writers designate
as ‘‘organismic’”’ those theories which regard the state as a biological or metaphysical
entity. See, for example, F. W. Coker, Organismic Theories of the State (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1910).
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 15

the realm even though he was subject to no legal restraints. The sovereign
was said to be above positive law, but beneath the law of God and nature.
A medieval ruler may have been an autocrat de jure, but he was not
a despot. The expression “what the king has willed has the force of
law” was theoretically applicable only when the king’s will was expressed
in a manner that recognized the limitations on his power.
Constitutionalism also reflects a facet of man’s nature as disclosed in
Hebraic and Christian doctrine. Due to sin, man’s nature is no longer
unpolluted and unvitiated. It is a fallen nature, one thwarted and dam-
aged by original sin. Man lives in an orderly universe of God’s creation
but it is a world that has been disturbed by the primal alienation from
God. A philosophy of politics “based on a view that sees man and the
world still in the primal harmony of an unmarred creation is quite
obviously going to prove inadequate when it comes face to face with
the realities of human existence and social life.”!! In the light of this
concept of man’s nature, the Christian tradition holds that it would be
unwise to entrust any individual or group of individuals with unlimited
and arbitrary power over the community.

The Principle of Subsidiarity

Subsidiarity has much in common with the modern idea of a pluralistic
society in which variant groups and cultures are permitted to exist side
by side and to enjoy a large measure of freedom. The concept received
recognition at an early date although the doctrine of subsidiarity itself
was not formally expressed as an operative standard until recent times.
The principle rests on the assumption that the end of the state is the
common good, and that the extent to which government should intervene
in the social and economic order to insure this good is a matter of pru-
dential determination. Subsidiarity seeks to provide a standard that may
be employed in making this determination and in outlining the role of
government in concrete historical situations.
Expressed in somewhat different terms, subsidiarity is the principle
by which societies of various kinds and at various levels are set up. These
societies are established to carry out functions which individuals are
incapable of handling satisfactorily or in the common interest. ‘Traditional
theory regards all organized social groupings, from the family to the
11 Will Herberg, “The Presuppositions of Democracy,’ Commonweal, June 3,
1955, p. 236.
16 INTRODUCTION

political community, solely as aids to man. It looks upon the state as

necessary because these lesser forms of associations are unable to meet
the full demands of human needs. It also embodies the conviction that
man’s entire life is not coterminous with the state and that in every
society there should be lesser units of government and numerous voluntary
associations in which the individual can participate.
The principle of subsidiarity specifies that the lowest unit of society
which is capable of accomplishing a needed function in an adequate
manner and within the framework of the general welfare should be
permitted to do so. Thus, if a task essential to man’s well-being cannot
be performed by individual or family effort, it should be undertaken
through private groups such as labor unions, trade organizations, co-
operatives, or neighborhood improvement associations. If these lesser
societies are unable to cope with the matter effectively, the task should
be assigned to the lowest level of public administration with sufficient
means and capabilities. Depending on the complexity and magnitude of
the problem, this will in some instances be local or provincial authorities,
in other cases the national or even an international government.
The concept of subsidiarity springs from the reality of human nature.
The end of man is the fulfillment of his nature, and individual initiative
is a means of helping him attain this objective. Just as a man’s body
cannot be developed physically by letting others perform the calisthenics,
neither can his moral and intellectual faculties be enlarged when all
decisions pertaining to his social and economic life are made for him
by higher authorities. As one writer has said, “the individual’s self ful-
fillment is radically foiled if his social impulse is restricted to an ignoble,
passive, subservient role and is deprived of any active and constructive
part in shaping the life of the community, political as well as industrial.’
The object of political government is not to absorb or destroy the
members of the social body but to make it possible for society to function
properly in the interest of the common good. The role of government is
thus subsidiary in the sense of providing help and direction to individuals
and lesser communities. Whenever government assumes tasks which pri-
vate initiative is willing and capable of handling, it deviates from its
subsidiary character and diminishes the opportunity for personal growth.
Contained in the notion of subsidiarity is a conception of the natural
12 Johannes Messmer, “Freedom as a Principle of Social Order,’’ Modern Schoolman,
Jfevav,, WOE, ia, WSs,
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 17

character of private or voluntary associations. The consciousness of the

individual’s own insufficiency leads him to form various societies in order
to achieve certain ends. Similarity of occupation or profession, of social
and political views, or of other like interests provides the basis for such
organizations. By enabling individuals to unite in the performance of
tasks which singly they could not accomplish, these associations relieve
the political government of a vast burden. And by helping to maintain
a pluralistic society in which private groups are permitted a certain de-
gree of autonomy within given spheres, they prevent undue centraliza-
tion and total dependence on state action. In fact, the existence of such
organizations may be said to be a necessary condition of democracy. “A
state where no voluntary organizations exist cannot be democratic, for
it is impossible to conceive of a society of free individuals without com-
bination of like-minded individuals. Out of freedom to combine arises
organized opposition which is an essential characteristic of political
democracy.”?*
The history of political thought is replete with theories pertaining
to the role of the state. These theories range from the advocacy of com-
plete laissez faire to the insistence on full collectivism. Midway between
these extremes stands the classical tradition. Recognizing that the com-
mon good is best obtained by leaving to each person a large area of
freedom for his development, it also demands that this area remain at
all times commensurate with the general welfare. While it emphasizes
individual initiative as a means of self-perfection, it is fully aware that
many social and economic problems have passed beyond the capabilities
of private means. For as society organically expands and increases in
complexity, the number and character of socioeconomic interactions and
relationships multiply beyond man’s individual ability to cope with
them.

Democratic Government
To advance the concept of democratic government as an essential part
of the western tradition may seem strange since popular rule was vir-
tually unknown during the long period from the days of the city-state
to the modern era. But tradition, like history, does not stand still; it
develops and modifies itself to meet the needs and aspirations of a
18 V, L. Allen, Power in Trade Unions (London: Longmans Green & Co., 1954),
pp. 9-10.
18 INTRODUCTION

growing and expanding civilization. The seeds of democratic govern-

ment were sown in ancient Greece; they began to sprout during the
medieval era even though monarchy prevailed. As the premises of de-
mocracy became more explicit in the thought of the middle ages, aware-
ness of the desirability of self-rule grew. This tendency was strengthened
by the beliefs — well grounded in the theory of the period — that political
authority has its ultimate source in God, that no man or special group
of men possesses the inherent right to command others, and that the
tulers hold power only as representatives of the people and with their
consent. From these premises, it was only a step to the “conviction
that the normal state toward which human societies must tend is a
state in which the people act as an adult person or one come of age
in the political life.”1* In such a society, the human person is called
upon to participate in political life regardless of his race or social con-
dition. The realization of this goal was made possible in the West as
educational opportunities expanded and technological developments
brought more leisure time to the average individual.
Some theorists have justified popular rule on the basis of the collec-
tive judgment of the people; others have looked upon it as a device to
prevent the abuse of political power. But beyond these grounds, valid —
as they may be, lies the more fundamental reason implicit in Western
thought: the compatibility of democratic government with the nature
of man. The human creature finds his natural perfectibility through social
living. As a being endowed with an intellect, a free will, and the capacity
to make judgments, it is unbefitting for him to sit passively by while
all of the community’s decisions are made by rulers over whom he
exercises no direction or control. The ancient Greeks pointed out that
active participation in the things that make up a civilized existence—
society and state— is an indispensable part of each man’s personal hap-
piness and dignity. To deny him the opportunity of taking part in the
governmental process is to impede him in the development of an im-
portant facet of his nature.

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

A study of political theory is not a study of epistemology, or the

nature, limits, and validity of knowledge. However, since the problem of
14 Jacques Maritain, “Christianity and Democracy,” Commonweal, June 11, 1954,
p. 240.
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 19

knowledge is basic to all philosophy, political and otherwise, and since

it constantly reappears in the works of political theorists, the student
must at least be aware of its presence and its significance. To what ex-
tent, for example, can the moral assumptions or postulates which lie
at the root of the various political theories be rationally justified? Is it
possible to know these premises as true or untrue, or is a true knowledge
of ends and values impossible??®
If we start from the premise that truth can be established solely by
empirical observation, we can have no ultimate demonstration of the
truth or falsity of a moral proposition since such a proposition is not
scientifically verifiable. Whether the state is acting justly or not, or
whether human rights are being violated by government would have to
be determined on the basis of what is expedient, workable, or pleasant
and not on the basis of any universal norm of justice and rightness (since
this theory of knowledge would not permit the establishment of such
standards). Reason, in this view, would have an instrumental function
only. It could tell us what means would most likely be effective for
achieving whatever ends we might desire, but it could not determine
whether these ends were proper, and whether they ought to be sought
by man.
At the other extreme is the theory, often referred to as “rationalism,”
which holds that it is possible to establish truths by the a priori insight
of reason independently of sense experience. Under this theory, cate-
gorical answers can be given to all the problems of government by
abstract reasoning without reference to sense experience or the historical
context out of which problems arise. This type of thinking is illustrated
by Descartes and his followers.
A third theory of knowledge stands midway between the extreme forms
of rationalism and empiricism. Formulated by Aristotle and developed
by later thinkers, it disputes the doctrine that abstract reasoning divorced
from the totality of experience can establish truths about reality. With
equal force it rejects the view that valid knowledge must be limited to
sense knowledge. Striking a middle position, it holds that the intellect
and reason give us knowledge of the essences and properties of things
which are more than the mere enumeration or collection of relations that

15 The importance of epistemology to the study of political philosophy is discussed

by A. R. M. Murray, An Introduction to Political Philosophy (New York: Phil-
osophical Library, 1953), Chap. 1.
20 INTRODUCTION

we have sensorially experienced. This realistic theory of knowledge is

basic to the classical tradition. It assumes that there is a meaningful
political reality whose existence does not depend on our knowledge of
it and that we are endowed with the faculty to grasp in some measure
its true meaning. Hence it is possible for society to discover moral
objectives and ends in reality itself and to answer the question of what
ought to be in the political sphere.’*

SUMMARY
A history of political philosophy is a study of ideas and institutions as
they have developed during the course of time. It seeks to impart an under-
standing of the way in which men of all ages have formulated and implemented
their political and social aspirations. But political philosophy is also something
more than an analysis of past political theories. It seeks to discover universal
principles which underlie political phenomena under all historical circum-
stances. In so doing, it attempts to achieve a better understanding of
contemporary politics both from an ethical and causal standpoint.
The study of politics is not confined to a description and analysis of
existing institutions and the manner in which they function. Behind these
institutions are the values and purposes which they embody and the ends
for which they are designed. Politics, like ethics, is basically a science of the
order in which human nature aspires to its maximal perfection. Political
philosophy, or the investigation of political behavior and phenomena in an
ethical framework, is an integral part of the study of politics. All of the
great social thinkers have recognized this close interrelationship. They have
not hesitated to ask metaphysical questions about the nature of man and the
values that a society ought to pursue simply because such questions cannot
be answered by the techniques of the physical sciences.
The material in the present chapter suggests a number of questions that
might aid the reader in evaluating the work of the various political thinkers.
1. Is the writer concerned with the moral aspects of politics or does he
avoid these altogether?
2. What is his concept of man’s nature?
3. What view does he hold as to the nature and objectives of the state?
4. Does he accept or deny the existence of natural law, and what mean-
ing does he attach to the term?
5. How large and what kind of a role does he advocate for political
government?
6. Does he believe in constitutional rule?
16 For a detailed treatment of the various theories of knowledge, see W. P.
Montague, The Ways of Knowing: Or the Methods of Philosophy (New York:
Macmillan Co., 1928).
 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 21

7. What form of government does he support?

8. What is his attitude toward the common man?
9. Is he interested in causal theory as well as political philosophy?
10. What theory of knowledge does he espouse?

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Apter, David, E., “Theory and the Study of Politics,” American Political
Science Review, September, 1957.
Braybrooke, David, ‘““The Relevance of Norms to Political Description,” Ameri-
can Political Science Review, December, 1958.
Carritt, Edgar F., Morals and Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935).
Catlin, George, “Political Theory: What Is It?” Political Science Quarterly,
March, 1957.
Cobban, Alfred, ‘““The Decline of Political Theory,” Political Science Quarterly,
September, 1953.
Easton, David, The Political System (New York: Knopf, 1953).
Eckstein, Harry, “Political Theory and the Study of Politics,” American
Political Science Review, June, 1956.
Glaser, William A., “The Types and Uses of Political Theory,” Social Re-
search, Autumn, 1955.
Griffith, Ernest S., ““Research in Political Science,’’ American Political Science
Review, August, 1944.
Hacker, Andrew, “Capital and Carbuncles; The Great Books Reappraised,”
American Political Science Review, September, 1944.
Hermens, F. A., “Politics and Ethics,” Thought, Spring, 1954.
Jacobson, Norman, “The Unity of Political Theory: Science, Morals and
Politics,” in Approaches to the Study of Politics, Young, Roland, ed.
(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1958).
Jenkins, Thomas P., The Study of Political Theory (New York: Doubleday,
1955).
ae Arnold S., “The Nature and Function of Political Theory,” Journal
of Philosophy, January, 1954.
Kaufmann, Felix, “The Issue of Ethical Neutrality in Political Science,”
Social Research, September, 1949.
Land, P., and Klubertanz, G., “Practical Reason, Social Fact and the Voca-
tional Order,’’ Modern Schoolman, May, 1951.
McCloskey, R. G., “American Political Theory and the Study of Politics,”
American Political Science Review, March, 1957.
Morgenthau, Hans, “Power as a Political Concept,” Review of Politics,
October, 1955.
Mure, G. R. G., “The Organic State,” Philosophy, July, 1949.
Murray, John M., “The Moral Foundations of Democracy,” Fortnightly,
September, 1947.
Pennock, J. Roland, “Political Science and Political Philosophy,” American
Political Science Review, December, 1951.
Rapoport, Anatol, “Various Meanings of Theory,” American Political Science
Review, December, 1958.
22 INTRODUCTION

Rees, J. C., “The Limitations of Political Theory,” Political Studies, October,

1954.
Rommen, Heinrich A., The Natural Law (St. Louis: Herder, 1947).
Simon, Yves R., Philosophy of Democratic Government (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1951).
Smith, David G., “Political Science and Political Theory,” American Political
Science Review, September, 1957.
Stearns, R. P., “A Plea for Political History,” Review of Politics, October,
1955.
Strauss, Leo, “The Origin of the Idea of Natural Right,’ Social Research,
March, 1952.
Taubes, Jacob, “Theology and Political Theory,” Social Research, Spring, 1955.
Voegelin, Eric, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1952).
Watkins, Frederick, The Political Tradition of the West: A Study of the
Development of Modern Liberalism (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1948).
Wormuth, F. D., The Origins of Modern Constitutionalism (New York:
Harper, 1949).
 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF
PART TWO
THE ANCIENTS
 Chapter Il

THE GREEK CITY-STATE

‘,. . I claim that our city is an education to all Greece, and

‘

that every man among us is an example of independence of

mind, versatility of accomplishment, and richly developed
personality” (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War,
1a 7

PoiticaL speculation had its beginnings in ancient Greece. There along

the coast of Asia Minor with its invigorating climate and high cultural
achievement, the Greek mind systematically probed into the nature and
operation of political institutions. From this effort, unmatched in the
annals of recorded history, emerged a pattern of basic political and social
conceptions that have become part of the great cultural and intellectual
heritage of the West. For it was in classical Greece that the idea of
democratic government was first formulated and put into practice, that
the human values of liberty, justice, and individual dignity were recog-
nized, and that the seeds of western civilization were sown and nurtured.
It was there also that many of the perennial problems of man and the
state were first given articulation. So well was this task performed that
the proper starting point for the analysis of modern social and political
problems is frequently found in the wisdom of ancient Greece, a wisdom
that has proved capable of surviving and developing throughout more
than two thousand years.
At the core of Greek thought stood political man —man as a member
of civil society, as a participant in public affairs, as a shareholder in the
good life of the community, and basic to all these
— man as a rational
and moral being. Significantly enough, the Greeks realized that the in-
dividual’s chief contribution to public life is his personality developed
to its fullest potentiality, and that the principal function of the state
is to aid him in this task of self-perfection.
25
26 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

PRE-POLITICAL SPECULATION

The first philosophical thinking of any consequence took place in Greece

during the sixth century B.C. Prior to this time, the speculation which
occurred was so immersed in mythology and religion that the great ques-
tions of life received little rational scrutiny. Beginning with scholars
like Thales (600-550 s.c.), the Greek thinkers became interested in the
natural sciences, and directed their efforts toward investigating the nature
and structure of the physical universe. In the century or so that followed,
they occupied themselves primarily with the problem of matter, seeking
assiduously to discover a permanent substratum underneath all of nature’s
appearances and changes. What is the fundamental “stuff,” they asked,
of which everything is made? Where is the unity which les behind
variety and change to be found?
It was not until the middle of the fifth century B.C. that the accent
switched from cosmological to anthropological or humanistic speculation.
Greek philosophy at that time reached an apparently insoluble impasse
between the conflicting schools of the cosmologists as represented by
Heraclitus and Parmenides. The former taught that everything is in a.
constant state of flux and that the only reality is change or becoming.
“Nothing ever is, everything is becoming.” One cannot step into the
same river twice or feel the same flame a second time. Yet the process
of existence continues on with nothing remaining static.
Parmenides, on the other hand, held that nothing changes. All things
are one; the universe is a single, continuous object. Change and motion
are merely illusions of the senses. The paradox of Achilles and the tor-
toise illustrates this. No matter how swift he may be, Achilles can never
catch up with the turtle that he is pursuing. To do so he must first
reach the point where the turtle started, but by this time his quarry
will have moved on. By the time Achilles makes up this additional dis-
tance, the object of pursuit will have moved a little more, and so on ad
infinitum. For Heraclitus, science would be a virtual impossibility since
nothing is certain and necessary, while for Parmenides there could be
only one science, that of being.
Faced with this dilemma, the Greek philosophers began to shift their
primary attention to the study of man as an ethical, social, and political
animal. ‘Thus, from the riddle of the physical universe, they turned to
the riddle of the smaller cosmos —the state—and to the problems of
 THE GREEK CITY-STATE a
the human individuals who compose it. Socrates expressed the new trend
when he exclaimed that the noblest of all investigations is the study of
what man should be and what he should pursue.
The city-state was the unit of Greek political life throughout the classi-
cal period. Not only was it the chief subject of concern for Plato and
Aristotle, but its institutions and processes have found reflection in many
of the political practices of the West. Because of the major importance
of the classical Greek thinkers to subsequent political thought, an ex-
amination of the focal point of their speculation — the city-state —is a
necessary part of the history of political philosophy.

THE CITY-STATE: ATHENS

Greek democracy reached its highest stage of development in Athens

during the fifth century B.C., a period known as the “Golden Age of
Pericles.” ‘The standard governmental unit at this time was the polis
or city-state. This form of political organization, alien to an age of great
powers and national states, finds no modern counterpart. There were
several hundred Greek city-states of various sizes and forms of govern-
ment, and of different levels of civilization. The most influential of these
in the development of western political thought was Athens. It was here
that Greek intellectual life attained its highest expression and that learning
began to have political and social power.
Population-wise, Athens was no larger than a medium size American
city such as Rochester, New York, or Birmingham, Alabama. In terri-
torial extent it could be compared to a large American county. The
typical polis, unlike the modern city, combined both town and country
and both industry and agriculture. There was an urban area surrounded
by walls and a rural fringe lying immediately outside with its vineyards,
pastures, and fields. Athens and the other city-states differed from the
modern municipality in a more significant sense than size or physical
characteristics. They were sovereign political entities legally independent
of any superior governmental power. They had their own constitutions,
made their own laws, and conducted their own foreign relations. In fact,
for the Greeks, state and polis remained convertible terms to the end
of the classical period. Their philosophers knew no state that was not
a polis.
Because of its small size and sovereign powers, the city-state constituted
28 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

an intimate and intense form of political society. And because the whole
citizen body played a direct and comprehensive role in the governance
of this microcosmic commonwealth, the individual had a strong sense
of belonging to the city, of being a partner rather than a subject of it.
The Greeks were in general agreement that a truly civilized life could
be lived only in connection with a polis. For it was the city that was
the heart and inspiration of their great achievements in the field of
literature, art, philosophy, and in the development of the good life.

Social Classes

The city-state of Athens had a population estimated to be somewhere

between 300,000 to 400,000. Of this number, approximately half lived
in the central town and the other half in the surrounding rural area. The
population was divided into three major social classes, each with a distinct
legal and political status: the citizens, the metics or resident foreigners,
and the slaves.
Men over eighteen years of age of Athenian parentage were enrolled
in the citizen class. This class numbered about 40,000, or together with,
wives and children, 160,000. Citizenship could be acquired only by birth,
not by any process of naturalization. The chief advantage of citizenship
lay in the political privileges it conferred on the holder, namely the right
to take part in the governance of his city and in the management of its
public affairs. There were no particular social privileges that accompanied
the status of citizen. The class was open to all of Athenian stock, noble and
commoner alike. It included men in the lower economic brackets as well
as the wealthy, the artisan and farmer as well as the shopkeeper and the
professional man. But there was one important omission, the Athenian
woman. Like modern Switzerland, classical Greece felt that woman’s
place was in the home, not at the polls, or on jury service, or in public
office. Since the Greeks could not conceive of citizenship apart from the
right to participate actively in government, they logically excluded women
from the category of citizens.
The second class, the metics, consisted of free aliens who were per-
manently domiciled in the city. With their families they numbered close
to 100,000. Athens welcomed immigration as the words of Xenophon
recall: “We throw open our city to the world and never pass decrees
 THE GREEK CITY-STATE 29

to exclude foreigners.”! This liberal policy toward aliens was not inspired
altogether by humanitarian motives. Athens needed workers, particularly
artisans and craftsmen, not only to supply her domestic needs but also
to produce goods for her expanding foreign trade. The majority of the
metics were therefore found in the ranks of the craftsmen and the small
traders.
Aside from the denial of political privileges and the right to own land,
the resident alien’s status was not an unhappy one. He enjoyed a large
measure of social equality with the citizen class, he was not discriminated
against except in political matters, and his economic position was gener-
ally “middle-class.” The failure to provide a legal process for acquiring
citizenship was the only facet of Athenian policy toward the foreigner
that could be termed illiberal by modern standards.
At the bottom of the social scale were the slaves, most of whom had
been kidnaped or taken as war prisoners in Asia Minor and the adjacent
territory. There were between 80,000 and 100,000 slaves in Athens, or
about one fourth the city’s total population. Apart from those who were
used in the public silver mines, the lot of the Athenian slave was gener-
ally good. He was protected by legislation against physical abuse and was
normally assigned to jobs commensurate with his capabilities and talents.
He could be found working side by side with the citizen and metic in
all kinds of work from menial tasks to the trades and even the professions.
Some of the slaves were skilled craftsmen and others were employed in
the city service in such positions as clerk, policeman, and inspector. In
dress and appearance, the slaves were indistinguishable from the ordinary
citizen. Many of them, moreover, were paid for their work, and by saving
their earnings they could in time buy their freedom and become assimilated
to the free alien population.
The distinctions in class and the existence of slavery, even though well
established and universally accepted customs of the time, obviously de-
tract from the democratic character of Athenian institutions. Yet, what
is most significant about this period is that the smallness of the city-
state and its life within common walls drew men together in a natural
intimacy despite the drawbacks of status. Men of all social walks of life
— slave, metic, and citizen —could be found associating in the market
square on a basis of equality. The city-state may not have abolished the
1 Memorabilia, ii, 3, 3,
30 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

prestige of wealth and culture but it did establish a tradition of easy

intercourse among all classes.” It was this civic intimacy that gave Athens
her distinctive flavor in the history of democratic institutions.

Government of Athens
Pericles, in his famous Funeral Oration, declared that the government
of Athens is called a democracy because its administration is in the hands
of the many. Similarly, the great dramatist Aeschylus proudly observed
that there is no government in Athens for the people is the government.
Although a measure of poetic license is evident in these expressions, the
citizen class in Athens actually did participate in government to a degree
unknown in the modern democratic state. Accustomed as we are to gov-
ernment by representatives, it is difficult for us to visualize a society in
which every citizen shares directly in the formulation of public policy
and, to a considerable extent, in its execution. At any given time, at least
one out of every four or five Athenian citizens could be found performing
some public service — either legislative, administrative, or judicial. Those
entitled to so participate were the male citizens who had reached the
required age. This group, it must be remembered, constituted only a small
fraction of the people, certainly not more than twenty-five per cent of
the adult population.
For administrative purposes, Athens was divided into 100 demes or
local governmental areas which were equivalent in many respects to
present-day counties. Through an assembly of the citizens and an elected
mayor, the demes managed the local affairs of the neighborhood, col-
lected certain taxes for the central government, recorded real estate trans-
actions, conducted judicial proceedings in minor matters, and kept the
register of citizenship. They also served as electoral units for nominating
candidates for the Council, and judges or jurymen to serve on the courts.
The Assembly: ‘There were three principal organs of government at
the central level: the Assembly, the Council, and the Courts. These
correspond roughly to the modern legislative, executive, and judicial
branches. ‘The supreme lawmaking power was vested in the Assembly
(ekklesia), the outstanding historical example of direct or primary de-
mocracy in action. Each of the 40,000 Athenian citizens was entitled to
attend its meetings and to participate in its deliberations
— not through
2E. Barker, Greek Political Theory, Plato and His Predecessors (London: Methuen
andeGonelO47))potdsedae pe Lo.
 THE GREEK CITY-STATE 31

representatives, but in person. Basic to Greek democracy was the belief

that the collective judgment of the people is superior to the judgment
of experts. Because of this conviction, the Greeks were reluctant to sur-
render any important decision to representatives. Government at the
local and provincial levels in a number of modern democracies retain
some vestiges of this notion. The referral of many decisions to popular
vote, such as the issuance of bonds for capital expenditures or proposals
for changes in constitutions and charters, are examples of this same
tendency.
It is clear that not all Athenian citizens attended the Assembly meet-
ings, no more so than all eligible voters in the United States go to the
polls on election day. In fact, if all citizens had turned up, the Assembly
would have been hopelessly unwieldy and unmanageable. Attendance
often entailed a sacrifice which many Athenian citizens were not in a
position to make. Some of them who were engaged in farming lived a
day’s journey or more from the central town where the meetings were
held, and they could ill afford to be absent from their fields for any
prolonged interval.? The only occasion for which attendance figures at
an Assembly meeting are extant reveals that 3616 members were present.
Whether this number is typical or not is a matter of pure conjecture.
Meetings of the Assembly were held at least ten times a year, always
during the day and always in the open air. Lawmaking in Athenian style
can still be witnessed today in several of the smaller Swiss cantons.
Unfortunately none of the stirring debates which took place on “Par-
liament Hill” in Athens have been recorded for posterity. Certainly the
meetings of the Assembly were great popular occasions, and certainly
they gave the citizen an intimate feeling of directly sharing in the
responsibility of making public policy. If the meetings were at all similar
to those of the modern Swiss canton, they were orderly and dignified,
and the citizen body was collectively conscious of the great significance of
the task for which it had gathered. As one modern observer has noted, it
is impossible to attend a cantonal meeting without deep emotion. From
all over Switzerland fathers bring their children to witness a sight that
is unique in present-day democracies, and unequaled as an inspiring lesson
of civic responsibility and of devotion to the commonweal.*
3 For an account of this period see J. O. Larsen, Representative Government in
Greek and Roman History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1955).
4Wnm. E. Rappard, The Government of Switzerland (New York: Van Nostrand,
1936), p. 36.
32 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

It would, however, be naive to believe that four or five thousand

people, no matter how well trained in the art of good citizenship, could
actually transact the intricate business of lawmaking by mass action.
Even in the modern day parliaments of four or five hundred members,
the real lawmaking power has become concentrated more and more in
the hands of cabinets and committees. The same could be said of ancient
Athens and the Assembly. The actual task of preparing the laws and of
mapping out public policy was entrusted to a smaller organ of govern-
ment known as the Council. Yet it was in the Assembly— in the people
themselves — that the sovereign power of the state resided since this
body retained the ultimate authority to accept, reject, or modify the work
of the Council.
The Council: The Council (boule) was a representative organ of
government consisting of 500 members chosen by lot from a list of
candidates elected by the demes. Any citizen, thirty or more years of
age, was qualified to stand for election in his district provided he had
not already served two terms on the Council. This limitation was intended
to give a larger portion of the citizen body an opportunity to serve. Since
500 was still too large a number for the effective transaction of business,
the Council was divided on a tribal basis into ten subcommittees of
fifty members each. Each of these committees in turn assumed the
day-to-day control over all Council business for a tenth part of the year.
From among the fifty, a presiding official called the president was chosen
by lot each day. Again for the purpose of assuring a wide rotation of
offices, no Athenian was eligible to hold this honor as titular head of
state for more than one day in his entire life.
The Council was the mainspring of the governmental machinery. It
had a twofold purpose, serving as a steering committee for the Assembly
and as the principal administrative arm of the state. In its legislative
capacity, it prepared the agenda for the Assembly meetings and drafted
and introduced the bills to be acted upon. While the Assembly could
amend the bills so proposed, it did not itself have the power of initiation.
This system does not differ essentially from the practice in modern
parliamentary governments, such as Great Britain, where the lawmaking
body is limited almost wholly to action on bills introduced by the
ministry.
There must be some permanent central authority in every political unit
to direct and supervise the course of public affairs. The Council served
 THE GREEK CITY-STATE 33

this purpose in Athens. It sat daily to transact business; it was responsible

for national defense and the conduct of foreign affairs; it managed the
city’s finances, prepared the budget, and assessed and levied taxes; it
handled the public property and watched over the administrative duties
performed by the lesser officials. This last function was of peculiar
importance since Athens had no permanent civil service except in the
lower ranks. Practically all of the administrative offices were filled an-
nually by lot without the privilege of reappointment. This practice was
based on the theory (later to find re-expression in Jacksonian democracy)
that every citizen is competent to discharge the ordinary duties of govern-
mental administration and equally entitled to a share in it. Even the
minor officials, such as the director of public works and the commissioner
of health, were selected in this manner. Only in those instances where
the position required highly specialized and expert knowledge was the
office filled by show of hands in the Assembly.
The Courts: The administration of justice in Athens deviated strangely
from modern practices. In keeping with the belief that all phases of
government should be entrusted to the citizen body, no provision was
made for professional judges. All cases were decided by juries of the
people without the assistance or instruction of a trained jurist. Individual
juries were chosen by lot, as the need arose, from a panel of 6000 jurymen
elected by the demes.> The average jury consisted of 501 members, all
of whom had to be citizens over thirty years of age. Both civil and
criminal cases were heard. Parties to the litigation had to plead their
own cause, and in criminal matters a private citizen acted as prosecutor.
The decision of the jury was by majority vote. There was no provision
for appeal since under Athenian theory an act of the court was an act
of the whole people. The chief reason for the large size jury was to
eliminate the danger of bribery or intimidation. It was also felt that
the collective judgment of the many is better than that of the few.
The Generals: In addition to the above three agencies, there was a
fourth public instrumentality of major political importance — the offices
of General, of which there were ten. The position of the Generals was
unique in the Athenian organizational scheme since they were the only
officials elected annually by direct popular election and subject to no

5 Aristophanes, in his Wasps, depicts the jurors, many of whom resided in the rural
areas, carrying their lanterns as they trudged along the roads to the city before daybreak
in order to be on hand when the courts opened.
34 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

restriction as to re-election. In theory, the Generals were purely military

officials, but in practice (as might be expected in an office popularly
elected on a national basis) they were able to exert great influence over
the Council and Assembly. Not only did they command the army and
the navy, but they exercised many of the functions performed in a
modern state by the ministry. It was not as a political official but as a
General that Pericles was able to direct Athenian policy for over thirty
years. Yet his power to do so was dependent on his ability to win and
maintain the support of the Assembly. His position in this respect was
similar to that of a prime minister who must keep the confidence of a
majority in parliament in order to remain in office.
Ostracism: To serve as a safeguard against overly ambitious political
leaders, the Athenians instituted a curious expedient called ostracism.
Once a year at an Assembly meeting, the question was put to the citizens
whether there was need for ostracism. No specific names as targets for
banishment had to be mentioned. If the motion carried, a special election
was held two months later. The voter could write any name he wanted
on the ballot (which was a broken piece of pottery). A minimum of
6000 votes had to be cast. The man with the greatest plurality was then
exiled from the country for a period of ten years. After that time, he
was free to return and regain all his civil, political, and property rights.

THE CITY-STATE: SPARTA

The polis of Athens is of prime importance in the development of

western political thought and institutions. However, a second Greek
city-state also exerted considerable influence on Hellenic thinking. Sparta,
the champion of reaction, represented the virtual antithesis of Athens.
While the latter was developing her democratic institutions, the former
was devoting her energies to the systematic suppression of subordinate
groups and preparing herself for the leadership of the Greek peninsula.
The population of Sparta fell into three major social classes: spartans,
perioeci (dwellers-around), and helots. The first group was of Dorian
lineage, and although it constituted less than five per cent of the total
population, it exercised absolute control over all public affairs. Admission
to this exclusive class was by birth only. The Spartan’s whole life centered
around the public service. No career in business or commerce was per-
mitted him. At the age of seven, he was taken from his parents and
 THE GREEK CITY-STATE 35
placed in boarding schools operated by the state. Through vigorous and
severe training in gymnastics and military drill, he was brought to a high
degree of physical perfection. The education which the Athenians so
highly esteemed —reading, rhetoric, the arts, and music —was looked
upon with scorn. The sole aim of the Spartan educational system was
to provide good soldiers wholly devoted to the state. Most of the student’s
time was spent in learning how to be submissive to discipline, indifferent
to pain, and superior in combat. As part of his training, he was taught
to steal; and if caught he would be punished — not for stealing but for
not learning his lesson well enough.
The Spartan was occupied chiefly with military affairs during the greater
part of his life. Only in his later years was he eligible to share in the
tasks of civil administration. He was permitted to marry, but until he
reached the age of thirty he had to live in barracks apart from his wife.
It was the practice of the state that no Spartan should be either destitute
or wealthy. None was allowed to own gold or silver. Each was given a
small plot of land and was expected to live on its produce. The land
was cultivated by a helot who also received a share of the produce.
Since the Spartans devoted all of their time and energy in the service
of the state, the burden of supplying the material needs of the community
fell to the other two classes. The perioeci consisted mainly of imported
workers who were assigned to the tasks of commerce, trade, and the
handicrafts. They enjoyed a large measure of civil rights but their social
position was definitely inferior to that of the Spartans, and they were
excluded from all share in the government of the city. The helots, who
comprised almost two thirds of the population, were simply slaves or
serfs. They were engaged almost exclusively in tilling the soil and in
supplying the food needs of the whole population. Possessed of no
rights, either civil or political, and subject to rigid supervision and at
times ruthless suppression, their lot was not a happy one.
The government of Sparta was highly centralized in fact, although
complex in form. It consisted of four principal branches: the Kings,
Ephorate, Council, and Assembly. At the head of the state were two
hereditary kings whose position gradually became that of mere figureheads
as the real power was transferred to other organs, particularly to the
Ephorate. The latter agency was an annually elected board of five members
which supervised the training of the youths, presided over the Council
and Assembly, heard nearly all civil suits, exercised complete and dicta-
36 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

torial power over the helots, and carried on foreign affairs. The Council
or Senate was composed of twenty-eight elders past the age of sixty years
who were elected for life by the whole citizen body. The Council con-
sidered measures to be presented to the Assembly and exercised certain
judicial functions, such as hearing all important criminal cases in which
citizens were involved. The Assembly was open to all citizens over thirty
years of age. Its function was limited to that of voting on measures
submitted to it by the Council; it had no authority to debate. For various
reasons, the Spartan Assembly came to have little significance, meeting
only occasionally to register its approval of some important measure
advocated by the ephors.
The highly regimented life in Sparta with its asceticism and enforced
discipline, the rigid suppression of all nonconformist ideas, the practice
of political absolutism, and the ruthless marshaling of all the state’s
human and material resources, enabled her to become the dominant
power in Hellas. In contrast to the many other Greek city-states that
were plagued by revolutions, Sparta was able to maintain stable govern-
ment over a long period of time. Her ability to do so aroused the
admiration of many Hellenic thinkers, including Plato. Yet Sparta’s
contribution to the western tradition was almost wholly of a negative
character. She may have succeeded in creating a race of invincible war-
riors and maintaining a system of oligarchical institutions, but she played
no part in the development of that which has made ancient Greece
famous: culture and civilization.

THE FALL OF ATHENS

Even at the time that Athens was reaching the full development of
her democratic institutions, events were taking place which boded ill
for her future. After defeating the invading Persians at the great naval
battle of Salamis in 480 n.c., Athens became the acknowledged leader
of a large section of Hellas and the head of the newly formed Delian
League of city-states. In this new position of power, she directed her
foreign policy toward the expansion of her commerce and industry and
the domination of the Aegean Sea. Athens, in strange contrast to the
humane and liberal practices which prevailed in domestic matters, ex-
ploited her confederates in a rather selfish, shameful, and undemocratic
manner, extracting tribute from them and going so far on several occa-
 THE GREEK CITY-STATE 37

sions as to use force in order to prevent the secession of a League member.

This last action was explained away on the ground that it was necessary
to preserve a united front of Greek city-states in the face of the continued
Persian threat.
The Melian dialogue, as related by Thucydides, illustrates the manner
in which Athens dealt with reluctant allies or neutrals. When the island
of Melos sought to remain neutral in the war between Athens and
Lacedaemonia, Athens demanded submission. The Melians inquired as
to why they could not be neutral, “friends instead of enemies, but allies
of neither side.” Rejecting the offer of neutrality, the Athenian envoys
declared that the safety of their empire would not permit the existence
of Melos as an independent state. “Besides extending our empire, we
should gain in security by your subjection.” In answer to the Melian
complaint of injustice in this attitude, the Athenians replied, “You know
as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between
equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer
what they must.’”® These are words that have a distinctly familiar and
modern tone.
The expansionist policies of Athens threw many of the other important
city-states, such as Corinth, into the Spartan orbit, and eventually led
to the Peloponnesian War. For twenty-seven years (431-405 B.c.), the
Athenian bloc was locked in a struggle with the Spartan confederacy.
When the conflict was over, not only had Athens fallen but all of Hellas
was weakened and drained of her strength by this internecine strife. As
a result, Greece became an easy prey in the following century for the
Macedonian king and adventurer, Phillip II (382-336 s.c.). It is sig-
nificant to note in this connection that Plato and Aristotle wrote after
Athens had been defeated by Sparta and during the days of her subse-
quent decline. It is perhaps for this reason that they became severe
although sympathetic critics of the political institutions that had failed
to withstand the crises of their day.

SUMMARY
The social and political thinking of classical Greece is generally recognized
as a vital force in the development of western thought. Since Greek specula-
tion revolved largely around the city-state, an understanding of its institutions
6 Thucydides, Modern Library Edition (New York: Random House, 1934), pp.
330-337.
38 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

and practices is a necessary prelude to the study of political philosophy. Much

of Plato and Aristotle, for example, would not be intelligible without such
knowledge. And without a basic understanding of these two major theorists,
much of the subsequent development of western political thinking would
be difficult to analyze.
But the city-state is of more than historical or background importance; it
has in itself meaning and significance for modern political science. It has
demonstrated in the concrete the importance of active participation in pub-
lic affairs to the full development of human personality. It has revealed
many of the tangible and intangible benefits that accrue to the individual and
his community from such participation. It has illustrated how the smaller
social units, because of their intimacy and close association, can awaken a
more acute sense of voluntary co-operation in solving common problems and
a deeper feeling of pride in civic accomplishments. It has also shown the
weaknesses and dangers that are connected with the small political unit.
Finally, it has provided a significant example of the ways in which men have
been organized for political purposes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Agard, Walter, What Democracy Meant to the Greeks (Chapel Hill: Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press, 1942).
Barker, Ernest, “Elections in the Ancient World,” Diogenes, Autumn, 1954.
Bonner, R. J., Aspects of Athenian Democracy (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1933).
Burn, A. R., Pericles and Athens (New York: Macmillan, 1949).
Chroust, A. H., “Treason and Patriotism in Ancient Greece,” Journal of the
History of Ideas, April, 1954.
Constanzo, J. F., “The Graeco-Roman Politeia— The City of Man,” Ford-
ham Law Review, June, 1951.
Cornford, F. M., Before and After Socrates (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1932).
Fowler, Wm. W., The City-State of the Greeks and Romans (New York:
Macmillan, 1904).
Freeman, Kathleen, Greek City-States (London: Macdonald, 1950).
Fustel de Coulanges, N. D., The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion,
Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome, trans. by Wm. Small (New
York: Doubleday, 1956).
Glotz, Gustave, The Greek City State and Its Institutions, trans. by N.
Mallinson (London: Kegan Paul, 1929),
Glover, T. R., Springs of Hellas (New York: Macmillan, 1946).
Democracy in the Ancient World (New York: Macmillan, 1927).
we ao B., The Life of the Ancient Greeks (New York: D. Appleton,

Halliday, Wm. R., The Growth of the City State (London: Hodder and
Stoughton, 1923).
 THE GREEK CITY-STATE 39

Hammond, Mason, City State and World State in Greek and Roman Political
Theory Until Augustus (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951).
Harper, Geo. M., Jr., “Democracy at Athens,” in The Greek Political Experi-
ence: Studies in Honor of William Kelly Prentice (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1941).
Hignett, Charles, A History of the Athenian Constitution (Oxford: Clarendon
Press. 1952).
Jones, A. H. M., “The Social Structure of Athens in the Fourth Century,
B.C.,” Economic History Review, December, 1955.
Larsen, J. A. O., Representative Government in Greek and Roman History
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1955).
Livingstone, R. W. (ed.), The Legacy of Greece (Oxford: Oxford University
Rress 192 0).
Meiggs, Russell, “Athenian Democracy,” Parliamentary Affairs, Spring, 1949.
Myres, J. L., The Political Ideas of the Greeks (New York: Abingdon, 1947).
Vlachos, N. P., Hellas and Hellenism: A Social and Cultural History of
Ancient Greece (New York: Ginn and Co., 1936).
Wheeler, M., “Self-suficiency and the Greek City,” Journal of the History
of Ideas, June, 1955.
Zimmern, Alfred, The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and Economics in
Fifth Century Athens, 5th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931).
 Chapter Ill

PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE

“Neither cities nor states nor individuals will ever attain per-
fection until the small class of philosophers . . . are provi-
dentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care of
the State, and until a like necessity be laid on the state to
obey them” (Plato, Republic, VI, 499).

Tue history of systematic political theory begins with Plato. This time-
honored philosopher was born in 427 B.c., four years after the Pelopon-
nesian War had begun. He was twenty-three when he saw Athens fall
at the hands of Sparta, an event that convinced him of the weakness of
democratic rule. He died in 347 B.c. at the age of eighty, just ten years ~
before Philip of Macedon brought the Greek world under his sway. Plato
came from a distinguished family. On his mother’s side he was related
to Solon, the noted Athenian lawgiver; and from his father, he inherited
a venerable and aristocratic lineage.
During his youth, Plato was attracted by the prospect of an active politi-
cal life. As he wrote, “in my youth I had the same idea of many others;
I thought that as soon as I attained my majority, I would take part in
the affairs of my country.” The opportunity for such participation arose
shortly after the close of the Peloponnesian War when the government
of Athens passed into the hands of a committee of thirty prominent
citizens. Plato accepted the invitation to join this group because, in
his words, “I thought that their aim was to turn the city from its life
of injustice to the way of justice and so govern it.”? It was not long,
however, before the excesses of the new rulers so thoroughly disillusioned
him that he withdrew from all activity in public affairs. His interest was
later rekindled when the democrats returned to power, only to be ex-

1 Letters VII.
2 Tbid.,

40
 PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE 4]

tinguished when the new government put his friend and teacher, Socrates,
to death. Thereafter, Plato never again took an active part in the political
life of Athens. After an extended trip abroad, he returned to the city of
his birth and in 388 B.c. founded his famous Academy, or school of
philosophy, in an olive grove outside the city. Although established pri-
marily for the pursuit of pure knowledge and not for practical training,
the Academy sent forth many of its students to occupy high political
offices in the various Greek city-states.

THE SOCRATIC INFLUENCE

Some knowledge of Socrates (470-399 B.c.) is necessary as a preface

to Plato’s political theory because of the deep influence that the master
had upon his disciple. Socrates, the son of an Athenian sculptor, dedi-
cated himself early in life to combating the skepticism of the Sophists.*
His brilliant mind, his dry humor, and his gift of repartee attracted
a circle of admiring young pupils about him. The most faithful and
discriminating member of this group was Plato. Socrates unfortunately
committed nothing to writing; what knowledge we have of his doctrines
is derived from the accounts given by others, particularly Plato, Xenophon,
and Aristotle.
Socrates made no direct contribution to the development of political
theory. He was interested mainly in the individual, and only incidentally
in the state as a political institution. Indirectly, however, his legacy to
the philosophy of government is threefold: the establishment of the
inductive method of examining reality; the formulation of the doctrine
that virtue is knowledge; and the teaching that there is an intellectual
and moral order which can be discovered by man.
Socrates devoted considerable attention to the development of a meth-
odology or mode of procedure for attaining truth. His efforts culminated
in the establishment of a method of definition or dialectic, in the sense
of critically examining into the truth of an opinion. By a process of
successive questions and answers, he would seek to penetrate to the
essence or nature of a subject, such as justice or freedom, in order to

8 The Sophists were itinerant teachers who made their livelihood by offering instruc-
tion to young men. They formed no separate school of philosophy, usually teaching
whatever their students were willing to pay for. Most of them were skeptics who denied
the existence of any universal norms of human conduct. They openly boasted that
through their technique “the worse course could be made to appear the better.”
a THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

arrive at a universal definition. He would first elicit a superficial definition

of the term from his listeners, and then through cross examination lead
them to see its shortcomings. His questions always steered them slowly
and imperceptibly toward the region where he believed that truth lay.
Every step on the way was subjected to the critical inspection of reason.
Socrates referred to this method as “maieutic,” from the Greek maieutikos
meaning midwife; hence the art of intellectual midwifery which seeks to
deliver the slumbering thought from the mind and aid the intellect in
arriving at the essence of a thing. The dialogues of Plato illustrate the
Socratic method at its best.
According to Socrates, virtue is knowledge. The virtuous man is one
who knows while the sinner is merely ignorant. Right knowing leads
always of itself to right action; evil-doing results from deficient insight.
It was inconceivable to Socrates that a man who knows the nature of
goodness and truth would behave in an evil manner. For no man sins
wittingly; only knowledge is needed to make him perfectly virtuous.
The task, therefore, is to teach men to grasp and understand the great
truths of life so that, knowing them, they will act virtuously and thereby
remedy the defects of human society. A thorough and disciplined training
of the mind is necessary if this objective is to be achieved. :
Basic to his other contributions, Socrates taught that there are certain
unchanging and universal principles of morality lying beneath the varying
laws and customs found in the world. He insisted that such norms of
truth exist independent of and paramount to individual opinion. When
the Sophists argued that laws were but conventions established for the
sake of expediency and that truth was simply what each individual thought
it to be,* Socrates replied that there is a suprahuman realm of nature
whose ordinances are binding on all men. This idea was not new
(Sophocles’ Antigone, for example, had appealed from certain edicts of
King Creon arguing that they conflicted with a higher law which was
“everywhere and eternally valid”) but the belief that a higher law existed
was based largely on mythology and religion. With Socrates, who pred-
icated the presence of such a law on reason, the concept became formally
incorporated into philosophical speculation.
Although Socrates criticized such Athenian practices as selection by
*Or as the Sophist Thrasymachus answered when asked to define justice, “every-
where there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger”
(Republic, I, 339). Excerpts from the Republic are taken from the Modern Library
edition, trans. by B. Jowett (New York: Random House).
 PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE 43

lot and expressed doubt over the popular composition of the Assembly,
he spent little time theorizing about the state and its institutions. It was
with his pupil, Plato, that the first attempts at systematic political
speculation began.

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

The introductory chapter emphasized the importance of the logical

foundations or theory of knowledge that are implicit in all political think-
ing. Plato provides an excellent case study in this connection since his
political theory cannot be fully grasped without first understanding his
concept of knowledge. ‘The Socratic doctrine that virtue is knowledge is
basic to his speculations about the state. When we turn to this premise,
we are immediately compelled to ask what he means by knowledge. Of
what kind of knowledge is he speaking and how is it obtained — through
the senses, by a priori thinking, or in some other fashion? Until we have
an answer to these questions, the equating of virtue and knowledge can
have little more than superficial significance.
Plato, like Parmenides and Heraclitus, was troubled by the problem
of change and permanency, of the one and the many. He saw the world
in a constant state of flux, but he felt that there was something per-
manently inherent in that which was changing. To answer this problem,
he formulated his doctrine of Ideas, which is essentially a theory of
knowledge. The knowledge which man obtains through the senses is a
knowledge of the impermanent and changing. Perception brings into con-
sciousness the world of changing appearances, of things that come and
go. But there is another kind of knowledge, that of ideas as conceived
by reason, or intuitively grasped independent of sense experience. This
is the knowledge of true reality, of the essence of objects, of the universal
and permanent. There are thus two worlds: the world of ideas which is
and never becomes, and the world of sense perception which becomes
but never is.
Plato’s ideas are not mere thoughts, for thoughts are fleeting and
transitory. His ideas, while incorporeal, have real existence separate and
apart from the corporeal objects in which they appear. Hence the idea
of man is different from any particular man, or the idea of the state
different from any existing political institution. Corporeal man and cor-
poreal state are merely reflections or shadows of the ideas man and state.
ae THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

The objects which men perceive are not true reality since reality, the
permanent and unchanging, cannot be seen but only thought. Nor do
the objects of sense perception include the idea; they are but shadows
or copies of it. The ordinary world of the senses may be a passing
Heraclitean stream or flame, but the forms of river and fire exist in
timeless and changeless perfection. These forms or ideas are the objects
of true knowledge.
In the last book of the Republic, Plato explains that whenever in-
dividual objects have a common name, they also have a common form.
To state this concept more simply, there is only one idea or form of a
table even though there are many tables in the world. Just as the reflec-
tion of a table in a mirror is only apparent and not real, so are the
individual tables unreal. They are only copies of the idea, the real table
made by God — the “One who is the maker of all the works of all other
workmen.”® Of this one real table there can be true knowledge while
of the many such articles made by cabinetmakers there can be only
opinion. The philosopher is principally interested in the idea or form of
desk, not in the many found in the sensible world.
The famous allegory of the prisoners in the cave which appears in
the fourth book of the Republic is also helpful in understanding Plato’s
meaning of “idea.” The prisoners, representing individuals who are des-
titute of philosophy, are chained in their underground cell so that they
can look only to the front. In back of them is a blazing fire, and between
the fire and the prisoners is a track with a parapet built along it. Behind
this parapet are “persons carrying along various artificial objects, includ-
ing figures of men and animals in wood or stone or other materials”
which project above the barrier. The captives cannot see the objects
being carried but only their shadows (the knowledge obtained by the
senses) which are reflected before them on the wall of the cave. Even
if a prisoner managed to turn and examine the objects, he would see
that they were artificial and “not so real” as what he had thought them
to be.
The path to true knowledge is tortuous and difficult. Only a select
few, those who have learned to contemplate, are able to master it. Plato
cautions that the facility for contemplation is limited to those whom
nature has endowed with innate capacity for this task; and even for
these, the ability is not acquired automatically but only by effort and
~ 8 Republic, X, 596.
 PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE 45

training. He points out that if a prisoner in the cave is released and

brought into the light of the upper world, the glare will so distress him
that he will be unable to see “a single one of the things that he was
now told were real.’’ Only by a slow and painful process of forcing him-
self to turn toward the light will he gradually be able to see and
understand.
. Just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without
the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the
movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming
into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being,
and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words of the good.®
The soul that reaches this stage will have successfully ascended into
the intellectual sphere away from the changing world of shadows and
artificial objects — it will have attained the beatific vision of the Good.
What role does sense knowledge play in the process? Plato answers
that the senses make man curious and spur him on in his efforts to know
reality. The soul, before its entrance into earthly existence, has gazed
upon the world of ideas. It therefore recalls them when it sees their
copy in the sense world. What training and discipline will best accustom
the mind to grasp reality? Plato prescribes mathematics since it compels
“the soul to reason about abstract number” and to rebel “against the
introduction of visible or tangible objects into the argument.” It teaches
man “to raise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being.”” Do
all men have equal capacity to attain true knowledge? Plato answers in
the negative, since men are basically unequal in talent and potentiality.
Even if all men possessed the same inherent capacity, few would be
able to discipline and train themselves to the point where reason becomes
supreme master over the passions and appetites; and only when reason
dominates absolutely is the soul able to grasp reality.
To sum up Plato’s theory of knowledge, sensible objects of the world
cannot be known with any certitude since they are in a continual state
of flux.? Particular things, in other words, are not real; they are inter-
6 Ibid., VII, 518.
7 Ibid., VIL SS.
8 Aristotle’s lucid résumé of Plato’s Eaeeioiiay should be noted. “Socrates .. .
fixed thought for the first time on definitions; Plato accepted his teaching, but held
that the problem applied not to sensible things but to entities of another kind — for
this reason, that the common definition could not be a definition of any sensible thing,
as they were always changing. Things of this sort, then, he called Ideas, and sensible
things, he said, were all named after these, and in virtue of a relation to these; for
46 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

mediate between being and not-being. But there is another genus of being
separate from matter and movement, called ideas, of which the sensible
objects are only reflections. These ideas or forms are true reality, and
since they are permanent and unchanging, they can be grasped and
understood by the human intellect. The objects of the senses are true
and good only to the extent that they correspond to their ideal prototype.
Virtue therefore has its real existence in the same way that it exists in
the mind, that is, immaterially and universally. We attain it by knowing
it. Thus the man who knows what temperance or justice is will by that
very fact be a temperate and just man.

THE PREMISES OF PLATO’S POLITICAL THOUGHT

Plato’s literary style takes the form of a dialogue in which Socrates

is the principal conversationalist.° Three of these dialogues contain sub-
stantially all of his political ideas, the Republic, Statesman, and Laws.
The first is his masterpiece, one of the great works of all time. It is
not an easy book to read with its wide range of subject matter, its
treatment of all facets of the author’s philosophy, and its poetic imagery -
and symbolism. Commentators cannot seem to agree as to whether it
is a treatise primarily on justice, politics, or education. It has been charac-
terized as a work which defies classification, belonging neither to politics,
ethics, economics, or psychology, though it includes all these and more.?®
Despite these difficulties, it is possible to find a clear and unified pattern
in those portions of the Republic which deal with political theory.
There are four fundamental concepts that lie at the basis of Plato’s
political philosophy: virtue is knowledge; men are unequal in talent,
aptitude, and capability; the state is a natural institution; and the end
of political society is the common good.

the many existed by participation in the Ideas that have the same name as they”
(Metaphysics, I, 897).
® Professor Foster has noted that the dialogues were probably intended as memorials
to Socrates but actually became vehicles for Plato’s own development of his master’s
thought. As a result, it is now impossible to know with certainty when Socrates speaks
whether it is really he or Plato speaking. Masters of Political Thought (London:
Harrap & Co., 1942), p. 33.
10G. H. Sabine, A History of Political Thought (New York: Holt & Co., 1949),
2nd ed., p. 39.
 PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE aT

Virtue Is Knowledge
Implicit in this doctrine are three concepts. First, truth must be ob-
jective and unchanging in order for us to attain knowledge of it. Other-
wise we could have only opinion, as Plato remarks, and not true knowl-
edge. Second, since virtue is equated with knowledge, the man who
knows should be given a decisive role in public affairs. The task of finding
good and virtuous rulers is thus simplified by the test of learning."
Third, the state should take an active role in educating its people, placing
particular emphasis on those who are to be entrusted with the guidance
and direction of public life. A more virtuous and well-functioning society
will be fostered by training the members of the community to the full
extent of their capabilities.

Inequality Among Men

Plato holds no concept of idealistic equality among men in respect
to talent and capabilities. He is strongly convinced that nature has made
men different in their capacities both for physical and intellectual pur-
suits and for attaining virtue. His parable of the metals makes this clear:
Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God
has framed you differently. Some of you have power of command, and
in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they
have the greatest honor; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries;
others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has com-
posed of brass and iron.”
Some of the practical implications of this view of human inequality are
well illustrated in the recent comments of an American educator. Dis-
cussing the question whether there should be some point in public
education where those unable to go further could be shunted off into
trade schools or into doing the humble work that must be done by
somebody, he asks, “if a boy is born a truck driver, why don’t we start
him driving a truck?” Admitting that his remarks sound undemocratic,
he observes that “there is nothing more undemocratic than the way the
gods have distributed genes among the population of the world.”*
11 The word “virtue” is generally used in political philosophy in a broad sense to
denote both moral and intellectual excellence. Plato divides virtue into four constituent
elements: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.
12 Republic, III, 415.
18 Address by Dr. F. C. Baxter, quoted in Newsweek, June 4, 1956, p. 48.
48 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

Platonic theory holds that it would be utterly foolish and senseless

to place the inferior individual in a position of public trust for which
he is not fully qualified by nature and training. It also holds that such
action would unfavorably affect the well-being of the inferior person by
depriving him of the guidance of superior minds. “We say that he [the
inferior individual] ought to be the servant of the best in whom the
Divine rules: not . . . to the injury of the servant, but because every one
had better be ruled by divine wisdom dwelling within him; or, if this
be impossible, then by an external authority.”** The title or right to
tule should be virtue.

The State as a Natural Institution

What is the state, or phrased in another way, what is the nature of
the political association? This is one of the pivotal questions of political
philosophy. The whole relationship between the state and the individual
depends on the way it is answered. The legitimate role of government
will be one thing if the body politic is an entity with an existence and
end of its own separate from that of the members who compose it.
It will have quite another role if the state is merely a machine or in<
strumentality that has been fashioned by man to serve his individual
convenience. And the function of government will be still different if
the civil polity is a natural institution subsidiary to man’s development.
Plato holds to an organic concept of the state. He points out that
it is not people alone who constitute a body politic, although it is obvi-
ously made up of individuals; nor is it people living in geographical
proximity, although a defined territory is one of the elements of a state.
There must be some bond, he insists, which unites men together in a
political association. He finds this bond to be justice, but justice in a
different sense than we are accustomed to think of it. He starts his
inquiry into the nature of the state by noting that individual man is
unable to supply his wants and needs. “A state, I said, arises out of the
needs of mankind; no one is self sufficing, but all of us have many wants
. . and [since] many persons are needed to supply them, one takes
a helper for one purpose and another for another; and when these part-
ners and helpers are gathered together in one habitation, the body of
inhabitants is termed a state,’’!
14 Republic, EX, 590,
45 Ibid,, II, 369,
 PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE 49

Men are by nature adapted to different occupations, some to farm-

ing, others to the skilled trades, and a lesser number to the various pro-
fessions and intellectual pursuits. By specializing in that for which each
is best suited, optimum progress can be made since all things are pro-
duced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality. No individual
is a jack-of-all-trades but all — young and old, women and children, crafts-
men and laborers, industrialists and farmers, rulers and governed — have
their special work marked out for them. It is here that justice lies: in
each man fulfilling the role in society for which he is best fitted by the
original constitution of his nature.
Plato argues that a system based on his principle of natural skills
would create a balanced pattern to fit the intellectual and physical
attributes of diverse people. By learning to do well the work that he is
born to do, each individual makes his proper contribution to the com-
munity and progresses along the path toward his own self-fulfillment.
Basic to this approach is a recognition of the community good as a pre-
condition to the good of the individual. The state or social whole is
necessary to man. If it is weak and unhealthy, its ability to assist the
individual in realizing his maximal perfection is correspondingly impaired.
From these premises, the conclusion emerges that the state is a natural
institution arising out of the nature of man. It is not, as the sophists
taught, a mere product of convention; nor is it, as the fascists were later
to hold, a spiritual entity in which man’s individuality is completely
absorbed.
A second aspect of Plato’s theory of the state is also of importance.
His definition of justice implies a single whole in which each member
acts as a part. This conception permits him to compare the state to the
body of man. “The state is the individual writ large.” It is an entity
composed of different parts that are complementary and mutually de-
pendent and that act together in pursuit of a common end. An injury
to any member is an injury to the whole body. If one group in a society
is impoverished or abused, the health of the entire community is affected.
The organic view held by Plato does not imply that the state has
an existence of its own separate from its component parts. On the con-
trary, it recognizes that the thoughts and acts of the body politic are
simply the thoughts and acts of its members thinking and acting col-
lectively as members. This denial of separate being to the state is some-
times obscured by the unusual stress that Plato places on the unity of
50 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

the social organism. Political unity, in fact, becomes almost a fetish with
him. He repeatedly emphasizes his conviction that the greatest evil to
the community is “discord and distraction and plurality,” and the greatest
good “the bond of unity.” This concept dominates the whole organiza-
tion of his ideal state with its class structure, its division of labor, its
communism for the rulers, its educational system, and its completely
planned society.

The Purpose of the State

The state comes into being because of the insufficiency of individual
man to supply his own needs. It seeks to establish a division of labor that
will bring increased material benefits to the individual. Through educa-
tion and the promotion of the arts and sciences it endeavors to aid him
in his intellectual and cultural pursuits, and through its laws it tries to
guide him in the path of moral virtue. Its prime task, as envisioned by
Plato, is to direct the common life of man in order that all may attain
happiness.
The end of the state is not the good of any particular individual or
class but the good of all, the common good or general welfare. Plato
constantly reiterates that “our aim in founding the State was not the
disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness
of the whole.”!® Just as the business of the physician is the good of
the patient, so the object of the ruler is the welfare of the governed.
Throughout Plato’s writings, the good of the people and the good of
the state are looked upon as coincidental aims. He could conceive of
no situation in which the interests of the subjects would conflict with
the public interests of the state. He felt that such a conflict could arise
only in the case of the rulers, and here he called for rigid safeguards.
The high role which the Republic assigns to the state prompts the
reader to ask whether this institution has the capacity to play such a
part in the affairs of human life. Plato admits that no existing state does;
only the ideal commonwealth modeled after the polis “laid up in the
heavens” can enable men to achieve the Good and to perfect their
natures.

THE IDEAL STATE

Plato begins his Republic by seeking the definition of justice. He first
te Ibid., 1V, 420.
 PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE 51

points out that justice is an important virtue of the state as well as of

the individual. Then using this observation to transform the question
concerning justice into an investigation of political theory, he somewhat
arbitrarily notes that it would be easier to discover this attribute in the
larger specimen, the state, than in the smaller, the human individual.
For the quantity of justice is likely to be greater and more easily dis-
cernible in the large than in the small model. It is imprinted on states
in larger characters and is more easily recognizable. “I propose therefore
that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they
appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from
the greater to the lesser and comparing them.’ The initial task in this
approach is to construct a theoretically perfect state so that perfect
justice can be ascertained. Plato proceeds to do this in his prototype of
all utopias. As previously indicated, he finds that the just state is one
in which each of its component parts performs the function for which
it is naturally adapted.

Class Structure
Based on the principle of diversity of talent, the members of the
state are divided into three classes: rulers, warriors, and producers.® The
first is likened to the faculty of reason in man, the second to his spirit
or passion, and the third to his sensuous appetite. The rulers determine
the entire course of the state through legislation and general direction;
the warrior class, which includes both military and administrative officials,
guards the state and executes the laws; and the producers, the great
mass of common people, provide for the material needs of the social
body. This division rests on the assumption that there are basically three
types of men: those who are equipped by nature to rule, those who are
able to perform administrative and military functions under proper
guidance, and those who are capable of working but not ruling.
The class structure which Plato proposes is not a caste system but
one which at least theoretically provides for social mobility. Membership
in the various categories is to be determined by ability and not by birth
or wealth. Each child, no matter how humbly born, is to be accorded

17 Ibid., II, 369. We see here again a typical device of the Greek thinkers, the
analogizing between the human body and the body politic.
18 Plato at times refers to the first two classes collectively as “guardians,’”’ and to
the second class as “auxiliaries.”

G.M. ELLIOTT LIBRARY

Cincinnati Christian University
bys THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

the highest training warranted by his natural capacity, and each individ-
ual is to be placed in a position corresponding to his ability. It would
thus be possible for the child of a laborer to rise to a high administrative
or military post or for the son of a guardian to be demoted to the working
class. Plato felt, however, that instances of interclass transfers would be
rare. As he remarks in the parable of the metals, a golden parent will
sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son, but generally
the species will “be preserved in the children.”’®

The Educational System

Granted that everyone should adopt that form of activity for which
he is specially marked out by nature, how can society put such a plan
into operation? What assurance is there that everyone will submit to
filling his nature-prescribed role, or even that he can determine what
his individual part should be? The main point, Plato answers, is to
establish a comprehensive and thorough system of training. In this way
the talents of the individuals can be ascertained and developed, and the
ethical quality of submission cultivated. The Republic endeavors to outline
such a scheme of education.
Contrary to the practice then prevailing in Athens where education
was considered a private or family affair rather than a state responsibility,
Plato makes it a matter of governmental concern. As his ideal state in-
dicates, he was greatly impressed by many aspects of Spartan life and
government. During his youth he had seen Sparta with its autocratic
tule and highly disciplined citizen body triumph over democratic Athens.
This event had left a deep impression on him. At the same time, he was
a product of the humanistic and cultural traditions of Athenian civiliza-
tion. These two strains — Spartan and Athenian — met in his political
science. This intermixture is evident in his treatment of education. His
plan for training the youth follows broadly the Spartan example in the
organization of the educational system but departs radically from it in
content. Although highly regimented, the Platonic system, unlike the
Spartan preoccupation with physical training, emphasizes intellectual dis-
cipline and the formation of the whole man by imparting to him a
balanced harmony of mind and body.
Apparently all members of the ideal state were to receive the normal
19 Republic, UI, 415.
 PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE 53

course of education which included reading, writing, arithmetic, music,

and gymnastics. There was to be no discrimination practiced against
women. Those who possessed the necessary qualifications were to receive
the same training as the men and were to be admitted to the same high
offices. The preliminary state of education would last until the age of
eighteen and would be followed by two years of military training for
the able-bodied. The formal process of education would then come to
an end for all except a small group of talented students. Those who
demonstrated high intellectual potentialities and passed certain qualifying
tests during the first two stages would be accepted as probationers for
higher offices. For the next ten years this group would undergo a rigorous
course of study with emphasis on mathematics. The pruning out process
would continue during this time as it had in the earlier stages, thus
forming different grades of military and administrative officials. Those who
survived this period were to be given an additional five years of training
devoted to the study of philosophy. If they failed to demonstrate a
philosophic nature under trials and tests, they would be eliminated and
assigned to governmental duty in tasks appropriate to their capacities.
The students who successfully completed their philosophical studies
would be considered ready to assume high administrative responsibilities
in government. They would perform these duties in the service of the
state for fifteen years. During this tenure, they would undergo a further
series of character tests. If they survived this period with distinction, they
would, at the age of fifty, become the guardians or rulers of the state,
the philosopher kings, entrusted with the supreme responsibility of
statesmanship. In this capacity, they would serve as sovereign legislators,
establishing major policies and charting the course of the state. As elder
statesmen, they would spend only a portion of their time in the guidance
and direction of public affairs; the remainder would be devoted to philo-
sophic contemplation since “the time has now arrived at which they
must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all
things, and behold the absolute good; for that is the pattern according
to which they are to order the State and the lives of individuals.”?° Hay-
ing come out of the cave to witness true reality, the philosopher must
then descend into the darkness to impart light and wisdom to the prisoners
of the earthly world.
20 Ibid., VII, 540.
54 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

The Government
The foremost objective of the Platonic educational system is to pro-
duce a class of rulers, pre-eminent in virtue and ability. Governing a
community, Plato observes, is just as specialized a task as treating the
sick. Since people would not relegate the latter task to one without
medical training, neither should they entrust the care of the state to
amateurs. The multitude cannot attain proficiency in political science
any more than it can acquire skill in the science of physics or mathe-
matics. True knowledge is limited to the exceptional few, and it is these
who should rule society.
Plato clearly is no democrat. Only those who are wise and virtuous
are to possess political power in the ideal state, and their views alone
are to prevail in the social order. The average individual must be com-
pletely barred from participation in public affairs. He must have no
voice in either the selection of his rulers or the formulation of govern-
mental policy. Once a governing group of the intellectual elite is brought
into being, full and absolute political power should be placed in its
hands. Like artists, the philosopher rulers would fashion the state and
society in the image of its divine prototype. They would begin
by taking the State and the manners of men, from which, as from a
tablet, they will rub out the picture and leave a clean surface . .
they will first look at absolute justice and beauty and temperance, and
again at the human copy. .. . And one feature they will erase, and
another they will put in, until they have made the ways of men, as far
as possible, agreeable to the ways of God.”2
Plato nowhere indicates what organs of government will be established,
how policy will be formulated, or how responsibility will be enforced
in the ideal state. ‘These are apparently matters of mere detail that would
rest entirely in the discretion of the experts.
Plato refers to the rule of the philosopher kings as either monarchy
or aristocracy, indicating that both signify rule by the best and that
both forms would be acceptable, dependent on circumstances. In modern
terminology, the type of government proposed by the Republic would
be referred to as “benevolent despotism” since the rulers are limited by
no constitution or laws, nor even by the customs of the people. They
simply direct the life of the community as their wisdom dictates. The
21 Ibid., VI, 501.
 PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE 55
philosopher king should no more be compelled to follow prescribed rules
of law than the expert physician should be bound by the formulas set
out in a medical textbook. Plato does not mean by this, however, that
the ruler can act arbitrarily and capriciously. Just as the good physician
observes the principles of bodily functioning in prescribing for his pa-
tients, so the good ruler governs in accordance with the objective prin-
ciples of justice that are embedded in nature. For it is nature that fixes
the limits of human conduct —a concept that, in traditional thought,
lies at the heart of true constitutionalism. Plato’s rulers would be chosen
precisely because they had attained knowledge and therefore virtue (for
virtue is knowledge).

Platonic Communism
Plato held that there were two serious defects in the existing govern-
ments of his day: the incompetence of public officials (which he felt
was largely peculiar to democratic states) and factionalism, or the struggle
among opposing groups, classes, and individuals for power. He would
eliminate the first weakness through the elaborate educational scheme
that was designed to produce a class of experts in statecraft. He would
seek to remove the second by a communal system imposed on the ruling
classes.
The Greeks were cognizant of the influence that economic motives
exert on political action. Plato was not alone in believing that the most
serious threat to the unity of the state lies in the dissension that in-
evitably arises between those who have and those who have not. Each
group or faction in the community seeks political power chiefly to fur-
ther its economic interests. The corrective, as proposed by Plato, is
to abolish private wealth for the ruling classes: the guardians and auxil-
iaries. Devotion to their high public responsibility can tolerate no rival.
Since the producers or workers are to have no voice in the government,
they can safely be excluded from the communal restrictions. For if the
tulers are free from dissension, there is little likelihood that the rest of
the city will quarrel either with them or with one another. What Plato
fears is the union of political and economic power; what he desires is the
union of political power and wisdom.
Plato points out that family ties constitute a second source of dis-
sension in the community since affection and anxiety for one’s family
is a form of self-seeking that competes with the state for the loyalty
56 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

of its rulers. ‘Ihe remedy here, as it is in respect to property, is to abolish

the family unit for the governing groups. ‘The Republic suggests that the
guardians and auxiliaries be housed in barracks, be paid nothing other
than their board and lodging, and be subjected to regulated breeding.
Plato has a second purpose in mind in abolishing marriage and the
family. He argues that no one would tolerate the indiscriminate breed-
ing of fine animals since such breeding would deteriorate the quality
of the stock. Why then permit the unselected pairing of human beings
when man’s efforts should be directed toward the improvement of the
race? If progress is to be made in this direction, the children of the
rulers must be the issues of temporary unions based on eugenic prin-
ciples. Immediately after their birth, the offspring must be taken from
their mothers and placed in the care of the state. By establishing familial
and property communism, private possessive emotions would be mini-
mized and few temptations would remain to deflect the rulers from the
path of duty. There would then be no occasion for those in power to
“tear the city in pieces by differing about mine and not mine; each man
dragging any acquisition which he has made into a separate house of
his own, where he has a separate wife and children and private pleasures
and pains.”’??
Plato feels that by removing the private interests of the governing
classes, all motive for them to use their public power toward any end other
than that of the general welfare will be destroyed. His communism, un-
like the modern brand, is not economic, but moral and political. It
does not seek to destroy private property in order to equalize wealth
among the people. It seeks only to communize the property of the ruling
classes in order to eliminate the possibility of conflict between their
private interests and their public duty. It is interesting to note that
in establishing these safeguards, Plato is confessing that few men, even
those subjected to the rigorous training and education outlined in the
Republic, are able to attain true knowledge. A ruler who possesses such
knowledge would by that very fact be virtuous and above the temptations
that lead to selfish and tyrannical action. He would not have to be checked
by such institutional devices as the Republic proposes. Even Plato could
not overlook the problem that all government faces: the weakness of
the flesh. ;
22 Ibid., V, 464.
 PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE 57

The Ideal State: Dream or Possibility

Did Plato fashion a mere utopia, or did he believe that his plan
was possible of attainment? When the point was raised, he asked “would
a painter be any the worse because after having delineated with consum-
mate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful man, he was unable to show
that any such man could ever have existed?”2? Whether the ideal state
is attainable or beyond human reach is not vitally material to Plato’s
thinking although it gives it the flavor of unreality. The significant point
he seeks to make is that the idea of the perfect polis serves as a standard
for existing states. If they do not measure up to the ideal, so much
the worse for them. The idea of the perfect state, moreover, serves as
a model for the individual to guide his private conduct no matter how
bad the community may be in which he actually lives. It will be easier
for him to see the pattern of justice and virtue in the larger model than
in the smaller cosmos of man.
Plato, however, meant his ideal state to be something more than a
mere daydream or imaginary utopia. He conceived it in all seriousness
as a practicable and attainable ideal, incorporating in it many social
and political features of existing Greek cities. A number of its more
radical characteristics had actually been realized in Sparta. He was well
aware that a union of knowledge and political power would have to take
place before a civil community, such as he visualized, would be possible.
The wise man may possess the virtue necessary to exercise power in the
best and most enlightened manner, but there is little that he can do
to reform society so long as this power resides in unwise hands. Plato
admits that the possibility of uniting political power and wisdom is slight
and that it could happen only by “some divine chance” since the people
do not have sufficient insight to grasp the significance of such a union.
Yet the cause is by no means hopeless. There is always the chance that
an individual who possesses the true philosopher’s temperament might
come into political power by inheriting a throne and that he would
then set out to reconstruct the state.2* “Let there be one man who has

23 [bid., V, 472.
24Plato visited Syracuse on several occasions to aid in the education of King
Dionysius, a young man in whom he saw the possibilities of a philosopher king. He
felt that Dionysius could provide the occasion for radical political reform, but his
hopes in this regard failed to materialize.
58 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

a city obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal
polity about which the world is so incredulous.’’?®
How would such a ruler set about his task of political reform? Plato
foresaw that the process of conversion would be slow and gradual. As
he describes it, the ruler would have to begin by
sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are
more than ten years old, and take possession of their children, who will
be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in...
the laws which we have given them: and in this way the State and
constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily
attain happiness.”°
The old are too fixed in their habits and beliefs to change; only the
young are susceptible to radical molding. Social reconstruction must
therefore begin with them.

THE STATESMAN AND THE LAWS

The Republic was written by Plato when he was about forty years
of age; the Statesman and the Laws represent the work of his later life.
These latter two works deal more with the possible than the ideal. They
contain some modification of his political theory in that they restore
the general pattern of Athenian democracy as a concession to human
frailty. Although the ethical content of his thought remains the same,
his attitude toward men has become more tolerant, more understanding
of human weaknesses, and more realistic. He does not discard his basic
conviction that the best state is one in which everything is placed under
the personal and absolute control of the wisest. This is the ideal state
“than which there can never be a truer or better.” Here is the pattern
on which we must ever fix our eyes, which we must cling to and “seek
with all our might for one which is like this.’??
Now, however, Plato expresses doubt that rulers can be found who
will be willing to sublimate completely their personal desires and posses-
sions to the interests of the state. Nor is he still certain that the knowl-
edge necessary for a true philosopher king is attainable. “No man’s nature
is able to know what is best for human society, or knowing, always willing
and able to do what is best.”?* Abolishing property and family ties for
25 Republic, VI, 501. 27 Laws, 739.
26 [bid., VII, 540. 28 Tbid., 875A.
 PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE 59

the rulers remains the most desirable plan, but Plato now cautions that
it is to men “we are discoursing and not to gods.” His belief in the
perfectibility of man through education is supplanted by an awareness
that the weakness of human nature makes a new approach to the problem
of government necessary.
Having made these concessions to the frailties of man, Plato is com-
pelled to make his ruling group subject to laws which designate the
organization and powers of the government. There would be no need
of such laws under the rule of the philosopher kings. “We must take
things as they are, however, and kings do not arise in cities in the natural
course of things in the way the royal bee is born in a beehive — one in-
dividual obviously outstanding in body and mind. And therefore it seems
men have to gather together and work out written codes.”? Plato con-
cedes that it would be extremely dangerous to give unlimited power to
men buffeted about by passions and temptations. An individual with such
power “‘will be bound to employ it to the hurt and injury and death of
anyone he pleases.’*° Somewhat bitter and disillusioned, Plato finds it
necessary to accommodate government to the realities of human life.
In the Laws, Plato proposes a mixture of aristocracy and democracy,
a balancing of wealth and numbers, in order to stabilize political power.
The Council, an administrative body, is to consist of elected representa-
tives from each of four economic classes. Voting is to be compulsory
under penalty of fine. A group of thirty-seven judges would constitute
the judiciary. The legislative function plays a small role in the proposed
state since Plato assumes that the laws would be provided beforehand
by a lawgiver such as Solon. The details of the laws would be filled in
by the judges and the administrative officials. If major changes became
necessary, they would be enacted by the Nocturnal Council, an intellectual
aristocracy composed of priests, the ten eldest judges, and some younger
members. Changes would be made only in rare instances when great and
pressing need existed.
Plato emphasizes that the state which he proposes in the Laws is only
the second best, a concession to practical exigencies. Even in this second
best state, he still incorporates many of the features of his ideal re-
public. Although he no longer prescribes an educational program to be
pursued under the rigid supervision of the government, he makes it
29 Statesman, trans. by J. B. Skemp (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1957), p. 80.
30 [bid.
60 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

perfectly clear that there is no greater sin than ignorance. Those who
attain high office must be carefully trained and educated. The rulers
would no longer be required to have wives and children in common but
they would continue to eat at common tables in which the men and
women would be separated. Laws would minutely regulate many aspects
of private life. The people would be limited in the amount of wealth
that they could possess; poets would be required to submit their works
to the censorship of the magistrates; and women as well as men would
be taught the use of arms. Throughout the Laws, as in the Republic,
runs the indestructible theme that “a man’s whole energies throughout
life should be devoted to the acquisition of the virtue proper to man.”
Plato abandoned hope for the state of the Republic when he became
convinced that it was not “within the horizon of practical politics.” Yet
it is doubtful that his second best polity was any closer to the level of
ordinary life, or much more possible of attainment, than his ideal. The
tone is still too sublime, too divorced from the political arena, too un-
aware of the force of popular opinion. The Statesman and the Laws,
nonetheless, contain many valuable commentaries on political behavior
and institutional arrangements. Aristotle later utilized a number of these
observations in the development of his Politics.

SUMMARY
No classical writer is quoted more frequently by modern political com-
mentators than Plato. His thinking continues to have vital relevancy and
meaning for the contemporary scene. No one, for example, has better
demonstrated the high position of public service in the hierarchy of values.
As he emphasized in his allegory of the cave, those who have climbed from
the darkness to see the vision of Goodness must not remain on the heights,
refusing to return to the mundane affairs of the world. In a remarkable
passage, he points out the price that men of ability must pay if they abstain
from participation in political life: “Now the worst part of the penalty is
that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is inferior to
himself.’’*?
Plato endeavored to make it clear to all ages that ethics is an integral
part of politics. He recognized no double standard of morality, one for
political office and one for private life. Politics as such cannot be amoral or
morally neutral; it is too deeply involved with human acts, It therefore has
moral dimensions and a moral scope; it is concerned with values and norms,
with ethical conduct. The student of politics must be interested in more than
bt Republic, 1347.
 PLATO: THE SCIENCE OF ROYAL RULE 61

what is; he must also be concerned with what ought to be. Political philosophy
cannot tell him how to fashion or operate political and social institutions
but it can direct him toward a good rather than an evil use of them.
Platonic philosophy represented an extreme reaction against the relativism
of the sophists. It attempted to establish, through reason and insight, an
absolute truth that was good at all times and in all places. It looked upon man
as a rational and moral creature with an ultimate destiny that transcends the
world of time and space. Man is a spark of the divine, created for the divine.
All earthly life has value and meaning only as an education for a higher
supersensible existence. Unlike the traditional natural law approach, however,
Plato’s concept of reality did not permit him to discover truth in the nature
of sensible objects since such objects had no real existence for him. His
natural law is consequently abstract and mystical rather than concrete and
realistic.
Classical thought, as typified by Plato, emphasizes the primary role that
education plays in society. It places the responsibility on the state to see
that its citizen body is properly trained and educated. Society must not be
wasteful of talent. It must reach out and afford ample opportunity to those
who for economic reasons are unable to obtain the highest level of education
commensurate with their talents. Plato and his colleagues insisted that the
minds of the people must be directed toward the good if corruption, crime,
and abuse of power are to be minimized and rooted up. They would have
fully agreed with the UNESCO slogan that reads: “Since wars begin in the
minds of men, it is in the minds of men that we must seek to prevent them.”
Plato was the first of the great political theorists; but some of the basic
premises that permeated his thinking, particularly his theory of knowledge,
made a right understanding of the nature of politics difficult. He assumed,
in the light of his theoretical presuppositions, that the life of a community
could be fashioned by the rulers in the same manner that an individual shapes
his own life. He failed to see that the political life of a state is patterned
more by the people themselves than by their political governors. He placed
too high a confidence in man’s willingness to subordinate his individual
desires to the common good. He refused to recognize the merit and ability
of the average individual. He assumed that intelligent men could be given
political wisdom simply by proper training. Finally, he felt that a body of
wise men could be selected through his “winnowing out” process, and that
government could then be left in their hands without restraint. History has
demonstrated the fallacy of these assumptions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barker, Ernest, Greek Political Theory: Plato and his Predecessors (London:
Methuen, 1925).
Crossman, R. H. S., Plato Today (New York: Oxford, 1939).
Demos, Raphael, The Philosophy of Plato (New York: Scribner, 1939).
62 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

Doherty, K. F., “God and the Good in Plato,” New Scholasticism, October,
1956.
Edelstein, L., “Function of the Myth in Plato’s Philosophy,” Journal of the
History of Ideas, October, 1949.
Field, G. C., “Plato’s Political Thought and Its Value Today,” Philosophy,
uly O41,
aes Kathleen, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1946).
Foster, M. B., The Political Philosophies of Plato and Hegel (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1935).
Gittler, J. B., “A Note on Greek Sociological Thought Before Plato and
Aristotle,” Social Science, January, 1948.
Grant, G. P., “Plato and Popper,’ Canadian Journal of Economics and
Political Science, May, 1954.
Grene, David, Man in His Pride: A Study in the Political Philosophy of
Thucydides and Plato (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950).
Kelsen, Hans, ‘‘Platonic Justice,” Ethics, April, 1938.
Levinson, R. B., In Defense of Plato (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1953).
Lewis, B D., “Plato and the Social Contract,” Mind, January, 1939.
Lodge, Rupert C., Plato’s Theory of Ethics (New York: Harcourt Brace,
LOZS}e
eee C. H., The Growth of Political Thought in the West (New York:
Macmillan, 1932).
McKeown, J. E., “Sociological Misinterpretations of Plato’s Republic,’’ Ameri-
can Catholic Sociological Review, October, 1955.
Miller, James W., “The Development of the Philosophy of Socrates,” Review
of Metaphysics, June, 1953.
Morrow, Glen R., “Plato and the Law of Nature,” in Essays in Political
Theory, ed. by M. R. Konvitz and A. E. Murphy (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1948).
Popper, Karl R., The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1950).
Poyser, G. H., “Ancient Light on a Modern Problem: the Individual and
the State,” Hibbert Journal, July, 1953.
Ritter, Constantin, The Essence of Plato’s Philosophy (London: G. Allen
and Unwin, 1933),
Robin, Leon, Greek Thought and the Origins of the Scientific Spirit (New
York: Knopf, 1928).
Ross, David, Plato’s Theory of Ideas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951).
Strauss, Leo, “On a New Interpretation of Plato’s Political Philosophy,”
Social Research, September, 1946.
Tarrant, D., “Cave and the Sun,” Hibbert Journal, July, 1953.
‘Taylor, A. E., Plato: The Man and His Work, 6th ed. (New York: Meridian
Books, 1956).
Welles, C. B., “Economic Background of Plato’s Communism,” Journal of
Economic History, 1948,
See Plato’s Theory of Man (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
 Chapter IV

ARISTOTLE: THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS

“We should consider not only what form of government is

best, but also what is possible and what is easily attainable by
all” (Aristotle, Politics, IV, 1).

Few men in world history have left a more lasting impression on the
thinking of mankind than Aristotle. His writings perennially excite lively
interest among philosophers and exert a strong force in contemporary
discussions. Much of the history of philosophy could in fact be written
around the history of the influence of Aristotle and Plato. Some com-
mentators, such as Coleridge, go so far as to divide all men into Platonists
and Aristotelians. Although this division may be somewhat arbitrary and
oversimplified, the vigorous philosophical debates which periodically take
place between the intransigent followers of the two schools continue to
throw much light on present-day intellectual problems.
Aristotle was born in 384 B.c. in Stagira, a small Greek city on the
peninsula of Chalcidice. He came from an upper middle class family,
his father serving as court physician to Amyntas II, father of Philip the
Great. At the age of seventeen, he went to Athens to enroll in the
Academy of Plato. He remained in Athens as a member of the school
for twenty years, until its founder’s death. During the next twelve years,
he traveled widely, married, and served for three years at the court of
Philip as tutor to the young Macedonian crown prince, Alexander. When
the latter was suddenly called to the throne by Philip’s murder in 336,
Aristotle returned to Athens and set up his own school in the Lyceum, a
gymnasium consecrated to Lycian Apollo. The school received the title
“peripatetic” because of the shady walks where many of the lectures
took place. Most of Aristotle’s productive writing dates from the time
that he founded the Academy to his death in 322 B.c.
When Alexander the Great died in 323 B.c. during one of his cam-
paigns, anti-Macedonian agitation broke out in Athens. Aristotle, suspect
63
64 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

because of his previous association with Alexander, was indicted (as

Socrates had been) on the charge of impiety, a capital offense. Since
conviction was certain, he fled from Athens to seek sanctuary in Chalcis,
a city on the island of Euboea, “so as not to give the Athenians a second
chance to sin against philosophy.” His exile was of short duration since
he died the following year at the age of sixty-two.
The breadth of knowledge displayed by Aristotle, the catholicity of
his mind, the vastness of his intellectual achievement, and the influence
he exerted on subsequent thought find little parallel in the history of
the Western world. The imposing body of his work includes treatises
in such widely ranging fields as logic, physics, metaphysics, biology,
meteorology, rhetoric, poetry, ethics, and politics. Although he was pro-
foundly influenced by Plato, he broke away from his teacher’s influence
in certain basic respects. Instead of Plato’s distrust of empirical reality,
we find Aristotle constantly testing his hypotheses by reference to the
sensible and concrete; and instead of Plato’s preoccupation with mathe-
matics and its methodology as the correct approach to the social sciences,
we find Aristotle seeking his starting point in matter — in historical
circumstances, existing facts, and previous experience.
Despite the differences between the two, Aristotle is one with Plato
in holding that man is a political animal who can fulfill his nature only
in the polis; that the state is a moral institution which exists to aid
man in attaining his perfection; and that the true state seeks to further
the welfare of the whole and not the good of privileged groups alone.
Both thinkers viewed with alarm the instability (stasis) of Greek political
life, and both placed great faith in education as a corrective device for
the ills of their day.

ARISTOTELIAN THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

According to Plato, true reality is found only in the archetypal ideas,

the universals, such as man in general or the state in general. The par-
ticular things that the senses perceive are merely images of the ideas—
shadows of reality — which are objects of opinion but not of true knowl-
edge. ‘he universal, in this view, is apart from particulars. It cannot be
arrived at by any process of abstracting or disentangling from sensible
objects the features common to all of them. It can only be apprehended
by the intellect and not by sense experience since it subsists outside the
 ARISTOTLE: THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS 65

temporal world. Aristotle recognizes that Plato’s theory of ideas is in-

sufficient to explain empirical facts. While he agrees that the primary
object of the intellect is to know the essences of things, he holds that
such essences must not be conceived as different from the objects of
experience. As universals, they exist only in the intellect. Hence, unlike
Plato’s world of ideas, the universals possess no existence or have no
independent reality separate from the material objects in which they
inhere. Forms are in things; they are not themselves separately existing
individual objects.
Aristotle maintains that the essence of an object becomes known to
the human intellect through abstraction. In this process, characteristics
which are peculiar to some members of a group are disregarded and
only those which are common to all-are retained. Thus by discarding
all the peculiarities which differentiate John, Henry, and James from each
other, such as height, weight, and color, the intellect seizes upon those
elements which are common to all of them — rationality, sentiency, life,
body — and forms them into the idea of man. Knowledge, in this light,
begins in the senses but goes beyond sense perception, since the intellect
gives knowledge of the essences and properties of things which are more
than the mere enumeration or collection of facts and experiences.
The differences in the epistemology of Plato and Aristotle find reflec-
tion in their political theory. What the former is asking for is not the
best possible state but the ideal polis based upon a model that is far
beyond the empirical and historical world. Ernst Cassirer has noted that
even though Plato’s state provides a pattern for human actions, it has
no definite ontological status, no place in reality.t As a result, his political
philosophy bears at points the same character of unreality as his account
of natural things. His exaggerated stress on unity can similarly be traced
to his theory of knowledge. Since the idea is more real than the object
or species and actually contains it, and since in the logical order the
more universal concept is imposed on the less, the lesser societies (in-
dividual, family, voluntary association) are properly absorbed in the more
universal community, the state.
In contrast to Plato, Aristotle’s epistemology enables him to look for
the determining principles, the essence and nature, of objects in the
objects themselves. His political speculation consequently has the feeling
of reality. It seeks the possible and the mean, rather than the impossible
a Myth of the State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946), p. 78.
66 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

and the extreme. It begins with the particular and the individual, not
the universal and the whole. This theory of knowledge conditions the
methodology to be employed in an examination of the state in two
ways: first, the inquiry must start with an empirical investigation of
actually existing political institutions and practices; and second, the study
must begin with the parts which make up the whole. Only by pro-
ceeding from the simple to the composite can the nature and properties
of the whole be properly understood.

THE SPECULATIVE AND PRACTICAL SCIENCES

There is a second difference in the general intellectual approaches to
reality that were followed by Plato and Aristotle, a difference which per-
haps occasioned a sharper distinction in their political thinking than
did their divergent theories of knowledge. Unlike his predecessor, Aris-
totle differentiates between speculative and practical sciences. The for-
mer, which include physics, metaphysics and mathematics, deal with
necessary and nonoperable matter — matter which can be known but
which cannot be affected by human efforts. There is nothing, for in-
stance, that we can do to change the fact that two plus two are four.
The object of these sciences is to see truth simply for the sake of under-
standing the nature of reality. The end of speculative sciences is to know,
and only to know. The knowledge that is so obtained may be used for
practical purposes, but such use is only incidental to the object of
the science.
The practical sciences, which include ethics and politics, deal with
the contingent and operable, with matter that may be affected by the
acts of man. As Aristotle notes, “human interference can make them
otherwise.” ‘The rules which the practical sciences embody are never
rigidly universal. They are subject to occasional exceptions because of
the contingent character of the facts with which they deal. Their end,
moreover, is not only knowledge but action, the use of knowledge to
achieve certain goals. Man studies ethics not primarily for the sake of
knowing what is good, but for the purpose of acting in a good manner.
Similarly, the end of politics “is not knowledge but action”; it is “con-
cerned with nothing so much as with producing a certain character in
the citizens, or in other words with making them good.’ Since the
2 Aristotle, Politics, I, 1 and 10. Excerpts from the Politics are taken from the
Modern Library edition, trans. by B. Jowett (New York: Random House, L945))5
 ARISTOTLE: THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS 67

practical sciences deal with the free and voluntary acts of men, they
require more than the perfection of reason (knowledge); they require
rectitude of the will.
Aristotle points out that unlike the universal truths of the speculative
sciences, there is no certainty in the means that man may take to attain
his ethical and political goals. One course of action or one set of political
institutions may be more effective under given circumstances than an-
other. The statesman must not only know in general what is good for
man; he must also be able to judge correctly in a particular situation
that a certain act will secure the good. The intellect is capable of giving
man the ends and norms, but it cannot give him the practical judgment
or prudence to decide in each specific case what means will be more
likely to attain the desired end. Nor, and this is equally important, can
knowledge alone assure him that he will seek the proper end. Rational
insight alone is not sufficient for right action. The strength of the will
must be added to it since the will has the power of doing the wrong
thing contrary to right insight. Ethical virtue is the continuing state
of the will by means of which practical reason rules the desires. How
man will act in a given instance therefore depends upon the right ordering
of his will and not upon the perfection of his intellect. He may know
that absolute integrity in public office is proper behavior, but the passion
of avarice may supersede this knowledge.
In repudiating Plato’s teaching that scientific knowledge alone quali-
fies a man to rule (as it would if politics were a speculative science),
Aristotle insists that to know is not sufficient and that rectitude of the
will and prudence are equally if not more important. The learned man,
the expert, is not always the most prudent and virtuous. Virtue is not
acquired by study but by moral discipline, practice, and experience. The
man who is to be good must be well trained and habituated. Entrusting
the conduct of the state to an elite corps of experts would give no
assurance of good rule unless the members of this corps were also the
most virtuous and prudent.

POLITICAL THEORY
Aristotle’s approach to political theory is found chiefly in his Politics*

3 The Politics is not an orderly and integrated book. A large portion of it is

probably composed of lecture notes edited by Aristotle’s pupils. The order of the
68 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

and to a lesser extent in the relevant parts of his Nicomachean Ethics,

Rhetoric, and Metaphysics. Underlying his political speculation are four
ethical and philosophical premises: man is a rational being with a free
will; politics is a practical science; there is a universal moral law which
all men are obliged to obey; and the state is a natural institution.
The first two principles have already been commented on; the third
requires only a brief reference. Aristotle adhered to the authentic natural
law philosophy. In fact, he is responsible for the first disciplined formula-
tion of this concept. Plato had previously taught that man must follow in
the main a universal pattern of action if he is to achieve his destiny.
His idealism, however, prevented him from basing such a law on the
ontological structure of sensible objects. Aristotle’s realism, on the other
hand, enabled him to bring it “down from the heavens” and give it
objective meaning and application.
The fourth Aristotelian premise is closely related to the third. Aristotle
looks upon the nature of an object as that which it is capable of be-
coming. “The nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when
fully developed, we call its nature whether we are speaking of a man,
a horse, or a family.” The end of man, as of all being, is the fulfillment:
of his nature. Standing alone, the individual is incapable of achieving
this objective. He needs the assistance of other agencies and institutions
for both his material and intellectual needs. Those institutions that are
essential for his development, such as the family and the state, are
“natural” to him; they constitute part of the universal pattern of human
life.
In the Ethics, Aristotle observes that man’s natural end, that which
fulfills his nature, is happiness. He defines happiness as an activity of
the soul in accordance with perfect virtue. True happiness can only be
attained by leading a life of moral and intellectual goodness. Aristotle
emphasizes that a full inquiry into the nature of man is basic to political
theory. For if the prime function of the state is to help the individual
reach his natural end, it is important that the statesman be aware of
this end. And in order to have this knowledge, he must first know the
nature of man. “The student of politics must know somehow the facts
about the soul, as the man who is to heal the eyes or the body as a

books also presents a difficulty. It is generally believed that Book I was written later
than the rest and that Books II, III, VII, and VIII were written first.
4 Politics, I, 2.
 ARISTOTLE: THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS 69

whole must know about the eyes or the body .. . he must then study
the soul.”® Once again we are reminded how dependent our political
speculation is on the general philosophical premises and the religious
beliefs that we hold concerning the nature and destiny of man. Aristotle
also makes it clear that the political scientist must draw heavily on other
disciplines, such as psychology and economics, if he hopes to acquire
an understanding of the state.

The Nature of the State

Aristotle defines the state as “a community of families and aggrega-
tions of families in well-being for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing
life.”* The term “self-sufficient” implies that the object contains within
itself the means to attain its end and that it does not need the help
of other agencies in realizing the potentiality of its nature.
Starting from the premise of autarchy or self-sufficiency, Aristotle
notes that man individually cannot meet this test. First of all he needs
the family to supply his rudimentary needs and to nurture his human
growth. The family is an “association established by nature for the supply
of men’s everyday wants.”? But the family alone is not self-sufficing nor
can it supply all that man requires for his full development as an in-
dividual. Possessing the faculty of speech and of rational communication,
man is an essentially social being. “A social instinct is implanted in all
men by nature.”® As a human being, man can perfect his activity only
in communal life. He needs social and political co-operation with all
that it implies in the way of better material advantages, educational
opportunities, aesthetic, scientific, and moral growth, and expanded knowl-
edge. Harold Laski expressed it well when he said, “Crusoe on his desert
island or St. Simon Stylites upon his pillar may defy the normal im-
pulses which make them men; but for the vast majority, to live with
others is the condition of a rational existence.’® Aristotle stresses this
point even more forcefully, declaring that “he who by nature and not
by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above
humanity.”?°
In tracing the development of society, Aristotle observes that some
5 Nicomachean Ethics, I, 12. Selections from the Ethics are taken from the Basic
Works of Aristotle, ed. by R. McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941).
6 Politics, III, 9. C Moyal,. I 2. 8 [bid.
9 Grammar of Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, S25) pepe ls
10 Politics, I, 3.
70 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

rudimentary form of social organization has existed wherever human be-

ings were found. Men lived at first in separate families; then groups of
families joined together in village communities for purposes of mutual
help and protection. This form of association, however, was too limited
to care adequately for the most permanent needs of human nature. Self-
sufficiency became possible only when a number of villages pooled their
resources and formed a city state. Thus the same necessity which com-
pels families to unite into villages and villages into “a community large
enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing” is a natural process founded
on the factual structure of human nature."
Aristotle follows Plato in adhering to an organic concept of the state.
His deep sense of the importance of community is evidenced by his
constant references to the forces and influences which bind men together
in a joint endeavor. The Politics describes the polis as “a composite,
like any other whole made up of many parts,” each with its proper place
and function and each co-operating with the other for the good of the
entire structure. However, it rejects such unifying devices as property
and familial communism and vigorously criticizes the argument that the
greater the unity of the state the better. Is it not obvious, Aristotle asks,”
“that a state may at length attain such a degree of unity as to be no
longer a state — since the nature of a state is to be a plurality, and in
tending to greater unity, from being a state it becomes a family, and
from being a family, an individual?”!* While the good of the individual
is inextricably bound up with the good of the whole, happiness is not
a conception like that of evenness in number that may be predicated
of the whole number without being predicated of its component parts.
The unity which Aristotle attributes to civil society is a unity of
order, not of simply composition as a living organism. The state is a
moral and not a physical whole. It is composed of individuals, family
groups, and voluntary associations, each of which has operations inde-
pendent of the whole. Although a soldier functions for the good of
the army, he also has a sphere of activities not connected with his
military duties. he unity of the state lies in a community of mind and
will and purpose on the part of the individual members. The same
11 Aristotle emphasizes the distinction between the gregariousness of animals and
that of men. Only man has speech and only man “has any sense of good and evil,
of just and unjust, and the like; and the association of living beings who have this
sense makes a family and a state” (Politics, II, 3).
12 Politics, II, 2.
 ARISTOTLE: THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS us
common good is conceived by different individuals and sought by their
co-operative efforts.
Anistotle’s doctrine of the common good is not as all-enveloping as
that of Plato. It leaves a large sphere of independent action to the in-
dividual in his private capacity and to the lesser societies, such as the
family and the voluntary associations. It seeks to retain the essential
plurality of the state and to make the body politic a functional whole
of varied and complementary parts unified by the pursuit of a common
aim in which men’s natures lead them all to join.1* The disparate parts
of the good state are united and made into a community by education
and not by the imposition of a rigid pattern of conformity on the
people.

Purpose of the State

The state originates “in the bare needs of life’ and continues “in
existence for the sake of a good life . . . and not for the sake of life
only,” for “if life only were the object, slaves and brute animals might
form a state.”1* Aristotle constantly returns to the positive function of
the state. He strongly insists that the political community does not exist
merely to serve as a policeman for preserving order among the citizen
body or as a soldier to protect the people against foreign invasion. “A
state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the
prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. These are
conditions without which a state cannot exist; but all of them together
do not constitute a state.’’?5
The opening lines of the Politics describe the high role that Aristotle
assigns to civil society:
Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is
established with a view of some good; for mankind always act in order
to obtain that which they think good. But if all communities aim at
some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of
all and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in the greater degree
than any other, and at the highest good.
The true state must be concerned with the character of its citizens; it
must educate and habituate them in the ways of virtue; and it must
13C, H. Mcllwain, The Growth of Political Thought in the West (New York:
Macmillan, 1932), p. 64.
eR OMICS aleer 15 Tbid., III, 10.
fig’ THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

provide them with opportunity to obtain the means — economic, moral,

and intellectual — necessary for the good life.** These activities are essen-
tial if the state is to attain its final purpose: the perfected virtue of
its citizens.
The lesser forms of association in the state have functions that are
not to be pre-empted by public authorities. The actions of these societies,
however, are directed primarily at the mere maintenance of life. They are
not self-sufficient, either economically or intellectually. They possess
neither the capacity nor the means to enable man to reach his full de-
velopment. The end of the state, moreover, is the highest to which all
other human associations contribute and are subordinate. As one writer
recently pointed out, an ethically satisfying state was for Aristotle a re-
quirement for the fullest development of man. “It is not merely a
physical requirement but one that human nature will strive for, however
imperfectly, in particular and adverse circumstances. It is thus an em-
pirical fact of human behavior, not just a moral postulate.’””*?

Kinds of Rule
Aristotle points out that the study of any complex organism or com-
pound should always begin by considering the object in its elements
or constituents. Using this approach in his study of the polis, he turns
first to an examination of man, the primary element in the state, then
to the larger part, the family or household, and finally to the state itself.
In the first book of the Politics, he examines the various relationships
of authority. He is particularly interested in showing that there are
different kinds of rule which rest on fundamentally different bases. He
criticizes the Platonic assumption that all rule, whether in the family
or the state, is the same. He considers it basically erroneous to hold that
there is no difference in kind between the authority of master over
slave in the household and that of governor over governed in the state.
Although there are analogies, political rule is essentially different from
other types in that it is the rule of equals over equals. Unlike the house-
hold, the subjects in a state are assumed to be responsible and self-
governing and not dependent on their rulers in the same sense that
16 Religion was not separated from the state in the Greek polis. The religion was
the religion of the city, and the gods were the gods of the city. The role of the polis
consequently encompassed both the religious and secular aspects of the citizen body.
17 Norton Long, “Aristotle and the Study of Local Government,” Social Research,
Autumn, 1957, p. 292.
 ARISTOTLE: THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS 73

children are dependent on their parents and slaves on their masters.

In his Ethics, which was written as a prelude to the Politics, Aristotle
examines the nature and end of man. He demonstrates that the proper
activity of any being is found in that which agrees with its form. Since
the form of man (the soul) is rational animality, the end of human
life must consist in functions that are proper to man as a rational animal
— in activities according to reason. Proceeding with his analysis of this
concept, Aristotle emphasizes the necessity of distinguishing between
the ruling and subject elements in all things which form a composite
whole. Thus in man, the soul is by nature the ruler and the body the
subject. Two kinds of rule, despotic and constitutional, are present;
“the soul rules the body with a despotic rule, whereas the intellect rules
the appetite with a constitutional and royal rule.”® When the soul com-
mands the bodily limbs to move in a certain direction, they immediately
move. They have no voice or discretion in the matter, no initial freedom
of movement of their own. The case is quite different in respect to the
intellect and passions. Although the rational principle predominates over
the sensible passions and appetites in the good man, it does not perfectly
control them. The sense appetites are in a certain way more or less on
a par with reason; they have a certain initial freedom of movement as
well as their proper objects and desires which reason is obliged to
recognize.
From the individual, Aristotle turns to the family and the kinds of
tule that it embodies. “Seeing that the state is made up of households,
before speaking of the state we must speak of the management of the
household.’?® Three relationships are here distinguished: master and
slave, husband and wife, father and child, each representing a different
type of rule. That of master over slave is called despotic. The slave has
no choice in the matter and the governance is primarily for the good
of the master and not for the good of the slave qua slave. The rule
of the husband over wife is called constitutional, that of equal over
equal. The woman is in a certain sense free and equal to the man of
the household, and her views and wishes must be given due considera-
tion. Yet, because of what Aristotle considers an instability in her pru-
dence, it is better to lodge authority in the husband. The third tule,
that of father over child, is called royal. It signifies rule out of love for
the child and for his proper good. The child is by nature equal to the
"18 Politics, 15, eT pid. 1, 3%
fics THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

father, but because of his immaturity and his consequent inability to

manage his own actions properly, he must be subject to the direction
and control of his parents.

The Citizen
Man as a component part of the body politic is referred to as a citizen.
“A state is composite like any other whole made up of many parts; these
are the citizens who compose it. It is evident, therefore, that we must
begin by asking who is the citizen and what is the meaning of the
term?’”2° The initial inquiry into the parts of civil society must seek
to answer this question. Aristotle first observes that the qualifications for
citizenship may be different in the various types of states. “He who is
a citizen in a democracy will often not be a citizen in an oligarchy.” But
whatever the prerequisites, “he who has the power to take part in the
deliberative or judicial administration of any state is said by us to be
a citizen of that state.”?! This definition is couched in typically Hellenic
terms. A citizen must not only be a subject of authority; he must also
be capable of exercising it. He must serve in the twin roles of governor
and governed. In order to participate in this dual capacity, he must
possess the competency to rule as well as the willingness to obey.
Who should be entitled to citizenship? The Politics emphasizes that
citizenship does not embrace all members of the state. Those who do
not possess the qualities of intellect and character necessary to lead a
life of virtue should not be entrusted with political rule. Hence those
who are “slaves by nature’ and even the laborers, merchants, and
farmers should not be included in the category of citizens. “The citizens
must not lead the life of mechanics or tradesmen, for such a life is
ignoble and inimical to virtue. Neither must they be husbandmen,
since leisure is necessary both for the development of virtue and the
performance of political duties.”*? Men who must toil from morning
until night in order to obtain the necessities of life have neither time
nor opportunity for acquiring a knowledge of public affairs and cultivating
those virtues essential for intelligent participation in political life. “No
man can practice virtue who is living the life of a mechanic or laborer
. . or who is a husbandman.’”?
Men employed as artisans and producers are not properly speaking
“parts” of the state. They are necessary for its existence in that they
20 [bid., Ill, 1. 21 [bid. 22 Tide Vio) 25s Hoytabes INI by.
 ARISTOTLE: THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS ie}

provide the material environment within which the citizen body can
function. By supplying the material needs of society, they make possible
the existence of a leisured and cultivated class that can be entrusted
with the administration of public affairs. Professor McIlwain makes a
very significant observation in respect to this aspect of Aristotelian think-
ing. He points out that if the author of the Politics is wrong, it is not
in his insistence that the citizen must have ample leisure time for ac-
quiring political virtue. His real mistake is in failing to see that the
true solution does not lie in denying citizenship to the worker, but in
achieving an economic order that will give him the leisure necessary to fit
him for the tasks of public life and human living.?4

Forms of Government
After completing his examination of the parts, Aristotle is ready to
consider the whole, the state and its government. Here, as in the lesser
components, he differentiates three kinds of rule: despotic, that of a
tyrant; constitutional, that of equals over equals; and royal, that of a
benevolent monarch. At this point, the Politics launches into govern-
mental theory proper with the question, “Whether there is only one
form of government or many, and if many, what are they, and how
many and what are the differences between them?’?®> The question
touches upon one of the central themes of Aristotle’s doctrine of con-
stitutions. In answering it, he sets out his celebrated six-forms scheme
of government. There are, he asserts, three true forms of constitutions:
monarchy, aristocracy, and polity or moderate democracy; and three
corrupted forms: tyranny, oligarchy, and extreme democracy or mob
tule. In the first group the rule is exercised for the well-being of the
governed, and in the latter for the private interests of those in power.
This classification follows the view current at the time that there
are three main types of government distinguished by the number of
persons who hold supreme political power. Although the Politics also
equates number with governmental form, it maintains that the more
vital distinction is economic. An oligarchy is essentially government by
the wealthy; a democracy, rule by the poor. Thus the real difference be-
tween the two types is poverty and wealth. “Whenever men rule by
reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy,
24 The Growth of Political Thought in the West, op. cit., pp. 71-72.
25 Politics, III, 6.
76 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

and where the poor rule, this is a democracy. But as a fact the rich
are few and the poor many.”’*°
That Aristotle was well aware of the close link between economics
and politics is evident from this and similar passages in his writings. Of
equal significance, his analysis reveals two distinct claims to political
power: one based on the right of property, in which a man’s political
status is graded according to his “stake in the community”; the other
upon the welfare of the many, in which political rights should belong
equally to all. As he notes, “few are well-to-do, whereas freedom is en-
joyed by all, and wealth and freedom are the grounds on which the
oligarchical and democratical parts respectively claim power in the state.”*"
Good birth and superior virtue are other claims closely related to political
power but they are of much less importance since they are rare and
wealth and numbers are more common.

The Best Practicable State

After classifying the various kinds of government, Aristotle next seeks
to determine which type is best. In the opening passages of Book VII
of the Politics, he indicates that the best form of government is one
which is most conducive to a happy life for its people. His experience
and empirical studies had convinced him that no single model can suc-
cessfully meet the requirements of different peoples in different historical
circumstances. Sketching out an ideal state, as Plato had done, may
be good intellectual exercise but it is not enough for the world of every-
day affairs. The true statesman “ought to be acquainted not only with
what is best in the abstract, but also with what is best relatively to
circumstances.”’?8
Aristotle insists that constitution makers must take into consideration
the character and traditions of the people and the environment in which
they live. ‘The political expert cannot wipe the tablet clean and fashion
a state according to his own preferences. He must discover the pattern
in existing reality, not in metaphysical perambulations; and he cannot
overlook the past in planning for the future. Unless he adheres to these
principles, the government which he devises is likely to generate more
unhappiness than happiness.
If the title to rule is virtue, the best state from an ideal standpoint
would be one governed by the most virtuous men. “If there be some
26 Ibid., III, 8. 27 bid. a8 Ibid TV) 1;
 ARISTOTLE: THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS a7

one person, or more than one . . . whose virtue is so pre-eminent that

the virtues or the political capacity of all the rest admit of no com-
parison with his or theirs, he or they can no longer be regarded as part
of a state.” A person who possesses such a degree of virtue stands above
the community “in the relation of a whole to a part.” When such an
individual or family is found, “then it is just that they should be the
royal family and supreme over all, or that one citizen should be king of
the whole nation.”®° This line of thinking, Aristotle notes, may be theo-
retically sound but it is unrealistic. For men are not to be found who
excel others “in the same degree in which gods and heroes are supposed
to excel mankind.” We must therefore turn to the more attainable types
of government and inquire
what is the best constitution for most states and the best life for most
men, neither assuming a standard of virtue which is above ordinary
persons nor an education which is exceptionally favored by nature and
circumstances, nor yet an ideal state which is an aspiration only, but
having regard to the life in which the majority are able to share and
to the form of government which states in general can attain.**
Although Aristotle did not believe that it is possible to outline a
governmental pattern that would be universally valid, he felt that
political science is capable of discovering the best practicable state—
one which on the average and in most historical environments might be
expected to work best. Proceeding on this premise, he carefully analyzed
the constitutional history and institutions of 158 Greek city-states. Based
on this and other studies, he concluded that the best practicable state is
one which he calls polity or constitutional rule. It is, in effect, a moderate
democracy in which the important offices are filled by election from
among qualified persons. He characterizes this form as a fusion of
oligarchy and democracy, although he occasionally remarks that it ap-
proximates very closely to the aristocratic form. Aristotle’s terminology
is not always precise when discussing the best practicable state. For ex-
ample, at several points he speaks of polity as a compromise between
oligarchy and extreme democracy — forms which he had previously de-
scribed as perverted. However, his whole treatment of the subject clearly
indicates that his so-called polity is a constitutional democracy with a
certain aristocratic element. Contemporary usage regarded oligarchy as
the rule of a few and democracy as the rule of many, without placing
29 Ibid., III, 13. 80 Tbid., III, 17. 81 [bid> IV, le
78 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

any connotation of good or corrupt on the terms. Aristotle is obviously

employing them in this sense when he discusses his best political
community.
The major feature of Aristotle’s best practicable state is that the middle
class holds the balance of power between the rich and the poor, thereby
preventing either of the extremes from being dominant. There are three
elements in every state: “one class is very rich, another very poor, and
a third is a mean.” Since it is admitted that moderation and mean are
the best, the best political community is formed by citizens of the
middle class. Those states, therefore, are likely to be well administered
“in which the middle class is large, and stronger if possible, than both
the other classes, or at any rate than either singly.” Citizens who belong
to the middle class are “most secure in a state for they do not, like
the poor, covet their neighbor’s goods: nor do others covet theirs, as the
poor covet the goods of the rich.”*? When either the poor or rich are
predominant, or confront each other with no significant middle class
between them, the state is irreconcilably divided into hostile camps.
Stability in the social order requires that no single claim to political
power prevail but that all interests be held together in some kind of
balance. Aristotle believes that this equilibrium is best achieved when
economic resources are widely distributed among the people.
In the middle class polity, supreme political power is lodged in the
whole citizen body. It is the rule of equals over equals, the citizens alike
taking their turn of governing and being governed. This arrangement at
first glance seems to run contrary to the principle that superiority in
virtue is the prime qualification for governing. However, the Politics
seeks to justify democratic rule on the basis of the collective judgment
and wisdom of the people
For the many, of whom each individual is but an ordinary person,
when they meet together may very likely be better than the few good,
if regarded not individually but collectively, . ..For each individual
among the many has a share of virtue and prudence, and when they
meet together, they become in a manner one man, who has many
feet, and hands, and senses.**
Democratic government for Aristotle was not the ideal but only the
most workable form. His personal preference for monarchy is manifest
82 Ibid., IV, 1.
33 Tbid., III, 11.
 ARISTOTLE: THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS 79

throughout the Politics. He gave little support to the proposition that

democracy is the form of government most suitable to man’s nature from
a theoretical as well as practical standpoint. His concept of royal rule
remained always the ideal, although admittedly an unattainable form.
Even his best practicable state is undemocratic by present standards. The
equality in public affairs that he speaks of is confined to members of
the citizen body, and this group excludes not only the slave and metic
but also the mechanic, tradesman, and farmer.
Aristotle is well aware that administrative management calls for pro-
fessional rather than amateur talent. Although he is not explicit on this
point, he indicates that the principal executive offices of the state should
be entrusted to a special corps of trained and experienced experts. This
group would be chosen for its managerial capacity and technical pro-
ficiency, it would be in the nature of a permanent civil service, and it
would remain responsible and accountable to the policy-making and
judicial organs of the people. In these ways, expertness or excellency in
statecraft could be combined with popular rule.
One further question remains in discussing the best practicable state:
Should there be any limit to its size? Aristotle is quite definite on this
point. There is a limit to the size of states “as there is to other things,
plants, animals, implements; for none of these retain their natural power
when they are too large or too small, but they either wholly lose their
nature, or are spoiled.”** When the political community is too large,
it is too difficult to govern, for “a very great multitude cannot be orderly.”
The proper size of the state can be ascertained only by experience. It
should have enough people to be self-sufficient, but not so many that
it is impossible for all the citizens to know one another. If the people
are to “judge and to distribute offices according to merit, then they must
know each other’s character; where they do not possess this knowledge,
both the elections to office and the decisions of lawsuits will go wrong.’
This intimate type of knowledge is obviously impossible in a large state.
Apparently the Athenian polis would satisfy Aristotle’s requirements of
size.
In advancing his theory of the best practicable state, Aristotle was
drawing upon his own ethical doctrine of virtue as a mean (courage,
for example, stands midway between cowardice and rashness) and on
the general Greek tendency toward moderation. His government will be
34 [bid., VII, 4. 35 [bid.
80 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

democratic since sovereignty rests in the people and the will of the ma-
jority prevails, but it will also be aristocratic since the chief public offices
will be occupied by men of ability. In like manner, the unity of his body
politic will be such as to promote the good of the whole and yet preserve
a large sphere of independent activity for the parts. He intended, in
short, that his state stand as a happy mean between complete collectivism
and excessive individualism.

The Rule of Law

The bill of rights in the constitution of the Commonwealth of Massa-
chusetts concludes with these words, “to the end it may be a government
of laws and not of men.” The genesis of this historic concept may be
traced to ancient Greece. Aristotle was the first notable spokesman for
the great tradition of constitutional government —a limited and not ab-
solute government, a government subject to the rule of law. “He who
bids the law rule may be deemed to bid God and Reason alone rule, but
he who bids man rule adds an element of the beast; for desire is a wild
beast, and passion perverts the minds of rulers, even when they are the
best-of mien=?
The rule of law is a device to guarantee that political action be based
upon right desire. Men are human creatures subject to temptations and
passions. Aristotle notes a certain “wickedness of human nature.”’ Because
of this weakness, he feels that it would be extremely dangerous to place
unlimited power in the hands of the rulers. Just as in man the appetitive
faculties occasionally predominate over the rational, so political rule may
at times be arbitrary and selfish instead of reasonable and for the welfare
of all. Scientific knowledge is not enough to ensure good rule; political
science is not independent of the conditions of right appetite. Means
must be devised to prevent the perversity of men’s desires from gaining
mastery of the community. Those who are entrusted with political power
must be required to exercise it in accordance with prescribed laws and
within designated limitations. The governmental arrangement, moreover,
must be such as to militate against the concentration of political power
in any one individual or group. It was largely for this latter reason that
Aristotle advocates his middle class polity and such limiting devices as
frequent rotation in office and selection by lot for the nontechnical
offices.
86 [bid., III, 16.
 ARISTOTLE: THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS 81

Aristotle includes in the rule of law not only the enactments of

legislative bodies but also customary and natural law. As most Greek
thinkers, he looks upon the constitution of a state as a “way of life,”
an embodiment of the elements that go to make up a political com-
munity such as its operative principles and objectives, and its institutions,
traditions, and customs. To be legitimate, the rule of the statesman can
neither disregard these factors nor flout human rights. Every governing
body must continuously give due respect to the constitution or way of
life of its people. The true character of the community depends upon the
observance of this principle.
The concept of the rule of law or limited government became one
of the dominant features of western political life. Today, strengthened
by written constitutions, bills of rights, judicial review, impeachment and
similar devices, it forms the bedrock of modern democratic government.
Aristotle and the middle ages conceived of no legal remedy or sanction
for enforcing the rule of law. Resistance, revolution, or the intervention
of the Church were the only weapons available against arbitrary govern-
ment. One of the major contributions of the modern age to the science
and practice of politics has been the bridging of this gap by the develop-
ment of legal and institutional checks on government.

Natural Slavery
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Aristotle’s social thought is
his defense of slavery. To understand his position in this respect, it is
necessary to note the distinction that he makes between natural and in-
stitutional slavery. He describes the natural slave as one “who is by nature
not his own but another’s man.” He is a person so intellectually inferior
and so lacking in prudence or practical judgment that he is incapable of
governing himself. “He who participates in the rational principle enough
to apprehend but not to have such a principle is a slave by nature.’**
Such an individual cannot act rationally on his own initiative; he needs
the direction and guidance of others if he is to lead a proper life. He
attains the highest mental and moral development of which he is capable,
not when left to his own devices, but when he occupies the position
of a slave to a virtuous master. It is therefore better for him to “be under
the rule of the master.”
Just as the farmer and mechanic provide the material means of assur-
37 Ibid., I, 5.
82 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

ing leisure to the citizen class, so the slave frees the master from the
performance of menial tasks which interfere with the acquisition of
virtue. Aristotle contends that if it is good for the body to be ruled by
the soul, there is no reason to deny that the slave has his good in being
ruled by the master. Such a person is not wronged by losing a freedom
that he is incapable of using properly. This view of natural slavery does
not imply inferiority or inequality due to race or social status. It is based
on the notion that there are some men who “on their own” are unable
to contribute to the common good. It follows Plato’s view that there are
innate differences in men which fit them for different occupations, and
which predetermine some men as slaves and others as freemen.
The second type of slavery described by Aristotle arises by law or
convention. It includes the enslavement of prisoners of war, the sub-
jection of a race into servitude, and the institutionalization of slavery
such as existed in the southern sections of the United States prior to
1865. Aristotle considers slavery of this kind unjustified since it is based
on force and not on nature. Many such slaves are capable of rational
judgment; indeed, many of them may well be superior to their masters
in intellect and virtue. The enslavement of those taken in war or ac
quired by purchase is proper only when they are by nature slaves.
The rule of the master “is not a constitutional rule.” The slave, qua
slave, has no rights; he is under the despotic rule of his master. As a
human being, however, he is entitled to the protection of the political
community against abuse and maltreatment. There is some analogy here
with the practice in modern democracies where those adjudged mentally
incompetent are barred from participation in public affairs, and even
from the management of their own property, yet are protected by the
state against violations of their basic rights. Aristotle insists that the master
treat his slave with kindness and benevolence. Any abuse of his authority
“Zs injurious to both; for the interests of part and whole, of body and
soul are the same . . . hence where the relation of master and slave
between them is natural, they are friends and have a common interest,
but where it rests merely on law and force the reverse is true.”?8
While there may be some theoretical justification for Aristotle’s posi-
tion, the difficulty rests in knowing which individuals ought to be slaves
and which free, and who is to make the decision. The fact remains that
whenever and wherever slavery has existed, it has rested on force, custom,
38 Ibid., I, 6.
 ARISTOTLE: THE SCIENCE OF POLITICS 83

or expediency, and not on any distinction of virtue. Despite its benign

aspects, Aristotle’s view of slavery is cold and harsh. Yet it must be
remembered that he knew slavery only in its comparatively humane form.
Many of the slaves of his time were household servants or assistants to
merchants and artisans. He would even have excluded a number of these
from the category of slaves because of their abilities. His intention was
to relegate no man to a position inferior to the best of which he is
capable.

SUMMARY
Aristotle has been a major influence in molding the western political tradi-
tion. His contributions have a timeless and enduring character as the in-
quiring intellects of all ages bear witness. There are some aspects of his social
and political thinking that the modern democrat would reject; there are
others, including many of his fundamental premises, that find widespread
acceptance. ‘The study of his political thought is more than an academic
exercise. It is an excursion into a world of ideas that have considerable
relevancy to modern society.
Aristotle followed Plato in emphasizing the moral and ethical nature of the
body politic. He was concerned not only with techniques but with the choice
of ends. His works remind us that the state, acting through its governmental
organs, is more than an agency for enforcing law and order; that it is designed
to help men achieve the good life, to create an environment or climate—
social, economic, intellectual, and moral—in which man can better fulfill
his nature as a rational being. He demonstrates that while the state should
not attempt to supplant the private activities of individuals and the lesser
social groupings, its energies should be actively and positively aimed at the
common good.
The political theory of Aristotle injects a word of caution in the planning
of state activities. It warns against attempts to reconstruct society according
to some grand blueprint of social reform that shows little respect for the
wisdom of experience and little regard for tradition, custom, and the capacities
of the people. It points out that such an approach can well lead to the
horrors of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 in
which a “scientific” elite manipulates the mass of mankind in the interests
of a complaisant society. “Let us remember,” Aristotle cautions, “that we
should not disregard the experience of ages.” The statesman is not an artist
who can shape his clay in the form he thinks best. At the same time,
the approach to social and political change should be dynamic and progressive
even though not radical. If political institutions are to survive they must
be capable of adapting the status quo to the necessities of change.
Aristotle was acutely aware of the role that economics plays in the political
process. He recognized that governmental policy making is often no more
84 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

than a ratification of the decisions made by the holders of economic power.

His analysis also showed the close relationship between economics and
political stability. When great disparity of wealth exists in a state, when
widespread poverty is found side by side with great riches, the community
is in an unhealthy condition. The bond of justice and the common will that
should unify the society are weak or altogether missing in such a state.
Dictatorial governments may crush social unrest by force; but the democratic
state cannot afford to overlook the economic well-being of any segment of
its people. If it does so, it subverts its ethical purpose and opens the door
to less desirable philosophies of government.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ashley, Winston, The Theory of Natural Slavery According to Aristotle and
St. Thomas (South Bend, Indiana: Notre Dame Press, 1941).
Barker, Ernest, The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle (New York:
Putnam, 1906).
Cherniss, Harold, Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato and the Academy (Baltimore:
John Hopkins Press, 1944).
Hagan, J. J., “Aristotelian Political Philosophy and the Corporate Society,”
New Scholasticism, April, 1941.
Kelsen, Hans, “The Philosophy of Aristotle and the Hellenic-Macedonian
Policy,” Ethics, October, 1937. ;
Lester-Garland, L. V., “Plato, Aristotle and Catholicism,’’ Hibbert Journal,
July, 1933.
Long, Norton E., “Aristotle and the Study of Local Government,” Social
Research, Autumn, 1957.
Marshall, John S., “Aristotle and the Agrarians,” Review of Politics, July,
L947.
McCoy, C. N. R., “Logical and Real in Political Theory: Plato, Aristotle and
Marx,” American Political Science Review, December, 1954.
Mcllwain, C. H., Constitutionalism, Ancient and Modern, rev. ed. (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1947).
Mckeon, Richard, “Aristotle’s Conception of Moral and Political Philosophy,”
Ethics, April, 1941.
“Development of the Concept of Property in Political Philosophy:
A Study of the Background of the Constitution,” Ethics, April, 1938.
Mure, G. R. G., Aristotle (London: E. Benn, 1932).
Olmsted, E. H., “Moral Sense Aspect of Aristotle’s Ethical Theory,” American
Journal of Philology, January, 1948.
Ross, William D., Aristotle, 3rd ed. (London: Methuen, 1937).
Strauss, Leo, “On Classical Political Philosophy,” Social Research, February,
1945.
Wheeler, Marcus, “‘Aristotle’s Analysis of the Nature of Political Struggle,”
American Journal of Philology, April, 1951.
Wornuth, Francis D., “Aristotle on Law,” in Essays in Political Theory, ed.
1948) R. Konvitz and A. E. Murphy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
 Chapter V

THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ROME

“To the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was
Rome” (Poe, To Helen).

ARISTOTLE came at the end of the creative period in Greek thought.

When he died in 322 B.c., the Greek city-state had already lost its political
significance and its traditional role as arbiter of the moral and _ social
habits of the eastern Mediterranean. The small and self-sufficient polis
had proved incapable of defending itself against the attacks of its more
powerful neighbors. The loose confederations or leagues which the city-
states had entered into in self-defense were no match for the unified
control and the vast resources of the growing empires.
Plato and Aristotle typified the Greek distrust of the large state. They
felt that by going beyond the small and compact polis, the way of life
of one community would be merged with the fortunes of another. They
also felt that the large state destroys the spirit of friendship and the
intimacy that bind a society together. For if people have nothing in
common but mutual defense against an aggressor or the facilitation of
trade “that would not constitute a state.” The things which draw men
together in a close union “are created by friendship, for the will to live
together is friendship.”? This will cannot exist in a large and far-flung
empire.
The conquests of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great had
relegated the polis to the position of a small and relatively unimportant
unit in a far larger political system, that of empire. As Professor Dunning
has noted, no longer were the springs of political action to be found in
the assembly or council of a city but at the courts of the Macedonian,
Syrian, and Egyptian monarchs, and in the camps of the Roman consuls.?
1 Aristotle, Politics, III, 9.
2W. A. Dunning, A History of Political Theories (New York: Macmillan Co.,
1902), p. 102.
85
86 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

The struggle for power, the domination of military force, and the rapidly
changing political picture in a turbulent world caused men, accustomed
to the intimacy of the city-state, to feel that they had become out-
siders with no part to play in the shaping of political events. Social
unrest, arising out of precarious economic conditions, became prevalent
during this period. Sparta, for example, underwent three social revolutions
in the latter half of the third century B.C. All of these conditions gen-
erated a widespread feeling of personal insecurity.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF WITHDRAWAL

Until the Macedonian and Roman conquests, Greek thought had been
dominated by civic and religious devotion to the city-state. Greek ethics
similarly had centered around men as citizens, as political and social
beings. With the changing world scene, a more individual and less social
ethic began to predominate. So closely had the speculations of Plato
and Aristotle been bound to the city-state that as it declined in im-
portance the philosophy associated with it also fell into disfavor. Political
theory was then faced with the task of reinterpreting political and social:
relations in terms other than those provided by the polis. The spirit
of the time, however, was not conducive to such a project.
When political power passed into the hands of the three dynasties
that fell heir to the Alexandrian empire,’ the Greek philosophers turned
away completely from political speculation to the problem of individual
virtue. They no longer asked the question, “how can a good state be
established and operated?” In its place they began to inquire, “how can
man be virtuous in a disordered and wicked world?” “How can happiness
be attained in an age of perilous and troubled circumstances?”
Instead of attempting to adapt the classical theory of public partici-
pation to the new order of things, men began to turn inward and seek
within themselves the key to individual happiness. For if the good life
could not be attained through politics and social living, it must be
sought in other ways. Not until Roman hegemony and order had been

3 Alexander had left no heir, and his sudden death was followed by a prolonged
struggle for control among his generals. By 275 three dynasties had managed to carve
up the empire: the Antigonids in Macedonia, the Seleucids in the East, and the
Ptolemies in Egypt. ‘Toward the end of the century, however, Roman power became
predominant and by the middle of the second century B.C. Macedonia itself had
become a Roman province and Greece a Roman protectorate.
 THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ROME 87
firmly established over most of the known world of the ancients did
men again see in the state the means to the good life.

Epicureanism
Two of the more important schools of philosophy that characterize
the interim or transition period between classical Greece and Rome are
those of the Epicureans and the Stoics. The first was founded by Epicurus
(341-270 B.c.) in an Athenian garden which he had laid out as his
school. His philosophy marks a distinct break with that of his Greek
predecessors. Discarding the concept of the common good, Epicurus
limits himself to a search for means of attaining individual happiness
or tranquillity to the exclusion of all other considerations. In line with
the prevalent spirit of his day, he seeks to show how man can attain
this happiness apart from the state.
The good life, according to Epicurus, consists in the avoidance of care
and worry, and in the congenial friendship of a small and select group
of companions. Although he holds that pleasure is the chief good and the
end of life, he insists that he does not mean the pleasure of the debau-
chee, but freedom of the body from pain and the soul from anxiety.
He and his disciples followed a simple diet — not because they felt that
gluttony is wrong but because it leads to physical discomfort. So also
with any other sensual or emotional excesses—in the long run they
bring disturbance and pain. Man’s principal objective should be a life
of external and internal peace. This desideratum can be achieved only
by living simply and frugally, and by avoiding all forms of public activity.
The philosophy of Epicurus is essentially materialistic. He maintains
that the soul is nothing more than a bodily substance composed of in-
tangible particles, like those of breath and heat, scattered throughout
the body. Hence there need be no fear of eternity or afterlife, since the
soul cannot possibly exist after the death of the body. Denying that
there are any intrinsic moral virtues and values or any objective standard
of right and wrong, Epicurus teaches that those acts which cause harm
are evil only because they expose the individual to discomfort or pain.
A philosophy of materialism is essential to his theoretical position, for
if happiness consists of freedom from all care and worry, personal moral
responsibility and the anxieties of conscience and religion can have no
place in man’s life.
The implications of such a philosophy for the field of politics are
88 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

clear. Since participation in public affairs inevitably brings with it burdens

and cares, the wise man will not engage in politics. He will rather aim
at a life of tranquil obscurity in the company of his friends, holding aloof
from participation in the affairs of state and leaving political activity
to others. Epicurus and his followers did not deny that political authority
is necessary in a community to preserve order, but they were perfectly
willing to submit to any form of government, whether it be despotic
or constitutional, that would be capable of preserving peace without in-
terfering with their private lives.

Stoicism
The Stoic school, the last of the great academic institutions of Athens,
was contemporaneous in origin with Epicureanism. Its history, however,
is longer, its doctrine less constant, and its influence much greater.
Founded shortly before 300 3.c. by Zeno (340-260 B.c.), stoicism at-
tracted a wide following of educated Greeks and Romans — from the
lame and penniless slave, Epictetus, to the strong and wealthy emperor,
Marcus Aurelius. Like Epicurus, Zeno was born on the fringe of Greek
civilization, in the town of Citium on the island of Cyprus. He was
thus free from the persuading influence that life in the Greek city-state
exerted on its members. Starting out as a doctrine of withdrawal and
of protest against social conventions, stoicism sought in philosophy the
entrance into a spiritual realm where the evils and defects of society
would little matter. The wise man can attain moral self-sufficiency by
suppressing all emotion arising from pain or misfortune and by rigidly
controlling himself. Such a person does not need the help of existing
institutions; he is able to seek virtue and justice and goodness in himself.
By turning inward, the individual can stand in absolute freedom from
the mundane world.
As stoicism developed, it gradually assumed more positive aspects
than it had shown in its earlier stages. Its idea of a mythical society in
which all men enjoy equality under a universal law of nature began to
take on meaning in a political context. Instead of the ancient polis,
stoic thought substituted the cosmopolis with its world citizenship, its
brotherhood of man, and its universal law binding on all people. The
ideal state must embrace the whole world so that a man would no longer
say, “I am of Athens” or “of Sidon” but “a citizen of the world.” The
states that exist are temporal necessities, but the wise man holds aloof
 THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ROME 89

from them as far as possible, looking to the fraternity of all men in a

citizenship of the world. The universal aspects of stoicism appealed to
the Romans who seemed destined to bring all races within their political
control. To be acceptable to them, stoic philosophy had only to be purged
of its remaining element of aloofness toward public life and made more
directly applicable to political ideals. The task of revising it in this direc-
tion fell to Panaetius of Rhodes (189-109 s.c.)
Panaetius, like his Greek colleague Polybius, was an ardent admirer
of the Roman constitution. Both were intimate friends of Scipio Africanus
the Younger, and around the three of them gathered a society of dis-
tinguished and intelligent Romans. It was this circle that was influential
in transmitting Greek philosophy to the new Rome. Panaetius, as the
chief interpreter of Greek thought during this period, turned stoic philos-
ophy back in the direction of Plato and Aristotle. By so doing, he suc-
ceeded in presenting stoicism to his influential Roman friends in an
acceptable form.‘ Instead of the rejection of political activity, Panaetius
maintains that the highest vocation of man is the dedication of himself to
public life. Stoicism is the school which trains the statesman as well as
the philosopher. Coupled with the doctrine of a universal law and world
citizenship, this new stoic look appealed so strongly to the temperament
and outlook of the Romans that it was transposed into their political
and legal system.
Marcus Aurelius, the most prominent of the stoics, represents the
new type of stoic virtue. Not only did he spend considerable time in
meditation, but he devoted some sixteen hours each day to the govern-
ance of the Roman Empire. But what is the good of all this public
service if, as stoicism claims, the world does not matter, and if health,
riches, and power are in themselves worthless? ‘he answer was clear to
Aurelius and the new stoics. Life is like a play or game. What really
matters is that the play be properly presented and that the actors properly
fulfill their parts. God has given each individual a role: one may be cast
as a ruler, another as a lowly slave. The good actor can play either part;
his business is to accept the role without joy or complaint and to perform
it well. The part in the play, as all things of the world, is entirely worth-
less. Yet to be good the actor must perform his function, no matter what

4For a comprehensive and scholarly treatment of the development of stoicism

within the Roman Empire see, E. V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism (Cambridge: University
of Cambridge Press, 1911).
90 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

it may be. He must strive for perfection, whether in the role of slave
or emperor, since the goodness of nature lies in working toward per-
fection. By this reasoning, stoicism is able to provide guidance for both
the saint and the public servant.®

THE GOVERNMENT OF ROME

Rome began its history on the peaks and slopes of the seven hills
beside the Tiber River. Legend relates that the city was founded by
Romulus, a descendant of Aeneas, in 753 B.c. From a closely knit and
compact city-state, Rome expanded into a single empire that encom-
passed the entire Mediterranean world. From the time of its founding
until 509 s.c., the city was governed by kings; from 509 to 27 B.c., it was
a republic; and from the latter date to its fall, it was ruled by emperors.
Throughout the more than ten centuries of its existence, Rome experi-
enced war and peace, victory and defeat, internal harmony and civil war,
glory and shame, good government and despicable political rule, progress
and decay. The legacies which grew out of this history are many and
varied. :
In contrast to Greece, Rome’s contribution to the development of
formal political theory is slight. Her importance to the field of politics
does not arise from any striking originality or any major addition to the
world’s stock of political ideas. Her significance lies in the great political
part that she played in laying the legal foundations of the western world
and in her transmission of Greek ideas to western Europe.
The political thought of both the Republic and the Empire was de-
rived chiefly from two sources: Stoic philosophy, as represented by Cicero,
Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius; and the Roman jurists of the
second and third centuries A.D., such as Ulpian and Gaius, whose politi-
cal speculations were largely a repetition and elaboration of ideas found
in Aristotle. But if the Roman period is not distinguished for its theory,
it is noted for its law and, to a lesser extent, its administration. It is in
these two areas that Rome left her greatest legacy to the West.
The Republic passed through a long period of development and decline.
Democratic in form and theory, it was never at any time, even in its
advanced stage, truly democratic in practice. Constitutionally, supreme
political authority rested in the assemblies of the people. These, like
5See Gilbert Murray, The Stoic Philosophy (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1915 ie
 THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ROME 91

their Athenian counterpart, were mass meetings in which every Roman

citizen was eligible to take part. The privilege of participation, however,
was vittually meaningless to that portion of the citizen body which lived
outside the city of Rome proper, since there was no system of represen-
tation. Personal presence was necessary to vote or to make one’s opinion
heard. The assemblies elected the consuls and magistrates and acted on
bills presented to them by the executive officials.
The Roman senate was composed almost wholly of former magistrates
and consuls. Theoretically, it possessed no legislative power but served
only as an advisory group to the executive officials. Actually, it was the
real governing body of the Republic during most of its existence. Domi-
nated by a small group of families through a careful process of manipula-
tion, the senate was aristocratic in composition during its better periods
and oligarchic during its declining stages. The popular assemblies were
similarly controlled. A system of voting by tribes rather than by individ-
uals enabled an organized minority to direct assembly actions and to
elect magistrates with the “right” views and attitudes. Since the executive
officials were automatically elevated to the senate at the expiration of
their terms, continuity in control and influence over the management of
public affairs was assured.
Despite its expansion, Rome remained a city-state in form until the
end of the republican era, when citizenship was extended to the prov-
inces. As Roman hegemony spread, an effective system of centralized
administrative control was set up. The newly won territory was divided
into provinces, each headed by a Roman official with broad powers in
civil and political affairs. But despite centralized control, a large degree
of autonomy in local matters was permitted to the various units. Roman
policy in general was relatively tolerant and noninterventionist. Once
the Romans had established their undisputed authority over a people,
they then proceeded to raise them gradually to partnership within the
empire. Only in a limited sphere of life pertaining to the safety of the
state did they demand exacting order and obedience. Although they
encouraged the spread of Roman civilization, they made no attempt to
enforce uniformity in culture and institutions among the subject people.
Much of the success of Roman administration over a widely dispersed
empire that embraced more than 50 million people and over 1,300,000
square miles of land can be attributed to the liberal policy displayed
toward the provinces.
92 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

With the constitutional changes effected by Julius and Augustus Caesar,

political power gravitated into the hands of one man. Rome lost its
republican character and became an empire, at first in fact, and later
also in form. The popular assembly was relegated to an insignificant role,
and while the senate retained its important position, it eventually came
under the complete domination of the emperor. Even the fiction of the
Roman lawyers that “the will of the Emperor has the force of law,
because by the passage of the lex regia the people transfers to him and
vests in him all its own power and authority,” was challenged in the
third century A.D. by the theory that the emperor’s authority was of
divine origin. In fact, for a time the emperor was himself worshiped as
a god.

CICERO

M. Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.c.) is the outstanding political theorist

of the Roman period. Lacking the profundity and originality of talent
displayed by his Greek predecessors, he nevertheless exerted a strong
influence on the course of western thought. His role was more nearly
that of a popularizer of complex ideas than a thinker in his own right.
Much of his writing was directly inspired by the political speculations of
Plato and Aristotle and by the philosophy of stoicism. Because his works
were widely read, he served as the principal medium for transmitting
Greek and Roman concepts to medieval Europe. Despite the heavy re-
liance on his predecessors, Cicero’s political writings are of particular
significance for two reasons. They show the notions that were generally
current in his time, and they demonstrate the application of what is
essentially the political philosophy of the city-state to the new context
of world empire.
Cicero came from a Roman family of good social position. Educated
at home and abroad (he studied philosophy at Athens and Rhodes),
he entered politics at the age of twenty-three. In the succeeding years
he became the leading lawyer of his time and rose to high public office,
serving as governor of a province, consul, and senator. His two major
political works are the De Republica and De Legibus, both modeled
after Plato’s Republic and his Laws. He wrote during the declining days
of the Roman republic, at a time when the economic transformation
brought about by territorial expansion had once again divided the people
into two opposing classes, the wealthy nobles and the pauperized com-
 THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ROME 93

moners. In both his public career and his writings, Cicero sought to
restore the Roman constitution to the form that it had during the
glorious days of Scipio Africanus and before the revolutionary tribunate
of Tiberius Gracchus. His attempt to turn back the clock was a total
failure. His importance does not lie in his political accomplishments but
in the long-range effects of his writings.

Methodology
Cicero follows the same pattern that Plato employed in his political
works. Both the De Republica and the De Legibus are written in dialogue
style, with the conversations taking place in the garden of one of the
participants during a holiday period. In the De Republica, Cicero puts
his views into the mouth of Scipio Africanus the Younger, a statesman
of an earlier age, but in the De Legibus he throws off the mask of Scipio
(as Plato did that of Socrates in his later writings) and himself assumes
the role of the chief character. Unfortunately, both of Cicero’s political
treatises have come down to us in fragmentary form so that it is difficult
at points to piece out the author’s thought.®
While the form of approach used by Cicero is modeled closely after
that of Plato, basic differences in methodology exist between the two
writers. Both set forth their conception of an ideal state; but whereas
Plato endeavors to arrive at his model polity in much the same way that
a sculptor molds his clay, Cicero’s approach is historical and empirical.
Starting with the assumption that the form of government which existed
during the classical period of republican Rome was by far the best,
Cicero expresses his intention to “explain the character of this constitu-
tion and show why it is the best; and using our own government as my
pattern, I will fit to it, if I can, all I have to say about the ideal state.”’
By placing before his readers a description of the Roman state at its
birth, during its growth, and at its maturity, Cicero felt that his political
science would be more intelligible than if he “would follow the example
of Socrates in Plato’s work” and himself “invent an ideal state” of his own.®
6 The De Republica, with the exception of various quotations found in later works,
was lost until 1822, when the prefect of the Vatican Library discovered a substantial
portion of the manuscript in a palimpsest containing St. Augustine’s commentary on
the Psalms.
7 De Republica, I, xxi. Excerpts from De Republica and De Legibus are taken from
the Loeb Classical Library edition, trans. by C. W. Keyes (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1928).
8 Tbid., II, xxx.
94 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

Cicero also criticizes Plato’s methodology for its reliance on abstract

reasoning, a reliance which resulted in a theory of the perfect state that
was “quite unsuited to men’s actual lives and habits.” Following the
example of Aristotle, he looks upon the constitution of a state as an
organic growth developing with the experience and advance in knowledge
that time brings with it. His repudiation of Plato’s approach, however,
does not imply any rejection of the moral principles which his predecessor
had advanced as the foundation of the true state. As Cicero notes, he
will endeavor to accomplish his purpose by “employing the same princi-
ples which Plato discerned, yet taking no shadowy commonwealth of the
imagination but a real and very powerful state”? as the subject of his
inquiry. His thinking in this respect is again in the tradition of Aristotle
who constantly stressed the close relationship between political institu-
tions and the habits and capacities of the people.

The Nature of the State

Cicero is well aware that an intelligent discussion of political institu-

tions presupposes a knowledge of the nature of the state. “For the quali-
ties of the thing to be considered can never be understood unless one
understands first exactly what the thing itself is. Therefore, since the
commonwealth is the subject of our investigation, let us first consider
exactly what it is that we are investigating.”?° In an oft-quoted and
beautifully expressed passage, Cicero defines a state as “the property of
a people. But a people is not any collection of human beings brought
together in any sort of way, but an assemblage of people in large numbers
associated in an agreement with respect to justice and a partnership for
the common good.” Forms of government may vary, but to be legitimate
they must always rest on the consent of the people, principles of justice,
and the good of the community.
The state comes into being as a natural result of the social instinct
of man. “The first cause of such an association is not so much the
weakness of the individual as a certain social spirit which nature has
implanted in man. For man is not a solitary or unsocial creature.”’?2 What,
therefore, is the purpose or end of the state? Essentially, it is to help
man in his task of self-fulfillment and in the promotion of the good
life. “Just as the aim of the pilot is a successful voyage, of the physician,

9 Ibid., I, xxxi. 10 Tbid., I, xxiv. 11 [bid., I, xxv. 12 Tbid.

 THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ROME 95
health, and of the general, victory, so the director of the commonwealth
has as his aim for his fellow-citizens a happy life, fortified with wealth,
ich in material resources, great in glory, and honored by virtue.”
It is impossible for man to live well “except in a good commonwealth,
and nothing can produce greater happiness than a_ well-constituted
State.”"* So also, no nobler form of activity exists than a life dedicated
to public service since “there is really no other occupation in which
human virtue approaches more closely the august function of the gods.”?®
There is nothing that is new in Cicero’s conception of the state. Plato
and Aristotle had likewise viewed the body politic as a rational and
organic institution founded on law and justice and designed to serve
the welfare of the people. They all agree that an individual can realize
his natural destiny only in the state, in an association of human beings
united in intellect and will in the furtherance of a common objective.
Outside of this community, man would be little more than a beast.

The Ideal State

In constructing his ideal state on the model of the Roman Republic,
Cicero begins by listing the traditional three types of government—
monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy —and then proceeds to criticize
each in its pure form. In kingships, the people have too small a share
and too insignificant a voice in the administration of public affairs, and
the conduct of the state is subject to the nod and caprice of one man.
In aristocracies, the liberty of the people is too restricted since they are
entirely excluded from sharing in the exercise of political power. In de-
mocracies, where all the power is in the people’s hands, the very equality
which results is dangerous since it recognizes no gradations of merit.*®
Beyond these defects, all three forms are undesirable for another reason.
They too easily degenerate into their perverted forms (each containing
within itself the germs of its own decay): monarchy into tyranny, aristoc-
racy into plutocracy or oligarchy, and democracy into mob tule.
The ideal form, according to Cicero, is one which is a combination
or balanced mixture of the three simple forms. In advancing this con-
cept, he is following Polybius, the Greek historian of Roman institutions,
who had attributed the greatness of the Roman state to its constitutional

13 Tbid., V, vi. 14 Tbid., V, v. 15 Ibid., I, vii.

16 [bid., I, xxvii. Cicero believed that Greece fell because of ‘ ‘immoderate liberty
and the license of public assemblies.”
96 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

arrangement of a mixed type of government. Polybius argues that such a

government serves as an effectual check and balance among the different
social and economic interests in the state and acts as a safeguard against
the decay which inevitably destroys the pure type of government. He
believes that by combining the best elements of all three forms, stability
can be better assured and the abuse of power rendered less likely. Polybius
professes to derive his theory of the balanced form of government from
the experiences of the Roman Republic. The consuls represented the
monarchic element, the senate the aristocratic, and the popular assem-
blies the democratic, each acting as a check on the actions of the other.
Adopting Polybius’ view, Cicero asserts that although kingship is the
best of the three primary forms,!’ a combination of the three simple
types was much preferable. “There should be a supreme and royal element
in the state, some power also ought to be granted to the leading citizens,
and certain matters should be left to the judgment and desires of the
masses.”?® In this way there would result “an even balance of rights,
duties, and functions, so that the magistrates have enough power, the
counsels of the eminent citizens enough influence, and the people enough
liberty.”
The concept of a mixed form of government had previously appeared
in Aristotle’s proposal to stabilize government through a balancing of
social or economic classes. Cicero and Polybius, while adhering to the
same principle of equilibrium, make an important modification in the
means of securing it. In doing so they approach more closely to the
modern theory of separation of powers. The mixture, as suggested by
them, is one not of economic or social but of political power, achieved
through balancing the branches of government. True, the senate may
generally represent the wealthy and aristocratic classes and the popular
assemblies the poorer groups; but the important fact is that the Roman
system, unlike the Greek, provided an institutional medium for each
interest to check and balance the other.

17 Cicero said that the rule of one man, if he be just, is the best ideally speaking,
but if he be unjust, it is the worst type. He bases his theoretical preference for kingship
on the analogy of nature where the whole universe is ruled by a single mind, and on
man where a single element, reason, rules over the other faculties (De Republica,
I, xxvi-xxvill).
18 De Republica, I, 1.
19 Tbid., U1, xxxiii.
 THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ROME oF

The Natural Law

One of the most important aspects of Cicero’s writings is his restate-
ment of the idea of natural law. Here again he expresses little that is
new, but speaks under the influence of Plato and Aristotle, and more
particularly of the later stoics such as Panaetius. He defines natural law as
right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application,
unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and
averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. . . . It is a sin to try to
alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of
it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed
from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look out-
side ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will
not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, and different laws now
and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid
for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler,
that is God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator,
and its enforcing judge.”°
In the De Legibus, Cicero enlarges upon his definition by stating that
law is the highest reason, implanted in Nature, which commands what
ought to be done and forbids the opposite. . . . Law is a natural force;
it is the mind and reason of the intelligent man, the standard by which
Justice and injustice are measured. But since our whole discussion has
to do with the reasoning of the populace, it will sometimes be neces-
sary to speak in the popular manner, and give the name of law to
that which in written form decrees whatever it wishes, either by com-
mand or prohibition. For such is the crowd’s definition of law.?!
There are two important points to be observed in these excerpts, the
first merely repetitious of a principle already noted in classical thought,
the second an apparent deviation from the teachings of Aristotle. As to
the first, Cicero emphasizes that any law enacted by man, or any custom
practiced by the people, which does not conform to the natural law is
illegitimate and invalid. “But the most foolish notion of all is the belief
that everything is good which is found in the customs or laws of na-
tions.”22, Man may be compelled by the superior physical force of the
rulers to obey decrees which contravene nature but he is under no moral
obligation to do so.

20 [bid., III, xxii. 21 De Legibus, I, vi. 22 [bid., I, xv.

98 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

The second factor deals with Cicero’s concept of natural law. While
his treatment of this subject leaves much to be desired in the way of
clarity,2* he seems to differ radically with Aristotle in stressing the
ability of individual human reason to ascertain the natural law. His
statement that we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or
interpreter of it illustrates this attitude. Emphasis on the autarky or self-
sufficiency of human reason is characteristic of all the post-Aristotelian
philosophies of conduct, with their basic doctrine that man ought to
be completely autonomous and independent.
Professor McCoy has observed that the Stoic conception of the autarky
of human reason presupposes a self-dependent reason which does not
find or discover the laws of nature but is itself the source of such laws.**
Thus man is subject to no law imposed from without but only to a
“natural law” which he in effect gives to himself. Granted the validity
of McCoy’s interpretation, Cicero actually reduces natural law to that
which the majority holds it to be. Cicero, however, disavows such a
conclusion in his statement that justice exists in nature and is not founded
on the decrees of people. For if it were “then Justice would sanction
robbery and adultery and forgery of wills, in case these acts were ap>
proved by the votes or decrees of the populace.”** Yet, in spite of his
disavowal, the implications of his insistence on the autonomy of human
reason remain.
Unlike Cicero, Aristotle insisted that man is not an intellectually self-
sufficient creature; and that while there is an objective moral law, it
must be discovered in the ontological structure of things. The form
of human life is made determinate through the joint efforts of men as
expressed in their acts, habits, laws, and institutions. The individual can-
not look solely to his own reason for the correct measure of rightness and
wrongness. For him to do so would presuppose that all men are in-
tellectually equal as well as intellectually capable of ascertaining the truth.
This mythical equality finds expression in Cicero.

Human Equality
According to classical Greek thought, all men are equal in respect to their
23 In certain passages, his natural law seems to embody a kind of pantheism in
which God is identified with human reason.
24 Charles N. R. McCoy, “The Turning Point in Political Philosophy,” American
Political Science Review, September, 1950, p. 682.
25 De Legibus, I, xv.
 THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ROME 9

specific nature, rationality, but their equality ceases at this point. There
are vast differences among them, intellectually, morally, and physically.
Plato’s class division and Aristotle’s doctrine of the natural slave sought
to emphasize these differences. When we come to Cicero, we find an
entirely new conception of human equality. “No single thing is so like
another, so exactly its counterpart, as all of us are to one another. Nay,
if bad habits and false belief did not twist the weaker minds and turn
them in whatever direction they are inclined, no one would be so like
his own self as all men would be like all others.’’2¢
The Greek political theorists began with the natural inequalities among
men. Cicero starts with the assumption that all these differences are in
some way contrary to nature. He notes that human reason is common
to all of us and “though varying in what it learns, at least in the capacity
to learn it is invariable. For the same things are invariably perceived by
the senses, and those things which stimulate the senses stimulate them
in the same way in all men; and those rudimentary beginnings of in-
telligence to which I have referred, which are imprinted on our minds,
are imprinted on all minds alike.”?” Men may, therefore, differ in knowl-
edge, but they are similar in their capacity to acquire knowledge. Further-
more, all men possess not only the faculty of reason but right reason.
“These creatures who have received the gift of reason from Nature have
also received right reason.”?8 This is a far cry from the psychology of
Cicero’s predecessors who based their political philosophy on the inherent
differences among men in talent and capacity.
Looking at the world about him, Cicero could hardly deny that in-
equalities among human beings did exist in fact. To explain away these
variations, he contends that it is only the perversions brought about
by bad habits and foolish conceptions which cause men to differ from
one another. Remove these disabilities, return to a pristine state of nature,
and inequalities will vanish. There is a striking anticipation here of the
Christian doctrine of original sin, in which evil acts have brought about
inequalities and suffering in the natural order. Despite his philosophical
presuppositions in this regard, Cicero appears to be under no illusion
that such “inequalities can be overcome.” As he observes in one passage,
since equality of ability is impossible, “the legal rights at least of those
who are citizens of the same commonwealth ought to be equal.’”*® This

26 Tbid., I, x. 28 [bid., I, xii.

27 Ibid. (italics added). 29 De Republica, I, xxxii.
100 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

view resembles the modern democratic doctrine of equal rights before

the law, but legal equality is a quite different matter from that of talents
and aptitudes.
Cicero was basically an aristocrat both in temperament and in practice.
It will be recalled that he rejected democracy as the best form of govern-
ment on the grounds that it places everyone on the same level and allows
no distinction in rank. Throughout his writings, he continually stresses the
need for giving the eminent citizens a place of influence in the political
structure. At one point he remarks that he would have no objection
to a secret ballot provided the common man showed his vote to “some
excellent and serious citizen” before depositing it. Such views are hardly
those of one who believes in the innate equality of men. Cicero, loyal to
his stoic philosophy, may have thought that such equality existed in the
ideal order, but practical statesman as he was, he realized that we must
accept men as they are—and men in the concrete order differ radically
in talents, capabilities, and virtues. To construct a state on any other
premise would be to disregard the basic facts of human psychology.

THE ROMAN LAWYERS

The Roman jurists made no pretense of being political philosophers.

Interested primarily in the task of interpreting and applying law to the
changing conditions of Roman society, they touched upon such topics
as the nature and origin of the state only in so far as they affected or
involved consideration of the judicial process. The political speculation
which they engaged in was largely a repetition of the theories found in
Cicero. What they did say was nevertheless important since the great
authority that was attached to Roman law throughout western Europe
gave weight and prestige to any general principles associated with it.®°
Consequently, when the jurists employed the concepts of natural law
and human equality in their development of the Roman legal system,
they assured the spread of these ideas among a wide and receptive
audience.
Faced with the task of administering justice to an empire of diversified
people during a period of changing economic, social, and political con-
ditions, the Roman lawyers found their solutions primarily in the philo-
30 Sabine, op. cit., p. 169,
 THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ROME 101

sophical concepts prevalent during their time. Stoic in outlook, the jurists
had no difficulty in conceiving of an empire in which individuals of
different races, with diverse languages and customs, could exist on a
basis of equality of rights and privileges before the law. Employing
the concept of a universal standard of justice, they sought to determine
out of the mass of local customs and practices the general principles
that should be applicable to all peoples. In doing so, the Roman jurists
were the first to distinguish precisely the different kinds of law.
Gaius, in the second century A.D., speaks of two kinds of law, jus
civile and jus gentium. That which each people has established as law
for itself is called jus civile; but what natural reason has established
among all men, is known as jus gentium, as a law used by all nations.
Gaius seemingly identifies the jus gentium with the natural law. Later
jurists, beginning with Ulpian in the third century and continuing on
through Justinian in the sixth century, distinguish between the two by
recognizing that even that which is generally practiced may be unjust
and unreasonable. Behind all particular civil laws and customs are funda-
mental principles of right embedded in nature itself. ‘These are usually
followed by men everywhere, but if some particular local custom or in-
stitution should violate the criterion so imposed, the practice must be
barred. By incorporating the idea of an objective standard of equity and
justice into legal thought and practice, the jurists gave the concept of
natural law a character of concreteness that it had previously lacked.
The Roman lawyers contributed to another facet of political thought
—that dealing with the source of authority in the state. According to
Roman legal theory, all legislative and administrative acts derive their
authority ultimately from the people. This view persisted and was ac-
cepted as theoretically correct even during the despotic days of the
Empire, when power was obtained by every method other than popular
consent. Ulpian’s famous expression “Quod principi placuit, legis habet
vigorem” (the will of the Prince is law) was followed by the qualification
that the ruler’s power is conferred on him by the people. The emperor’s
will, in other words, is law only because the people desire it to be so.
His authority, or what later came to be looked upon as legal sovereignty,
is derived from the people by way of delegation. The presence of this
concept of “popular sovereignty” in Roman law proved of considerable
aid to the later development of democracy.
102 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS

SUMMARY
When we come to assess the relevancy that Cicero and the Roman thinkers
have for the middle of the twentieth century, several factors seem to stand
out. In the first place, the Romans created a political framework which
helped to preserve the values of the city-state and to spread the ideas of
Hellenism and Christianity throughout the West. This heritage includes an
awareness of the high responsibility of public office, a feeling for the dignity
and purposiveness of the state, a respect for tradition, a recognition of the
organic structure of civil society, and the acceptance of the natural law
basis of the state and of political authority.
Cicero and his colleagues contributed substantially to the development
of constitutional government. They regarded the state as a juris societas, a
community of laws. Largely because of their great influence, the state began
to assume in western political theory the character of a legal entity exercising
its authority within definite limits. Positive law similarly came to be looked
upon as representing the practical application of the universal principles of
justice and reason, and not merely the arbitrary or capricious will of the
lawmakers. As Cicero sums it up, “the function of the magistrates is to
govern and to give commands which are just and beneficial and in conformity
with the law. For as the laws govern the magistrate, so the magistrate governs,
the people, and it may be truly said that the magistrate is a speaking law,
and the law a silent magistrate.”*1 The result is a government of laws as well
as of men.
Since the Romans looked upon political authority in legal and constitutional
terms, it was possible for them to devise a system of political checks and
balances that operated through the governmental organs of the state. Aristotle,
as his theory of equilibrium among classes illustrates, had conceived of
supremacy within a state largely in terms of social or economic rather than
legal or political control. The Romans showed that social and economic forces
could be counterbalanced or moderated through governmental arrangements.
The modern theory of separation of powers and the American concept of
constitutionalism are more understandable in Roman than in Greek terms.
Finally, the notion of individual rights against the state introduced a note
into political theory that was not explicit in Greek thought. While the latter
recognized the inherent rights of the individual and the wrongfulness of any
state action which violated these rights, it could conceive of no legal remedy
available to the injured person. Through the development of legal procedures,
the Roman system began to display remedial measures which in embryonic
form resemble the modern notion of constitutional rights resting on “due
process of law.”

31 De Legibus, III, i.
 THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ROME 103

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arnold, E. V., Roman Stoicism (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press,
LOTL)i.
Bailey, Cyril (ed.), The Legacy of Rome (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923).
Barker, Ernest, Church, State, and Study: Essays (London: Methuen, 1930).
Barnes, H. E., “Theories of the Origin of the State in Classical Political
Philosophy,” Monist, January, 1924.
Bossier, Gaston, Cicero and His Friends: A Study of Roman Society in the
Time of Cicero (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925).
Carlyle, A. J., History of Medieval Political Theory in the West, Vol. I
(London: Blackwood, 1903).
Chinard, Gilbert, “‘Polybius and the American Constitution,” Journal of the
History of Ideas, January, 1940.
Cowell, F. R., Cicero and the Roman Republic (London: Pitman, 1948).
Festugiere, A. J., Epicurus and His Gods, trans. by S. W. Chilton (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1957).
Fritz, Kurt von, The Theory of the Mixed Constitution in Antiquity (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1954).
Grampp, W. D., “Moral Hero (of the Stoics) and the Economic Man (of
modern liberalism),” Ethics, January, 1951.
Hadas, Moses, “From Nationalism to Cosmopolitanism in the Greco-Roman
World,” Journal of the History of Ideas, January, 1943.
Haskell, H. J., This Was Cicero (New York: Knopf, 1942).
Keyes, Clinton W., “Original Elements in Cicero’s Ideal Constitution,”
American Journal of Philology, October, 1921.
Lear, Floyd S., “The Idea of Majesty in Roman Political Thought,” in Essays
in History and Political Theory in Honor of Charles Howard Mcllwain
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936).
Murray, Gilbert, Stoic, Christian, and Humanist (London: Allan & Unwin,
1940).
Poyser, a H., “Ancient Light on a Modern Problem: the Stoic Influence on
Western Civilization Through Cicero,” Hibbert Journal, July, 1953.
Rand, E. K., Cicero in the Courtroom of St. Thomas Aquinas (Milwaukee:
Bice, 1940),
Reesor, M. E., “Stoic Concept of Equality,’ American Journal of Philology,
January, 1954.
Richards, G. C., Cicero: A Study (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1935).
Rolfe, John C., Cicero and His Influence (Boston: Marshall Jones, 1923).
Smethurst, S. E., “Politics and Morality in Cicero,’ Phoenix, Autumn, 1955.
Starr, Chester G., “The Perfect Democracy of the Roman Empire,’”’ American
Historical Review, October, 1952.
Syme, Ronald, The Roman Revolution (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1939).
Wenley, R. M., Stoicism and Its Influence (Boston: Marshall Jones, 1924).
Wheeler, Marcus, ‘““Cicero’s Political Ideal,” Greece and Rome, June, 1952.
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 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF
PART THREE
THE MEDIEVALISTS
 Chapter VI

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all
these things shall be given you besides” (Matthew 6:33).

As THE Roman Empire became more despotic and as it slowly traveled

the path toward its final collapse, a new force, dynamic and revolutionary,
emerged from the East. Known as Christianity, this new element originated
among an outcast people in a remote part of the Empire. From its
humble beginning it gradually spread in influence until it encompassed
the whole of the Roman world. As the followers of Jesus of Nazareth
carried the gospels of the new religion to the peoples of the Empire,
they brought mankind a new sense of compassion, a new understanding,
and a new hope of redemption. The resulting transformation was radical
and profound. Never again was the world to be the same. Not only
did the teachings of Christianity prove imperishable, but they decisively
shaped and determined the future course of western history. The whole
complex of modern political and social life in the West is permeated
with Christian values and practices.
The early Christians were looked upon with suspicion and _ hostility.
In pagan Rome as in ancient Greece, loyalty to the state involved loyalty
to the gods of the state, a view in which the Christians refused to
acquiesce. Rejecting the idea that political allegiance implies religious
conformity, they protested that they were loyal subjects of the Empire
in all but their religion. As time passed, the original small group of
Christ’s followers grew into an organized movement on a vast scale.
Tolerated at first by the Roman government as one oriental sect among
others, the Christians were later subjected to persecution because of
their persistent refusal to recognize the sole authority of the emperor.
However, by the fourth century Christianity had become the religion
of the most influential classes in the Empire. Under the edict of tolera-
107
108 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

tion issued by Constantine in 313, the new religion was given official
recognition. Later when paganism was legally proscribed, Christianity
became the official and exclusive religion of the Empire. The two so-
cieties, religious and political, now stood face to face on a plane of
legal equality. The old antagonisms were for the time being brought
to an end, but the problem of defining the nature and character of the
resulting relationship, a difficulty unknown to the ancient world, now
began to emerge. Before considering this question, it would be helpful
to turn momentarily to Seneca, a Roman thinker who epitomizes the
pre-Christian dilemma.

SENECA

Seneca (A.D. 4-65) was a wealthy and educated Spaniard who served
as tutor to Nero and later as his chief administrative ofhcer. He was
perhaps the last of the Roman writers to systematically study stoicism
as it found expression among its original interpreters. Although his
writings are not considered comparable to those of Cicero, they did enjoy
extraordinary popularity at the time of their publication, and for several
centuries thereafter. Seneca resigned his high political office when he
was in his late fifties in order to devote himself to the exposition of the
practical teachings of stoicism. Some time after his retirement, he was
accused of conspiring against the emperor and was ordered to commit
suicide.+
Although Cicero and Seneca adhere to the same basic philosophical
beliefs, their outlooks on life are essentially different. Cicero, despite his
recognition of sin, remained optimistic and hopeful that Rome could
return to her former position of strength and integrity. Seneca, on the
other hand, held no such illusions. ‘Thoroughly pessimistic and despondent,
he looked upon human nature as corrupt and faulty and as oppressed
by vice and misery. He felt that the wise man should withdraw unto
himself and devote his time to contemplation. For only in some mystical
and theoretical community of the wise can the injustices and inequalities
of social life be remedied. Yet Seneca, imbued with the Roman ideal
of public service, could not force himself to regard man as altogether
exempt from the obligation to serve society. Despite the strong feeling
1 For an account of Seneca and his writings see A. J. Carlyle, A Story of Medieval
Political Theory In The West (London: Blackwood, 1903), Vol. 1, Chap, 2. Also
E. V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, op. cit.
 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD 109

of human wickedness which pervades his thought, he is conscious of a

sense of charity, compassion, and tolerance toward his fellow beings. He
teaches that the true role of man’s life is to be of use to his brethren,
either by public service or by participation in humanitarian projects.
There are several remarkable insights in Seneca’s thought that are
significant to the development of political philosophy. In his Epistulae
Morales, he pictures a state of nature in which men lived, uncorrupted
and innocent, in complete peace and happiness. In this primitive state,
they had no need for coercive government; they simply followed nature
and voluntarily obeyed the best and wisest men who served as their
tulers. However, as time passed, greed came to take hold of the people.
Dissatisfied with communal property, they began to desire private pos-
sessions and to become self-seeking. The rulers were likewise seized with
the lust of authority and property, and from their role as paternal guard-
ians of society they turned to despotism and tyranny. Laws and coercive
government then became necessary to curb human vices.
As is evident from this brief résumé, Seneca regarded the institution of
society as a by-product of sin. The state and human law are conventional
institutions made necessary by man’s wickedness rather than by the
natural conditions of ideal progress. Coupled with the stoic insistence
on the self-sufficiency of the individual, this doctrine was to reappear
time and time again in subsequent periods of history.
Although Seneca had virtually no knowledge of the doctrine of Chris-
tianity, his idea of man’s primitive state parallels the teachings of Revela-
tion in many respects. Because of greed or the lust for power, Adam
and Eve destroyed the happiness and well-being of Paradise; and as a
result of their sin, the human race fell from its pristine integrity and
purity. Haunted with the feeling of human sinfulness (that which |
should not, I do) Seneca sought refuge in the hope that compassion
and social service will redeem the bestial in man. Yet his belief that
no one can escape sin and that virtue consists in an endless struggle
for salvation rather than in its achievement is scarcely a palliative for
his intrinsic pessimism. It was in this intellectual milieu that Christianity
brought new hope to mankind with its theological explanation of man’s
sinfulness and its doctrine of salvation through grace.
A second aspect of Seneca’s thought that foreshadowed the shape
of events to come is his concept of the two commonwealths: one the
political state with its government and juridical institutions; the other a
110 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

universal society, a brotherhood of men, whose ties are moral and

ethical rather than legal and political, and whose bounds “are to be
measured with the circuit of the sun.” The universal society must always
reject those demands of the political state which interfere with or en-
croach upon its domain. Implicit in these ideas is the possibility of
conflict between the claims of the religious and secular spheres. This
possibility soon became a reality in the Christian doctrine of two societies
and two loyalties.

EARLY CHRISTIAN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL THOUGHT

Until St. Augustine wrote his great treatise in the first quarter of
the fifth century, there was little formal expression of political thought
among the Christians, and little organized social action. The attitude of
the early followers of Jesus toward the temporal state and society must
be sought for primarily in the writings of the New Testament.
The lack of any systematic body of Christian political and social
thought during the early years of the new era is hardly surprising. Chris-
tianity is a religion, a doctrine of salvation, and not a philosophy or a
political theory. As citizens or residents of the Empire, the Christians
generally adhered to the prevailing ideas toward the state and govern-
ment and to the social doctrines of the period.
The Stoics had conceived of man as a citizen of two states, the political
entity in which he resides, and the universal state — the brotherhood of
man —to which all human creatures belong. For the Christian, this
latter realm was not a mere state of mind as the stoics were inclined to
look upon it, but a spiritual or supernatural commonwealth that is open
to all men if they will but enter it. Unlike the exclusiveness of stoicism,
Christianity appealed to the common man as well as the noble, to the
simple as well as the wise, to the heart as well as the intellect. No social
or intellectual barrier stood in the way of entry to the new fraternity,
with its promise of rewards in this world and eternal salvation hereafter.
The universal kingdom of which Christianity spoke is represented on
earth by the Church, whose head is the vicar of Christ. The Greek
concept of religion as an adjunct of the state lost its applicability in this
new context. The Church now stood side by side with the secular
government, but its jurisdiction or sovereignty was limited to the spiritual
dimensions of man’s life. But where does the secular sphere end and
 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD 111

the spiritual begin? The answer was not easy to formulate. The full im-
plications of the problem did not, however, become evident during this
early period.

THE CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE TOWARD POLITICAL AUTHORITY

Despised and often persecuted, it would not have been strange had
the early Christians rejected entirely the things of this world and turned
inward to a contemplation of the eternal life. The biblical passages which
speak of the renunciation of worldliness, contempt of wealth, and in-
difference toward slavery are indications of such an attitude. St. James,
for example, after condemning the rich who oppressed their workers
(“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall
come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-
eaten”), then turns to the abused laborers and tells them to be patient,
to endure their lot in life, and to await the coming of the Lord.? Even
St. Paul exhorts the slaves “to be obedient to them that are your lords
according to the flesh . . . knowing that whatsoever good any man shall
do, the same shall be received from the Lord whether he be bond or
free.”* Endure with fortitude the sufferings of this world since they are
but a preparation for the glorious life to follow.
Religious leaders were well aware of the danger that lay in too literal
an interpretation of the freedom of the Gospel. It is not difficult to
imagine that the Christians, with their enthusiastic spirit and their eyes
directed to a future life, might have drifted into an attitude of contempt
for secular government, especially when that government was under the
control of unspiritual rulers. Although exhortions such as those of St. Paul,
“With freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not
entangled again in a yoke of bondage,” refer to man’s redemption by
the sacrifice on the Cross, they could be taken to mean an emancipation
from all the ordinary duties and disciplines of this life. Had this latter
view gained wide acceptance among the Christians, it might have caused
disruptions in the social order; and these would certainly have brought
down the wrath of the Empire on the religion of Christ. It was to
counteract any such anarchistic tendency that St. Paul found it necessary
to stress repeatedly the importance of submitting to lawfully ordained

2 James 5:1-11.
3 Eph. 6:5-8.
LZ POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

authority, whether it be that of the state over its citizens or that of the
master over his slave.
The attitude of the Christian leaders toward the state and government
during this period of religious incubation is of special interest, since it
sets the stage for the long church-state controversy that was to follow.
St. Paul (a.v. 3-67), who is perhaps the most influential spokesman for
the Christian religion in the years immediately following the death of
Jesus, took great pains to vindicate the authority of the civil rulers and
to disabuse any notion that the new religion was one of withdrawal.
In his Epistle to Titus, the bishop of Crete, he urges him to admonish
the faithful “to be subject to princes and powers, to obey at a word.”
And in the famous and oft-quoted passage of Romans XIII, he declares,
“Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers, for there is no
power but of God, and those that are ordained of God. Therefore he
that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.” This is strong
language since it gives divine sanction to political rule and at the same
time indirectly corroborates the Greek conception of the state as a
necessary institution.
St. Paul makes it clear that civil law must be obeyed not only because °
the state has the physical power to compel adherence but, what is more
important, because its lawful orders are binding in conscience. “Where-
fore be subject of necessity: not only for wrath, but also for conscience
sake.” Why is obedience to the state so important? St. Paul answers
that the purpose of civil government is to suppress evil and to foster and
encourage good. It must provide the material conditions in which man
can pursue his proper end. As such, the state is worthy of Christian man’s
loyalty. Pray for kings and all that are in high stations, St. Paul instructs
Timothy, “that we may lead a quiet and a peaceful life in all piety and
chastity.”*
Although Christianity from the beginning acknowledged man’s obli-
gation toward civil rule, it introduced a new concept to political thought
and practice: that of dual authority. Plato and Aristotle had assumed
that the religious and social spheres were part and parcel of the same
human institutions and subject to the same rule, that of the state.
The Christians, however, refused to recognize the all-inclusive nature
of secular jurisdiction. Instead, they claimed a separate authority for
the Church over the spiritual aspects of human life. Christian man now
2) Tinie 2i2.
 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD 113

became faced with two jurisdictions and two consequent loyalties: one
to the state, the other to the church. He was a citizen of the secular
society and a potential member of the kingdom of God. How was he
to carry out this twofold loyalty?
The underlying basis for resolving the question of secular-spiritual
jurisdiction had been given by Jesus when He said “Render to Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”
St. Paul, in like vein, counseled his listeners to render to all men their
dues. “Tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear
to whom fear; honor to whom honor.” These eloquent expressions rest
on the premise that church and state can stand side by side in peace
and harmony, each working for its particular end. The formula so
simply stated was destined to go through a long period of interpretation
and refinement in the years to follow.

NATURAL LAW AND HUMAN EQUALITY

Two other Christian concepts of social and political significance closely

parallel stoic thought: the idea of a natural law and the belief in a
universal brotherhood of man. Recognizing that some men would not
have direct knowledge of the revealed law of God, St. Paul states that
such individuals are nevertheless bound in their conduct by a law higher
than that of the state. “For when the Gentiles, who have not the law
[that is, the revealed law] do by nature those things that are of the
law; these, having not the law, are a law to themselves. Who show the
work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness
to them.’’> Cicero had previously spoken of a law written in man’s heart
and of right reason in agreement with nature. Such a concept had also
been implicit in the thinking of the classical Greeks. Christianity was
now to give this law a theological anchorage and make its role more
definite in the Divine order of things. Or as one writer has said, Chris-
tianity irradiated the stoic ideas of the natural law in the new light of
the Fatherhood of God.®
The Stoics had conceived of a society existing apart from the political
state, a universal brotherhood of mankind in which all men enjoy
equality. As evidenced in the writings of Cicero and Seneca, they be-
5 Rom. 2:14-15.
6J. Bowle, Western Political Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1948),
p. 106.
114 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

lieved that sin had destroyed this equality and brought disorder into the
world. Christianity in turn introduced the teaching of the universal
fatherhood of God and the doctrine of original sin. In his Epistle to
the Galatians, St. Paul writes “For you are all the children of God....
There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there
is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”? At
another point, in answer to the queries of certain epicurean and stoic
philosophers concerning God, St. Paul replies in poetic terms, “For in
him we live and move and are.’’* We are all, regardless of race, color, or
social status, members of the mystical body of Christ and as such we
share a kinship with the Divine. While there is a certain similarity be-
tween these concepts and those of stoicism, Christianity made two things
clear. First, it demonstrated that the idea of individual self-sufficiency
inherent in stoic thought is inadequate. Since man’s nature has been
vitiated by sin, he can be redeemed only with the help of grace. He
must depend on Divine aid and support if he is to be saved. Second,
the new religion taught that man should be concerned not only with
his own salvation and well-being, a tendency present in early stoicism,
but also with the happiness and welfare of his fellow creatures. As Jesus
admonished his listeners “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
While stressing that man’s true happiness is not of this world, the
teaching of Christianity embodied the idea of social justice and of a
militant social service in the cause of humanity. As a proscribed sect,
the early Christians could not engage in organized social action. It was
through Christian personalism or the example of their private lives—
charity, modesty, kindness toward the poor and the enslaved, moderate
living, fortitude, and courage —that the followers of Jesus sought to
influence the social and moral life of their day.® Only after the peace
of Constantine was the Church free to come out in the open and make
her influence felt in the social sphere.

ST. AUGUSTINE

In a.v. 410, the once mighty Roman Empire, which some had thought
would stand forever, collapsed with an impact that shocked the civilized
7 Gal. 3:26-28.
8 Acts 18:28.
See in this connection, P. H. Furfy, “Christian Social Thought in Ist and 2nd
Centuries,” American Catholic Sociological Review, March, 1940, p. 13 ff.
 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD 115

world. Only the eastern or Byzantine portion of the Empire, with its
seat at Constantinople, remained. As Alaric and his barbarian Goths
sacked and plundered the “Eternal City,’ men began to realize that
the end of a whole civilization and social order was in the making. The
city which had taken the whole world captive, was now herself captured.
The gradual decline of intellectual and cultural standards, the deteriora-
tion of moral discipline, the weakening of civic virtue, and the increas-
ing reliance on slave labor, had all served to sap the strength and vigor of
Rome. Only the Church with its growing organization, its corps of
trained administrators, and its unbounded vitality was left to fill the
void created by the virtual collapse of political rule in the West.
The time had now arrived for a more systematic formulation of the
position of Christianity in the midst of human society. The task
fell to one of the most original and brilliant minds of the Church,
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.
St. Augustine (334-430) was born in Tagaste, a town in North Africa.
A pagan during the period of his youth, he was early attracted to the
study of philosophy by the writings of Cicero. His mother was a Chris-
tian, but he turned first to Manicheanism, which was then flourishing
in North Africa, and next to Neo-Platonism. His Confessions, written
when he was forty-five, relate the story of the dissolute life he led as
a youth, his experiences with the Manichaeans and Neo-Platonists in his
search for truth, and finally his conversion to Christianity in 387. Eight
years after he entered the Church he was consecrated Bishop of Hippo,
a town located in what is now Algeria. He died in 430, just as the Vandals
were on the point of capturing his city.

The City of God

When Rome fell to the Goths, some of the pagans charged that
Christianity was responsible for the debacle. St. Augustine undertook
to show the absurdity of this accusation in his great work, The City of
God (Civitas Dei). As he tells us
Rome having been stormed and sacked by the Goths under Alaric
their king, the worshipers of false gods or pagans, as we commonly call
them, made an attempt to attribute this calamity to the Christian
religion, and began to blaspheme the true God with even more than
their wonted bitterness and acerbity. It was this which kindled my zeal
for the house of God, and prompted me to undertake the defense of
116 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

the city of God against the charges and misrepresentations of its

assailants."°
The City of God was begun in 413, and appeared in installments over
a period of thirteen years. The first ten books or chapters, out of a
total of twenty-two, are directed primarily to a defense of Christianity
against the pagan charges. They show that the pagan beliefs, with their
weaknesses and inconsistencies, could not possibly have been responsible
for the former greatness of Rome; they point out that the Republic
was already on the decline, as even Cicero admitted, before the advent
of Christianity. “However admirable our adversaries say the republic was
or is, it is certain that by the testimony of their own most learned writers
it had become, long before the coming of Christ, utterly wicked and
dissolute.”"! Had Augustine stopped at this point, his work would
scarcely have been of great historical significance. It is in the last twelve
books that its real importance lies. In these he sets forth his view of
society, and of the political state in the far broader context of the
relationship of God to the progress and ultimate destiny of man.
St. Augustine uses the metaphorical vehicle of the two cities to
develop his thought. One is the city of good, the other of evil. Neither
of them is intended to be descriptive of existing political or religious
institutions but of the two forces that contend for man’s soul: God
and the devil. The title of the work is taken from Psalms. “Glorious
things are said of thee, O city of God,’!? and “Great is the Lord, and
exceedingly to be praised in the city of our God, His holy mountain,
a beautiful hill, is the joy of the whole earth.” St. Augustine explains
that “though all these twenty-two books refer to both cities, yet I have
named them after the better city, and called them the City of God.’
The term “civitas” as used by St. Augustine, is a source of some
confusion. The Roman word for state is republica, a term always used
when Romans such as Cicero speak of a sovereign political unit, whether
it be a city-state or a universal empire. Augustine was well acquainted
with Cicero’s works and had he intended to write of the state as a
political community, he would undoubtedly have used the technical
term. Instead, he calls his city a civitas not a republica. That the title
10 Retractions, II, 43.
11 City of God, IJ, 22. Selections from the City of God are taken from the
Modern Library edition, trans. by M. Dods (New York: Random House, 1950).
12 86, 3. OS os Ale 14 Retractions, II, 43.
 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD 117

“City of God” does not mean a town or area in which people reside
seems clear. Professor Barrow has suggested that the term serves as a
convenient blank for the reader to fill in as he reads.*®* In one place
the idea of a political community will be intended, in another the
society of the righteous. The title, therefore, infers that St. Augustine
had no intention of developing a theory of the state, much less a theory
of the Christian state. Unlike Plato or Cicero, he was not interested in
theorizing on the ideal state in the sense of a utopia. His “City of God”
can in no way be taken as an ideal commonwealth in the political meaning
of the term.
The basic concept underlying the City of God is derived from Revela-
tion. All men would have been members of the heavenly city had not
the sin of the Garden intervened. Now man can attain membership only
with the help of God’s grace. “For who will dare to believe or say that
it was not in God’s power to prevent both angels and men from sinning?
But God preferred to leave this in their power, and thus to show what
evil could be wrought by their pride, and what good by His grace.”?°
Man is free to accept or reject the law of his Creator, but in the end
he will be held accountable for his decision. Those who in this world
embrace the good belong to the city of God; those who refuse to follow
the Divine Will are members of the city of Man. Because some men
live according to the flesh and others according to the spirit, two diverse
and conflicting cities have arisen.
Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly
by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the
love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word,
glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from
men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of
conscience.**
In Augustine’s concept of the two cities is the stoic notion of a uni-
versal society which transcends all the more limited associations of race,
class, and states. The City of God, while it includes only the good, is
completely indifferent to all boundaries and distinctions among human
societies. It “calls citizens out of all nations and gathers together a society
of pilgrims of all languages, not scrupling about diversities in the man-
15 R, H. Barrow, Introduction to St. Augustine, The City of God (London: Faber,
1950), pp. 20-22.
16 City of God, XIV, 27.
17 Ibid., XIV, 28.
118 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

ners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly peace is secured and main-
tained.’’!* It is a community of Christians that stands above all national
and linguistic barriers. It is not a city reserved only for philosophers
and sages as the stoic ideal, but a city that beckons all men. Any in-
dividual — slave or freeman, nobleman or commoner, Greek or barbarian,
educated or uneducated —may belong to the kingdom of heaven by
loving and worshiping God. This common love constitutes in a very
real sense a social as well as a religious bond between the worshipers.
For “he who loves God finds himself in virtue of this very fact in a
social relation with all those who love him.’
Recognizing that man is subject to the manifold disorders that result
from original sin, Augustine continually warns that it is only love or
charity, inspired by a common faith in Christ, that unites a people
into a true society. “Men will not dwell together in unity unless there
lives within them the perfect charity of Christ.” He defines charity as
a motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of God for His own sake
and toward the enjoyment of oneself and one’s neighbors because of
God. A state that is united only by enlightened self-interest cannot long
function. Material goods constitute a divisive force in society. Since they
cannot be completely shared, there is a temptation for man to grasp
the whole and destroy those who would claim their share. Spiritual good-
ness, on the other hand, is not diminished when shared. Each individual
can possess all without others having less than the whole. In fact, the
nature of true goodness is such that, if a man will not share, he cannot
possess the whole.”°
Augustine’s preoccupation with love and charity provides the clue
to his political thinking. The many individual desires, ambitions, and
drives in civil society can be sublimated to the good of the commonalty
only by a mutual love of God. “There can be no love of one’s neighbor
unless there is love of God and love of one’s neighbor in God.” This
love provides the rallying point, the cohesive bond that distinguishes a
mob from a true society.
In the city of God, St. Augustine finds an object so complete that
all are united in perfect union with Christ. This final and perfect society
provides the archetype which should stand as the model for all other
18 Ibid., XIX, 17.
19 —, Gilson, Introduction to Study of St. Thomas (Paris, 1931), p. 220.
20See in this connection, Thomas M. Garrett, “St. Augustine and the Nature of
Society,’’ New Scholasticism, January, 1956.
 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD 119

groups. Lesser societies and less perfect loves exist in the temporal world.
The more these loves are inspired by Christian principles, the more effec-
tive they will be in promoting the good and true commonwealth. A
people cannot be successfully united, Augustine says, unless they are
dedicated to a supreme ideal that transcends individual diversities. Re-
strictions, discomforts, sacrifices, pain, and even death are tolerated by
a people only because they have been sanctified by their relation to a
higher good. Augustine finds this transcendental good in the love
of God.

The Role of the State

It is sometimes said that Augustine regards the state as necessary only
because of man’s vitiated nature (the result of original sin). If we start
with the premise that the political community has its origin in sin, we
can logically say that civil government is a necessary evil, and that the
less of it there is, the better off man will be. Or we can echo the words
of one theologian who recently said that the state is like a surgical
bandage, the abnormal. Those who seek to minimize the role of the
state in this way are prone to turn to the writings of St. Augustine for
support. The issue raised here is of considerable theoretical interest. For
if the state is nothing more than a corrective for sin, theological support
is given to the position that the role of government should be limited
to keeping order. And if such is the case, the mission of the state as
the promoter of the good life becomes suspect.
The City of God is quite emphatic in stating that the evils and
miseries which men suffer in this world are due to the pollution of
human nature by sin. Had there been no sin, there would have been
no slavery since, “the condition of slavery is the result of sin”*+ and not
of nature. Enlarging on the idea of slavery, St. Augustine indicates that
without sin there would have been no occasion for the subjection of
one man to the political authority of another. “By nature, as God first
created us, no one is the slave either of man or of sin. This servitude is
penal, however, and is appointed by that law which enjoins the preserva-
tion of the natural order and forbids its disturbance; for if nothing had
been done in violation of that law, there would have been nothing to
restrain by penal servitude.”
21 City of God, XIX, 15.
22 Ibid.
120 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

Whiting in the century following Augustine, Gregory the Great ex-

plains that while there would have been no need for coercive govern-
ment had mankind remained untainted by original sin, the need for polit-
ical authority to direct the community would still have existed. Some
system of authority is necessary to every society. “Even the angels, al-
though free from sin, are yet ordered in a hierarchy of greater and less.’’**
St. Augustine is not specific on this point, but his writings indicate that
he is in general agreement with the view expressed by Gregory and
later reiterated by Thomas Aquinas. In the first place, he agrees with
classical thought that man is a social creature and that he needs society to
assist him in his development. “The life of the wise man must be
social. For how could the city of God . . . either take a beginning or
be developed, or attain its proper destiny, if the life of the saints were
not a social life.”*4 Man, prior to the Fall in the Garden, was no less a
social being. “God created only one single man, not, certainly, that he
might be a solitary bereft of all society, but that by this means the
unity of society and the bond of concord might be more effectually
commended him. . . .”* The very fact of social living carries with it
the necessity for order and direction, for government, in the management
of common concerns.
Second, St. Augustine looks upon the state as the chief agency for
securing the “tranquillity of order’ necessary for man to work out his
eternal destiny. This tranquillity signifies more than the absence of
strife; it is the harmony which results from the proper ordering of things
in their prescribed places. “Order is the distribution which allots things
equal and unequal, each to its own place.”?° Such direction would be
required even if man were uncorrupted by original sin. The element
that would be missing in the state of innocence is coercion, since man
in his pristine integrity would willingly and voluntarily obey the regula-
tions laid down for his guidance.
Finally, despite his somewhat detached view of civil society, St.
Augustine gives clear indication of recognizing the state as a positive
good in the temporal sphere. “It [the state] is itself, in its own kind,
better than all other human good. For it desires earthly peace for the
sake of enjoying earthly good.’*? Such a peace, while not an end in

28 Quoted in Carlyle, op. cit., I, 127.

24 City of God, XIX, 5. 26 Ibid., XIX, 13.
25 Ibid., XII, 21. 27 Ibid., XV, 4.
 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD 121

itself or the highest good absolutely speaking, is still the highest secular
good since it is an essential means to the attainment of heavenly peace.
Moreover, the state is necessary for the achievement of man’s temporal
end. Its basic purpose “in the well-ordered concord of civic obedience
and rule is the combination of men’s wills to attain the things which
are helpful to this life.”28

Justice
St. Augustine defines a state as “an assemblage of reasonable beings
bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their lives.’”’?®
It will be a good or bad state according to the ends and objectives it
seeks. “It will be a superior people in proportion as it is bound to-
gether by higher interests, inferior in proportion as it is bound together
by lower.” But good or bad, it will continue to be a state “so long as
there remains an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by
a common agreement.’*° As the sinner remains a human being although
he has violated his nature, so the state remains a political society even
though it seeks unworthy objectives and is devoid of justice.
Because Augustine omits the quality of justice from his definition of
the state, some commentators infer that he dispenses with the need
for it in the secular commonwealth. Such an inference is hardly justi-
fiable. True justice, as Augustine conceives it, consists in more than the
willing submission and loyalty of the citizens to the laws of men; it
must be a justice that is in conformity with the law of God as well.
In the eyes of Augustine, justice of this nature could not possibly exist
in a state where the people deny or disregard the claims of the one
true God. Such people do not have an adequate idea of objective or
absolute justice, and without this knowledge they cannot maintain them-
selves in sound virtue.**
Augustine was seeking a definition of the state which would apply
to all alike — to just as well as unjust commonwealths. If Cicero’s classi-
cal definition of a republic as a group of beings “united by a common
regard for law and justice” were true, Rome would not be a state. A
pagan commonwealth could not fulfill the requirements of justice as
28 Ibid., XIX, 17. 29 Tbid., XIX, 24. 30 Tbid.
81 This point is discussed in M. F. X. Millar, “St. Augustine and Cicero,” Thought,
Sept., 1929, p. 254 ff. Also in C. H. MclIlwain, The Growth of Political Thought in
the West, op. cit., p. 154 ff.
EZ POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

defined by Augustine. His predominantly religious and theological out-

look would not permit him to accept the notion that there can be true
justice in a society which does not recognize Christ as its ultimate
founder and ruler. In discussing the nature of the state, he takes the
opportunity to condemn the purely secular republic and to underscore
the disastrous effects which follow upon an exclusion of God from the
life of the people.

Relationship Between the Two Cities

Augustine’s two cities are in fact two societies, the one composed of
all those who are bound together by their common love of God, the
other of those who prefer the love of themselves to the love of God.
At times he speaks of the Church as symbolically representing the heav-
enly society and of the pagan Roman Empire as the earthly city. Yet
he makes it perfectly clear that he does not intend to equate the heavenly
city with the Church militant and the earthly city with the civil power.
There are many in the Church who do not lead a Christlike life and
who are consequently not members of the heavenly kingdom. Similarly,
there are many presently outside the Church in the earthly city who
will be saved. But whether members of the heavenly city or the earthly
realm, all are commingled during their temporal life in the political
state. Civil society contains the members of both cities, the good and
the evil.
When Augustine speaks of the constant conflict between the two cities,
he is not referring to church and state but to the struggle between the
forces of good and evil. Similarly, when he appears to speak somewhat
disparagingly of the state as typifying the earthly city, he is not con-
demning the commonwealth as such but only that concept of political
society which views the state as absolute and self-sufficient both in the
spiritual and temporal orders. Rome fell because it was not eternal as
it claimed to be. The state is a provisional and instrumental society; it
is not an end in itself. To view it otherwise is to mistake the relative
and transient for the absolute and permanent. “But such is the stupid
pride of those men who fancy that the supreme good can be found in
this life:>*?
In his quest for salvation, man must make his pilgrimage on this
earth and must enlist the aid of the state for his temporal needs. It is
” 82 City of God, XIX,
4.
 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD 123

thus incumbent upon the members of the heavenly city who still are
sojourning in the secular realm to respect and obey civil rule. They must
make “no scruple to obey the laws of the earthly city, whereby the things
necessary for the maintenance of this mortal life are administered.”*
Because of the importance of political government, “the apostle also
admonished the Church to pray for kings and those in authority, as-
signing as the reason that we may have a quiet and tranquil life in all
godliness and love.”** Those who are not members of the city of God
also enjoy the peace and advantages of the state, but for this class the
temporal benefits of political society constitute ends in themselves. To
the citizens of the heavenly kingdom, these benefits are but means to
the attainment of their eternal destiny.
Although a member of the kingdom of God is obliged to obey the
civil laws and be loyal to the state during his terrestrial sojourn, this
obedience and loyalty is limited to the secular sphere. Whenever the
state interferes in matters of religion and hinders in any way “the worship
of the one supreme and true God,” the obligation of obedience ceases.
Political society is not the ultimate authority in matters of faith and
morals. It is the Church as the agent of Christ on earth that occupies
this role.
Augustine has little to say about the organization of political society.
He feels that the form of government is immaterial; in this mortal pil-
grimage “what does it matter under whose government a dying man
lives, if they who govern do not force him to impiety and iniquity.”*°
His personal preference for monarchy is indicated in other passages in
which he points out that peace and order require the unifying control
and direction of a single head. Just as peace cannot be adequately main-
tained in a household “unless all the members of the same domestic
circle be subject to one head, so too in civil society the tranquillity of
order is best served by having a city or nation under the direction of
aking.°°

THE NATURE OF ST. AUGUSTINE’ S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

St. Augustine stood at the crossroads of history. Through him were

channeled all of the main currents of the classical world: Hebraic, Greek,
and Roman. To him fell the task of interpreting and modifying these
83 [bid., XIX, 17. 35 Ibid., V, 17.
84 Ibid. XIX, 26. 36 Ibid., XIX, 12.
12a POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

great intellectual and cultural forces in the light of Christian Revelation.

St. Augustine is primarily a theologian, not a political philosopher. His
thinking tends to absorb the natural in the supernatural. Thus the City
of God embodies a theological and not a political conception of society.
Yet it is in this very fact that its contribution to political philosophy
is found.
The social thought of antiquity had identified man’s total social rela-
tions with the political unit of which he was a part. Stoicism and the
other philosophies of withdrawal had later stressed the self-sufficiency
of the individual to the almost total exclusion of the state. Christianity
struck a balance between these two extremes. On the one hand, it made
clear that man’s life does not exhaust itself in strictly political patterns
but that there is a private sphere —that of conscience and of man’s
relation to his God — which lie outside the domain of the state. On the
other hand, it supported the ancient idea that man is a social creature
who needs the state and society for his temporal development. It was
Augustine who first sketched out in broad terms the nature and relation-
ship of these two spheres. Unfortunately, his failure to speak more
precisely on this question permitted the proponents both of papal claims
and temporal sovereignty to draw on his writings for support during the
years to follow.
St. Augustine made no pretense of devising a complete political theory.
Nevertheless by picturing the world and human society in the light of
Revelation, he gave a Christian idiom to the state and to political rule
that remained unchallenged until the modern era. His attitude toward
the state is not cynical or cavalier although at times it seems to border
on these qualities. His objective is to place civil society in its proper
perspective in a hierarchy of values. The temporal order is of importance
to him as a Christian only in relation to the supernatural sphere. The
state may be a means for attaining perfection in the temporal order, but
man must never forget that this order is only fleeting and temporary,
a preparation or testing ground for the life to come. Augustine’s de-
emphasis of the temporal sphere was prompted by his reaction to the
declining moral tone of his day, a decline that had contributed to the
fall of the Empire. By this deemphasis he brought into sharp focus the
claims of the spiritual realm and the precedence of the spirit over
the flesh. No political leader or theorist could thereafter act or write
in disregard of these factors.
 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD 125

The most important facet of Augustine’s political philosophy is the

theological anchorage that it gives to the realm of human rights. The
classical writers could speak of the prerogatives which man must enjoy
in order to attain his temporal self-perfection. They could also demon-
strate that these rights stemmed from and were embedded in the ontologi-
cal structure of nature. But beyond this point they could only grope
for the transfinite sphere which they somehow conceived to exist. Even
Aristotle expressed dissatisfaction with the limitations of human reason.
Augustine now fills this void with the aid of Christian Revelation. Com-
ing as a complementation and enlargement of classical thought, Revela-
tion brought with it the doctrine of a personal God from whom all
rights flow, an explanation of man’s fall and the hope of his redemption
through grace, and the teaching of an ultimate destiny not of this world.
Man’s possession of an immortal and perfectible soul gave more mean-
ing to the doctrine of human rights. Not until Revelation established
that men have an inherent moral duty to pursue an end that transcends
the state did it become clear that they possess inalienable rights which
the state is bound to respect. The City of God was the first work to give
systematic and formal articulation to these elements that were implicit
in the Christian tradition. In doing so, it placed the social and political
realm in a new and dynamic perspective.

SUMMARY
The pre-Christian social and political thinkers had gone as far as natural
reason was capable of taking them. The majority of them believed that man
was a perfectible creature but they could not understand his apparent inability
to attain this perfection. In some of them, such as Aristotle, this failure to
reach full understanding evoked an awareness of the limitations of human
reason; in others, such as Seneca, it brought on an intense feeling of frustra-
tion and a negative submission to the pattern of human events. All of these
men, in one fashion or another, were trying to reach a theological truth by
natural reasoning. With the advent of Christianity, Revelation came to sup-
plement the reason of man in his quest for truth and justice, and to explain
in theological terms that which before had seemed vague and uncertain.
Christianity introduced no new political philosophy, no new conception of
the state. It did raise the question of a twofold loyalty and the need for
demarcating the two spheres: temporal and spiritual. It also brought with it
a message of hope and charity and a new sense of the brotherhood of man.
The communities which it fostered fulfilled many of the social and moral
needs which had remained unsatisfied during the period of transition from
126 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

the old to the new order. And most important, Christianity took ultimate
values out of politics and placed them in their proper perspective.
We cannot find in this early period any complete and formalized Christian
theory dealing with the nature and purpose of the state, with democracy, or
with constitutional government. For the most part, Christianity accepted
without modification the basic political principles as enunciated by the classical
writers of Greece and Rome. Yet, in doing so it imbued them with a new
spirit and a new significance, in the light of their place and role in the Divine
plan. So strong was the influence of the new religion in this regard that the
political thought of western Europe has remained to this day predominantly in
terms of the Christian outlook.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bevan, Edwyn, Hellenism and Christianity (London: Allan & Unwin, 1921).
Bourke, Vernon, “Political Philosophy of St. Augustine,’ Proceedings of
American Catholic Philosophical Association, 1931.
Burleigh, John, The City of God: A Study of St. Augustine’s Philosophy
(London: Nisbet, 1949).
Chroust, A. H., “Philosophy of Law of St. Augustine,’ Philosophical Review,
March, 1944.
Cochrane, C. N., Christianity and Classical Culture (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1940). :
Coulton, George G., Studies in Medieval Thought (London: Nelson, 1921).
Cranz, F. E., “St. Augustine and Nicholas of Cusa in the Tradition of Western
Christian Thought,” Speculum, April, 1953.
Deferrari, R. J., and Keeler, M. J., “St. Augustine’s City of God: Its Plan
and Development,”’ American Journal of Philology, April, 1929.
Figgis, John N., The Political Aspects of St. Augustine’s City of God (London:
Longmans, Green, 1921).
Friberg, Hans D., Love and Justice in Political Theory: A Study of St.
Augustine’s Defense of the Commonwealth (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1944);;
Garrett, Thomas M., “St. Augustine and the Nature of Society,’ New
Scholasticism, January, 1956.
Lloyd, Roger, “The Christian Contribution to Social Order,’ Quarterly
Review, October, 1945.
Loetscher, Frederick W., “St. Augustine’s Conception of the State,’ Church
History, March, 1935,
Mommsen, Theodor, “St. Augustine and the Christian Idea of Progress,”
Journal of the History of Ideas, July, 1951.
Niebuhr, Reinhold, Christian Realism and Political Problems (New York:
Scribner’s Sons, 1953),
O’Connell, James, “The Social Philosophy of St. Augustine,” Irish Eccle-
siastical Review, November, 1954.
Pegis, A. C., “Some Permanent Contributions of Medieval Philosophy to
the Notion of Man,” Royal Society of Canada, Proceedings and Transac-
tions, 1952.
 Chapter VII

THE TWO SWORDS

“Behold, here are two swords” (Luke 22:38).

Tue long span between the collapse of the Roman empire and the
advent of the modern national state is referred to as the middle ages
or the medieval era. It is a period characterized by feudal government,
by the idea of unity or cosmopolitanism (despite the decentralized politi-
cal control which in reality existed), by a strong sense of religion and
otherworldliness, by the Christian permeation of many aspects of society,
and by a simple economic order. What is of more significance, it is
an age of formation and fermentation, an age that has spawned many
of the social and political institutions, and even modes of thought of
the modern era. A knowledge of the historical background of the middle
ages is indispensable to a full understanding and appreciation of its
political philosophy.
The middle ages produced little in the way of formal and systematic
political theory. One would search in vain for treatises such as Aristotle’s
Politics or Cicero’s De Republica. The inquirer would find the Policraticus
of John of Salisbury and the De Monarchia of Dante; but these and other
similar works were generally oriented toward topics that had aroused
little interest in classical thought. This observation does not imply that
the medieval period was devoid of political speculation or that it is of
little importance in the development of political philosophy. Medieval
political thought was particularly concerned with the limits on govern-
mental authority and the relationships between the state and other in-
stitutions. These issues had not been of pressing concern in the closely
interwoven societies of Greece and Rome.
The crucial issue during the middle ages revolved about the relative
positions of church and state. In seeking to define the respective roles
of these institutions, both papal and imperial claimants were led into
127
128 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

discussions of fundamental political questions pertaining to the origin

and nature of the state and the source and scope of civil authority. The
relationship between the political and ecclesiastical orders depends
basically on the way these questions are answered. It is one thing, for
example, to say that the state receives its authority through the church;
it is quite another matter to hold that political rule comes into being
and exists independent of the religious order. The logical consequences
of these two views are patently and radically different.
In examining medieval political theory, attention will be focused on
three major aspects: the relationship between church and state; the
nature of governmental authority; and the idea of a universal common-
wealth of Christian men living in peace and harmony in an ordered
society under God and sustained by an all-embracing objective. Such a
sketch of the political theory of the middle ages is admittedly organized
from a limited point of view. It glosses over the development of political
institutions and movements such as the feudal system and the forces
destructive of that system. Yet political theory is distinctively medieval
only so long as it is engaged in treating the relationship of civic society
to Christendom as a whole. Just as the boundary between ancient and
medieval theory was crossed when the concept of the city-state gave way
to the idea of empire, so the line between medieval and modern theory
was traversed when the conception of universal Christendom as embodied
in the Holy Roman Empire was superseded by the idea of the national
state.?

THE GELASIAN DOCTRINE

As noted previously, neither St. Augustine nor any of the other Church
Fathers attempted to give explicit theoretical formulation to the relative
positions of church and state. St. Optatus, in the latter part of the
fourth century, had admonished the schismatic Donatists of North Africa
that the empire was not in the church but the church in the empire.
(The Donatists had indignantly protested against imperial interference
on behalf of the papal power, contending that the emperor had no con-
cern with church affairs.) During the same period St. Ambrose had
emphasized that the civil magistrate had no authority over ecclesiastics
1 The first aspect will be treated here, and the latter two in succeeding chapters.
2See the article on political theory in Cambridge Medieval History (London:
Cambridge University Press, 1929), Vol. VI, Chap. 18.
 THE TWO SWORDS 129

in religious matters. Neither Optatus nor Ambrose, however, had made

any attempt to construct a comprehensive statement covering the proper
relationship between the two spheres, but had merely set forth policies
for meeting particular situations as they arose.
There were at least three possible theories of the relationship between
the two powers that might have been pursued: (1) the identification of
church and state, in which event a religious or civil theocracy would have
resulted; (2) hostile opposition or a perpetual struggle for advantage,
in which case both authorities would have suffered; (3) distinction be-
tween the two spheres, with a division of jurisdiction. It was this last
alternative which prevailed. To the medieval mind the relationship
between church and state appeared to be a question of mutually ad-
justing two sets of offices within a single society, the respublica Chris-
tiana. For the medievalist, therefore, the problem was not one involving
two completely separate societies confronting each other, but one of
divided jurisdiction between regnum and sacerdotium—kingship and
priesthood— over the same society.
The first effort at a formal definition of church-state relations, and the
one that has proved most enduring, was made by Pope Gelasius I in
494. His formulation became known as the doctrine of the “two swords.”
Gelasius points out that before the coming of Christ there were some
who were legitimately both kings and priests, such as Melchizedek. “But
Christ, knowing the weakness of human nature and being concerned
for the welfare of his people separated the two offices, giving to each
its peculiar functions and duties. Thus the Christian emperor needs the
ecclesiastic for the attainment of eternal life, and the ecclesiastic simi-
larly depends upon the government of the emperor in temporal matters.”®
Writing to the Roman Emperor Anastasius, the Pope further notes
that, while there are two powers by which the world is governed,

the burden laid upon the priests is the heavier, in that they will have
to render an account at the divine judgment even for the kings of
men. . So far as concerns the rule of public order, the leaders of
religion themselves obey your laws, recognizing that the imperial
authority has been conferred upon you from on high. . . . With how
much greater zeal then ought you to obey those who are set in charge
of the sacred mysteries?*
3 Quoted in Carlyle, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 190.
4 Ibid., p. 191.
130 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

The views expressed by Gelasius are of considerable importance to

the course of medieval political philosophy since they came to be re-
garded as the embodiment of the traditional and classical position on
church-state relations. Three points in his exposition should be par-
ticularly noted. First, he firmly repudiates the idea of a theocratic state,
that is one in which the priests exercise political as well as spiritual
authority. Second, he distinguishes between the regnum and sacerdotium
and their respective jurisdictions, making clear that the relationship be-
tween the two is that of independent though closely related orders, each
drawing its authority from God and each supreme in its own sphere.
Third, he is conscious that the line of demarcation between the two
powers cannot always be drawn with completeness and finality, and
that in certain relations each must have authority over the other. Gelasius
does not state where the final power rests to decide whether a specific
issue belongs to the religious or political jurisdiction, or when interven-
tion by one in the affairs of the other is justified. His emphasis on the
heavier burden of the clergy was later taken to mean that the primacy
of decision in these matters belonged to the sacerdotium. Few medievalists
would have denied the pre-eminence of the spiritual over the temporal;.
the difficulty came in ascertaining just what this pre-eminence involved.

THE INVESTITURE CONTROVERSY

The political struggle between empire and papacy was long and com-
plex. ‘T'wo historical instances, the investiture controversy between Greg-
ory VII and Henry IV and the conflict between Boniface VIII and
Philip the Fair, stand out as important highlights in the development
of the “two swords” doctrine. They also illustrate the two divergent views
which vied for recognition: the first holding that the solution to the
problem of church-state relations can be found in the harmonious co-
ordination of the two powers without the institutional subordination
of one to the other; the second contending that the answer lay only in
an institutional organization flowing from a single apex of authority.
From the time of Gelasius to the middle of the eleventh century,
the Popes took a restrained, and at times deferential, attitude toward
the temporal power. Gregory the Great (540-604) fixed the policy that
was generally followed during the early years of this period by declaring
that he would obey the commands of the emperor if they did not violate
 THE TWO SWORDS 131

the laws of the Church; and that even if such orders were contrary to
canon law, he would accede to them if he could do so without sin. The
fact that Gregory himself had been forced to assume the duties of a
political ruler in Italy because of the feebleness of the secular power
may have been responsible for his highly respectful attitude toward civic
authority. Whatever the reason, the precedent which he set exerted
persuasive influence during the first several centuries of the medieval era.
As time passed, the difficulty of drawing a clear line between matters
which were to be regarded as spiritual and those which belonged to the
temporal sphere became increasingly evident. In practice, the secular
power exercised a certain measure of authority over strictly spiritual
affairs by intervening on occasions when the Church was being badly
administered. This interference was tolerated and even encouraged by
a disposition on the part of some of the popes to seek the aid and
support of the civil power in the internal government of the Church.
At the same time, it was universally recognized that the Church had
jurisdiction over all temporal authorities in spiritual matters and that
any person, including the emperor, who refused to obey the divine law
would subject himself to the discipline of the ecclesiastical arm. This
power was exercised with great restraint during the early years of the
middle ages, although a tendency to use it in matters other than those
strictly spiritual was not entirely absent.
The era of relative harmony between the two powers was followed
by a period of crisis from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. During
this stage, the Gelasian doctrine was repudiated in fact, if not in theory,
and excessive claims were made by adherents of both church and state.
The controversy over investitures marked the beginning of the struggle.
The historical circumstances surrounding this phase of the conflict are
of special interest because they epitomize the virtually insoluble diff-
culties which political and religious practices cast in the way of an
harmonious relationship between sacerdotium and regnum.
In medieval society the high spiritual and secular offices (other than
papacy and kingship) were frequently merged in the same person. Under
the feudal system many of the churchmen became holders of land,
and consequently vassals of the king. Since the ecclesiastics were the
best educated and best trained administrators of their day, the king
constantly drew upon them to fill important posts in his government.
As a result of such practices, the higher clergy— the bishops and abbots
[32 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

—not only became lords of great fiefs, but integral parts of the de-
veloping structure and machinery of secular government. It is quite
understandable that under such circumstances the king would insist
upon a share in the selection and appointment of the bishops. Theoreti-
cally, these officials were elected by the clergy and the people as pro-
vided by canon law; actually, from the sixth century on, the right of the
ruler to approve and even pick candidates was generally recognized. Canon
law also provided that a newly elected prelate be invested by an arch-
bishop with the ring and staff, the symbols of his spiritual office. In
practice, the ring and staff were usually carried to court immediately
upon the death of a bishop, and the king then conferred them on the
successor to the office.
When Gregory VII assumed papal authority in 1073 he well realized
that the Church would have to exercise complete control over her own
officers if she was to fulfill properly her spiritual mission. He saw clearly
the ambiguity of a situation in which high ecclesiastics were not only
chosen by a secular ruler but were invested by him with the title to
their spiritual office. A man of deep religious conviction, Gregory was
greatly disturbed by the abuses, such as simony, or the buying of ecclesi-
astical offices, then existing in the Church. His first step in stamping
out these practices was to forbid the lay investiture of bishops, thereby
emphasizing the primary jurisdiction of the Church over her officers.
When the Emperor, Henry IV, refused to abide by this decree and in
fact tried to secure the removal of Gregory from office, the Pope countered
by excommunicating him, declaring him deposed as emperor, and ab-
solving his vassals from their feudal oaths of allegiance to him. For the
first time the issue of regnum and sacerdotium was clearly drawn, and
pamphleteers on both sides jumped eagerly into the fray.
Gregory’s action in deposing the emperor raised the essential question
whether the Church, in pursuit of her proper ends, had the right to
intervene directly in the secular sphere. Gregory took the position that
he was acting within the scope and spirit of the traditional Gelasian
doctrine. He contended that his act of deposition was to protect the
independence of the Church within the twofold system contemplated
by Gelasius. Henry, on the other hand, charged that the Pope was
attempting to wicld both powers. Calling attention to the accepted
doctrine that the emperor’s power as well as that of the pope was de-
 THE TWO SWORDS 133

rived from God, Henry asserted that he was responsible for its exercise
solely to God and that he could not be deposed except for heresy.
You have laid hands upon me also who, though unworthy among
Christians, am anointed to kingship, and who, as the tradition of the
Holy Father teaches, am to be judged by God alone and not to be
deposed for any crime, unless I should wander from the faith, which
God forbid.
There can be little question that Gregory did in fact exercise a political
power when he declared the emperor deposed. From the standpoint of
theory, the pope and those who supported him still adhered to the doc-
trine that the two spheres could operate without the institutional sub-
ordination of one to the other. However, they went further than any of
their predecessors in interpreting the primacy of the spiritual to include
direct intervention in the political order whenever necessary for the
furtherance of a spiritual cause.

DIRECT PAPAL POWER

As late as the thirteenth century, no responsible churchman had as-

serted in principle a supremacy of papal authority over secular rulers in
temporal matters. The actions of Gregory VII and the strong popes
who succeeded him (notably Innocent III, Gregory IX, and Innocent IV)
in exercising sweeping jurisdiction over the temporal order de facto
set the stage for a papal claim of jurisdiction de jure as well. ‘The bitter
controversy between Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair of France at
the close of the thirteenth century provided the occasion for such an
assertion. The immediate cause of the dispute arose out of the Church’s
claim to financial and judicial immunity. The first issue was joined when
Philip attempted to raise money for his war with England by imposing
taxes on the French clergy. The Church had long maintained that she
could not be taxed without her consent. Boniface, in the bull Clericis
Laicos (1296), reiterated this position by forbidding the clergy to pay
the tax.
The second issue was whether a member of the clergy could be tried
in the secular courts for an alleged offense against the state. ‘The events
surrounding this dispute led to the issuance of the famous bull Unam
5 Quoted in Carlyle, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 186, n. 1.
oe} POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

Sanctam, which some commentators feel took the most advanced ground
on papal imperialism ever written into an official document. While the
bull is subject to contradictory interpretations, it contains language
strongly indicative of a theocratic view:
Truly he who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter,
misunderstands the words of the Lord, “Put up thy sword into the
sheath.” Both are therefore in the power of the Church, the spiritual
and the material. . . . The one sword then, should be under the other,
and temporal authority subject to the spiritual power. . . . If, therefore,
the earthly power err, it shall be judged by the spiritual power... .
But if the supreme power err, it can only be judged by God, not
by man.°
These words seem to imply that the temporal power comes from God
through the pope, mediante papa, and that the king is therefore minister
sacerdotii, or agent of the church for the exercise of secular functions.
They also seem to imply that papal power is full (plenitudo po-
testatis) in the sense that it is above all other authority and contains
all power, temporal and spiritual. No other power is legitimate unless
subjected to the supreme rulership of the pope, and no other authority
can in turn react upon papal jurisdiction.
While there are other statements of Boniface which seem to con-
tradict such an extreme position, the canonists of the period who de-
fended him and who undoubtedly influenced him in his stand were
quite unequivocal. Discarding the Gelasian doctrine, they maintained
that the secular power is institutionally subordinated to the papacy and
that the authority of the king is derived from the church. Two works
published in 1301 are worthy of notice in this respect since they con-
stitute the best exposition of extreme papal claims: De ecclesiastica po-
testate, written by Egidius Colonna (also referred to as Egidius Romanus)
and De regimine Christiano by James of Viterbo.

Egidius Colonna
Egidius, archbishop of Bourges, portrays the universe as an organic
unity with a common hierarchical structure in which all created things
are related to each other in a divinely established and controlled order.
Human law is subordinate to divine law, nature to grace, and political
6 Quoted in E. F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages
(London: Bell and Sons, 1896), p. 436.
 THE TWO SWORDS 135

to theological authority. Egidius refers to this preordained relationship

of superior to inferior as dominium. Standing at the apex of the hier-
archical order, God possesses this dominium over his whole creation.
Any lesser being or institution can be said to exercise legitimate authority
only in so far as it is received from God through His grace. Since the
church is the representative of God on earth and the dispenser of His
grace, any dominium which man exercises must be derived from her.
Egidius borrowed his concept of an ordered universe from St. Augus-
tine’s “tranquillity of order” which “allots things equal and unequal,
each to its own place.” But whereas Augustine had spoken of this order
as a reflection of the divine law governing the relationships of the uni-
verse in general and had made no claim for institutional jurisdiction of
one agency over another, Egidius holds that this organic order necessarily
demands that all human institutions be subject to the theological power.
And whereas Augustine had defined justice as subjection to God, Egidius
takes this to mean subjection to the pope as the vicar of Christ in all
matters, political as well as religious. ‘Thus, while lesser institutions such
as the state have their proper jurisdiction and function, they are in the
last analysis subject to the superior directive power, to the dominium,
of the overlord. In this way all human relations are reduced to a single
unified system of control under papal headship, and rulers are made
mere subordinates of the pope, even in the secular administration of their
political units.

James of Viterbo
The approach employed by James of Viterbo in his defense of papal
claims differed somewhat from that of Fgidius, but the conclusions
which he arrived at were fully as extreme. Starting with the conception
of the world as a single regnum or realm, James identifies this kingdom
with the visible church. In every regnum there are two powers, sacerdotal
and regal. The former, that of administering the sacraments, is shared
by all priests; the latter, that of jurisdictional power, was bestowed upon
Peter and his successors in the grant of the keys. “And I will give to
thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt
bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou
shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.” This power is
truly regal since the highest act of authority is to judge, and all other
powers flow from judgment. (Gregory VII had expressed a somewhat
136 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

similar view when he cited the words of St. Paul. “Know you not that
we shall judge angels? How much more things of this world?”) The suc-
cessor of Peter is “king of kings both secular and spiritual. . . . Like
Christ whose vicar he is, he is called chief of the kings of the earth,
which means those who are upon the earth.’””
James, as the other supporters of papal supremacy, makes no pretense
of claiming that both swords are actually in the hands of the Church.
He recognizes that the king in practice wields the secular sword but
he emphasizes that he does so as minister sacerdotii or agent of the
spiritual arm. The temporal sword, in short, belongs de jure to the pope
who in turn delegates it to the temporal ruler for the performance of
those functions in the respublica Christiana which cannot fittingly be
exercised by ecclesiastical hands. Its use, therefore, is always under the
general direction and at the sufferance of the spiritual power. This radical
subordination of the secular to the religious jurisdiction as instrument
to cause or agent to principal was utterly foreign to the medieval tradition.

THE EXTREME REGAL POSITION

On the side of the king, equally extreme arguments in defense of

the temporal jurisdiction were advanced during the late middle ages,
especially by the civilian lawyers. Most of the temporal claims relied
heavily on history and on the Digest of Justinian for support. It became
common for the defenders of the king to argue that the regnum was
older than the church and hence could not have received its authority
from her; that, on the contrary, whatever temporal power the church
possesses rests on the grant or permission of the secular ruler. The texts
of Justinian that considered the jus sacrum (canon law) as part of the
jus publicum (public law) were cited as authority for this position. The
lawyers did not deny, as indeed no medieval thinker would, that the
church is the instrumentality through which salvation is secured. They
simply attempted to interpret the Gelasian doctrine in such a way as
to effect a complete compartmentalization between the temporal and
spiritual spheres. In this rigid division, the jurisdiction of the clergy
was limited to a purely sacramental function, while the king’s control
extended without qualification to the temporal possessions and_ affairs
of the clergy.
7 De regimine Christiano, II, 3.
 THE TWO SWORDS 137

The tendency to confine the church to the sacristy and to limit the
spiritual authority to ethical and religious instruction culminated some
twenty years after the Boniface-Philip quarrel in the Defensor Pacis
written by Marsilius of Padua. Going so far as to maintain that excom-
munication belongs wholly to the secular power, Marsilius posits a
thoroughgoing control of the temporal over the spiritual. In fact, he
takes the position that religion is subject to state control in the same
manner as any other social institution. Denying that Peter enjoyed any
pre-eminence in jurisdiction over the other Apostles, Marsilius concludes
that neither Peter nor his successors have any jurisdictional power, even
in spiritual matters, over the people or clergy. All that they possess
is a sacramental power, the power to exercise their priestly functions,
which all clergymen enjoy equally. Hence, whatever authority of a
directive or controlling nature is exercised by the ecclesiastical hierarchy
must be conferred on it by human law (just as the state grants certain
powers to private corporations by charter or law).
Although Marsilius seeks to separate absolutely the temporal and
spiritual spheres and to limit the latter to a purely sacramental function,
he actually makes a complete identification of church and state falling
under a single omnicompetent authority. His papal opponents had done
virtually the same thing; only in this case the tables were turned. The
supreme jurisdictional power is vested in the state rather than in the
pope, while the latter’s authority over the internal structure and affairs
of the church is totally undermined. Marsilius’ views are sometimes cited
as a defense of religious liberty, but any such notion disregards the fact
that his position logically subjects religion to a thoroughgoing regimenta-
tion by the civil power.

JOHN OF PARIS: THE VIA MEDIA

In addition to the extreme and at times radical stand taken by the

lawyers, there were also more moderate and well-reasoned views expressed
by some ecclesiastics in answer to the pro-papal arguments of Exgidius and
James. The most representative and influential work in this respect was
the treatise De potestate regia et papali written in 1302 by a French
Dominican, John of Paris.* Basically, his work follows a middle course
8 There is no translation of this work available in English. Pertinent quotations from
it are found in Carlyle, op. cit., Vol. V, Chap. 10.
138 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

in its approach to the church-state problem. It seeks to show that the

true relationship of the two powers lies between an excessively spiritual
concept of papal authority that denies the church any jurisdiction what-
soever in temporalities, and the opposite concept that attributes to the
pope complete temporal dominium under the mediante papa theory.
John assumes, as does the Gelasian doctrine, that the spiritual power
must enjoy some measure of jurisdiction in the temporal order, since
it is by nature superior to the secular. The task is to define the character
of this primacy and the manner of its exercise.°
To show that secular government is independent in its own right,
John adopts the Aristotelian view that the state originates in the social
nature of man and that it is necessary for the achievement of the “whole
life” of the human individual. Moreover, since human beings live in
‘civil society and community because of a natural instinct, that instinct
must have been implanted in men by God. And since political power
(regnum) is essential to the proper existence of such a community, it
must itself be natural and therefore from God. Thus the king has a
distinct power, proper to himself, which he receives from God and not
from the pope.
In seeking to determine the proper sphere of civil society, it is neces-
sary to show both the origin of the state and the end or purpose for
which it is ordained. Here again John of Paris follows Aristotle in
holding that the objective of the state is that good which can be achieved
by nature, namely a life according to virtue. From these premises the
conclusion emerges, as John Courtney Murray has so aptly observed, that

the civil community is temporal, not ultimate in its finality; the con-
tent of its common good is the “human things” that make up “the
whole life” of man in this world. Moreover, this order of human life
.. 1s an order in its own right with a certain relative autonomy of its
own. The “virtue” which is its object is “acquired moral virtue.” .. .
The civic life of virtue in this sense “has in itself the nature of a good
(rationem bon) and is desirable for its own sake” even though it is
not the ultimate good in the highest order.'°

9 The analysis of John of Paris is based largely on John Courtney Murray’s writings
on church and state, particularly his article “Contemporary Orientations of Catholic
Thought on Church and State in the Light of History,” Theological Studies, June,
1949; reprinted in Cross Currents, Fall, 1951.
10 “Contemporary Orientations of Catholic Thought on Church and State in the
Light of History,’ Cross Currents, Fall, 1951, p. 28.
 THE TWO SWORDS 139

The civil rulers are actually serving as ministers of God in their efforts
to promote peace, justice, and the common good in the temporal sphere.
As such their duties are not merely legal and administrative, but moral
as well. These functions, however, are restrictive ones clearly fixed by
the ends of the state, which ends are of themselves necessarily contained
within the limits of the natural, the terrestrial, the temporal.
Turning next to the spiritual power, the sacerdotium, John starts
from the universally accepted premise that the temporal life is not man’s
ultimate end; that he is further destined to a higher and supernatural
goal, that of eternal life. Just as the responsibility of the state is to assist
man in reaching his natural perfection, so the church has the function
of leading man to his supernatural goal through the dispensation of the
sacraments. The ends, while quite distinct, are not wholly independent.
Virtuous living in this life (which the state should foster and encourage)
necessarily bears a direct relation to the higher goal. Similarly, the prac-
tice of religion aids man in the attainment of his temporal fulfillment
by inculcating moral virtues. Such interdependency, however, does not
deny that in the hierarchy of values the spiritual end is superior to the
temporal. It was at this point, as John recognized, that the medieval
attempts to arrive at a clear theoretical formulation of church-state rela-
tions usually broke down. For if the sacerdotal power is higher than
that of the temporal, it must by virtue of its superior position enjoy
some kind of precedence over the latter. The source of much dispute
lay in the definition of this primacy.
In seeking a solution to this problem, John warns against indiscrimi-
nate argument from one kind of order to another, as from the superiority
of spiritual over temporal ends to the political jurisdiction of the spiritual
over the secular power. Pointing out that an order of dignity does not
necessarily involve an order of jurisdiction, he goes on to emphasize
that the spiritual enjoys a primacy of dignity only and not of causality
over the temporal. By this he means that the secular power, while of
inferior status in the order of ends or values, is not contained in and
set up by the spiritual power, as extreme papal claims implied. The
royal power is not from the pope either in itself or in its executive use;
it is from God and from the people who elect the king. Both powers
are derived independently of each other from a source higher than either,
the Divine Ruler of the universe.
What does the primacy of dignity imply, and what jurisdiction if
140 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

any does it give the spiritual over the temporal in the practical order
of things? According to John of Paris, the primacy enjoyed by the
spiritual is exercised “indirectly.” The church does not intervene di-
rectly in the affairs of the state, but as the teacher of faith and morals
she influences the temporal order by guiding men in the ways of virtue.
Although the jurisdiction of the church is purely spiritual, she is able
to reach into the temporal order indirectly by the repercussions which
her teachings have on the actions of men, whether they be rulers or
subjects. The pope does not establish the monarch, but each in his
own way is established by God; nor does he direct the king per se, as
king, he directs him per accidens, inasmuch as the ruler ought to be a
believer in Christ. In this capacity the king is instructed by the pope
about matters of faith, not about governmental affairs. While the tran-
scendent position of the spiritual order does not remove it from all
contact with the temporal, it does determine the manner in which its
primacy is to be effective.
The interpretation given by John to the classical Gelasian doctrine
posits no direct authority for the spiritual over the temporal sword but
only moral jurisdiction over conscience. Such a view does not assume,
as that of the civil lawyers tended to do, that the church should be
confined to the sacristy and have no concern with the state. On the
contrary, it holds that the church would set spiritual norms for temporal
affairs through her power to administer the sacraments, to teach the
word of God, and to interpret the Divine law. Under certain circum-
stances the pope could impose a spiritual sanction or penalty which
might affect the political order. He could, for example, excommunicate
a king as he could any other church member for a grave ecclesiastical
offense. ‘This, however, would be the extreme penalty that he could in-
flict; he would have no power whatsoever to depose a secular ruler.
The state, John repeatedly emphasizes, is a purely natural institution
which in no way requires the sanctification of the church to be legiti-
mate. The primacy of the spiritual does not imply that the state is
merely an instrument or arm of the church for the attainment of the
latter’s end. It is not the function of the civil power to heal fallen man
by subjecting him to the influence of ecclesiastical authorities. Its ob-
jective is that set forth by nature itself, the temporal common good, an
end that is specifically lay and not religious. The state does have a
moral function, as Aristotle pointed out, to assist man in reaching his
 THE TWO SWORDS Il

temporal perfection, a perfection which consists in a life of moral and

intellectual virtue — but this moral obligation is wholly in the natural
order. The church, on the other hand, does not have the task of teaching
the prince his politics. Her responsibility is to teach him the fundamental
principles of what is right and wrong, principles which should underlie
and govern political behavior.
John of Paris views church and state, juridically speaking, as separate
and distinct societies which find their unity only in their common origin
from God. The goals of both the temporal and eternal are necessarily
related since they are both ends of the same man. But the jurisdiction
of the sacerdotium over the higher order of man’s spiritual life does not
mean institutional dominium over the inferior order of his temporal life.
The situation is analogous to that of the household where the tutor in
morals is superior in the dignity of his calling to the household physician,
yet each derives his position independently from the common master.
The doctrine of church-state relations as advanced in De potestate regia
et papali is summed up by a contemporary philosopher in the following
passage
By his essential conception of the ecclesiastical power, John of Paris
joins himself to the purest tradition of the Middle Ages, since he
authorizes its intervention in the political sphere. But at the same
time he shows himself entirely modern by the manner in which he
understands this function of the spiritual power, and by his reduction
of it to the exercise of a spiritual power."

SUMMARY
To some, the long theoretical dispute over the proper relationship of church
and state may appear to be of no more than historical or academic interest
in the development of political thought. Such an assumption would hardly be
correct since the problem involved in the controversy is significantly relevant
to the contemporary scene. No one would deny that the modern setting is
radically different from that which existed during the middle ages. When John
of Paris penned his treatise there was only one church universally accepted
throughout the western world, while the nation state was just beginning to
emerge as the political unit of the future. Today, man lives in a world of many
religions and many nation states, Yet despite the changed historical environ-
ment, the basic problem of the relationship between the temporal and spiritual
spheres continues. The setting of the play may be new, but the plot remains
11J, Riviere, Le probléme de I’Fglise et de l’Etat au temps de Philippe le Bel
(Louvain, 1926), p. 281,
142 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

essentially unchanged. One need only examine the vast literature on church
and state which has appeared during the past decade to realize how great
current interest is in this question.
In interpreting what he conceived to be the true relation between the two
swords, John of Paris maintained that both powers with their different missions
must be maintained on distinct planes. His position does not imply a complete
cleavage or compartmentalization between the two spheres (a compartmen-
talization some individuals achieve in their own minds by looking upon their
religion as divorced from the ordinary business of living), but a close and
harmonious relationship in which each would work respectively for the natural
and supernatural ends of man. In terms of this theory, the civil power has no
direct concern with man’s conversion or his salvation; its political task ceases
on the threshold of the spiritual domain. The state contributes to man’s
supernatural goal only indirectly by creating conditions of material life, of
culture and education, of social justice, of civic virtue and public morality—
conditions that will enable the supernatural work of the religious sword to be
freely developed. Conversely, the jurisdiction of the religious order stops at
the gate of the secular power. The church is free to form the conscience
of her members; and they as citizens are free to work for a social order of
justice and charity that conforms to the dictates of their consciences,
The medieval controversy over the problem of church and state involved
in essence two basically different concepts. On the one side was the view
that the state is the universal community and the church is a lesser society
or limited association of individuals for restricted ends. On the other side
was the view that the church is the universal community and the state a
lesser association for limited ends. John of Paris sought to put each of these
theories in its proper perspective. While he recognized that both church and
state have autonomous spheres of activity, he also realized the close inter-
dependence between the two realms and the impossibility of any absolute
separation of one from the other. Christopher Dawson’s observation is
pertinent here.
The philosopher and the theologian may say that both (Church and State) are
perfect societies with their own rights and their proper autonomous spheres of
action. But this is only true juridically speaking, not psychologically or morally.
The Church is socially incomplete unless there is a Christian society as well as an
ecclesiastical congregation, and the State is morally incomplete without some
spiritual bond other than the law and the power of the sword.12

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bonacina, Conrad, “The Catholic Church and Modern Democracy,” Cross
Currents, Fall, 1951.
Calhoun, R. L., and Bainton, R. H., Christian Conscience and the State
(New York: Social Action, 1940).
12 “Education and the State,” Commonweal, Jan. 25, 1957, p. 425.
 THE TWO SWORDS 143

Carlyle, R. W., and A. J., A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West,
Vol. 5 (London: Blackwood, 1928).
Cour, R. F., “Recent Teaching of the Supreme Court on the Subject of
Church and State,’ American Catholic Historical Society Records, De-
cember, 1957.
Domenach, Jean M., “Religion and Politics,” Cross Currents, Summer, 1956.
Ellis, J. T., “Church and State in the United States: A Critical Appraisal,”’
Catholic Historical Review, October, 1952.
Figgis, John N., The Divine Right of Kings (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1934).
Gurian, W. A., and Fitzsimons, M. A. (eds.), The Catholic Church in World
Affairs (South Bend: Notre Dame Press, 1954).
Hardy, E. R., “Servant of the Servant of God: Gregory the Great,” Church
History, March, 1943.
LaCroix, Jean, “Religious Conscience and Political Conscience,” Cross Cur-
rents, Fall;.1952:
Ladner, G. B., “Aspects of Medieval Thought on Church and State,” Review
of Politics, October, 1947.
Lecler, Joseph, The Two Sovereignties (New York: Philosophical Library,
1952).
Lewis, Ewart, “Organic Tendencies in Medieval Political Thought,” American
Political Science Review, October, 1938.
Murray, John C., “The Problem of Pluralism in America,” Thought, Summer,
Coo:
Rommen, Heinrich, “Church and State,’ Review of Politics, July, 1950.
Ruff, G. E., The Dilemma of Church and State (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg
Press, 1954).
Tellenbach, Gerd, Church, State and Christian Society at the Time of the
Investiture Contest, trans. by R. F. Bennett (Oxford: Blackwell, 1940).
Ullman, Walter, Medieval Papalism: The Political Theories of the Medieval
Canonists (London: Methuen, 1949).
Weigel, Gustave, ““The Church and the Democratic State,” Thought, Spring,
1952.
Whitney, J. P., “Pope Gregory VII and the Hildebrandine Ideal,” Church
Quarterly Review.
Yanitelli, V. R., “(Church — State Anthology: The Works of Father Courtney
Murray,” Thought, 1952.
 Chapter VIII

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS:

THEOLOGIAN AS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER

“Yet it is natural for man, more than any other animal, to be

a social and political animal, to live in a group” (St. Thomas,
On Kingship).

AFTER the fall of Rome and up to the capture of Constantinople in

1204, there was little intellectual exchange between the civilizations of
the western and eastern halves of the old empire. During this period,
the West knew little of Aristotle beyond his treatise on logic. In the
East, however, the tradition of Aristotelian learning was kept alive, first
at Constantinople and later at the Arabic and Jewish centers of learning.
When the Moors overran Spain in the eighth century, they brought with
them Arabic translations of many Greek works. After the Spanish Chris-
tians recaptured Toledo in 1085, the Archbishop established a college to
translate the Arabic texts into Latin. Through this medium the complete
works of Aristotle began to enter western Europe during the latter half
of the twelfth century. Sometime later his Greek texts were brought
from the East by the returning Crusaders, and in 1260 the Politics was
translated into Latin from the Greek by William of Moerbeka.
The rediscovery of Aristotle’s works effected a radical change in the
tenor of medieval political thought. The Christian doctrine of the social
and political relations of man as a creature and child of God became
merged with the Greek concept of man and the state as seen through
pagan eyes. In the process, a balance was struck between the spiritual and
secular aspects of political society.

THE STATESMAN’S BOOK

John of Salisbury (1120-1180), an English scholastic philosopher, served
as secretary to Thomas Becket during the latter’s ill-fated tenure as Arch-
144
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 145

bishop of Canterbury. He was educated in the universities of Paris and

Chartres, where he came in contact with some of the works of Cicero
and Plato. His Policraticus or Statesman’s Book, completed in 1150, is
of importance to the history of political philosophy chiefly for two major
reasons. First of all, it is the only systematic summation of medieval
political speculation up to the time of St. Thomas, and as such it is
representative of the thought of the early medieval period. Second, since
it was written shortly before the Politics of Aristotle became known to
the West, it provides a convenient means of comparing the political
speculations of the early and late middle ages and of assessing Aristotelian
influence on the political thought of medieval Christendom.?
Although the Policraticus is oriented primarily toward a defense of
papal supremacy, it embodies a more formal and comprehensive discussion
of the civil community than any other work of its day. Its general ap-
proach and treatment as well as the tendencies it evidences are, never-
theless, typical of the pre-Thomistic period. Representing an advanced
ecclesiastic position, John argues that the prince is merely “a minister
of the priestly power, and one who exercises that side of the sacred offices
which seems unworthy of the hands of the priesthood. For every office
existing under, and concerned with the execution of, the sacred laws is
really a religious office, but that is inferior which consists in punishing
crimes, and which therefore seems to be typified in the person of the
hangman.”? The primary duty of the king is to protect the church; next
to that he must preserve peace and administer justice.
John’s position has added significance apart from its insistence on a
jurisdictional primacy of the spiritual over the temporal. It graphically
illustrates how the classical view of the state as a natural institution for
the perfection of man had become submerged during the middle ages
into the conception of a church society in which the civil authority was
relegated to the position of an ecclesiastical agency. Since the office of
the king was looked upon as essentially a “religious office,” a large portion
of the Policraticus is devoted to a treatment of the religious and moral
duties of the monarch. John’s writings also indicate an inclination to con-
sider the state as a divinely instituted remedy or corrective for sin (its
role is that of the hangman), a view that gained considerable acceptance
1 The important portions of the Policraticus have been translated by John Dickinson,
The Statesman’s Book of John of Salisbury (New York: Knopf, 1928). Selections
are taken from this edition.
2 Policraticus, Book IV, Chap. 3.
146 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

during the early middle ages. With the reception of Aristotle in the
thirteenth century, these tendencies ran headlong into the formidable
philosophical barrier that the Greek master had so ably constructed.
The general attitude of John of Salisbury toward political authority
may also be seen by contrasting his treatment of tyrannicide with that
later given by St. Thomas. According to John, a ruler who oppresses the
people and governs by force is a tyrant and may lawfully be killed by a
private individual. “He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.”
No violation of law or morality is committed by resisting and slaying
the ruler who usurps power and oppresses justice. “To kill a tyrant is not
merely lawful, but right and just. . . . Tyranny, therefore, is not merely
a public crime but, if there could be such a thing, a crime more than
public. And if in the crime of lese majeste all men are admitted to be
prosecutors, how much more should this be true in the case of the
crime of subverting the laws which should rule even over emperors?’’®
Taking a contrary view to that of John, St. Thomas asserts that public
action, not individual violence, is the proper remedy against tyranny. “To
proceed against the cruelty of tyrants is an action to be undertaken not
through the private presumptions of a few but rather by public au-
thority.”* Stressing the preservation of the state and of political rule, he
warns that “should private persons attempt on their own private pre-
sumption to kill the rulers, even though tyrants, this would be dangerous
for the multitude as well as for the rulers. This is because the wicked
usually expose themselves to dangers of this kind more than the good,
for the rule of a king no less than that of a tyrant, is burdensome to
them. ©
St. Thomas feels that it would be detrimental to civil order if private
individuals could assume the right to murder their rulers whenever they
believe them to be tyrants. He recognizes, however, the right to revolu-
tion when: (1) the oppression by the ruler is of a serious character;
(2) there is a reasonable chance of the revolt succeeding; and (3) there
is some assurance that the revolution will not provoke greater social evils
than those it attempts to eradicate. Revolution under these conditions
is more in the nature of a public than a private act. It does not tolerate
the assassination of the tyrant. If he is overthrown, the new public au-
~ 8Tbid., Book III, Chap. 15.
4On Kingship, Book I, Chap. 6. Translated by G. B. Phelan (Toronto: The
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1949).
5 Ibid.
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 147

thority would have the right to punish him. In his discussion of tyranni-
cide, Thomas attempts to distinguish between private individual action
and public collective action, a distinction that John of Salisbury fails
to make.
One interesting feature of the Policraticus is its emphasis on the
organic nature of the state. Although this aspect is a by-product of
John’s efforts to show the subordination of secular to ecclesiastical au-
thority, it once again directed attention to the close unity of human
society. John likens the monarch to the head of the body, the clergy
to the soul (to which the head is therefore subordinate), the senate
to the heart, the eyes, ears, and tongue to the judges, the hands to
the administrative officials, and the farmers, artisans, and workers to the
feet. All of these parts must work in harmony if the health of the body
is to be maintained.
Then and then only will the health of the commonwealth be sound
and flourishing when the higher members shield the lower, and the
lower respond faithfully and fully in like measure to the just demands
of their superiors, so that each and all are as it were members one of
another by a sort of reciprocity, and each regards his own interest as
best served by that which he knows to be most advantageous for the
others.*
John made no attempt to identify the state as a biological organism;
his description is one of analogy only. Yet by pushing this analogy as
far as he did, he exposed the traditional organic concept of society to the
danger of misinterpretation.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

It is not uncommon to hear St. Thomas referred to in such terms as
the dominant thinker of the middle ages, one of the world’s great
philosophers, the apostle of the mind, or the pre-eminent guardian and
glory of the Catholic Church. The works of the angelic doctor stand
as impressive testimonials to the validity of these encomiums. Born
near Naples in 1225 of a noble Italian family, Thomas received his
early education at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino and
his later training at the University of Naples. In 1244 he joined the
Dominican Order and was sent to Paris to study theology under Albert

6 Policraticus, Book VI, Chap. 21.

148 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

the Great, an early leader in the Aristotelian revival. By the time he

was twenty-five, he himself was teaching at the university as a full pro-
fessor. He served as adviser to the papacy and during the later years of
his life he was asked to reorganize the University of Naples. He died in
1274 at the age of forty-nine.
Continuing the task which Albert had inaugurated, Thomas sought
to assimilate the science and philosophy of Aristotle with the revealed
truths of Christianity. Some writers have described the process as a
Christianizing of Aristotle, or as an effort to graft onto the teachings
of the Church the newly rediscovered wisdom of pagan Greece. Maritain
has observed that St. Thomas could enthusiastically accept Aristotle since
the latter’s metaphysical principles are based on objective reality, and
hence are capable of being universally adopted.
The writings of St. Thomas constituted the principal medium through
which Aristotelian political ideas were reincorporated in western thought.
Like Augustine, however, Thomas is primarily a theologian rather than
a political philosopher. His major efforts are aimed at demonstrating
that the whole of human knowledge forms one vast pattern of thought
with the particularized sciences at the base, philosophy above them, and
theology at the apex. All these sources of knowledge are blended into
a harmonious unit in which reason and faith, science and religion, co-
operate in furthering the discovery of truth. In this universal synthesis,
divine revelation in no way contradicts that which the philosopher dis-
covers by the use of natural reason; it merely completes the pattern of
knowledge of which science and philosophy form the beginning. Theology
and philosophy are equally valid, each in its own sphere. Spiritual wisdom
from above illumines rational wisdom from below; revelation is an auxiliary
of the reason.
While the political aspect of man’s life could not be overlooked in
the monumental task which St. Thomas undertook, the objective of his
work did not require or call for a full-blown treatise on political theory.
The closest that he came to a systematic formulation of his ideas on
the state occurred in his uncompleted work On Kingship. However, many
clues to his political thinking can be gleaned from his Commentaries
on the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle. These works together with
certain passages in the Summa Theologica, the Contra Gentiles, and the
Nicomachean Ethics provide the principal sources for an examination of
his political philosophy.
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 149

The Nature of the State

For St. Thomas, as for Aristotle, the bedrock of political philosophy is
nature. Starting with man, he demonstrates that his end is fixed and
determined by his nature. His will is necessarily inclined toward the
perfection of his form as man. But unlike other created being, man is able
by virtue of his reason to apprehend his end and thus to direct himself
toward it.
. all things participate to some degree in the eternal law insofar
as they derive from it certain inclinations to those actions and aims
which are proper to them. But, of all others, rational creatures are
subject to divine providence in a very special way; being themselves
made participators in providence itself, in that they control their own
actions and the actions of others.’
This end of man is the foundation of the natural moral law, and by
it all human actions are judged. Whatever leads toward the perfection
of man’s nature is good, whatever diverts from it is evil.®
Having established this moral basis, St. Thomas makes the transfer
into the realm of political philosophy by noting that man is naturally
a social and political animal. He is a social being because he is not
self-sufficing; he cannot procure through his own efforts the means to
attain his proper end as a rational creature. He needs the help and
guidance of others to accomplish this objective. His natural insufficiency
is partially overcome by the family and small social groupings such as
the village in which his elemental needs can be met; but it is only in
an organized society that his natural longing for knowledge, culture, and
virtue can be satisfied and the acme of his well-being attained.
Man is also a political animal because the very existence of social
living, of society, necessitates some form of civil authority. The multi-
plicity of individuals must be brought into an organized co-operative
arrangement so that their efforts can be united in pursuit of a common
goal. The organic character of the state is implicit in this thinking.
Following Aristotle, Thomas finds the unity of political society in the
moving principle or internal compulsion that forms and organizes the
7 Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 91. a. 2. Excerpts from the Summa are taken from
Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Random House, 1944).
8 For a more extended discussion of this point see W. Farrell, “Natural Foundations
of the Political Philosophy of St. Thomas,” Proceedings of the American Catholic
Philosophical Association, 1931, pp. 75-85.
150 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

member parts into a social whole. It is the community of purposes,

interests, and mutual objectives which amalgamates the people into a
body politic.
The “ordering” toward an end which Thomas speaks of implies a
directing authority.
If, then, it is natural for man to live in the society of many, it is
necessary that there exist among men some means by which the group
may be governed. For where there are many men together and each
one is looking after his own interest, the multitude would be broken
up and scattered unless there were also an agency to take care of what
appertains to the commonweal.?
The naturalness of subordination to authority is further demonstrated
by the fact that some men are born with the capacity to rule, others
have the aptitude to carry out various functions under the direction of
a supervising official, and still others have only the ability to follow.
“Among men an order is found to exist inasmuch as those who are
superior by intellect are by nature rulers.”?° The wisdom and order of
nature is here seen, for if all men were born leaders (or contrariwise,
followers) the formation of an integrated social whole would be virtually
impossible.
It is evident from what has been said that St. Thomas views the
state as an agency for supplying the temporal needs of man and assisting
him in his task of self-fulfillment. Like Aristotle, he advocates in princi-
ple a wide role for civil government in the life of the community. The
state comes into being to furnish those human needs which the in-
dividual and lesser social groupings are unable to supply for themselves.
Its task, however, is to supplement the efforts of individuals and groups,
not to supplant or abolish them.
The immediate end of the state is to preserve an orderly society by
maintaining internal and external peace and by insuring the satisfaction
of man’s corporal necessities. Its ultimate end —that which gives true
meaning to the common good —is the temporal perfection of its mem-
bers. ‘To pursue this latter goal, it must foster virtuous living by pro-
moting the intellectual, moral, and cultural growth of man. Life accord-
ing to virtue is life according to reason. Thus the functions of the state
are positive and dynamic. As the pilot who steers his ship toward a
9 On Kingship, Book I, Chap. 1.
10 Contra Gentiles, III, 81.
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 151

distant goal, so should the state direct and co-ordinate the efforts of the
community in its pursuit of the virtuous life.
Can it be legitimately said, as many of the medievalists did, that
political rule is merely a divine remedy for sin and that there would
have been no need for civil authority if the original state of innocence
had endured? St. Thomas is emphatic in repudiating any such notion.
Discussing this matter under the question “Whether in the State of
Innocence Man would have been Master over Man,” he points out that
the term “mastership” has a twofold meaning. In one sense it refers to
the power exercised over slaves; in the other it refers to the ruler’s direc-
tion of free men. The first kind of authority, in which the slave is ordered
to the master’s use, would not have existed in the state of innocence;
the second type of rule, that for the benefit of a free subject by directing
him toward his proper welfare, would have existed even in the Garden
of Eden
First, because man is truly a social being, and so in the state of
innocence he would have led a social life. Now a social life cannot exist
among a number of people unless under the governance of one to
look after the common good; for many, as such, seek many things,
whereas one attends only to one....
Secondly, if one man surpassed another in knowledge and justice,
this would not have been fitting unless these gifts conduced to the
benefit of others.”
St. Thomas believes that inequalities in talent and capacity would have
existed among men even in the state of innocence. Nature made all
men equal in liberty, and not in their natural endowments. Such being
the case, some guidance and direction of the social community by those
of superior ability is required in order to achieve the common end of
the members. If each man were left free to pursue his end in such ways
as he saw fit, the diversity of methods employed would create disorder
and confusion.
Although St. Thomas is in general agreement with Aristotle as to
the nature and purpose of the body politic, he accepts the Aristotelian
notion of the state as the “perfect society” only in a qualified sense.
To a Christian, there are needs of man that cannot find their fulfill-
ment in the political order. As a moral being, the individual is ordained
ultimately to a supernatural goal that transcends the temporal sphere.
11 Summa Theologica, I, q. 96, a. 4.
152 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

Since the care of this final and ultimate end is beyond the capacities of
natural institutions, the task of directing man toward it is the responsi-
bility not of human but of divine government. The Christian Church
as a divine institution charged with the care of man’s soul must be
substituted for the ancient concept of a civic religion. Ewart Lewis
has succinctly summed up the new element which St. Thomas introduced:
In Aquinas’s thought, two tendencies were held in quiet harmony: on
the one hand, an appreciation of secular and natural values as good in
themselves; on the other, an acknowledgement of the pre-eminence of
spiritual goods, to which all lesser goods were finally ordained. As
revelation completed the work of reason, as grace fulfilled nature, so
the Church must supplement and guide the state.**
St. Thomas is nowhere clear as to how this guidance is to be institutionally
accomplished. He has sometimes been classified as a champion of papal
supremacy, but actually his comments on the institutional relationship
between spiritual and secular authority are fragmentary and inconclusive.
What he is primarily interested in demonstrating is the end to be sought
and not the specific means for attaining it.

The Source of Political Authority

No medieval thinker would have denied that all authority, temporal
as well as spiritual, has its ultimate source in God. Nor would few have
questioned the belief that the spiritual power of the pope is conferred
on him directly by a divine act. However, when it came to the question
as to how political power in the concrete reaches the secular ruler, there
was much less consensus. ‘To stop with the assertion that political au-
thority comes from God is to leave unanswered the crucial question as
to how this power is morally and legitimately obtained by those who
actually exercise it.
Although St. Thomas does not explicitly discuss this question, it is
clear that he considers political authority to exist originally in the whole
people organized as a civic community. “To order anything to the
common good (which is the true function of the political authority)
belongs either to the whole people, or to someone who is the vice-regent
of the whole people.”** The people do not receive this power by a
special act of divine intervention, as does the pope, but through the
12 Medieval Political Ideas, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 151.
13 Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 90, a. 5.
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 153

natural law. Such authority exists in the political community as a property

or attribute of its nature. Once there is a uniting of minds and wills
for the establishment of a state, authority simultaneously comes into
being as a necessary and natural product of this union.
Reason, according to Thomas, demonstrates that supreme political
power rests in the people organized as a community; it does not show
that it is determinately placed in any particular person or group. The
people in turn are free to create the type of government they desire and
to confer on the holders of public office the authority to rule the com-
munity. The government, whether it be a king, parliament, or direct
democracy, exists solely as the representative or vice-regent of the people.
It has “no power to frame laws except as representing the people.”
The ruler’s only legitimate title to power is that which he receives
as a result of a transfer by the free rational act and consent of the com-
munity. In this sense, both the state and political authority may be said
to be of immediate human origin. Dominion or political control is de-
rived from human law. The people are morally obliged to give their
consent to the establishment of political authority with respect to com-
mon needs and ends as rationally conceived. They are not, in other
words, free to withhold consent to the creation of civil government since
its existence is essential to their development as human beings.
The implications of such a theory are evident. The prince is to be
considered part of the community, not somebody outside or above it.
The people as a political unit is supreme or sovereign and the king is its
representative or servant. The power which he exerts is derived from
the people by way of delegation or grant.
This transfer is in the nature of a contract or pact between the ruler
and the people, although the agreement is more implied than expressed.
The idea of such a political contract was not unknown before Thomas.
It found expression in such characteristic statements as that made by
Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims in a letter to Louis III: “You have not
chosen me to be a prelate of the Church, but I and my colleagues, with
the loyal subjects of God and your ancestors, have chosen you to rule
the kingdom on the condition that you shall keep the law.”*® This and
other similar passages in the literature of the period indicate that in
medieval political thought the king had a definite obligation to conform
to both human law and the law of God.
1 ibid, lel qy9/ 74.03, 3: 15 Quoted by Carlyle, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 244.
154 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

But is the ruler’s obligation a legal as well as a moral one, and if

so, how can it be enforced by the community? The difficulty here lay
in the generally accepted Roman law principle of legibus solutus which
holds that the king is above human law and free from coercion. Bracton,
an English jurist of the thirteenth century, expressed the prevailing idea
in his famous and oft-quoted statement that “no writ runs against the
king.” There was, in short, no legal or institutional means of enforcing
the community’s interest in the government of its king. The only sanc-
tions available against the ruler who flagrantly violated his pact with
the people was insurrection or, as John of Salisbury proposed, private
tyrannicide. This freedom from external compulsion to obey the laws
did not, of course, discharge the ruler morally from any of his duties and
obligations to the people. In this latter sense, he remained under the law.
In discussing the question of royal obligation, St. Thomas distin-
guishes between the coercive and directive force of the law. As to the
first, he notes that it would be proper to say that the ruler is exempt
from the law since there is no institutional means available to compel
obedience by punitive sanctions. “Thus is the sovereign said to be exempt
from the law because none is competent to pass sentence upon him, if
he acts against the law.’’® As to directive force, Thomas states that the
ruler is subject to law in that he is obliged in conscience to follow the
law of the realm. “But as to the directive force of law, the sovereign
is subject to the law by his own will, according to the statement that
whatever law a man makes for another, he should keep for himself. . . .
Hence in the judgment of God, the sovereign is not exempt from the
law, as to its directive force; but he should fulfill it voluntarily and
not of constraint.”*’ Thus while the supreme power of the ruler is be-
yond the legal control of the people, his moral responsibility to observe
the law remains in full effect. This duality is reflected in the many medieval
treatises that were designed to inspire the king with ideals appropriate
to his position or as one writer has put it, to persuade the king to accept
voluntarily the bridle that could not by legal means be forced on him.1®
“It is a thing greater than empire that a prince submit his government
to the laws.”

16 Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 96, a. 5, 3.

17 [bid.
18 Lewis, op. cit., I, 248.
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 155

The Best Form of Government

By supporting the theory that political power belongs originally to
the community, St. Thomas has no intention of expressing any preference
for democracy. In his view, all forms of government, whether they be
monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, depend for their legitimacy on the
voluntary consent of the people from whom they derive their authority.
It is not essential to popular sovereignty, as he defines it, for the people
themselves to carry on their government or participate in its management.
They may transfer these functions in toto to a monarch or to a group
of wise men, but whatever action they take, the element of popular
sovereignty remains intact. The government may exercise supreme political
power but it does so only as the agent and representative of the community.
Medieval thought in general oriented toward kingship as the ideal
form of government, and St. Thomas follows this pattern. Holding that
monarchy is the most desirable type ideally speaking, he bases his choice
on three grounds: the necessity for unity, the analogy with nature, and
experience. The welfare of the community lies in the preservation of its
unity and order. This integrity can best be achieved and maintained by
a single ruler rather than by several, since the possibility of disagreement
always exists where authority is divided. Similarly, since art imitates
nature, political society should follow the example of nature where all
things are governed by one, such as the heart is the principal mover
of the body, and a single God is the ruler of the universe. Finally, Thomas
observes (without attempting to cite empirical proof) that provinces or
cities which are not ruled by one person are usually torn with dissension.?®
This defense of monarchy offered nothing that was new; it merely restated
arguments that had long been advanced.
St. Thomas, like Aristotle, was realistic and practical in his thinking.
He was quite aware that while monarchy per se may be the ideal form
of government, it too has its drawbacks and its deficiencies. For one
thing, placing the care of the community in the hands of a paternal
monarch discourages any popular motivation or initiative in public affairs
and consequently lessens the social sensibilities of the people. “For it
frequently happens that men living under a king strive more sluggishly
for the common good inasmuch as they consider that what they devote
19 On Kingship, Book I, Chap. 2.
156 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

to the common good, they do not confer upon themselves but upon
another under whose power they see the common goods to be.”#? A
second defect of monarchy rests in the danger so forcefully phrased by
Lord Acton that power tends to corrupt, absolute power tends to cor-
rupt absolutely. In words reminiscent of the Politics, St. Thomas notes
that “since the power granted to a king is so great, it easily degenerates
into tyranny, unless he to whom this power is given be a very virtuous
man; for it is only the virtuous man that conducts himself well in the
midst of prosperity.”?! But since “perfect virtue is to be found in few,”??
the best practicable form of government must be sought elsewhere.
In his work On Kingship, St. Thomas suggests that some scheme should
be worked out to prevent political rule from degenerating into tyranny.”
Unfortunately, he does not develop the idea, since the fragmentary
treatise jumps abruptly at this point to another question. In a passage
in the Summa Theologica, however, he presents the idea of a mixed
government similar to that previously proposed by Cicero.
Accordingly, the best form of government is in a state or kingdom
wherein one is given the power to preside over all, while under him are
others having governing powers. And yet a government of this kind
is shared by all, both because all men are eligible to govern, and be-
cause the rulers are chosen by all. For this is the best of polity, being
partly kingdom, since there is one at the head of all; partly aristocracy,
insofar as the number of persons are set in authority; partly democracy,
that is, government by the people, insofar, as the rulers can be chosen
from the people, and the people have the right to choose their rulers.**
St. Thomas probably intended to elaborate on this idea of a mixed
constitution in his unfinished treatise On Kingship. Influenced as he was
in his political thinking by Aristotle, it is reasonable to assume that he
believed in royal rule as the best form of government absolutely or
ideally speaking, but felt that in the practical order monarchy must
give way to some mixed type which would embody a balancing of interests
or forces. ‘he government which he sketchily describes in the Summa
Theologica would presumably meet this need. It would minimize the
danger of tyrannical abuse by providing a check or limitation on the

20 Ibid., Book I, Chap. 4.

21 Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 105, a. 1, 2.
22 Tbid.
23 Book I, Chap. 6.
24 Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 105, a. 1.
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS P57

monarch; it would make the people feel that they had a stake in the
community and its common good by permitting a degree of popular
participation; and it would encourage good government by placing able
citizens in positions of public authority where they could not only carry
out administrative functions but also could keep the monarch “tem-
perate” or “moderate” (temperetur potestas).
That it was the intention of St. Thomas to propose a mixed govern-
ment as the best practical type is further strengthened by other con-
siderations. He apparently accepts the Aristotelian view that both the
monarchical and aristocratical forms overlook the fact that one man
or a selected elite, no matter how virtuous, can never be as good as the
whole community which comprises them as one of its parts.2* He also
realizes that as a matter of political reality forms of government must
be suitable to the talents, the culture, and the social maturity of the
people concerned. In this connection, he quotes with approval St. Augus-
tine’s statement
If a people have a sense of moderation and responsibility, and are most
careful guardians of the common welfare, it is right to enact a law
allowing such a people to choose their own magistrates for the govern-
ment of the community. But if, as time goes on, the same people
become so corrupt as to sell their votes and entrust their government
to scoundrels and criminals, then the night of appointing these public
officials is rightly forfeit to such a people, and the choice devolves to
a few good men.?°

The Pattern of the Law

The great and distinctive contribution that St. ‘Thomas made to the
development of political philosophy is found in his comprehensive analy-
sis of law rather than in his treatment of the nature of the civil com-
munity. His theory of the state and political authority was formulated
within the conceptual pattern of his general system of law. ‘The modern
world is accustomed to think of law as the product of the will of those
charged with the care of the public weal. Law in this view must be
conceived of within the framework of the state, and not the reverse as
Thomas did. He and all other medievalists looked upon the political
community in terms of a law whose existence and content are independent
"25 This point is made by D. Bigongiari, The Political Ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas
(New York: Hafner, 1953), p. xxix.
26 Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 97, a. 1.
158 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

of human decision. The Germanic concept of the folk and its law best
expresses this notion.
When the Germanic tribes overran the Roman empire, they brought
with them their own notions of law and government. Among these ideas
was the concept that law is not made by any individual or group but
already exists in nature. As such, it finds expression in the immemorial
traditions and customs of the people. The function of the ruler is not
to legislate or enact law in the modern sense but rather to discover it.
Customs and usages frequently demand clarification in order to resolve
apparent conflicts or to meet new situations. On such occasions, the
king with the aid of his counselors inquires into the practices of the
community, decides what the custom really is, and then promulgates
his decision in the form of an assize or law.
The Germanic idea that the law belongs to the people does not mean
that law is a product of their will and subject to change at their volition.
It simply means that the community is fashioned by its law in much
the same way that a human body is governed by its principles of organi-
zation.?” The difference between current and medieval thinking on law
is that “whereas the modern democrat is prepared to respect a law in-
sofar as he can regard himself as its author, medieval obedience was
founded on the opposite sentiment, that laws were respectable insofar as
they were not made by man.’’§
St. Thomas’ conception of the universe as an orderly and integrated
hierarchy called in turn for a system of law that would govern and
bind together each level of the grand structure. He found this master
pattern in his fourfold classification of law: eternal, divine, natural, and
human.
Eternal Law — St. Thomas looks upon eternal law as the Divine reason
which governs and orders the whole of creation. It is the eternal plan
of God’s wisdom, “the plan of government in the Chief Governor,” from
which “all the plans of government in the inferior governors must be
derived.” These plans of the lesser governors “are all the other laws
which are in addition to the eternal law. Therefore all laws, in so far as
they partake of right reason, are derived from the eternal law.”?® This

27 For an excellent discussion of this matter see Sabine, op. cit., Chap. XI.
28H. M. Reade, “Political Theory to c. 1300,” Cambridge Medieval History, op. cit.,
Vol. VI, p. 616.
29 Summa Theologica, I, II, q. 96, a. 3.
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 159
law is called eternal since “the divine reason’s conception of things is
not subject to time.”
Natural Law — Thomas firmly repudiates the identification of natural
and divine law made by some of the medieval canonists. He defines
natural law as that part of the eternal law which is presented to the
reason of man. Since all creation is ruled by divine providence, all things
partake in some way in the eternal law from which they derive their
respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. In the case of man,
this means the desire to lead a life in which his rational nature may be
realized. As examples of this inherent propensity, St. Thomas mentions
the inclination in man to live in society, to seek good and avoid evil, to
educate his children, to search for truth, and to strive for intellectual
development.
The natural law has a different significance for man than for the
rest of created being. Irrational creation is governed by the physical laws
of nature in a necessary and immutable order in which each natural
object conforms without understanding. Rational beings are subject to
the eternal law in a different way in that, unlike any other nature, they
move themselves precisely because they have knowledge of the end.?°
Hence, “all things to which man has a natural inclination are naturally
apprehended by reason as being good, and consequently as objects of
pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance.’”*?
St. Thomas does not look upon the natural law as a complete code
of rules and regulations which can be determined with exactness and
finality. He is careful to point out that the natural law sets forth only
the broad principles for the guidance of human acts and that these
principles require specific application to individual events as they occur
in the order of reality. While these first principles are universal and
permanent, their bearing on social and political institutions may vary as
changing circumstances affect their intrinsic justice or their utility. As in
the application of any principle, the more one descends from the
general to the particular, the more difficult becomes the task of de-
termining the proper application of the principle. “Man has a natu-
ral participation of the eternal law, according to certain common prin-
ciples, but not as regards the particular determinations of individual
30 The rational creature has “‘a share of the eternal reason whereby it has a natural
inclination to its proper act and end; and this participation of the eternal law in the
rational creature is called the natural law’ (Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 91, a. 2).
31 [bid., q. 94, a. 2.
160 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

cases.”2 He, accordingly, has need for a more detailed system of rules
and regulations to govern the conduct of society. It is the function of
human law to meet this need.
Human Law— Human or positive law (that issued by the ruler or
other lawmaking agency) is the detailed application of natural law pre-
cepts to particular situations. “From the precepts of the natural law, as
from the common and indemonstrable principles, the human reason
needs to proceed to the more particular determination of certain matters.
These particular determinations, devised by human reason, are called
human laws.”’?? The relationship between natural and human law deter-
mines the moral validity of the latter. Human law is justified only in so
far as its provisions do not conflict with the general precepts of the
natural law. “Every human law has just so much of the nature of law
as it is derived from the law of nature. But if at any point it departs
from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law.’’4
The question arises in later political thought whether human law can
be rigidly deduced from the principles of the natural law in geometrical
fashion. Documenting his refutation of this notion, Thomas states that
human law is derived from natural law in two ways: as a conclusion from
principles, and as a determination from principles.*° The first is similar
to the method of the speculative sciences whereby demonstrated conclu-
sions are drawn from certain principles, and here the analogy with mathe-
matics is close. For example, the conclusion that it is wrong to murder
another can be deduced from the primary natural law precept “do good
and avoid evil.” The conclusion that the culprit should be punished
can be arrived at by the same process. Wrongdoing cannot be left un-
punished in the interest of a peaceable and orderly society. However,
the best way of punishing the violator cannot be similarly determined.
This decision can be reached only by the second method, a determina-
tion from the first principles. Here, experience and factual evidence as
to the efficacy of the various types of punishments and their general effect
on the community, the extenuating circumstances in the particular case,
and other data of like nature are required before an intelligent judgment
can be made. The precept that the wrong doer should be punished is
immutable, but its application varies in concrete instances.

82 Tbid., q. 91, a. 3, 1. S3 [bid Guoleas Ss Sa Thids 9G. 95.2. 2.

35 This distinction is discussed by St. Thomas in Summa Theologica, I-II, q.
We Bo ae
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 161

The conception of human law presented by St. Thomas is entirely

compatible with the medieval idea that the law is found and not made.
He defines law as “an ordinance of reason for the common good, pro-
mulgated by him who has the care of the community.’ Law according
to reason implies that it is found in the nature of things; that it is “just,
possible to nature, according to the customs of the country, adapted to
place and time.”*? In other passages, St. Thomas shows that he considers
positive law as nothing more than the promulgation or codification of
custom. By the actions of the people “especially if they be repeated, so
as to make a custom, law can be changed and set forth. . . . For when
a thing is done again and again, it seems to proceed from a deliberate
judgment of reason. Accordingly, custom has the force of a law, abolishes
law, and is the interpreter of law.’** Custom, moreover, should not be
abrogated by the rulers except in extreme cases where the practice clearly
is unjust or its observance extremely harmful to the common good, or
where some very great benefit would be conferred by the new enactment.
A law which is made, in the sense that it embodies the arbitrary will
of the governors and disregards the established customs and traditions
of the people, is unreasonable and improper. The primary task of the
lawgiver is to clarify and promulgate custom (which medieval thought
regarded as a branch of natural law) and in this sense the law is found
rather than made.
Divine law — St. Thomas refers to that portion of the eternal law
which God has revealed to man through the Old and New Testament
and in church dogma as divine law. The Ten Commandments are an
example of this branch of law. Divine law is a gift of grace rather than
a discovery of natural reason. The need for it is explained by St. Thomas
in the following passage:
Besides the natural and human law it was necessary for the directing of
human conduct to have a divine law . . . it is by law that man is directed
how to perform his proper acts in view of his last end. Now if man were
ordained to no other end than that which is proportionate to his natural
ability, there would be no need for man to have any further direction, on
the part of his reason, in addition to the natural law and humanly devised
law which is derived from it. But since man is ordained to an end of
eternal happiness which exceeds man’s natural ability . . . therefore it was
36 Tbid., q. 90, a. 4.
37 Thid., q. 95, a. 3.
88 Thid., q. 97, a. 3.
162 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

necessary that, in addition to the natural and human law, man should be
directed to his end by a law given by God.*®
Even in respect to man’s natural end, the divine law supplements reason
in its quest for truth and justice since human reason is fallible and there-
fore subject to error:
By reason of the uncertainty of human judgment, especially on con-
tingent and particular matters, different people form different judgments
on human acts; whence also different and contrary laws result. In
order, therefore, that man may know without any doubt what he ought
to do and what he ought to avoid, it was necessary for man to be
directed in his proper acts by a law given by God, for it is certain
that such a law cannot err.*°
As grace perfects nature, so does the divine law perfect the natural law.
It illuminates the path that man must tread if he is to attain his tem-
poral and spiritual self-fulfillment. Revelation adds to reason but it does
not supplant it. Both faith and reason are part of the grand structure which
Thomas describes.

SUMMARY
Divorced from their historical milieu and stripped of those accidental
attributes peculiar to the period, the social teachings of St. Thomas, are of
timeless significance. No other single thinker of the medieval era has left
so deep an impression on political speculation. The modern scholar may reject
his teachings, but he cannot disregard them. To the Christian, the political
philosophy of St. Thomas is of special importance since it helps substantially
to clarify, both in the light of revealed and natural truth, the role and position
of the state, and man’s duty and relation to it. Aristotle had relied on natural
reason for his explanation of civil society; St. Augustine had viewed the state
primarily in theological terms; St. Thomas combines both forms of knowledge
in presenting to Christian man a meaningful picture of political rule placed
in its true perspective in the ordered hierarchy of the universe.
Perhaps the most significant contribution that St. Thomas made to political
thought is his restoration of the classical conception of the state as a natural
and not a divine or religious institution. As a Christian theologian he regards
man as a rational and moral creature with an ultimate and eternal end to
be found in union with God. At the same time, he is careful to point out
that man also has a natural end, a goal to be sought for and attained in this
world. In seeking the fulfillment of his nature as a rational being, man is also
traveling the path toward his eternal goal. “Through virtuous living man is
3 Ibid., q. 91, a. 4.
40 [bid.
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 163

further ordained to a higher end which consists in the enjoyment of God.”

And in pursuing his supernatural destiny, he is simultaneously achieving his
natural perfection.
St. Thomas demonstrates that it is neither necessary nor possible to connect
the origin of the state with any supernatural act. In his thinking, God remains
as the first and ultimate, but not the proximate cause of the state.41 This
cause is to be found in the social instinct of man, an instinct that is not only
natural, as the gregariousness of animals, but also a rational product depending
upon a free and conscious activity. By virtue of his nature as a moral being,
man has the fundamental obligation to build up an order of right and justice
by his own efforts. Despite the Fall, he has not lost the faculty of pursuing
his natural perfection. The existence and dignity of a purely natural sphere of
ethical values as embodied in the natural law has not been vitiated by sin.
It is within this natural sphere that the state finds its raison d’étre and its
justification. The fact that man needs the help of divine grace even for the
achievement of his natural end does not impair the dignity of the temporal
order, for grace does not destroy nature, it perfects it (gratia naturam non
tollit, sed perficit). So conceived, the state is not the result of the Fall and
it does not bear the stigmata of sin.
The whole tenor of Thomas’ political speculation is based on the premise
that state power is of a limited nature and subject to law. The same idea is
implicit in the thought of the ancient Greeks, but the middle ages, with its
conception of God as the ultimate source of all authority, gives new meaning
and a stronger foundation to this principle. The unyielding insistence which
St. Thomas and the medievalists placed on the conformity of human law
to the natural and divine law better prepared the state for the later institu-
tionalization of limited government, through such devices as written constitu-
tions and judicial review.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bigongiori, Dino (ed.), Political Ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas: Representative
Selections (New York: Hafner, 1953).
Chesterton, G. K., St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1933).
Chroust, A. H., “The Corporate Idea and the Body Politic in the Middle
Ages,” Review of Politics, October, 1947.
Conover, Milton, “St. Thomas Aquinas as a Social Realist,” Social Science,
June, 1954.
“St. Thomas Aquinas in Some Recent Non-Scholastic Writers on
Political Philosophy,’’ New Scholasticism, January, 1956.
D’Entreves, Alexander P., The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939).
Dougherty, George V., The Moral Basis of Social Order According to St.
Thomas (Washington: Catholic University Press, 1941).

41 See Ernest Cassirer, The Myth of the State, op. cit., p. 114.
164 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MEDIEVALISTS

Farrell, Walter, “Natural Foundations of the Political Philosophy of St.

Thomas,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association,
1931.
Gilby, Thomas A., The Political Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1958).
Gilson, Etienne, Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages (New York:
Scribners, 1938).
Hearnshaw, F. J. C. (ed.), The Social and Political Ideas of Some Great
Medieval Thinkers (London: Harrap, 1923).
Jaffa, Harry V., Thomism and Aristotelianism: A Study of the Commentary
by Thomas Aquinas on the Nicomachean Ethics (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1952).
Jaszi, Oscar, and Lewis, J. D., Against the Tyrant: The Tradition and Theory
of Tyrannicide (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1957).
Maritain, Jacques, Scholasticism and Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1940).
Martinez, Marie L., ‘‘Distributive Justice According to St. Thomas,” Modern
Schoolman, May, 1947.
Murphy, Edward F., St. Thomas’ Political Doctrine and Democracy (Wash-
ington: Catholic University Press, 1921).
Parsons, W. R., “Medieval Theory of the Tyrant,” Review of Politics, April,
1942.
Stephenson, Carl, “The Problem of the Common Man in Early Medieval
Europe,” American Historical Review, April, 1946.
Ward, L. R., “St. Thomas’ Defense of Man,” Proceedings of the American
Catholic Philosophical Association, 1945.
PART FOUR POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY DURING

THE ERA OF TRANSITION

 Chapter IX

THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF THE RENAISSANCE

AND REFORMATION

“An historic event has taken place; the world has been changed.
Even the most stable European state finds itself in the midst
of an entirely new movement” (Jules Michelet, History of
France).

Tue chronological characterization of any period can at best be only a

rough approximation. Just as the ancient world cannot be separated from
the middle ages by any sharp line of demarcation, neither can the
latter be marked off from the modern era by a given historical moment.
The religious, social, and political climate that distinguishes the medieval
from the modern period was not molded in a year, a decade, or even a
century. It was only by a slow and gradual process, a long period of
fermentation, running over the course of many years that the change was
eventually wrought. ‘The two great movements which mark the transition
from the old to the new are known as the Renaissance and the Reforma-
tion. Both affected radically the attitude and outlook of man, the one
in the secular, the other in the religious sphere. In a sense, these two
forces were partners in a revolutionary effort that destroyed the founda-
tions of medieval unity and led to the establishment of the modern
national state.

THE RENAISSANCE

Many dates, depending on the purposes of the particular author, have

been used to designate the period of the Renaissance. In general, its
boundaries are fluidly fixed around the fourteenth to the sixteenth cen-
tury. Economically, the period was characterized by a shift from a purely
agricultural society to the beginnings of a capitalistic and commercial
167
168 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

system. Coined money instead of barter came into common use and
trade began to expand rapidly. Socially, the middle class — the bourgeoisie,
the merchant — began to come into its own as the center of social and
economic life shifted from the manor to the growing towns. Scientifically,
the Renaissance was an age of great advancement marked by the in-
vention or importation from the East of iron-casting, the compass, mov-
able printing type, and gunpowder, and by the discovery of the solar
system and the theory of blood circulation. A similar revolution in geo-
graphic knowledge was brought about by the explorations of Vasco da
Gama, Columbus, and Magellan.
Intellectually and culturally, the Renaissance witnessed a quickening
of interest in the arts and letters, and a corresponding inattention to
ethics, metaphysics, and theology. The orientation was toward the secular
and “secularism” rather than toward the religious and spiritual. Other-
worldliness gave way to a preoccupation with the things and problems
of this life. As Professor Hallowell has noted, the skill which had previ-
ously been directed to the building of magnificent cathedrals proclaiming
the glory of God was now directed to singing the praises of men.* From
the standpoint of politics, the era of transition witnessed the breakdown
of the feudal system and the development of the national state, with its
absolutist tendencies. It also evidenced a growing awareness that the
dream of universal empire in the West (so eloquently expressed by
Dante in his De Monarchia) was impossible of realization.
In a natrow sense, the Renaissance signified a revival or rebirth of
antiquity as demonstrated by the renewed interest in classical art and
literature. In a broader and more proper meaning, it described an age
when man’s energy and spirit surged forward in a new momentum. The
cultural stimulus which classical antiquity provided was more a conse-
quence than a cause of man’s changed outlook. The new age of “hu-
manism” was one of self-confidence and individualism, reflecting not only
an increased consciousness of the human personality but of its environ-
ment as well, a consciousness that is expressed in the pictorial art and
poetry of the period. It was also an era in which man sought to break
free from traditional authority in order to assert more fully his autonomy
as an individual.
Man’s dignity in the eyes of the medievalist had consisted in the fact
1J, H. Hallowell, Main Currents in Modern Political Thought (New York: Holt &
C0. 1990), De 22.
 THOUGHT OF RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION 169

that he alone of all created beings was capable of knowing and giving
praise to God. To the Renaissance mind, man rather than God became
the focal point of attention. Although religion continued to occupy an
important place in the lives of the Christian humanists, such as Erasmus,
it was no longer the all-embracing, all-dominant factor that it has been
during the middle ages. And to the increasing number of pagan humanists,
God was completely displaced by man as the source of all power. For
man to submit to any authority that he himself had not created would
be unbefitting his dignity as a rational being. “I will not imitate things
glorious, no more than base; I’ll be my own example.”
The new spirit affected profoundly the political thinking of the period.
No better illustration of this can be found than the works of Niccolo
Machiavelli, the famous son of the Renaissance. A less well-known ex-
ample is the political writings of Marsilius of Padua, who lived in the
late middle ages or early Renaissance period. Although the latter re-
mained within the idiom of the medieval tradition, he presented a
political philosophy that was anticipatory of the great Florentine, and
was distinctly “modern” in its approach. Since Machiavelli repudiated
the medieval tradition of politics in its entirety, the works of Marsilius
are of interest in providing a transitional step from the old to the new.
As a modern commentator has observed, the Defensor Pacis of Marsilius
presents both the vestiges of medieval political ideas and the germs of
modern thought in such fashion that their interrelations are brought out
with great clarity.”

MARSILIUS OF PADUA

Marsilius’ ideas on the relationship between church and state have

already been considered; only that aspect of his writing which pertains
to his general political philosophy is of concern here. Marsilius follows
Aristotle’s ideas on the state and society in much the same way that
St. Thomas does, but his conclusions differ radically from those of the
latter. The divergence results primarily from the fundamentally different
concept of the relationship between faith and reason held by the two
thinkers. Thomas maintains that faith complements reason and _ that
therefore certain truths in the supernatural order, such as the existence
2 Alan Gewirth, Marsilius of Padua (New York: Columbia U, Press, 1951), Vol.
ls joy, HOE
3 See ante, Chapter VII.
170 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

of God and the divine origin of political authority, are subject to ra-
tional demonstration. Marsilius, on the other hand, regards faith and
reason as two completely separate spheres of truth, so distinct in fact that
contradiction between the two is possible.
From the standpoint of political philosophy, Marsilius’ position means
that the state must be studied from a purely secular standpoint without
any reference to the supernatural aspects of man’s life. By thus widening
the gap between faith and reason, the divine creation and end of man
are “no longer in any sense susceptible of rational proof, and consequently
the entire divine order exercises no control whatsoever upon a political
doctrine established by rational demonstration.”* St. Augustine and many
of the medievalists had emphasized the theological aspects of the state,
sometimes to the exclusion or at the expense of the natural. St. Thomas
had sought to reconcile the natural and the theological in his political
speculation. Marsilius rejects both these approaches by stressing the
secular aspects of the state to the total exclusion and without reference
to the spiritual.

The Nature and Purpose of the State

Marsilius holds to the organic theory of the state as commonly under-
stood. “Even as an animal that is well disposed in accordance with
nature is composed of certain proportionate parts ordained to one an-
other, which communicate their actions mutually to one another and
to the whole, so a state that is well disposed and instituted in accordance
with reason is constituted in a similar way.’® His conception of the
unity of this organism is, however, more in accord with the nominalistic
tendencies of later medieval thought than it is with traditional theory.
Aristotle had attributed to the state a unity of order, a formal unity that
is a proper object of rational thought, although it creates no new sub-
stance and leaves its parts still capable of individual and self-motivated
action.® Marsilius denies any such metaphysical reality to the state,
asserting that its unity consists simply in the acceptance by the people
of a common government.
The Paduan also differs with his predecessors over the purpose of
4 A, Gewirth, op. cit., p. 70.
5 Defensor Pacis, I, Chap. 2, sec. 3. Selections from the Defensor Pacis are taken
from Alan Gewirth’s translation, op. cit.
6 See ante, p. 70.
 THOUGHT OF RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION A

the state. He interprets the good or sufficient life as one of economic

and social security and of the fulfillment of man’s natural desires without
particular reference to ethical and moral values. He views the state pri-
marily as an agency for satisfying the material needs of man. His accent
is on the useful things of life, with no mention of the state as the
promoter of moral and intellectual virtues. The emphasis has been shifted
from ends to means. Politics loses its normative character and turns its
attention away completely from the ultimate goals of civil society to
those means necessary for the operation and preservation of the state.
The new twist which Marsilius gives to the political community
results from his basic psychology. Interpreting the social instinct to be
merely a biological urge, he states that the “natural” instinct for the
sufficient life consists essentially in the satisfaction of man’s physical and
biological desires — desires which he shares with “every genus of ani-
mals.”? Since the “natural” is purely biological, man’s desires will be
neither rational nor free; they will be as necessary and determined as
those of an animal. Given these premises, it is possible to construct a
science of politics with a degree of certitude similar to that enjoyed by
the physical sciences.

Popular Sovereignty
St. Thomas had located political authority in the community as a
whole and had looked upon the ruler as the delegate or vice-regent of
the people for the actual exercise of this power.’ Marsilius takes a similar
view, but his concept of law gives his theory of popular sovereignty a
coloration quite different from that of his predecessor. The crux of his
theory rests in the concept that lawmaking power has its ultimate source
in the civic community.
The legislator, or prime and proper effective cause of law, is the people
or body of citizens, or its more weighty part, through its choice or will
orally expressed in the general assembly of citizens, commanding or
determining, in regard to the civil actions of men that something be
done or not done, under penalty of temporal punishment.®
7 See Professor Gewirth’s analysis of this point, op. cit., pp. 54-66.
8 See ante, p. 153.
9 Defensor Pacis, I, Chap. 12, sec. 3. When Marsilius uses the expression “more
weighty part” he means more than a numerical majority. Although he nowhere
describes in detail how the voting is to be weighted, he makes it clear that both
quantity and quality must be taken into consideration in making the determination.
V2 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

This passage suggests that Marsilius considers the essence of the law to
be the coercive command and not right reason. He makes no mention
of law as a product of reason; instead he emphasizes its origination in
human will. He does not deny that the best law is that which is made
for the common benefit of the citizens; but the test for making this
determination is simply the “utility” of the law, that is whether it would
be beneficial in terms of satisfying the “natural” or biological desires of
the people.

Form of Government
Marsilius adopts the Aristotelian definition of citizenship as “any man
who participates in the civil community, in the principate or the council
or the jury, according to rank. By this definition boys, slaves, sojourners,
and women are excluded from the category of citizens.”?° This citizen
body makes up the “legislator” or the supreme lawmaking authority in
the state. It may itself exercise this power as in a direct democracy, or
it may transfer it to a smaller group of experienced men. “The whole
corps of citizens, or its weightier part, either makes law itself directly, or
entrusts this task to some person or persons, who are not and cannot be -
the legislator in the absolute sense, but only for specific matters, and
temporarily, and by virtue of the authority of the prime legislator.” It
is usually expedient for the people to make this delegation since law-
making can “more thoroughly be carried out by the observations of those
who have opportunity for leisure, the elders and those more experienced
in practical affairs who are called ‘the prudent’ rather than by the
opinions of artisans, who have to direct their activity toward acquiring
the necessities of life.”
Marsilius justifies the vesting of primary lawmaking authority in the
people on the Aristotelian principle that the collective judgment of the
many is better than that of a single individual or of a few. “For a greater
number can give more attention to a defect in a proposed law than can
any part of that number, since the whole of any body is at least greater
in mass and in virtues than is any of its parts separately.”** Since in most
cases it would be impractical for the whole citizen body to assemble for
lawmaking purposes, it is necessary that a smaller group of prudent and
expert men be elected to perform this function. The laws drafted by
10 Tbid., I, Chap. 12, sec. 4. 12 Ibid., I, Chap. 12, sec. 2.
11 [bid., I, Chap. 12, sec. 3. 13 Tbid., I, Chap. 12, sec. 5.
 THOUGHT OF RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION ye:
this agency should then be referred to the people for their approval or
rejection. This process resembles the modern referendum, or the practice
of referring certain laws to popular vote.
Once the laws have been enacted, their execution must be entrusted
to the political rulers. Marsilius is largely indifferent whether the adminis-
tration of public affairs be placed in the hands of a king or an aristoc-
tracy, although at one point he expresses a preference for monarchy.
Whatever the type, the choice of the ruler belongs to the citizen body,
since the law is to ruler as form to matter, and since the citizens generate
the form, it belongs to them to determine the matter of that form.

Significance of Marsilius
Although Marsilius still spoke in classical and medieval terms, the
orientation which he gave to political philosophy is startlingly “modern.”
Reading his Defensor Pacis, the present-day scholar cannot help but be
amazed at the many points in which he anticipates later theorists such
as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Austin, Bentham, and Rousseau. This modernity
expresses itself in at least four different aspects of his thinking:
1. Marsilius conceives of political power not in ethical and intellectual
but in utilitarian and biological terms. The raison d’étre of the state is
not to be found in ultimate ends and values but in the means for satisfy-
ing the common biological desires of the people. The basic question of
politics is no longer whether governmental institutions and functions are
legitimate in terms of ethical and rational norms but whether these insti-
tutions are capable of accomplishing the immediate material ends of
society. Marsilius assumes that the political ends which the community
seeks are just and for the benefit of the general good since these objec-
tives are initially defined by the “natural” appetites common to all men.
Professor Gewirth points out that Marsilius’ view of state functions as
those which are conducive to the maintenance of order, the promotion
of trade and commerce, and the freedom of the citizen in exercising his
proper activities makes him the first thorough spokesman of the bour-
geois state. While the traditionalists looked upon security only as a
necessary condition for the attainment of moral and intellectual per-
fection, the emerging age tended to discard this higher goal for the
state. In the new view, “the typical citizen is no longer the theologically
or aristocratically virtuous man but rather the bourgeois merchant or
artisan desiring above all else to be secure in what he has, and requiring
174 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

for this security that he be free in the sense of controlling the laws and
government under which he lives.”* The Epicurean had asked only peace
and security of the state; he had no desire to take part in its operations.
The bourgeois realized that if he was to have the security he desired, he
must himself control the organs of government.
2. Marsilius’ psychology had the effect of discarding natural law as a
norm and condition for political legitimacy. He did not, as Machiavelli
was later to do, hold that it is immaterial whether the ends which govern-
ment pursues are moral or immoral so long as they contribute to the
preservation of the state. Yet by discarding the traditional view that
political authority is limited by rationally apprehended ends, and by
equating man’s biological desires with the good, he was forced to accept
the proposition that whatever the will (based on the “natural” appetites)
of the weighted majority decrees must per se be legitimate and just.
3. The theory of law held by the Paduan is a forerunner both of the
Austinian concept of law as the command of the sovereign and the
doctrine of popular sovereignty as it found expression in Rousseau.
Human law, as Marsilius views it, is solely a product of the will and not
of reason. Its essential element is its coercive nature; its source rests in _
the will of the people. Conformity of the law to reason is no longer a
necessary attribute. A government acting in accordance with a duly
enacted law would be acting legitimately even though the law was morally
unjust. In medieval thought, such an enactment would lack the character
of true law, and hence its enforcement would rest on power alone and
not on right.
4. The procedure which Marsilius employs in his study of the state
stresses an aspect of political theory that had received little attention
during the middle ages. Preceding thinkers such as John of Salisbury,
John of Paris, and Thomas Aquinas had outlined the source and objec-
tives of political rule but had dealt only in vague terms with the institu-
tional means of conducting, limiting, and controlling civil power. Mar-
silius approaches his subject in reverse fashion. At the points where his
forerunners are vague, he is precise; but where St. Thomas and the others
carefully indicate the moral limits beyond which the state cannot go,
Marsilius merely observes that political power belongs to the people
without setting any limits on its exercise.
44 A, Gewirth, op. cit., p. 308,
 THOUGHT OF RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION 175

THE REFORMATION

On October 31, 1517, an Augustinian friar, Martin Luther, nailed his

historic ninety-five theses to the door of the castle church at Witten-
berg. In the religious upheaval which followed, the unity of the Christian
faith in western Europe was shattered and the Catholic Church was
reduced to the status of one among many confessions. The causes of the
Reformation were deep-seated and complex. Moral, doctrinal, economical,
and political factors contributed to the chain of events which occurred in
the wake of Luther’s action at Wittenberg. Although the movement was
primarily a religious one, it had far reaching consequences in the politi-
cal order.
The reasons for Luther’s revolt against the Roman Church, and the
doctrinal differences which he introduced, are only of indirect importance
to the development of political thought. What is perhaps most significant
from this standpoint is that Luther found it necessary to enlist the aid
of the German princes in the furtherance of his religious cause. The
immediate result of this action was inevitable: religion became more
dependent upon the secular authorities than it had been at any period
during the middle ages. Since this reliance came at a time when the
individual rulers were seeking to capitalize on the growing nationalistic
tendencies of the era, the support of the reformers strengthened and
enhanced the position of the secular authorities, and thereby unwittingly
contributed to the establishment of the absolute state.
For more than one thousand years there had been only one Church
in the western world standing as the teacher and guardian of revealed
truth. When the split came, men were not conditioned to accept a state
of religious toleration. On the side of the churchmen there was a strong
belief that the purity of religious doctrine must be preserved by public
authority, even to the extent of using force if necessary in the suppres-
sion of heresy. Similarly, on the side of the statesmen it was believed that
religious unity was an indispensable condition of public order. ‘The idea
that men of varying faiths could live side by side in harmony or that
political unity could be maintained amidst religious diversity was as yet
an untenable concept.
The strange principle of cujus regio, ejus religio (whoever rules the
territory determines the religion), which was established in the Religious
Peace of Augsburg in 1555, provides a graphic expression of this fecling.
176 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

Under the terms of the treaty, the ruler’s choice determined the estab-
lished religion of his territory. His subjects had to submit to the choice
or emigrate to another state. In the middle ages the universal church
had taught the true faith for the state to establish. The Peace abandoned
this time-honored parallelism by subjecting religion to state control, thus
creating the idea of a state-established religion.
The Reformation has much to offer in the way of political ideas, even
though these ideas are not always cast in a political idiom. The compet-
ing positions of the religious reformers with respect to clerical authority
and church institutions inevitably involved considerations of the political
and social order. Three stages may be noted in the development of the
political thought of the Protestant writers of the Reformation: (1) the
acceptance of the doctrine of nonresistance to secular rule, (2) the
theoretical justification of theocracy, and (3) the shift from the doctrine
of nonresistance to that of active opposition against tyrannical govern-
ment. The first found its best expression in Luther, the second in Calvin,
and the third in the writings of the Monarchomachs.

MARTIN LUTHER

In his powerful Address to the Christian Nobility, published in 1520,

Luther indicates his acceptance of the traditional principle that political
power resides in the whole community and that those who exercise it
do so with the consent of the people. Because all Christians are “of
equal standing, no one must push himself forward and without the
consent and choice of the rest, presume to do that for which we have
equal authority. Only by the consent and command of the community
should any individual person claim for himself what belongs equally
to all.’1> At the same time, Luther also holds to the proposition that
political power is divinely ordained. Like his medieval predecessors, he
could see no inconsistency in the theory that political power is at the
same time from God and from the people. However, as he became more
dependent on the princes for support, he tended to emphasize the divine
origin of political authority and to disregard the role of popular consent.
Proceeding next to the relationship between church and state, Luther
seeks to show that both clergy and laity are subject as individuals to the
15 Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, translated by B. L.
Woolf, Reformation Writings of Martin Luther (New York: Philosophical Library,
1955), Vou. lp. 115, ‘
 THOUGHT OF RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION 177

complete jurisdiction of the state in all matters not strictly of a religious

or spiritual nature. “Since the secular authorities are ordained by God to
punish evildoers and to protect the law-abiding, so we ought to let them
free to do their work without let or hindrance everywhere in Christian
countries and without partiality, whether for pope, bishops, pastors,
monks, nuns, or anyone else.’””1¢ This authority in the secular ruler extends
even to the correction of abuses existing in the ecclesiastical organiza-
tion. If reform is needed in the church and the pope fails to act “let
anyone who is a true member of the Christian community as a whole
take steps as early as possible to bring about a genuinely free council.
No one is able to do this better than the secular authorities, especially
since they are also fellow Christians, fellow priests, similarly religious,
and of similar authority in all respects.”
Largely because of the rapid growth of Lutheranism in Germany, its
founder was forced into the position of assigning to the state primacy
of jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical sphere. Although Luther’s theoretical
statements are not entirely explicit on this point, his actions are clear.
When it became imperative that a specially trained ministry and some
form of organization were needed to preserve doctrinal integrity and to
promote the orderly growth of the new religion, he turned to secular
government for assistance. Barred from establishing an_ ecclesiastical
hierarchy by his bias against institutions,® and unwilling to accept a
purely democratic church organization because of his distrust of popular
tule, he was compelled to adopt the secular alternative.
Under Luther’s system as it was finally worked out, overseers or super-
intendents were appointed by the princes to visit and inspect the parishes
and to advise the local pastors in matters of dogma and administration.

While we cannot issue any strict commands as if we were publishing

a new form of papal decrees. . . . We hope that they [pastors] will
not ungratefully and proudly despise our love and good intention, but
will willingly, without any compulsion, subject themselves in a spirit
of love to such visitation. . . .”"%

16 Tbid., p. 116.
17 Tbid., p. 122.
18 Luther’s teaching of the priesthood of all believers and his doctrine of justification
by faith alone implied that the religious community should not be subjected to
ecclesiastical governance.
19 Instructions for the Visitors of Parish Pastors, in Luther’s Works, American edition
(Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 19S), Voll, a0 o AWA
178 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

Closely related to this same area of inquiry is the question of whether

the secular arm should be used to suppress heresy. Luther first took a
negative position on the grounds that the ruler has no right to interfere
in the spiritual life of the individual. This is the work of the bishops for
heresy cannot be checked with temporal force. However, he later reversed
himself on this point when some of the more fanatical sects, such as the
Anabaptists, took the new religious formula “freedom of the Christian
individual” literally and threatened religious stability in those states
where Lutheranism had become the established creed. He then began
to hold that government cannot tolerate subversive religious beliefs since
these in turn may lead to civil strife. Public authorities must fix a limit
of toleration for heretical beliefs and must use force when this limit
is passed.
Luther’s reliance upon secular authority to police the church and to
enforce a degree of religious uniformity had important consequences. A
religion which had denied itself the power of an ecclesiastical organiza-
tion was now forced to rely on political rulers who were unhampered by
the traditional restraints of religious institutions.2® As a result of this
new orientation of the church-state question, the Lutheran churches
became in effect state churches managed by the princes, much like secular —
branches of the government —a result far different from that envisaged
by their founder. The German princes were not slow to take advantage
of the new theory in order to further their own interests and nationalistic
aspirations.
Perhaps the most important aspect of Luther’s political theory, as
distinguished from his political actions, is his doctrine of nonresistance
to political rule. The citizens, he asserts, owe the duty of full obedience
to their government. Even if the ruler is tyrannical and abuses his office,
the people have no right to rebel against him. It is improper for a Chris-
tian to set himself up against his government for any reason. If the ruler
demands obedience in things outside the temporal sphere, the subject
is under no moral compulsion to obey. Yet even in this case he has no
right to resist actively, but must suffer the penalty inflicted on him for
his disobedience.
The fact that the German princes owed political allegiance to the
emperor presented a theoretical difficulty for the doctrine of passive
20 See §. Wolin, “Politics and Religion: Luther’s Simplistic Imperative,’ American
Political Science Review, March, 1956, p. 33.
 THOUGHT OF RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION V79

obedience. As late as 1529 Luther had plainly indicated that he did not
approve of resistance by a prince to the emperor, for the latter is “the
lord and government placed above the princes.” To rise against him with
armed forces is a form of sedition and disobedience. The question
became a practical one in 1530 when the Catholic emperor Charles V
threatened to proceed against the heretical Protestant princes. The latter
now objected strenuously to the restriction which Luther had placed on
resistance. They argued that the emperor was chosen by the German
electors and ruled with their co-operation, and that consequently he had
no right to impose his will on them over their objections. Submitting
to this reasoning, Luther stated that the issue between the princes and
emperor was primarily a legal or constitutional one which could better
be decided by jurists than by theologians. The distinction was at best a
dubious one, but by employing it Luther sought to preserve the integrity
of the doctrine of obedience, while at the same time acceding to the
political exigencies which confronted him.
Luther has often been charged with inconsistencies in his political
thinking. We must remember, however, that he was first of all a theo-
logian — the founder of a great religious movement — and what political
theory he did express was wholly related to his religious aims. His
dramatic break with Rome was not paralleled by any new social or
political philosophy. To him the relation of man’s soul to God was of
far more importance than man’s position in the temporal world. He felt
that if man stood in the proper relation to his Creator, his relation to
society would right itself.2* Yet he knew that in the historical inter-
mixture of politics and religion in the sixteenth century, religious reforms
could not be accomplished in total disregard of political considerations.
Luther’s religious radicalism stands in strange contrast to his extreme
conservatism in political affairs. He rigorously questioned and even
attacked ecclesiastical authority but constantly stressed the duty of the
subject to obey faithfully the commands of the state. On the religious
side he advocated far-reaching reforms while on the political side he
urged quietism and passivity. Yet this apparently contradictory position
is not illogical in the light of Luther’s teaching. His theological doctrine
may have militated against an ecclesiastical authority but his concept of
human nature called for a strong civil rule. Men may be spiritually
oa See H. J. Grimm, “Luther, Luther’s Critics, and the Peasant Revolt,” The
Lutheran Church Quarterly, XIX, 1946, 115-132.
180 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

sovereign over their souls but they are essentially depraved. It is neces-
sary to keep the sword constantly hanging over their heads and to place
them under compulsion to render full obedience. For it would be
dangerous to order and stability if individuals were entrusted with the
discretionary right to decide when and under what conditions they will
submit to secular rule. Order must be imposed at all costs on the fallen
world of man.

JOHN CALVIN

Unlike Lutheranism, which was politically conservative and deferential

to state authority, Calvinism sought to penetrate all aspects of public
as well as private life with the influence of religion. Its founder, John
Calvin (1509-1564) came from a bourgeois family in northeastern
France. He studied at the University of Paris and received a law degree
at Orleans. In 1534 he broke with Catholicism and fled to Basel where
two years later he published his Institutes of the Christian Religion,
undoubtedly the greatest Protestant work on systematic theology pro-
duced during the Reformation period. The last chapter of the book deals
with his political philosophy. The principles he sets forth can best be-
understood in the light of the interpretation which they received in actual
practice. A rather unique opportunity is afforded in this connection, since
Calvin was able to put his political doctrines into operation in the city-
state of Geneva where he sought to establish a model Christian
government.
Calvin agrees with Luther as to the divine ordination of secular rule
and the duty of passive submission to such authority. It is impossible to
resist the magistrate without, at the same time, resisting God Himself.
Even the tyrannical ruler is to be tolerated and obeyed since obedience
is due to the office and not to the person. An impious king is “a judg-
ment of God’s wrath upon the world.” There are several passages in
Calvin’s writings which suggest that in certain cases inferior magistrates
can properly resist a tyrannical ruler. Private persons are never permitted
to resist; this right can be exercised only by officials, such as the Roman
tribunes, whose constitutional function is the protection of the people
against the wrongdoing of kings. “For if there be, in the present day,
any magistrates appointed for the protection of the people and the
moderation of the powers of the king. . . . I am so far from. prohibiting
them, in the discharge of their duty, to oppose the violence or cruelty
 THOUGHT OF RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION 181

of kings. . . .”** ‘hese passages were later utilized by his followers to

justify active resistance in countries such as Scotland, Holland, and France,
where Calvinism was in the minority.
Luther believed that civil government is primarily an instrument of
repression or a remedy for sin, and not a promoter of virtue. The political
order in his view is superfluous to the true Christian. Calvin, on the
other hand, seeks to bridge the alleged dialectical opposition between
the religious and secular societies and to re-establish the moral status of
the political order without making it appear as a substitute for religious
society.2? Condemning the sectarian view that political government is
“a polluted thing which has nothing to do with Christian men,” Calvin
underscores the large role which he assigns to the state.
. civil government is designed, as long as we live in this world, to
cherish and support the external worship of God, to preserve the pure
doctrine of religion, to defend the constitution of the Church, to
regulate our lives in a manner requisite for the society of men, to form
our manners to civil justice, to promote our concord with each other,
and to establish general peace and tranquility.”
Returning to the classical concept of the role of the statesman, he declares
that “no doubt ought now to be entertained by any person that civil
magistracy is a calling not only holy and legitimate, but for the most
sacred and honorable in human life.”?®
By restoring the high status of political society in the order of crea-
tion —a position that Luther denied to it — Calvin was able to reinvest
the political order with dignity and respect even for the true Christian.
His purpose in doing so was purely religious. If the power of the state
could be linked with the objectives of the religious society, an important
means of furthering these goals would thereby be established. Govern-
ment would then have as its function not only the preservation of life
and order but the enactment of laws “‘to regulate a man’s life among his
neighbors by the rules of holiness, integrity and sobriety.” It would see
to it “that idolatry, sacrileges against the name of God, blasphemies
against his trust, and other offenses against religion may not openly
appear and be disseminated among the people.”’°

22 Institutes of the Christian Religion, [V, xx, 31. Excerpts taken from John Calvin,
On God and Political Duty (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1956).
23 See in this connection S. Wolin “Calvin and the Reformation: The Political
Education of Protestantism,”’ American Political Science Review, June, 1957, p. 428 ff.
24 Institutes, IV, xx, 2. Ze Ibid. welVisak, 4 eer DIG gE V4 XX, <3
182 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

Calvin makes it quite clear, however, that decisions as to religious

matters lay outside the purview of the political rulers. “For I do not
allow men to make laws respecting religion and the worship of God...
though I approve of civil government which provides that the true religion
contained in the law of God be not violated and polluted by public
blasphemies with impunity.” All questions pertaining to religion, includ-
ing the interpretation of Scripture, must be confined strictly to the appro-
priate officials of the church. So long as the civil government comes
under the direct or indirect control of the religious society, the church
will be safe in the world and the world safe for the church.
Calvin objects in principle to any union of church and state, although
he admits that the two powers are bound to assist each other in the
execution of their respective tasks. How far the state is to aid the spiritual
sword is made clear by the practices that he inaugurated at Geneva. The
religious authorities were free to set their own standards of doctrine and
morals in accordance with their interpretation of Scripture. Once this
was done, it became the duty and responsibility of the civil authorities
to enforce these standards. In Geneva and Puritan Massachusetts this
meant rigid regulation of private conduct in social as well as religious.
matters. The state under clerical guidance had the function of purging
its citizenry of erroneous dogmas and of enforcing standards of piety
and conduct in such matters as dress and recreation. Attendance at
church services was compulsory, the wearing of jewelry and gay colored
clothes was prohibited, and all forms of entertainment were rigidly
restricted and supervised.
In Calvin’s practice, if not in his theory, the church is to dominate the
state with the latter serving primarily as an instrument for the establish-
ment of God’s glory. He envisioned a world ruled by the Old Testa-
ment — one in which the church would mold and direct the state and
government of men. To those who contend that the state should confine
itself to the administration of natural justice and natural law, Calvin
retorts “as though God appointed rulers in his own name to decide
secular controversies and disregarded that which is of far greater im-
portance — the pure worship of himself according to his law.’?8
Luther deviated from the traditional doctrine of the two swords by
entrusting primary responsibility for the care of the religious society to
the civil authorities rather than to an ecclesiastical hierarchy. In so doing,
27 Ibid. 28 Ibid., Book IV, xx, 9.
 THOUGHT OF RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION 183

he had unwittingly permitted the spiritual sword to come under the

control and domination of the temporal. Calvin also deviated from the
spirit of the Gelasian doctrine but in a way that differed radically from
Luther’s defection. By making the state a virtual agent of the religious
authorities, he combined both swords in the same hands, only in this
case the hands were those of the religious and not the temporal authori-
ties. The result was a theocratic government that ran counter to the
concept of the natural and autonomous sphere of state authority.

THE MONARCHOMACHS

The term “monarchomachs” refers to the theorists of the sixteenth

and seventeenth centuries who maintained the right of active resistance
against tyrants. While those who fell within this category held no single
or unified system of political philosophy, all of them were antiabsolutist
in their thinking. They generally held that all authority comes ultimately
from God but more immediately from the people who, in some way, are
the monarch-makers (monarchomachi). They considered the ruler to be
limited by divine, natural, and civil law, and held that when he violates
the law he becomes a tyrant. They also maintained that government is
created by a contract between the ruler and ruled. The monarcho-
machs included in their numbers both Protestant and Catholic writers.
The unknown author of the Vindiciae and John Ponet are representative
of the former, and Juan de Mariana of the latter.
When the Catholic monarchs of the post-Reformation period under-
took to stamp out heresy in France, the Protestant Huguenots, a sect
that drew its inspiration from Calvin, were placed on the defensive. As
the opposition between the monarchy and its Huguenot constituents
came to a crisis, Protestant writers began to discard the doctrine of pas-
sive submission and to argue for the night of active resistance against
a tyrannical ruler. The most influential work of this nature was the
famous Vindiciae contra tyrannos, or the Grounds of Right against
Tyrants, published anonymously in 1579.
The Vindiciae proceeds upon the theory that the secular ruler, although
his position is a divinely ordained one, derives his power immediately
from the people and is therefore accountable to them. The relationship
between king and people is governed by a twofold covenant: the first in
which God is one party and the king and people jointly the other; the
184 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

second between the king on one side and the people on the other. In the
first contract both ruler and subject pledge their faithfulness to God as
His people. In the second pact, which is of a political nature, the people
agree to obey the king so long as he rules justly and well.
The covenant with God imposes a duty on the state to support the
true worship. If the king disregards this religious responsibility, the people
have a clear right to resist or even depose him. Conversely, if the people
are heretical, the king may proceed against them. Each must be kept
within the divine law of God. (The difficulty lies in establishing who is
heretical and who is not. In the French controversy, for example, both
the king and the antiroyalist pamphleteers maintained that they were
upholding the true word of God.) More significant than the views of
the Vindiciae on resistance is the fact that its author makes no attempt
to justify the principle of religious toleration. The same can be said of
those who followed him in advocating resistance against the growing
absolutism of the monarchy in sixteenth-century France.
In England, John Ponet’s A Shorte Treatise of Political Power (1588)
represented the Protestant shift from the doctrine of unlimited obedience
to that of active resistance. Ponet wrote to justify the deposition of.
Mary who was “intent upon enforcing the demands of a false religion.”
He argues that political authority is merely a delegation of power from
the people and that if the ruler is a tyrant, he cannot be ordained of
God since it is evident that the people erred in choosing him. Ponet, as
other writers of the period, was able to offer no workable method short
of rebellion for expressing and enforcing the popular will in the face
of royal tyranny.
The literature prompted by the religious wars also included many tracts
against monarchical absolutism by Catholic writers such as Boucher and
Rossaeus in France and Mariana in Spain. Unlike most of the other
monarchomachs, the Spanish Jesuit Mariana wrote in a country in which
there was no difference of creed between rulers and subjects. In his De
rege et regis institutione (1599), he observes that government is the
natural result of the impulsion to fulfill human needs. Hence the com-
munity must always be able to control the political rulers who have been
created to serve its needs.
Together with the other antiabsolutist writers, Mariana feels that indi-
viduals should not take action against tyrants on their own initiative. It
is the responsibility of the representative body in the community — the
 THOUGHT OF RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION 185

estates general or parliament—to determine whether the prince has

become a tyrant. Once this official body has made such a finding, the
people are free to rise up against the ruler; in fact, any private citizen
may then assassinate the tyrant. But what if the ruler prevents the
assembly from meeting or acting? In that case, Mariana says, the private
citizen is justified in taking matters into his own hands and killing the
tyrant at his discretion. Mariana concedes that there are latent dangers
in his doctrine which could well strike at the root of political authority.
He argues, however, that men will put up with a great deal before they
will rise up against a ruler. And it is a salutary restraint upon princes to
let them know that they are subject to assassination if they become
oppressive.

SUMMARY
With the new spirit of individualism and the changed outlook introduced
by the Renaissance and Reformation, the traditional principles of political
philosophy had either to be replaced or adjusted to serve the changing
character of the western world. Political speculation could no longer be
cast in terms of one religion and one state; it had to accommodate itself
to many religions and many states. The Reformation, and indirectly the
Renaissance, not only destroyed the unity of religion but in doing so wrote
the final chapter in the ill-fated hope for political unity. The historical cir-
cumstances which compelled the Protestant churches to ally themselves with
the growing territorial states and their nationalistic aspirations strengthened
the movement toward political particularism. Moreover, by the emphasis which
they placed on the exalted position of the secular ruler, the early reformers
helped to enhance the office of the political sovereign, and inadvertently to
encourage the tendency toward state absolutism.
The transformation of political philosophy from the old order to the new
was not accomplished with ease or rapidity. The relative unity which political
thought had enjoyed for almost a millennium had been shattered, and the
pieces had once again to be reassembled as they had in the days following
the collapse of the city-state. While there had been differences in theory
during the medieval period, there had been essential unanimity with respect
to the fundamental concepts underlying civic life. The moral nature of man,
the ethical mission of the state, the existence of an objective moral law, the
idea of limited government, and the separate spheres of church and state
were premises denied by few.
With the new ideas introduced by the Reformation and more especially
the Renaissance, traditional principles came under vigorous attack in one
form or another. As they did so, the stream of speculative thought split into
186 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

separate channels, leading to the formulation of the divergent political

philosophies to which the western world has fallen heir. Traditional thought
continued on its course of development, adapting itself to the new historical
environment; but its features became more difficult of ascertainment as they
became gradually immersed in the new wellspring of modern ideas.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Acton, John, The History of Freedom and Other Essays (London: Macmillan,
1907,);
Allen, y W., A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (New
York: MacVeagh, 1928).
Armstrong, E., “The Political Theory of the Huguenots,” English Historical
Review, January, 1889.
Carlson, E. M., “Luther’s Conception of Government,” Church History,
December, 1946.
Dodge, G. H., The Political Theory of the Huguenots of the Dispersion
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1947).
Gewirth, Alan, Marsilius of Padua and Medieval Political Philosophy, 2 vols.
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1951).
Gilmore, M. P., The World of Humanism (New York: Harper, 1952).
Hearnshaw, F. J. C. (ed.), The Social and Political Ideas of Some Great
Thinkers of the Renaissance and Reformation (London: Harrap, 1925).
Hudson, Winthrop S., John Ponet: Advocate of Limited Monarchy (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1942).
Mackinnon, James, Calvin and the Reformation (London: Longmans, 1926).
Mueller, William, Church and State in Luther and Calvin (Nashville:
Broadman Press, 1954).
Murray, R. H., The Political Consequences of the Reformation (London:
Benn, 1926).
Richter, Werner, “Calvinistic Conception of the State,” Theology Today,
July, 1948.
Rommen, Heinrich A., “The Natural Law in the Renaissance Period,” Notre
Dame Lawyer, Summer, 1949.
Schwiebert, E. G., “Medieval Pattern in Luther’s Views on the State,’”’” Church
History, June, 1943.
Southgate, W. M., “Erasmus: Christian Humanism and Political Theory,”
History, October, 1955,
Tawney, R. H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: Harcourt
Brace,1926)".
Taylor, Henry O., Thought and Expression in the 16th Century (New York:
Macmillan, 1920).
Troeltsch, Ernst, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, Vol. 2,
trans. by O. Wyon (New York: Macmillan, 1931).
Waring, L. H., The Political Theories of Martin Luther (New York: Putnam,
LOTU):
Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. by
T. Parsons (London: G. Allen, 1930).
 Chapter X

MACHIAVELLI: THE NEW SCIENCE OF POLITICS

“And in the actions of men, and especially of princes from

which there is no appeal, the end justifies the means” (Mach-
iavelli, The Prince, Chap. 18).

No FicureE in political philosophy has been the subject of more varied

and contradictory appraisal than Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine
statesman turned writer. At one extreme, he has been denounced as the
teacher par excellence of political chicanery and treachery, as the incar-
nation of cunning and naked force in political affairs, and as the fore-
father of modern totalitarianism. Shakespeare’s Iago was purportedly
modeled after him, and Niccolo, transformed into “Old Nick” has become
an epithet equally applicable to both Machiavelli and the Devil himself.
To many, his name is a synonym for unscrupulousness in politics.
At the other end of the spectrum, the author of The Prince has been
lauded as a fervid Italian patriot dedicated to the common good of his
countrymen, as a great democrat, and as a thinker who has contributed
immensely to the cause of human freedom and the dignity of man by
freeing political philosophy from the shackles of the past. Modern scholar-
ship has treated him with more kindness than his contemporaries did,
sometimes to the point, it would seem, of distorting his true significance.
However we may view Machiavelli and whatever interpretation we may
1 An example of this is found in G. Ferrero, “Machiavelli and Machiavellianism,”
Foreign Affairs (April, 1939), pp. 569-577, where the author passes over Machiavelli’s
statements on political conduct as nothing more than “bad-tempered explosions.”
In a similar vein, James Burnham in The Machiavellians (New York: John Day, 1943)
observes that the harsh opinion of Machiavelli which has been more widespread in
England and the United States than on the Continent “is no doubt natural because
the distinguishing quality of Anglo-Saxon politics has always been hypocrisy, and
hypocrisy must always be at pains to shy away from the truth” (p. 77).
187
188 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

place upon his thought, two things are clear: one, he is a typical son of
the Italian Renaissance with its secular and this-worldly spirit, its classi-
cal perspective, and its scientific amoralism; two, he has proved to be
one of the most influential political writers of all times. Read with
fascination by statesmen and political leaders from the days of the
Medici to the era of modern totalitarianism, he has served as a source
of theoretical justification for power politics and for political actions of
an infamous and immoral character.
Napoleon Bonaparte declared that Machiavelli’s writings were the only
political works worth reading. Mussolini considered the Florentine his
spiritual and intellectual godfather, and studied his writings carefully.
Hitler is reported to have kept a copy of The Prince by his bedside, and
to have asserted that he ranked its author with the composer Richard
Wagner as among the important influences shaping his thought. Machia-
velli would probably have shuddered at some of the deeds later per-
petrated by those who claimed to be guided by his principles. He was a
sincere and honest man whose personal life was morally impeccable. Yet,
by divorcing ethics from politics and by excluding the question of
morality from public affairs, he helped to clear the way theoretically.
for the absolutist and later the totalitarian state with its incredible dis-
regard of human rights.

BACKGROUND OF MACHIAVELLI'S WRITINGS

Machiavelli was born at Florence in 1469 of a well-known and noble

family. His father was a lawyer who occasionally held public positions
in the city-state of Florence. Little is known of Niccolo’s education, but
it is reasonable to assume from his station in life and the knowledge
displayed in his writings that he received the liberal education normally
given members of his class. In 1498 he was appointed to one of the
principal secretaryships of the Florentine Republic, a post which he held
for fourteen years. The range of his duties gave him an insight into both
the internal management of the state and the conduct of foreign affairs.
In addition to his domestic duties, he was frequently sent on missions to
foreign powers where he came into contact with such political figures
as Louis XII of France, and Emperor Maximilian of Germany. A keen
observer with a penetrating and inquiring mind, he utilized his experi-
ences to learn how the politics of his day actually operated. Few, if any,
 MACHIAVELLI: NEW SCIENCE OF POLITICS 189

of his contemporaries could lay claim to so extensive and intimate a

knowledge of public affairs.
The political situation in Italy during Machiavelli’s lifetime was a
troubled one. The peninsula was divided into five separate states: Milan,
Venice, Naples, the Papal States, and Florence. Not only was the country
torn by internal dissensions among these various city-states, each plotting
for control, but it was also a pawn in the larger battle of power politics.
France, Germany, and Spain were the principal protagonists seeking
hegemony over the peninsula. In the interest of self-preservation, the
Italian city-states usually allied themselves with one of the great powers;
consequently, their individual positions came to depend largely upon
the fortunes of their protector. The Florentine Republic was allied with
France under this arrangement. Hence, when the French were driven
from Italy in 1512 by the other powers, the Medici (who had been
expelled in 1494) were able to regain control of the city and put an end
to republican government. Machiavelli was arrested in the purge which
followed, and after a short imprisonment he was banished to his country
home near San Casciano. It was here that he wrote his great works
including The Prince, the Discourses, a History of Florence, and a first
rate comedy entitled Mandragola. He never gave up his hope of returning
to public life; but while he was assigned to perform some minor tasks
during the reign of the Medici, he received no further public appoint-
ment even after the republic was restored in 1527.
Machiavelli lived and was part of a turbulent era in Italian politics.
Factional strife within the cities as well as difficulties and jealousies
among them led to constant warfare, to the rise of despots, to violence
and treachery in public office, and to conspiracies and _ assassinations.
Political morality reached a low ebb as individuals and states contended
for power. While these internal events were taking place, the problem
of dealing with the foreign states was always present. Obviously helpless
before the forces of the great powers, the small Italian city-states became
adept in the use of craft and diplomacy, playing off one country against
another. Machiavelli had the opportunity to observe all of this at first-
hand. His teachers of politics include men like the ruthless but able
Cesare Borgia, who thought nothing of having his own brother and
brother-in-law assassinated when it served his interest to do so. It was
against such a background of intrigue and violence that Machiavelli
fashioned his political philosophy.
190 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

THE NEW METHODOLOGY

The main concern of political thinkers up to the time of the Renais-

sance centered around ends and norms, around “what ought to be”
rather than “what is.” They were usually interested in the construction
of an ideal state or in writing handbooks for the moral guidance of the
princes. In so far as political thought is concerned, they were prone to
follow the speculative method of Plato rather than the empirical approach
of Aristotle. When they did discuss means and institutional devices,
they generally dealt with them in broad and abstract terms and with
little attempt to validate them in experience. Since the days of the
classical Greeks, the moral content of politics had remained strong but
the formulation of causal theory had made no noticeable advance. Mar-
silius was perhaps the first medievalist to emphasize the importance of
studying the means in politics; but his contribution in this direction
was not great, since he supported his observations by citing Aristotle’s
findings instead of making empirical investigations of his own.
With Machiavelli, a radically new methodology is introduced to the
study of politics. The change rests not so much in his orientation toward:
the analysis of concrete political behavior since Aristotle centuries before
had carefully collected factual data as a prerequisite to theoretical for-
mulation; it lies rather in his attempt to remove political reality totally
from its ethical context. Before him, political speculation had one central
question: the end of the state. Machiavelli ignores the matter of ethical
ends. He studies the political process solely for the purpose of deter-
mining the efhcacy of institutional practices and devices in terms of
stabilizing political power. He is not concerned with the morality or
immorality of political actions as they lead to or deviate from the moral
goals of man. He insists that the question of means can and should be
treated in a scientific manner without regard to the goodness or badness
of the ends.
Machiavelli has little sympathy for the Greek-medievalist orientation,
with its emphasis on the way things ought to be in the political order.
His approach is somewhat paradoxical since he attempts to divorce ethics
from politics and yet at the same time he actually makes ethical judg-
ments in the political sphere. He is not content merely to observe con-
temporary politics and to describe men’s social behavior. Although his
judgments and preachments are couched in pragmatic terms, they con-
 MACHIAVELLI: NEW SCIENCE OF POLITICS 191

tain within themselves a certain moral urgency, and even an ethical

imperative. He constantly criticizes the world of his day and repeatedly
tells statesmen how they ought to act. As he is fond of pointing out, the
methods which have proved most successful in attaining and preserving
political power should be carefully studied and analyzed. These means
ought then to be used by the rulers. It is in fact their moral obligation
to employ them in order that society may be stabilized and the general
welfare of the people promoted.
Machiavelli employs the comparative method in his approach to the
study of politics, relying largely on history for his empirical data. In his
introduction to the Discourses, he expresses his intention to relate “what
I have arrived at by comparing ancient with modern events, and think
necessary for the better understanding of them, so that those who read
what I have to say may the more easily draw those practical lessons which
one should seek to obtain from the study of history.”* His primary empha-
sis is not on pure research but on the discovery of universal rules of
action that could become the basis of success. His aim is to create a
science of politics, meaning by this a body of rules that governments can
follow and rely on absolutely. In the process, he gives his readers a col-
lection of concrete maxims or principles that rulers must observe in
various circumstances if they wish to succeed. Thus to him, political
science means the science of practical statecraft.
In line with his general objective, Machiavelli formulates certain
hypotheses or general propositions which he presumes to discover from
a reading of Livy’s works. He then proceeds to test these assumptions
in the light of examples taken from ancient and contemporary history.
By using this approach, he seeks to arrive at laws of cause and effect
which possess universal validity. Given such laws, man would be able to
forecast in present circumstances the effects of causes analogous to those
found operative in past situations. Similarly, given like circumstances
and an effect that man wishes to bring about, he could introduce the
appropriate cause to produce the desired result.
Machiavelli was concerned primarily with a methodology that could
be applied to the discovery of causal sequences within the domain of
politics and social behavior. At several points in his writings he indi-

2 Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius, translated from the Italian by
L. J. Walker in The Discourses of Niccolo Machiavelli (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1950).
192 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

cates that the laws applicable to the political order are similar to those
which operate in the physical universe. It is assumed, he states, that “all
our actions resemble those of nature”; hence it is just as impossible in
politics for a “slender trunk to support a heavy branch” as it is in nature.
So also medicine is “nothing but a record of experiments performed by
doctors of old upon which the doctors of our day base their prescrip-
tions,” while the civil law is “nothing but a collection of decisions made
by jurists of old, tabulated for our instruction.” There is something in
common, he observes, between the behavior of man and the process of
nature; hence the laws which are applicable to one should also be
applicable to the other.
As indicated above, one of the important assumptions underlying the
Florentine’s approach to the establishment of a political science is the
constancy of human nature. Men at all periods have been moved by the
same passions and their reactions have always been similar. “For there is
nothing in this world at present, or at any other time, but has and will
have its counterpart in antiquity; which happens because these things
are operated by human beings who, having the same passions in all ages,
must necessarily behave uniformly in similar situations.”* Historical
change is not an evolutionary development, but a perpetual repetition
of past situations and events. This view of historical recurrence permits
Machiavelli to turn to history for the discovery of general rules and
political precepts. It also enables him to regard these findings as possess-
ing universal validity since they have reference to events that are most
certain to recur.
If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that
in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same
passions as there always were. So that, if one examines with diligence
the past, it is easy to foresee the future of any commonwealth, and to
apply those remedies which were used of old; or, if one does not find
that remedies were used, to devise new ones owing to the similarity
between events.‘ ;

MACHIAVELLIS PSYCHOLOGY
The seemingly divergent views in the political writings of Machiavelli
can be reconciled only in the light of his theory of man. It is not sur-
prising that his intimate experience in the corrupt politics of his day
3 Discourses, op. cit., III, 43. 4 Tbid., I, 39.
 MACHIAVELLI: NEW SCIENCE OF POLITICS 193

gave him a rather dim and contemptuous picture of human nature. One
must take for granted “that all men are wicked and that they will always
give vent to the malignity that is in their minds when opportunity offers.”
It is common knowledge that they never do good unless necessity drives
them to it.
Those who have discussed the problem of civic life demonstrate . .
that whoever organizes a state and arranges laws for the government of
it must presuppose that all men are wicked and that they will not
fail to show their natural depravity whenever they have a clear oppor-
tunity, though possibly it may lie concealed for a while.°
Men are “ungrateful, voluble dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger and
covetous of gain.”° They are animals motivated primarily by self-interest,
personal aggrandizement, fear, vanity, and the lust for power. Only by
shrewdness and a calculating ruthlessness can the individual hope to
cope with his environment and satisfy his appetites and instincts.
Machiavelli could point to some of the medieval thinkers who looked
upon man with a substantial measure of distrust. He could not, how-
ever, have cited any precedent for the view of human nature which he
expresses in the famous passage of the lion and the fox. Discussing the
ways in which a prince must keep good faith with his subjects and those
with whom he deals, he points out that there are two ways of fighting,
“the one by law, the other by force; the first method is that of men, the
second of beasts.” Since the first is often insufficient, the ruler must
occasionally resort to the second. “It is therefore necessary for a prince
to know well how to use both the beast and the man .. . to use both
natures.”” In the employment of his animal nature, man should learn
to imitate both the fox and the lion since “the lion cannot protect him-
self from traps and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.” A good
ruler must
be a fox to recognize traps and a lion to frighten wolves. Those who
wish to be only lions do not understand this. ‘Therefore, a prudent
ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against
his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no
longer exist.’
In a penetrating analysis of Machiavelli, Charles N. R. McCoy sug-
5 Ibid., iL Be
8 The ’Prince, Modern Library Edition (New York: Random House, 1940), p. 61.
7 Ibid., p. 64.
194 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

gests that the Florentine considers the animal and rational nature of
man as two unrelated principles of action. By his animal nature man
acts like a beast, and by his rational nature he acts like a man. For a man
to act like a beast, moreover, requires intelligence and demands the exer-
cise of the rational principle in behalf of the animal nature. The lion
can never act as a fox, but man, precisely because he is a rational being,
is able to assume the character and qualities of several different beasts
as the occasion demands. By failing to perceive that man is substantially
a rational animal, Machiavelli fails also to see that the animal passions
and appetites in man are ordered under the rational principle, and that
there is a right desire, a right fear, and a right use of force which are
properly attributable to man as man.® It is, in other words, proper for
man to use force in certain circumstances when reason demands such
action. When man so acts under the rational principle, he is acting in a
mode suitable not to beasts but to man. Only when the passions are
not so ordered, can man be said to act as a beast. Machiavelli, on the
contrary, assumes that to be forceful and fearful is always to act as a
beast; and a beast is not subject to reason.
The logical implications of Machiavelli’s position are clear. By separat-_
ing the two natures and placing them on a virtual par, man’s so-called
animal nature is released from subordination to the rational and pru-
dential principle and is left free to be its own directive force. Such a
position virtually drafts the rational side of man into the service of the
animal principle in such a way that reason becomes a mere instrumen-
tality for satisfying the desires of the sensual appetites. An animal with
reason at its command and disposal can be a far more dangerous creature
than the most ferocious of wild beasts.

THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS

Modern scholarship generally holds that Machiavelli’s first interest

and his primary objective is the good of the Italian people. There is no
reason nor any necessity for denying this appraisal. The classical indict-
ment of the Florentine is not directed against his motives but against
the theoretical framework which he fashioned and its logical untenability.
Machiavelli follows the ancient tradition in distinguishing between king-
8 “The Place of Machiavelli in the History of Political Thought,” American Political
Science Review, Aug., 1943, p. 633.
 MACHIAVELLI: NEW SCIENCE OF POLITICS 195

ship and tyranny— the one embodying a rule for the common benefit of
the governed; the other consisting of a rule for the personal gratification of
the governor. The good ruler is one “whose intention is to govern not
in his own interests but for the common good, and not in the interest
of his successors but for the sake of that fatherland which is com-
mon to all.’®
Leaving aside for the moment the vital question as to how Machiavelli
defines the common good, it will be enlightening to examine the means
which he advocates for the attainment of social and political objectives.
His position in this regard is frank and clear. In the Discourses, he sets
forth as a sound maxim that “reprehensible actions may be justified by
their effects, and that when the effect is good, as it was in the case of
Romulus, it always justifies the action.” Romulus is to be commended
for murdering his brother Remus since “what he did was done for the
common good and not to satisfy his personal ambition.’”’!° This same
idea, which dominates the whole of Machiavelli’s theory, is repeated in
The Prince, where he flatly states that in human actions “the end justifies
the means.”!?
Given a good end, which the statements in the Discourses presuppose,
all necessary means may be used to attain it. The ruler is under no com-
pulsion to debate whether his actions are morally proper or whether
there are ethical limits beyond which he may not go. There are no crimes
in politics, only stupid mistakes. Freed from the need for moral con-
siderations, the prince can devote his full energy to empirical decisions.
All the methods of the tyrant are legitimately thrown open to him. The
only restriction is that he employ them for a proper end (the common
good as defined by Machiavelli) and that he have reasonable grounds
to assume that the selected means will be conducive to the attainment
of the desired objective.
In classical and Christian thought, the means must always be com-
mensurate or proportionate to the end. To speak of evil means and a
good objective is incomprehensible. Actions which deviate from the
natural or divine law are considered morally wrong and no end, no
matter how elevated, can possibly justify them. The traditional belief
that certain acts are intrinsically wrong regardless of the end for which
they are performed is well expressed by Aristotle in the following passage:

9 Discourses, op. cit., 1, 9. 10 [Tbid., 11 The Prince, op. cit., p. 66.

196 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

But not every action nor every passion admits of a means; for some
have names that already imply badness, e.g., spite, shamelessness, envy,
and in the case of actions, adultery, theft, murder; for all of these
and such like things imply by their names that they are themselves
bad, and not the excesses or deficiencies of them. It is not possible,
then, ever to be right with regard to them; one must always be wrong.
Nor does goodness or badness with regard to such things depend on
committing adultery with the right woman, at the right time, and
in the right way, but simply to do any of them is to do wrong.”
Machiavelli’s treatment of ends and means marks an abrupt break with
this past. He himself acknowledges the radical innovation of his approach:
I break away completely from the principles laid down by my pred-
ecessors. But my intention being to write something of use to those
who understand, it appears to me more proper to go to the real truth
of the matter than to its imagination . . . for how we live is so far
removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is
done for what ought to be done, will rather learn to bring about his
own ruin than his preservation.18
Machiavelli seeks to avoid the logical difficulty implicit in the ques-
tion of ends and means by isolating the political sphere for separate .
analysis and by emancipating its laws from the regulation of morality.
No recognition of natural law, only a challenge to it, is found in this
line of thinking. The whole cast of the new social philosophy prohibits
the regulation of political and social conduct by reference to any tran-
scendent moral norm. It would be patently inconsistent to link a doc-
trine of unmitigated expediency to the existence of a natural law. One
or the other must be relegated to the scrap heap. Machiavelli’s choice
is clear and unequivocal.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MORALITY

If it is true, as Machiavelli seems to hold, that moral considerations

can be restricted to the individual’s private life, it would then be possible
to place the governance of the state upon a wholly amoral and pragmatic
basis. And if such is the case, the ruler would act under a double stand-
ard of conduct. As a private individual, his behavior should conform to
his religious and moral convictions. When he acts in the capacity of
a public official, his actions must be regulated solely by practical con-
sequences without regard for moral considerations. This dichotomy be-
12 Nicomachean Ethics, II, 6. 13 The Pruce. op; cits. p. 56,
 MACHIAVELLI: NEW SCIENCE OF POLITICS 197

comes especially noticeable at a time of national crisis, “for when on

the decision to be taken wholly depends the safety of one’s country,
no attention should be paid either to justice or injustice, to kindness or
cruelty, or to its being praiseworthy or ignominious. On the contrary,
every other consideration being set aside, that alternative should be
wholeheartedly adopted which will save the life and preserve the freedom
of one’s country.’
The question of public and private morality is one of the most im-
portant issues raised by Machiavelli. Are the rules of morality different
for the statesman than they are for the private individual? Is there a
double standard of ethics or a special political morality that gives the
public official more latitude than the private individual? For the tradi-
tionalist, the answer is an emphatic no. He recognizes no_ bifurcated
standard of conduct but regards evil as always evil whether committed
in a public or private capacity. In terms of Christian ethics, the morals
of the statesman qua statesman and those of the individual qua individual
are governed by precisely the same laws. Since the application of these
laws may differ in given historical situations, prudence may dictate that
the government official follow a course of conduct in a matter of public
concern different from that which he would pursue were the matter
one of private relations. In either case, the standard would remain
the same.*®
By isolating the political sphere for separate analysis and by divorcing
political from private morality, Machiavelli is able to view the state
and society in a purely amoral and detached manner. Man’s ethical con-
cerns and religious beliefs matter little in the formulation of a public
philosophy since they belong to an entirely different arena. Machiavelli
would have enthusiastically applauded Hitler’s insincere pre-war treaties
and Stalin’s cleverly devised purges of the 1930’s as strokes of master
statesmanship. No moral scruples would have caused him to condemn
these acts. They would have been perfectly justified in his eyes since
their objective was the retention and stabilization of political power.

NOTION OF THE COMMON GOOD AND VIRTUE

Machiavelli’s use of traditional terminology, such as the common good

14 Discourses, op. cit., III, 41.
15 For an interesting discussion of this point in nontechnical terms see Joyce Cary,
“Political and Personal Morality,’ The Saturday Review, Dec. 31, 1955.
198 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

and virtue, has contributed greatly to the difficulty in interpreting his

thought. To resolve the differences which appear to be irreconcilable
in his writings, it is necessary to compare his use of the terms common
to the history of political thought with the traditional meaning attached to
them. Once his understanding of these common expressions is clearly
understood, the consistency of his political theory becomes more evident.
In the Graeco-medieval concept of the common good, two basic ele-
ments are present: the good must be for the commonalty, not for the
benefit of the ruler or for any particular individual; and what is good
for the community is that which is rooted in and measured by the
natural law, not that which is based on the arbitrary will of man. Machia-
velli accepts the first attribute but rejects the second. He insists that
the political ruler must not act for his own advantage but for that of
the people. At the same time he determines the validity of the prince’s
action not by any moral standard, but by the pragmatic test of success
measured in terms of stabilizing and preserving political power. If every-
thing that is successful is good morally speaking, Machiavelli’s differ-
ences with the main stream of western thought would not be great;
but the inconsistency of trying to equate success with goodness is too .
patent. Traditionally, goodness or badness is a matter to be determined
in the light of the natural and divine law. By rejecting this standard,
Machiavelli severs the notion of the common good from its ancient and
moral source. He maintains that if a ruler acts out of love for his coun-
try and is successful, his efforts are in the interests of the common good.
The traditionalist insists that simply because a ruler acts in behalf of
the people, it does not necessarily follow that his acts are good; all that
can be said is that they fulfill the element of commonalty.
Machiavelli’s use of the term “virtue” has caused similar difficulties.
No word occurs with greater frequency in The Prince and the Discourses
than virtt. The notorious Cesare Borgia is described as a man who
rose to power because of his great virtue. So also, the Roman general
Severus is depicted as a person of eminent virtue despite his extreme
cruelty and rapaciousness. It is quite apparent that Machiavelli employs
the term in a purely political sense without any ethical significance. He
describes virtu almost wholly in reference to the means one might
employ in order to attain a chosen end. The virtuous man is marked by
his skill in choosing effective means, in utilizing them with strength
and vigor, and in resolutely seeking to achieve his goal, whatever it
 MACHIAVELLI: NEW SCIENCE OF POLITICS 199

might be. The virtuous prince is the successful, efficient, and able ruler.
Whether he attains his objectives by corrupt, wicked, or even treacherous
means is of no matter so long as his actions are designed to benefit the
people. Thus Agathocles, a Sicilian ruler, is criticized by Machiavelli
for killing his fellow citizens and betraying his friends because these acts
were performed for his personal aggrandizement and not for the good
of his country.
Machiavelli also occasions some confusion by insisting that the prince
should ordinarily be truthful and honest. Yet here again, these statements
are nothing more than expressions of the pragmatic attitude that “honesty
is the best policy.” The reason for being truthful or honest in public
life is not that such conduct is ethically proper but that it is the most
expedient way of acting under the particular circumstances. “Thus it is
well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious, and also to
be so; but you must have the mind so disposed that when it is needful
to be otherwise you may be able to change to the opposite qualities.”*¢
It is useful or good policy, in other words, for one to possess such attributes
because generally they are of assistance in attaining desired ends. Dis-
honesty and corruption often lead to the downfall of those who resort
to their use.

THE PRINCE AND THE DISCOURSES

Another major problem in trying to understand Machiavelli arises

from the apparently flagrant contradictions that exist between The Prince
and the Discourses. From a reading of the latter, we discover that the
Florentine’s chief concern is the good of the Italian people; in the
former we are furnished with what is sometimes characterized as a “‘hand-
book for tyrants.” Modern scholarship endeavors to reconcile the two
by pointing out that The Prince must be read in the light of the Dis-
courses. An example of this is found in Max Lerner’s introduction to
The Prince in which he insists that when we talk of Machiavelli we must
keep the Discourses in mind as well; and that if we are to judge a man,
it is fairer to judge him by the book which contains his whole system
of politics rather than by the pamphlet which he dashed off to influence
or win the graces of a particular personage.”
The argument for considering the two works together is certainly
16 The Prince, op. cit.,p.65.
17 Modern Library edition, op. cit., Pp. XXXVI.
200 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

valid, but in following this procedure cognizance must be taken of the

manner in which Machiavelli uses traditional terms. If, for example,
the investigator finds that the Discourses point to the common good as
the primary end of political action, and if he accepts that term in its
traditional sense, he cannot by any feat of legerdemain reconcile the two
works. For when he comes to The Prince, he immediately discovers (if
he has not already done so in the Discourses) that the ruler is permitted
to use immoral means to achieve the general welfare. Thus only if the
common good is understood in an amoral sense, as Machiavelli means
it to be throughout his political writings, does The Prince become intelligi-
ble in the light of the Discourses. If tyrannical rule is necessary to attain
the common good, then tyranny shall it be. If the people have to be
forced to be “free,” then let force be used.
There is a second discrepancy between the two works that relates
to the type and form of governmental rule. In the Discourses, Machiavelli
declares himself in favor of a republican form of government presumably
with a large area of personal freedom and political participation for the
individual. Conversely, The Prince deals exclusively with states ruled by
a single person with supreme and absolute power. In seeking to recon-
cile these two approaches, some commentators contend that although
Machiavelli considered a republic as the ideal form of government, he
recognized that such a type can exist only when the historical circum-
stances and the political characteristics of a people are favorable. Since
the Italy of his day was disunited and torn with strife, and since the
people as well as their public officials had sunk into a state of extreme
political corruption, the time was inopportune for republican government.
Hence, the argument goes, Machiavelli was reluctantly compelled to in-
sist that the only type of rule which would be successful in Italy would
be that of a virtual tyrant who could crush all opposition and unify the
country.
An interpretation of this kind may seem reasonable, but it overlooks
the fact that Machiavelli’s psychology and the basic principles which
underlie both of his major political works scarcely permit any form of
government other than that which he describes in The Prince. If man is
by nature perverse and thoroughly corrupt and if morality has no place
in public life, then a ruthless and absolute tyrant is needed to suppress
the viciousness of the people and to maintain order. It would be ridiculous
 MACHIAVELLI: NEW SCIENCE OF POLITICS 201

to entrust any degree of political power to a mass of people possessed

of the nature which the Florentine attributes to them.
By looking upon political rule as an independent force governed by
its own functional laws and dissociated with whatever moral principles
might apply to men’s private actions, Machiavelli’s political philosophy
opens the door to unlimited state action —to fascist totalitarianism as
well as Hobbesian absolutism, His theoretical framework commits him,
in short, to the necessity of absolute power, preferably perhaps in the
hands of a benevolent prince, but absolute regardless of who might
hold it. Therefore, even when The Prince is interpreted within the frame-
work of the Discourses, the antidemocratic character of Machiavelli’s
thinking still remains unmistakably evident.

FORTUNE

Machiavelli’s plan to formulate universal laws of political conduct

and social behavior starts from the premise of the physical scientist that
all natural events obey the same invariable laws. It seeks to show that
the political scientist works with history to discover the laws governing
the social order in much the same manner that the chemist studies with
cold detachment the action and reaction of physical substances. Machia-
velli feels that by following this process, definite guides can be found
to the concrete problems which face the contemporary statesman. Yet
in spite of the confidence with which he approaches his subject, he
is too much of a realist to disregard the element of unpredictability in
human affairs. He is well aware that while man may anticipate the future
to a certain degree, he cannot foretell it with any high measure of certi-
tude. This factor of unreliability poses the problem of how the principle
of universal determinism can be made applicable to the field of politics,
as The Prince and the Discourses seek to make it.
Ernst Cassirer has pointed out that the clear dichotomy between
Machiavelli’s “‘scientism” and the actual conduct of human affairs was
one of the great puzzles that his political theory was forced to face.
The Florentine on occasions had found his political experience in flagrant
contradiction to his general scientific principles, and he had seen that
even the best political advice is sometimes ineffective. A ruler may be
observing the lessons of the past with due diligence only to be thwarted
202 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

in his designs by a sudden and unexpected change in the course of

affairs. Did these vicissitudes mean that there is no necessity in political
events and that, contrasted with the physical realm, the social and politi-
cal order is governed by mere chance? Cassirer believes that Machiavelli
saw this apparent contradiction clearly but that his logical and rational
method was unable to solve it and, in fact, deserted him at this point.
Forced to admit that human actions are not entirely describable in terms
of reason or scientific principles, Machiavelli turns for explanation not
to the Christian concept of Divine Providence but to the essentially
pagan idea of Fortune, “an impetuous river that when turbulent inun-
dates the plains, casts down trees and buildings, removes earth from this
side and places it on the other.”?®
Presumably, Machiavelli feels that if man could understand the role
that Fortune plays in history, he could master and utilize it for his own
advantage, “for if one could change one’s nature with time and circum-
stances, fortune would never change.’ The ruler who is able to adapt
his actions to the needs and spirit of the times, who can act cautiously
when caution is demanded and impetuously when impetuousness is called
for, can control and harness Fortune to his own use. Those who are.
not afraid to resist the demands of Fortune and who refuse to be subdued
by her are destined for success. “Fortune is a woman, and it is necessary,
if you wish to master her, to conquer her by force; and it can be seen
that she lets herself be overcome by the bold rather than by those who
proceed coldly. And therefore, like a woman, she is always a friend to
the young, because they are less cautious, fiercer, and master her with
greater audacity.”*° Little of the scientific method remains evident in
this mythical description; yet is Machiavelli to be blamed for failing to
explain the inscrutable truths of the universe in empirical terms?

THE NATURE OF THE STATE

Machiavelli has little to say about the nature and organization of the
state. Although he treats it as existing in its own right without reference
to any higher order, he never asks the question, “what is the state?”
The conception of the community as an organic growth which the
political rulers can affect only to a limited degree is entirely absent in
his thinking. He shows no awareness of the corporate character of the
18 The Prince, op. cit., p. 91. 19 Tbid., p. 93. 20 [bid., p. 94.
 MACHIAVELLI: NEW SCIENCE OF POLITICS 203

body politic. His distrust of human nature leads him to place the political
tuler outside the group and even to free him from the morality enforced
within the society. Despite his expressed preference for the Roman
Republic, his state approaches closer to the leviathan of Hobbes than the
organic commonwealth of the classicists.
There are no specifically formulated ideas as to the range of state
functions in Machiavelli’s writings. His theory certainly includes no
conception of the principle of subsidiarity as an operative standard to
be applied in the interest of individual self-fulfillment. Apparently, he
would permit an area of freedom to the people so long as it did not
interfere with the safety and stability of the political order. Yet if legis-
lation and social organization must proceed from the fact that man is
basically evil, the range of political liberty that can safely be allowed
is indeed narrow. At any rate, whatever freedom the people possess to
exercise initiative in the political community would be granted in the
interest of expediency and not of ethical right.

SUMMARY
In a prefatory note to an article which appeared several years ago in the
Saturday Review, the editors remarked that “‘the politician lives in a world
of half truths, complexities, and impurities not because he is a liar or a crook
but because that’s the way he finds the world.”?1 Machiavelli would have
fully concurred with this observation since it expresses so well the point that
he was seeking to emphasize. If a man desires to improve the social order,
he must not blind himself to the realities of human conduct. As a_ political
scientist, he must study and try to understand things as they are, he must face
the unpleasant as well as the agreeable, he must realize that political theory
cannot be formulated in an ivory tower. Only if man thoroughly understands
the functioning of the social and political processes in a time and space context
can he hope to contend with the evil that exists and to lead society toward a
better life. Machiavelli’s insistence on empirical research to determine the
“what is’ in the political order came as a wholesome leaven to an age that
was far too inclined to overlook the necessity of experiential investigation.
Unfortunately, however, the Florentine’s real significance in the history of
western civilization does not lie in his contributions to social methodology
but in his philosophical justification for political amorality.
Prior to Machiavelli, there had been rulers who had acted in a corrupt,
ruthless, and tyrannical style; but no political thinker had sought to justify
such actions on philosophical grounds. Before Machiavelli rulers had felt guilty

21 See Joyce Cary, ‘Political and Personal Morality,” op. cit.

204 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

or at least shameful in using such methods. After him, they could feel that
in employing injustice for establishing order they were accomplishing their
duty as political heads of state. Few expressions in political history have had
greater significance than the passage in The Prince which sums up the doctrine
known as Machiavellianism. “A man who wishes to make a profession of good-
ness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not
good. Therefore it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself,
to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it,
according to the necessity of the case.’’?? For Machiavelli, the doctrine “live
as the world lives” is the same as the ordinary vulgar belief that morality
does not pay. Such a doctrine is clearly an invitation to immorality. Its only
purport is to reduce the conduct of good men to the standards of the worst.*°
The good prince must be one who is not attached to the principles of
morality since the observance of such laws might hamstring him in his efforts
to achieve the common good. But who is to be the judge of this common
good? Obviously, no one but the prince himself. And “if the common good
could justify all those things that are recommended in Machiavelli’s book, if
it could be used as an excuse for fraud and deception, felony, and cruelty,
it would hardly be distinguishable from the common evil.”’?4
Machiavelli is often referred to as the father of “power politics,” a term
that has assumed such great importance in the modern era. Power is for those
who have the skill to seize it and the ability to hold it. The traumatic experi.
ence with the politics of his day undoubtedly blinded Machiavelli to the fact
that the mystery of power is not the whole of politics, for the pertinent reason
that the lust for power is not all there is to human values. Thus, while the
author of The Prince was not oblivious to other factors in politics, his picture
of political reality was certainly out of focus.?°
Power politics existed long before Machiavelli’s time. What he did was
not only to recognize its existence and raise its problems to the level of scien-
tific study but, more importantly, to free it from all moral limitations. This
detachment followed from his basic premise that politics has a value system
of its own which is different from that of personal ethics. He looked upon
power as the nexus of this system since without power the realization of social
goals is impossible. Hence anything which is conducive to the acquisition,
retention, and expansion of political power is justified even though it may be
distinctly evil from the viewpoint of private morality and religion.
‘Traditional thought finds no quarrel with the observation that power is a
necessary element in government, but it insists that power is only a means
for the attainment of given ends — ends that are determined by the nature
22 The Prince, p. 56.
°S 1. Butterfield, The Statecraft of Machiavelli (New York: Macmillan, 1956),
pp. 112-113.
*4 Ernst Cassirer, The Myth of the State, op. cit., p. 145.
2° See Eric Voegelin, “Machiavelli’s Prince: Background and Formation,” Review
of Politics, Apr., 1951.
 MACHIAVELLI: NEW SCIENCE OF POLITICS 205

of man. The use of power to achieve these goals must be commensurate and
proportionate to the objectives. The force of the state must be rightful force,
and its goodness or badness must be determined by its conformity to moral
norms, and not solely by its success or lack of success in achieving political
victories. ‘The peculiar connotation which is today attached to the term
“power politics” — that naked force or measures of pure expediency can and
in fact should be used if necessary to attain the purposes of the state — is
distinctly the offspring of Machiavellian political philosophy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abraham, H. J., “Was Machiavelli a Machiavellian?” Social Science, January,
1953:
Burnham, James, The Machiavellians (New York: John Day, 1943).
Burns, E. M., “Liberalism of Machiavelli,” Antioch Review, September, 1948.
Butterfield, Herbert, The Statecraft of Machiavelli (New York: Macmillan,
1956).
al ce Ernst, The Myth of the State (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1946).
cy Guglielmo, “Machiavelli and Machiavellianism,” Foreign Affairs,
April, 1939.
Gilbert, Allan H., Machiavelli’s Prince and Its Forerunners (Durham: Duke
University Press, 1938).
Gilbert, Felix, ‘““The Humanist Concept of the Prince,” Journal of Modern
History, December, 1939.
“The Composition and Structure of Machiavelli’s Discorsi,” Journal
of the History of Ideas, January, 1953.
Hancock, W. K., “Machiavelli in Modern Dress: An Inquiry into Historical
Method,” History, September, 1935.
Kraft, J., “Truth and Poetry in Machiavelli,” Journal of Modern History, June,
1951.
Maritain, Jacques, “The End of Machiavellianism,” Review of Politics, January,
1942.
McCoy, Charles N. R., ““The Place of Machiavelli in the History of Political
Thought,” American Political Science Review, August, 1943.
Strauss, Leo, “Machiavelli’s Intentions,” American Political Science Review,
March, 1957.
Voegelin, Eric, “Machiavelli’s Prince: Background and Formation,” Review of
Politics, April, 1951.
Whitfield, John H., Machiavelli (Oxford: Blackwell, 1957).
 Chapter XI

THE SOVEREIGN STATE

“Behind the Western bars

The shrouded day retreats,
And unperceived the stars
Steal to their sovran seats”
(Robert Bridges, The Clouds Have Left the Sky).

Tue outstanding political fact of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-

turies is the substitution of the national state for the dynastic feudalism
of the middle ages. As western Christendom developed into separate and
competing states, the tradition of European unity was gradually discarded.
In the transformation, political speculation became cast within the
framework and in terms of the new political unit. Just as the center
of political thought in antiquity was the city-state and in the middle ages
universal empire, so the national state became the central concept of
modern political theory.
During the medieval period there had been no clear conception of
the state as a sovereign body exercising supreme power within its own
borders and enjoying complete independence from other political en-
tities that existed outside its territorial limits. The presence of two
spheres of authority — church and state—each with its own organiza-
tion and legal system, the decentralizing effects of feudalism on political
control, and the fiction of universal empire made the idea of national
sovereignty difficult of comprehension. Professor Merriam cites four
obstacles that stood in the way of a strong doctrine on the nature of
sovereignty during the middle ages: (1) the idea of the dominance of
divine and natural law over positive law; (2) the church-state conflict;
(3) the prevalent idea in favor of a mixed form of government; and
(4) the feudal condition of the state.
1 Charles FE. Merriam, History of the Theory of Sovereignty Since Rousseau (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1900), p. 13.
206
 THE SOVEREIGN STATE 207

The classical writers and the medievalists realized the necessity of

a supreme power in the body politic. They knew that there must be
some person or agency at the top with power to make final political
decisions which are not appealable to any higher governmental authority.
They did not, however, view this supreme power as absolute; they re-
garded it as subject to divine, natural, and customary law. With the
appearance of the national state and its centralized monarchy, the tradi-
tional idea of a supreme political power began to undergo basic modifica-
tions that radically changed its character. The first evidences of change
appeared in the political thought of the late sixteenth century.
The new development proceeded along two lines, the one theological,
the other essentially juridical, both lending theoretical justification to the
growing trend toward absolutism. ‘The first, known as the divine night
theory, holds that the ruler receives his authority directly from God;
the second, the theory of “genuine” sovereignty, maintains that a de-
terminate authority standing above the law and the community must
exist somewhere in the state. Except for a brief flourish in France and
England, the first theory met with little acceptance in western thought.
In an age when religion was being placed on the defensive, no political
doctrine grounded on a purely theological foundation could hope to
endure. On the other hand, the lay concept of sovereignty as the sine
qua non of the state grew in importance and significance.
The present chapter will first examine the theory of divine right
and then turn to two writers, Jean Bodin and Hugo Grotius, as repre-
sentatives of the new concept of the state: the one dealing with the
internal aspects of sovereignty, the other with its external character.

THEORY OF THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS

Medieval thought had stressed the sacredness of secular rule and the
necessity of submission to it so long as it remained just. While the
Protestant thinkers of the Reformation had placed even greater emphasis
on the divine character of political authority, the concept had generally
persisted that the king’s power came both from God and from the
people. None of the reformers had attempted to formulate in specific
and theoretical terms the idea that the ruler received his authority by
a direct act of divine intervention and therefore stood outside and above
the community. So long as the doctrine of passive obedience predomi-
208 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

nated in the growing national states, the supporters of royal absolutism

were content to leave existing theory undisturbed. However, when reli-
gious spokesmen, both Protestant and Catholic, began to advance the
doctrine of active popular resistance to tyrannical rule, some royalist
supporters countered by seeking to invest the king with a special sanctity.
A typical proponent of the theological argument was William Barclay,
a Scotch Catholic who had taken refuge in France. In his treatise, De
regno et regali potestate, published in 1600, Barclay undertook a theoreti-
cal exposition of the source and nature of royal authority. Admitting
that the form of government, and even the manner of selecting the prince,
is a matter to be determined by human law, he maintains that once
this has been settled, God bestows political authority directly on the
tuler. This authority is superior to that of the whole people and cannot
be violated or controlled by them. The actions of kings are reserved for
Divine judgment; others must answer to the king for their acts, but he
is accountable only to God. Those who claim authority to judge or re-
sist the monarch are guilty of a great offense against God.?
James I of England writes in a similar vein: “Kings are breathing images
of God upon earth . . . the state of monarchy is the supremest thing
upon earth; for kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth, and
sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself they are called God.’*
Answering the claim that Parliament is the lawmaking organ of the
realm, James replies that this body is but the creation of the royal will
and its part in legislation is entirely subordinate. It can make no law
without the approval of the king; and since the king is in effect the
author of the law, he is necessarily above the law. To resist the monarch
is contrary both to the divine law as revealed in Scripture and to human
reason for not only is the king appointed by God but he is the binding
force that holds the state together.
The divine right theory means in essence that the ruler receives the
temporal sword through the divine law in the same manner that the
pope, according to Catholic dogma, is invested with the spiritual sword.
Such a doctrine removes the question of political power from the arena
of nature and reason and places it in the realm of the supernatural and
theological. James admits this when he says that the royal office is a
“mystery” into which neither lawyers nor philosophers may inquire.
~
For
2 an account of Barclay’s thought see Carlyle, op. cit., Vol. 6, p. 455 ff.
3 See Charles H. Mcllwain, The Political Works of James I (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1918).
 THE SOVEREIGN STATE 209

JEAN BODIN: THE THEORY OF THE SOVEREIGN STATE

The divine right pamphleteers had advanced a theory of sovereignty

founded on a theological basis, but the doctrine was foredoomed to
failure in an era when secular tendencies were on the ascendant. The
new age was receptive only to a theory of state authority that was
divorced from any divine roots. Thus even though the divine right
doctrine and the concept of legal sovereignty had similar objectives—
the theoretical justification of strong if not absolute rule— the influence
of the former on political speculation was relatively meager and short-
lived while the impact of the latter on the future course of state develop-
ment was profound.
The name generally associated with the origin of the modern concept
of sovereignty is Jean Bodin (1530-1596). Born in Anjou, France, of a
well-to-do middle class family, Bodin studied philosophy and languages
in Paris and law at Toulouse, where he spent ten years as student and
teacher. In 1561 he left the teaching profession to engage in the practice
of law in Paris. Ten years later he entered the household of the King’s
brother, the Duke of Alencon, to serve as counselor. Here he came into
contact with the world of high politics, and like Machiavelli, he made
good use of the opportunities of his position to extend his knowledge
of state affairs. Bodin’s political thinking was developed under pressure
of personal experience. He lived at a time when the prolonged religious
struggles, culminating in the St. Bartholomew Massacre of 1572, had
brought France to the brink of disaster. Early in his career he became
associated with a small group of distinguished lawyers and administrators
including the French chancellor, Michel de L’Hopital. His own superior,
the Duke of Alencon was the official leader of this party which was
known as the Politiques.
The Politiques realized that the state would be torn asunder if the
religious wars continued. They were also aware that the division of
Christianity had become too deep to be cemented together by force
and persecution. They held that the state is primarily concerned with
the maintenance of order and not the preservation or establishment of
the true religion. Some contemporary philosophers were maintaining that
genuine Christianity does not require the extermination or physical coer-
cion of opponents of the faith; it asks only that they be convinced by
reason, converted by instruction, or quietly tolerated. The Politiques
210 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

were motivated by no such feelings. They did not commend religious

toleration as morally or theologically correct; they advocated it merely
as a policy of expediency rendered necessary by the historical exigencies
of the day.
Standing between two extremes — Catholics and Huguenots — the Polli-
tiques sought to provide a middle ground that would prevent the division
of France into two irreconcilable camps and that would permit political
unity despite religious diversity. They were convinced that the only hope
of accomplishing this objective lay in the creation of a strong central
authority standing above all religious sects and political factions. They
knew that such an authority must possess the means of enforcing peace
and order and the unqualified right to demand obedience. Since the
monarchy appeared to be the only agency capable of assuming such a
role, they directed their efforts toward strengthening the royal power
and elevating it as the center of national unity. Bodin was the chief
theoretician in this movement.
Bodin’s best known work is his Six Books of the Commonwealth. Ten
editions of this work in the French version and three in Latin appeared
during his lifetime. The book was also translated into Italian, Spanish,.
German, and English. It is of major significance as the first treatise
dealing with the modern theory of sovereignty. The work displays the
vast erudition of its author but it is of excessive length, rambling in
style, and at points confusing in thought if not contradictory. Yet in
spite of these drawbacks, the Commonwealth offers the most mature state-
ment of political philosophy in the sixteenth century. With irreconcilable
views being expressed on all sides as to the nature of political power and
civic obligation, Bodin undertook to set forth the fundamental principles
on which a permanent social order must be based. He believed that the
first task was to obtain a clearer understanding of political authority. He
felt that before such insight would be possible, some principle of order
had to be discovered that would reconcile human liberty and state au-
thority as well as satisfy conscience and reason. He purported to find
this basic element in his doctrine of sovereignty.

Nature of the State

Unlike Machiavelli, Bodin does not rush into a discussion of the
means of attaining and preserving political power. He considers it essen-
tial to establish first of all the nature and ends of the state before turning
 THE SOVEREIGN STATE 211

to the means of accomplishing its objectives. “The man who does not
comprehend the end, and cannot rightly define his subject, has no hope
of finding the means of attaining it, any more than the man who shoots
at random into the air can hope to hit the mark.’* Bodin, however,
is not altogether faithful to this intended approach, particularly that
portion of it pertaining to the question of ends. He starts out by in-
dicating that the state exists to promote the good and virtuous life of its
citizens, but he soon drops this aspect of the subject altogether. His
whole attention then centers on the means of preserving the state re-
gardless of its character while the means of promoting the good life
are disregarded. The moral purpose that he gives to the state vanishes with
his acceptance of any effectively organized power as a true state. His
approach to politics, despite his protestations, is essentially Machiavellian.
Bodin defines a state as “the rightly ordered government of several
households and of their common interests by a sovereign power.’”® He
notes that there are four principal elements to be observed here: right
ordering, the family, sovereign power, and that which is of common
concern. A rightly ordered government in accordance with the laws of
nature is the true mark of a community that distinguishes it from a
band of thieves or pirates. The good or happy life which the ancients
considered an element of the state is not a necessary term of the definition
although it is the ultimate goal to be sought. For “a commonwealth
can be well ordered and yet stricken with poverty, abandoned by its
friends, beset by its enemies, and brought low by every sort of mis-
fortune.’”®
Bodin follows Aristotle in holding that the family rather than the
individual is the basic unit of the state. It is “not only the true source
and origin of the commonwealth, but also its principal constituent.”’
It is, morever, a natural community from which all the more complex
societies arise. Authority over the members of the family is vested in
the head of the household. Bodin is convinced that human beings, as a
result of the Fall, are wicked and rebellious. He believes that man’s
chief need is discipline to curb his factious and evil spirit. This attitude
leads him to stress authority and power whether it be in the father
of a family or the ruler of a state. He urges that paternal authority be
strengthened even to the extent of life and death over the children.

4 Six Books of the Commonwealth, I, 1, trans, by M, J. Tooley (Oxford: Blackwell),

5 [bid. 8 bid, iMoyal. I, 7,
plz POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

Only in this way can the habit of obedience be instilled in them, so

that later they will become obedient citizens of the ruler. “Children
who stand in little awe of their parents, and have even less fear of the
wrath of God, readily set at defiance the authority of magistrates.’* The
training of the good citizen must start in the nursery.
The well-ordered family “is a true image of the commonwealth.” The
model for political governance is found in the rule of the father over
his household. Just as in the family, subordination to the will of the
father is essential to the well-being of the home, so is obedience to
the ruler necessary to the stability of the state. And as the father has
absolute authority over his family, so the ruler of the commonwealth
must have complete jurisdiction over his subjects. “For a family is like
a state: there can be only one ruler, one master, one lord. If several
persons were in positions of authority, they might issue contrary orders
and continual turmoil would result.’®
While Bodin follows Aristotle in stressing the family as the primary
unit of society, he refuses to accept his predecessor’s distinction between
the rule of the father over his household (one of superior over inferior)
and political rule (one of equals over equals). In Aristotelian thought,.
the rule of the father is not based on the consent of his children, but
the rule of civil government to be legitimate must rest on the consent
of the governed. By disregarding this distinction, Bodin is able to employ
the analogy of the household to suit the purposes of his political theory.
According to Bodin, the state has its origin in force and violence.
Before there were any forms of political association, each head of a
family ““was sovereign in his household, having power of life and death
over his wife and children.” But something like a Hobbesian state of
nature prevailed. “Force, violence, ambition, avarice and the passion for
vengeance armed men against one another.’ These unsatisfactory con-
ditions led groups of families to unite for their common defense and
other mutual advantages and to recognize a sovereign political power,
a puissance souveraine. The recognition of such an authority was more
often accomplished by force than by voluntary acceptance. Aristotle
and others are wrong, Bodin asserts, in thinking that the first rulers
were chosen for their justice and virtue. On the contrary, they were
men who possessed the physical force necessary to subject others to
their will.
8 Ibid., I, 3-4. 9 Tbid. 10 Tbid., I, 6.
 THE SOVEREIGN STATE 213

Sovereignty
Bodin holds that the element which distinguishes the state from all
other forms of human association is sovereignty. There can be no true
commonwealth without sovereign power to unite all its several mem-
bers. An absolute and supreme authority which is subject to no other
human power must be located somewhere in the body politic. This is
the first and most fundamental principle of Bodin’s political theory.
He calls attention early in his work to the necessity of defining the
concept of sovereignty “because although it is the distinguishing mark
of a commonwealth and an understanding of its nature fundamental to
any treatment of politics, no jurist or political philosopher has in fact
attempted to define it.”1! His effort to remedy what he considers the
failure of his predecessors is unfortunately not free from difficulties.
Sovereignty, as Bodin defines it “is the absolute and perpetual power
vested in a commonwealth”; it is “supreme power over citizens and sub-
jects unrestrained by the laws.”!2 The essential qualities of sovereignty
are absoluteness, permanence, and indivisibility. ‘The person or agency
possessing sovereignty cannot be limited by any other power or by any
human laws. A sovereign prince has no mortal peer; “he acknowledges
no one greater than himself save only God.” Sovereignty is permanent
since there are no time limits placed on its exercise. Once it is vested
in the ruler, he enjoys it for his lifetime. “So that sovereignty is not
limited either in power, charge, or time certain.” Finally, sovereignty is
indivisible since divided sovereignty would be a contradiction in terms.
‘Just as Almighty God cannot create another God equal with Himself,
since he is infinite and two infinities cannot co-exist, so the sovereign
prince, who is the image of God, cannot make a subject equal with
himself without self-destruction.”1%
The peculiar and essential mark of sovereignty is the power to make
laws. “The first attribute of the sovereign prince is the power to make
law binding on all his subjects in general and on each in particular”
and he exercises this power “without the consent of any superior, equal,
or inferior being necessary.”** The medievalists looked upon law as found
rather than made. They regarded it not so much as a command of a
governmental authority but as a custom expressive of the life of the

at Tid, WR 13 [bid., I, 10.

12 [bid. 14 Tbid.
z14 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

community.*® Bodin breaks with the past in this respect by relegating

custom to a subordinate position. He is emphatic in his assertion that
it has force “only on suffrance and during the good pleasure of the
sovereign prince and so far as he is willing to authorize it . . . the force
of both statutes and customary law derives from the authorization of
the*praces**
The sovereign is bound neither by the laws which he or his predecessor
made nor by the practices of his people. Such laws and customs, even
though they may be based on sound reasons, depend solely on his free
will. The element of reason so strongly stressed by St. Thomas in his
definition of law is given an inferior and gratuitous role, while the will
of the legislator becomes the primary factor. Bodin was not the first
to think of law in terms of a command made by the political ruler but
his theory represents a much sharper enunciation of the concept.
Up to this point, Bodin’s doctrine of sovereignty appears to be an
expression of absolute and unlimited power in the state. He has, how-
ever, no intention of going this far as he plainly indicates. If absolute
power is used in the sense of exemption from all law, “there is no prince
in the world who can be regarded as sovereign, since all the princes of
the earth are subject to the laws of God and of nature and even to
certain human law common to all nations.”!? The ruler is therefore bound
by those civil laws that “embody the principles of natural justice” since
laws of this kind, “though published by the prince’s authority, are prop-
erly natural laws.Ӥ He is also subject to certain constitutional or funda-
mental laws of the realm (leges imperii). These laws forbid the sovereign
to alter the Salic law pertaining to royal succession, to alienate any part
of the public domain, or to take private property without the consent
of the owner.
It is not difficult to reconcile Bodin’s divine and natural limitations
on political power with the absolute character of sovereignty, since these
restrictions would still leave the ruler standing above human law and
accountable only to God. The confusion lies in the other qualifications
which he makes since these include matters solely of human law. If
sovereignty is essentially the power to make laws, and if such power
cannot be divided or legally conditioned, it is illogical to subject the
tuler to laws which he has not made and which he cannot change.
15 See ante, pp. 157-158. LWT bid a luaoe
16 Six Books of the Commonwealth, op. cit., I, 10. 18 [bid.
 THE SOVEREIGN STATE 215

Bodin’s theory has consistency only if these human restrictions are

viewed as embodiments of natural law. Jacques Maritain has so inter-
preted the Bodinian concept of sovereignty, maintaining that its author
places the ruler under obligation to respect the leges imperii, because
human laws of this nature actually enforce natural law itself.19 He believes
that Bodin erroneously considers such laws to be part of the natural law
even though they contain limitations which do not have their source
in man’s nature, such as the inability of the sovereign to change the line
of succession to the throne or to dispose of any part of the realm.
Bodin is careful to point out that while the rightly ordered state
faithfully observes the natural and divine law, a commonwealth does
not cease to be a true state if it violates these precepts. He objects
to Aristotle’s classification of governments into good and bad forms,
maintaining that there are only three types of government and that
these are distinguished by the location of sovereignty: in one man, in
several, or in the multitude. Whether the political rule in a state is
good or bad is only an accidental attribute. “If one adopts the principle
of distinguishing between commonwealths according to the particular
virtues and vices that are characteristic of each, one is soon faced with
an infinity of variations.” Bodin also rejects the idea of a mixed state
on the ground that such a type with its division of powers cannot exist.
Since sovereignty is by its very nature indivisible “how can a prince, a
ruling class, and the people all have a part in it at the same time.”?°
Under a mixed constitution there would be constant dispute as to whether
sovereignty is vested in the prince or in a part or in the whole people.
An examination of the so-called mixed state, Bodin claims, will reveal
that sovereignty actually rests with the people and that the governing
officials are merely serving as their agents. Such a commonwealth should
properly be classified as a democracy.

The Significance of Bodin

In appraising Bodin’s political philosophy, two questions might ap-
propriately be asked: (1) is there anything new in his idea of sovereignty
that distinguishes it from prior theory?; and (2) granting that he intro-
duced a new element in the concept of political authority, what influence
19“The Concept of Sovereignty,” American Political Science Review, June, 1950,
Demeter Mey 3
20 Six Books of the Commonwealth, op. cit., II, 1.
216 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

did it have on the future development of political thought? Bodin re-

mained to a certain extent tributary to the medieval tradition, as evi-
denced by his insistence on the ruler’s subjection to the natural and
divine laws and to other specified limitations. The prince in this sense
remains under the law. “It is a true mark of royal power that the ruler
himself is just as obedient to the laws of nature as he desires his subject
to be to him... . If the subjects obey the law laid down by their king,
and he in turn obeys the laws of nature, then it is really the laws that
tule.”2_ Because Bodin imposes these restrictions on the ruler, some
commentators feel that he stands at the crossroads between the medieval
notion of the ruler as subject to the directive although not the coercive
power of human law and the modern notion of the sovereign as com-
pletely free from any law on earth.?? Maritain, on the other hand, con-
tends that Bodin may rightly be considered as the father of the modern
theory of sovereignty. Construing Bodin’s doctrine to mean freedom of
the sovereign from human law, he asserts that this is the essence of
absolute rule; and absolutism is alien to medieval thought. “Yet the
fact remains that Bodin’s sovereign was subject only to Natural Law,
and to no human law whatsoever, as distinct from Natural Law, and
that is the core of political absolutism.”?*
If the classical and medieval concept of the state as a community
of individuals having laws and a constitution of its own is correct, Bodin’s
attempt to identify sovereignty with the ruler is a logical impossibility.
Sovereignty according to the traditional or organic view of the state
rests in the political community and not in any individual who might
be exercising public power at any particular time. To circumvent this
difficulty, Bodin maintains that the people as a body politic absolutely
and unconditionally divests itself of its total power in order to transfer
it to a ruler. It is not a delegation but a total surrender of power. “The
people have renounced and alienated its sovereign power in order to
invest him with it and put him in possession, and it thereby transfers
to him all its powers, authority and sovereign rights, just as does the
man who gives to another possessory and proprietary rights over what
he formerly owned.”*4

21 [bid., I, 3.
22 See M. A. Shepard, “Sovereignty at the Crossroads. A Study of Bodin,” Political
Science Quarterly, 1930, pp. 580-603.
23 “The Concept of Sovereignty,” op. cit., p. 344.
24 Six Books of the Commonwealth, op. cit., 1, 8.
 THE SOVEREIGN STATE 227

By this act of complete divestment, the sovereign assumes a position

above and transcendent to the political whole in much the same way
that God transcends the cosmos. Regardless of Bodin’s intention, the
implications of his thinking helped to lay the groundwork for the doctrine
of pure absolutism. To arrive at such a doctrine, his theory had only
to be stripped of the remaining restrictions that he had sought to retain.
This surgical operation was skillfully performed later by Thomas Hobbes.?*

A CRITIQUE OF “SOVEREIGNTY”
Since the question of absolute and unlimited political power in the
state has been raised in a new form by Bodin, Maritain’s perceptive
criticism of sovereignty is briefly referred to at this point.?° Maritain
holds that sovereignty has two meanings: a right to supreme independence
and power which is a natural right; and a right to an independence and
power which is supreme absolutely and transcendentally. The first is
compatible with traditional thought, the second deviates radically from
it. The right of the body politic to full autonomy means that it governs
itself with comparatively supreme independence. No one of its parts
can, by usurping government, substitute itself for the whole and infringe
upon its freedom of action. Externally, this right means that the state
enjoys comparatively supreme independence with respect to the inter-
national community. The body politic derives its right to full autonomy
from its nature as a perfect and self-sufficient society. ‘The right is natural
in the sense that it cannot be taken away without its consent.
The second meaning attached to sovereignty is peculiar to absolutism.
According to it the power of the sovereign is not only supreme in rela-
tion to any other part of the political whole but is supreme absolutely
speaking as being above and outside the whole in question. So con-
ceived, sovereignty is a property which is absolute and indivisible, which
cannot be participated in or admit of degrees, and which belongs to
the Sovereign independently of the political whole, as a right of his
own. Nothing remains here of the traditional view that the power of
the state is only relatively supreme as proper to a given whole with
respect to its parts.
25 Bodin’s work was translated into English and used as a textbook at Cambridge
within a few years after its appearance in France. There is little doubt that it influenced
Hobbes’ thinking, particularly in the matter of sovereignty.
26 “The Concept of Sovereignty,” op. cit., pp. 343-357.
218 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

Maritain defines government as a party and an instrumental agency

of the body politic. He points out that government has no right of
its own to supreme independence and power. It has a right only to such
comparatively supreme independence and power as it receives from the
body politic. The acquisition of these prerogatives does not involve a
transfer of title or ownership but a delegation of trust from the people.
It is not necessary that this right be uprooted from the citizenry in
order to be transferred to a ruler. A right may be possessed by one as
belonging to his nature and by another as participated in by him. The
prince is possessed of the right to rule only by participation in the
people’s right of self-governance.
The prince and others who exercise political authority are vicars or
deputies of the people, performing in behalf of them a right which
still exists in the commonalty. They are but a part of the political
community at the service of the common good; they receive their right
to rule within certain fixed limits from the people who exercise their
fundamental right to govern themselves. This inherent right is in turn
limited by the very nature of the civil community. Thus sovereignty in
the first but not in the second meaning of the term can properly be
attributed to the body politic or state; but in neither sense does it apply
to the prince or government.

HUGO GROTIUS

Bodin was interested in the concept of sovereignty primarily as it

applied to political power within a given territorial state. He said little
as to the external aspect of sovereignty or the autonomy of the body
politic in relation to other states. His definition of sovereignty, however,
implied that each state has above itself no earthly power which it should
be compelled to obey. Hugo Grotius (1583-1640), the great Dutch law-
yer, takes this assumption for granted in his efforts to establish an inter-
national law.*" He starts from the premise that formal or juridical equality
exists among states and that they enjoy complete independence both of
one another and of any supranational authority. Legally, all states, re-
gardless of size or strength, stand on a basis of equality in the family
of nations. To be eligible for membership in this group, a political unit
must conform to certain standards of civilization. It must have a govern-
27 Grotius was preceded and influenced in his efforts to formulate international law
by the sixteenth-century Spaniards, Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suarez.
 THE SOVEREIGN STATE 219

ment that is capable of entering into and observing treaties, and it must
show evidence of stability and permanency. These are the principal charac-
teristics of international status that are still recognized today.
The problem which Grotius faced was one of establishing a principle
of order among a group of autonomous political units that operate in
the same world but are legally subject to no superior power. He describes
his task as one of demonstrating that there is a common law among
nations, which is operative in both peace and war. To accomplish this
objective, he had first to show how this law is determined and how it
can be made binding on sovereign entities. If one accepts the theory that
law is the product of the will of a lawgiver, a law of international scope
is not possible without a supranational agency having legislative juris-
diction over the states. In the Prolegomena to his well-known work De
Jute Belli ac Pacis, Grotius refutes any such notion of law by appealing
to the long tradition of Greco-Christian political thought with its recog-
nition of a transcendent moral law or an essential justice that is dis-
covered in the nature of reality. He maintains that this natural law
governs not only the internal operations and functions of the body politic
but also determines the fundamental relations among states and their
conduct toward each other.

The “Modernization” of Natural Law

While Grotius’ analysis of the law of nations is beyond the scope of
a treatise on political theory, his discussion of natural law as the basis of
international order requires some examination. He defines natural law as “a
dictate of right reason, which points out that an act, according as it is
or is not in conformity with rational nature, has in it a quality of moral
baseness or moral necessity; and that in consequence, such an act is
either forbidden or enjoyed by the author of nature, God.” Grotius goes
on, however, to emphasize that his reference to God adds nothing to
the definition and could well be omitted. “The law of nature . . . is
unchangeable even in the sense that it cannot be changed by God.
Measureless as is the power of God, nevertheless it can be said that
there are certain things over which that power does not extend.”?8 Man’s
infallible moral guide is in his reason which would correctly guide him
even if there were no God, or “if He had no interest in mortal affairs.”
28 De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Book I, Chap. 1, sec. 10. Published in English under title
The Law of War and Peace (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925).
220 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

For the principles of the natural law “are in themselves manifest and
clear, almost as evident as are those which we perceive by the external
senses.”*® Grotius apparently does not mean to imply (as his successors
were soon to do) that morals and geometry are equally certain or that
natural law can be rendered mathematically demonstrable, yet he does
attempt to give a degree of precision to reason that it had not previously
known. He speaks, for example, in terms of certain axiomatic propositions
from which a wholly rational system of rules governing human conduct
could be constructed.
Grotius clearly had no intention of denying the existence of God.
Living in an age of religious controversy, he was probably trying to free
natural law from any theological dimensions in order to prevent it from
becoming involved in doctrinal differences. It is doubtful that he seriously
intended to divorce natural law from the Divine Reason, since he indi-
cated over and over again that God constitutes its ultimate source. Some
writers, however, have interpreted him in this way. One of the more
prominent of them is Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1694), a German jurist
who wrote on international law several decades later. Pufendorf applauds
Grotius for divorcing natural law from theology and religion by ground-
ing it solely in the social nature and reason of men.
A theory which endeavored to sever the moral law from its theological
foundations was amenable to the growing secular and scientific spirit
of the day. By making the natural law independent of the authorship
of God, secular man is able to accept it in the same way that he accepts
a physical law of the universe without being compelled to submit to
the authority of any supramundane reason. Similarly, Grotius’ references
to the possibility of a more precise method for discovering the contents
of the natural law appealed to the current scientific temper. It remained
for others, such as Pufendorf and Hobbes, to develop the implications
contained in these ideas.

Significance of Grotius
Grotius’ importance lies in the field of international law rather than
political philosophy. Yet in an age when the question of national sover-
eignty was being raised in its most advanced form, the principles under-
lying correct behavior among autonomous states assumed increasing signif-
29 Tbid., sec. 39.
 THE SOVEREIGN STATE 224

icance in the political arena. In accepting the independent character of

the state, Grotius did not believe that it was necessary to establish a
supergovernment standing above national units in order to preserve
peace. At the same time, he realized that the international community
can no more exist in peace and harmony without law than can the
domestic society within a state. As one still within the pale of medieval
influence, he looked to natural law as the primary source of the law by
which sovereign states are guided and rightly ordered in their communica-
tion and association with each other.
Grotius also recognized the role played by custom and treaty; but
what is important in his thinking from the standpoint of political philos-
ophy is his insistence that states, despite their absolute character and
the absence of any universal legislator, are subject to law and to a natural
order. International law has not only the force of an agreement among
states, such as might be evidenced in treaties, but also the force of a
law which political rulers are under moral obligation to obey. Since
Grotius provided for no institutional organ to promulgate and enforce
this law, his critics have argued that his international law was not “real”
law but only moral preachments. Modern scholarship treats him more
kindly by acknowledging that the law of nations owes to natural law not
only its beginning but also the concept, without which international law
could not have been realized, that even sovereign states are subject to
law.°°
The content which Grotius attributes to the natural law conforms
substantially to that which had been understood during the classical
and medieval periods. The significance of his treatment of this subject
lies both in his claim (at least as interpreted by some of his contem-
poraries) that the natural law exists independently of God and in his
indication of a new method of arriving at its contents. Later theorists
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were to enlarge upon the
premises implicit in his methodology by formulating a “scientific” or
‘tational’ method of determining the principles and rules governing
social and political conduct. From all indications, Grotius did not intend
to deviate from the traditional concept of natural law, but only to
enlarge upon those aspects that he considered helpful in establishing a
theoretical foundation for an international order. His efforts succeeded

30 See, for example, C. Eagleton, International Government (New York; The Ronald
Press, 1957).
Tle POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

in giving to political speculation (which still persisted in the idiom of

natural law) a character that was appealing to the more liberal and
rationalistic elements of the modern world and also to the devotees of
the new secular learning. Concomitantly, his efforts helped to pave the
way for a radical departure from the very tradition of natural law that
he was seeking to preserve.
Professor Hallowell has made the interesting suggestion that Grotius’
findings as to the contents of natural law met with little dissent from
his contemporaries since there was substantial agreement on what was
morally self-evident; but what they regarded as self-evident was acceptable
to them because it appealed not only to their reason but to their Chris-
tian consciences. That these same principles appear less reasonable to
many persons in the twentieth century is due, not to the fact that the
man of the present is more rational than his seventeenth-century ancestor,
but that his conscience is less firmly rooted in Christian convictions.**

SUMMARY
The historical conditions which prevailed during the period of the Renais-
sance and Reformation necessitated a readaption of the theoretical schema of
political science. The disintegration of the feudal system and the virtual
collapse of western European unity paved the way for the emergence of the
national territorial state. With it, although not so much a result as a cause,
came the social and economic changes which molded the western world into
a lay, industrial, and capitalistic culture. Bodin grasped the need for adjusting
the theoretical framework of politics to meet the demands of a changed society.
His solution to the new order with its particularistic tendencies was a strong
central power capable of unifying the divergent forces and energies within the
state and directing them toward a common goal. He sought to provide the
necessary philosophical basis and justification for such a power in his theory
of sovereignty. As he remarked, this is a new concept not mentioned in any
of the Greek or medieval thinkers. For better or for worse, Bodin had fastened
onto political theory a doctrine that was destined to play a major role in the
modern world.
When Grotius wrote his treatise on international law several decades after
Bodin’s death, he sought to establish a law that would govern the relations
among sovereign states — states that recognized no higher human power.
There was no mention of empire or of any supranational government in his
writings. ‘The existence of separate, independent, autonomous, and sovereign
states was taken for granted. He was aware that the formulation of any law
31 Main Currents in Modern Political Thought, op. cit., pp. 96-97.
 THE SOVEREIGN STATE ZzS

applicable to the external relations of these political units had to proceed

upon such an assumption. But legal autonomy and autonomy in fact are two
quite different matters. With the passage of time, the actual interdependence
of sovereign states became increasingly more evident. The political order could
not remain unaffected as the social and economic pattern grew in complexity
and as it began to transcend the territorial limits of national states. As these
developments took place, man began to suspect the adequacy of a political
form based on a theoretical foundation of national sovereignty.
Bodin and Grotius still wrote within the shadow of the medieval tradition.
The ruler or sovereign, in their thought, is under a moral obligation both to
God and the community. He is free only to employ moral means in the interest
of the common good. Bodin sharply distinguished between the true sovereign
who rules in the interest of justice and in accordance with the natural law,
and the sovereign who disregards such principles. Machiavelli, who had pre-
ceded Bodin and Grotius by almost a century, had torn away from the ancient
tradition, but his ideas had been too “advanced” for his age and had received
almost universal condemnation. Only as the medieval influence receded could
a theory that disregarded the ethical content of politics hope to win more
than nominal acceptance. The time for this change was near at hand.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aufricht, Hans, “On Relative Sovereignty,’ Cornell Law Quarterly, March,
1945.
Campbell, D. W., “Sovereignty and Social Dynamics,’’ American Political
Science Review, October, 1934.
Cohen, H. E., Recent Theories of Sovereignty (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1937).
Cole, Kenneth C., “The Theory of the State as a Sovereign Juristic Person,”
American Political Science Review, February, 1948.
Connor, J. T., “Notion of Sovereignty in a Democratic State,” American
Catholic Philosophical Association Proceedings, 1939.
Dickenson, John, “A Working Theory of Sovereignty,” Political Science
Quarterly, December, 1927.
Farrell, W., “Philosophy of Sovereignty,’ American Catholic Philosophical
Association Proceedings, 1939.
Greenleaf, W. H., “James I and the Divine Right of Kings,” Political Studies,
February, 1957.
Holsti, R., “Sociological Theory of Sovereignty,” Institute of International
Relations Proceedings, 1930.
Jouvenal, Bertrand de, Sovereignty: An Inquiry into the Political Good, trans.
by J. F. Huntington (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957).
Kirchheimer, Otto, “In Quest of Sovereignty,” Journal of Politics, May, 1944.
Korff, S. H., “The Problem of Sovereignty,” American Political Science Re-
view, August, 1928.
Mcllwain, Charles H., “A Fragment on Sovereignty,” Political Science
Quarterly, March, 1933.
Des POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN ERA OF TRANSITION

Niemeyer, G., “National Sovereignty and Individual Behavior,” Journal of

Politics, August, 1947.
Parsons, Wilfrid, “St. Thomas Aquinas and Popular Sovereignty,’ Thought,
September, 1941.
Pennock, J. R., ‘Law and Sovereignty,’ American Political Science Review,
August, 1937.
Reynolds, Beatrice, Proponents of Limited Monarchy in the 16th Century
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1931).
Riesenberg, Peter, Inalienability of Sovereignty in Medieval Political Thought
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1956).
Spahr, Margaret, “Sovereignty Under Law,” American Political Science Review,
April, 1945.
Ullman, Walter, “The Development of the Medieval Idea of Sovereignty,”
English Historical Review, October, 1951.
 THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF
PART FIVE
THE SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA
 Chapter XIl

HOBBES: THE SOVEREIGN LEVIATHAN

“Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to raise
up a Leviathan” (Job 3:8).

Tue philosophical seeds which had been sown during the period of the
Renaissance began to flower in the seventeenth century, “the century of
genius.” The emancipation of the individual mind from the medieval
“shackles” of authority was accompanied by a growing confidence in the
ability of man to master the problems of the universe. The great progress
made in the physical sciences strengthened the conviction that a natural
order exists not only in the physical but in the social world as well, and
that there are laws of human behavior as certain and precise as the laws
of physics. Only a proper methodology for ascertaining the content of
this immutable social order was yet lacking. Once a systematic approach
could be developed, the veil of mystery surrounding human affairs would
be torn asunder. And when this stage is reached, Francis Bacon’s declara-
tion that “knowledge is power” (nam et ipsa scientia potestas est) would
assume a meaning and significance that it had not previously known.
The early seventeenth century purported to find the proper method of
studying the political and social order in rationalism, a movement that
reached its climax during the Age of Enlightenment of the eighteenth
century. Exalting the autonomy and self-sufficiency of reason, the new
theorists held that the human mind is capable of deducing social truths
from certain axiomatic principles in much the same way that the mathe-
matician can construct a completely rational system of theorems by
analytical inference. The beginnings of such a tendency had already been
noticed in prior thinkers such as Grotius, but the first clear and explicit
expression of the new approach was given by Rene Descartes (1596-
1650), the Jesuit educated Frenchman, who has been rightly called the
“father of modern rationalism.”
227
228 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

THE NEW METHODOLOGY

Descartes wrote no treatise on political philosophy, but his method of

arriving at knowledge affected in one fashion or another the course of
political thought for many decades thereafter. A brief examination of his
relevancy to political philosophy should logically precede a discussion of
such seventeenth century theorists as Hobbes, Locke, and Kant. In his
famous Discourse on Method published in 1637, Descartes states his
determination to sweep from his mind all the opinions which he had
previously embraced and to discard all traditional principles and doctrines.
Once he accomplishes this, he will begin afresh his search for truth,
rejecting as absolutely false everything to which he could imagine the
least ground of doubt. Proceeding on the assumption that knowledge
has its source in universal and necessary principles which may be in-
tuitively discovered by reason, he asserts that only what the mind appre-
hends with perfect clearness and distinctness can be considered true. These
principles, moreover, must be such that all other truths can be derived
from them by necessary inference. The first truth that so occurs to the
mind is the proposition “I think, therefore I am” (cogito, ergo sum). |
Descartes believed it possible to construct a whole body of knowledge
by way of deduction from this fundamental axiom.
The traditional thinkers of the classical and medieval eras had assigned
a high role to reason, but they had recognized its limitations and the
necessity for its reliance on observation and the accumulation of empirical
facts. Descartes refuses to accept this approach. Influenced by the
mathematical type of reasoning which was assuming great popularity in
his day, and by the Renaissance skepticism of the senses, he rejects judg-
ments based on sense perception of the material world and instead starts
with immaterial entities. He seeks to justify his position on the basis
that pure intelligence does not depend upon the senses for its proper
data but operates apart from them in the formulation of ideas. It is
possible, therefore (and in fact necessary in his view) to establish facts
about the existing world quite independent of experience.
Descartes introduces into philosophy a dualism of body and mind that
is alien to traditional thought. In his conception there are two different
and complete substances in man, the thinking mind and the extended
body.t The self is the mind alone; it is not only distinct in reality from
1 See in this connection, James Collins, A History of Modern European Philosophy
(Milwaukee: Bruce, 1954), p. 183 ff.
 HOBBES: THE SOVEREIGN LEVIATHAN 229

the body but can exist without it. This dualism justifies both a mechanis-
tic philosophy of nature and a spiritualistic philosophy of mind. On the
one hand, the human body divorced from the mind is itself nothing
more than a machine, the movements of which can be explained just as
mechanically as the operations of a clock. On the other hand, the mind
is an immaterial substance that provides the source of its own ideas
independent of the senses. External objects only arouse or stimulate it
to produce ideas by itself and out of its own capacities. Thus the body
and mind interact on each other solely in a physiological way.2 This
dualism or separation of mind and matter led in subsequent thinking to
the emphasis upon one to the exclusion of the other. The result was
either materialism or idealism.
During the Christian era the necessity for supplementing reason and
human activity by faith, in much the same way that grace fulfills nature,
had been universally accepted. Important as reason was to man, it was
not considered either autonomous or infallible. However, with the advent
of the new philosophy of human competency, reason came to assume
the supreme role in the universe, either by a priori processes as the
rationalists claimed, or as an adjunct to scientific investigation as the
empiricists were soon to demand. It is a far cry from the middle ages to
the proud, self-reliant, and autonomous personality of the new thinker.
The seventeenth-century philosopher ceases to turn from the world as
did St. Augustine; sure of his own personality, he returns to his ego,
believing himself to be the rational creator of the world.s As even
Descartes avows (although in the last analysis his good sense led him to
acknowledge a wisdom greater than that of man), he is seeking to dis-
cover the knowledge by means of which “we might render ourselves the
lords and possessors of nature.”

THOMAS HOBBES

The first notable evidence of the effects of Cartesian dualism on politi-

cal thought occurs in the works of Thomas Hobbes. Born in 1588, the
son of a ne’er-do-well and quarrelsome parson who was forced to flee
2 Descartes’s dualism raises the problem of how two separate and distinct substances
can form a unified composite such as man. His answer is that while unity of composi-
tion between the two substances is a fact manifested to us by our experiences, the
nature of the union remains incomprehensible. ‘he only explanation he can offer
is that this is the way God has so constructed man.
3J. P. Mayer, Political Thought (New York: Viking Press, 1939), p. 159.
230 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

from his parish and his family, Hobbes lived to the ripe age of ninety-
one. He was a precocious youngster who learned Greek and Latin when
he was six and entered Oxford at the age of fifteen. He later said that
he profited little from his years at the university; indeed he was appalled
at the “frequency of insignificant speech” which he heard there. Some-
time after graduation, he became tutor to the oldest son of Lord Caven-
dish, a member of one of the most aristocratic families in England. Most
of his life was spent in the service of this family in one capacity or
another. His duties permitted him to travel widely and to associate with
the leading scientists and men of letters of his day. Just before the out-
break of the English civil war, he deemed it prudent to move to Paris
because of his pamphlets defending the absolute rights of the king. Early
in 1652, after residing eleven years in France, he made his peace with
the Commonwealth and returned to England, where he spent the
remainder of his life.
Like Bodin, Hobbes lived during a turbulent era, and like his French
predecessor he was deeply impressed with the need for a strong political
power to bring order out of the disturbances that were threatening civil
society. The shattering of medieval unity had affected Britain in much
the same way that it had continental Europe. The Tudor monarchy had ~
profited by the breaking of all external political and spiritual chains, but
the same forces that had permitted the establishment of the modern
state had also awakened a new spirit of independence and self-assertion
among the people. Although the marriage between bourgeoisie and
monarchy had enabled the latter to attain its position of political suprem-
acy, the marriage contained within itself the seeds of conflict. As the
king’s power increased, the merchant and landowner began to see the
dangers inherent in an unlimited and uncontrolled political power. Simi-
larly, the question of a religious monopoly in the state began to create
difficulty in an age when the Bible had become the fountainhead of
truth, and the right of individual interpretation was widely claimed.
By the time of the Stuarts, these forces were becoming manifest in
England. The forthcoming epoch was a violent one in which the excesses
of the rulers were matched by the turbulences of their subjects. England
enjoyed no real internal peace from the time that James I ascended the
throne in 1603, the year that Hobbes entered Oxford, until the closing
decades of the century. It was in an environment such as this that Hobbes
wrote his major political treatise, the Leviathan.
 HOBBES: THE SOVEREIGN LEVIATHAN paeN|

Hobbes’ masterpiece contains the first great general and comprehensive

political philosophy produced by an English thinker. Previous British
writers such as John of Salisbury, Thomas More, and Richard Hooker had
written important political works; but in each instance their treatment
of government had been more limited and specialized and their political
speculation largely incidental to other objectives. The Leviathan was
politically conceived and politically oriented. It is sometimes described
as an attempt to justify Stuart absolutism, but actually it sought to lay
the theoretical foundations for absolute government in general, whether
by a monarch, a Cromwellian dictatorship, or even by a parliament.
The drawing on the frontispiece to the Leviathan is extremely fasci-
nating as well as descriptive of the general theme of the book. Towering
in the background of a neatly arranged town is the upper portion of
the figure of a huge giant wearing a crown and holding in his extended
hands a sword and a crozier: the one the symbol of secular and the other
of ecclesiastical office. The waist and arms of the figure are made up of
a mass of small people with their eyes raised toward the face of the
king. At the top of the page is a quotation from Job, “There is no power
upon earth that can be compared with him who was made to fear no
one.” On the lower half of the page is the inscription “Leviathan, or
the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and
Civil, by Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury.” On each side of this title
are emblems and scenes representative of temporal and spiritual power
such as the crown and the miter, and the castle and church. The symbolic
significance of the drawing becomes more apparent as the reader pursues
his examination of Hobbes’ political thought.

Methodology
The first of the four books or parts of the Leviathan, entitled “Of
Man,” is devoted to an analysis of human psychology.* Hobbes is well
aware that a theory of the state must be grounded on a theory of the
nature of man. In his introduction he observes that there are two ways
of approaching the study of human nature; the first by observing the
actions of other men, the second by introspection. The empirical approach
of experimental psychology is indicated in the first method, but Hobbes
was too immersed in an age of rationalism to pursue it diligently. While
4 The second part is titled “Of Commonwealth,” the third “Of a Christian Com-
monwealth,” and the fourth “Of the Kingdom of Darkness.”
232 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

he is interested in discovering how men react to their circumstances

and in formulating a theory of human behavior, he employs a method
quite unlike that of modern psychology. Instead of examining many
individual cases, he looks for universal truths by a careful study of a
single example: himself. He states that this procedure is preferable since
“whosoever looks into himself, and considers what he does, when he does
think, opine, reason, hope, fear, etc., and upon what grounds; he shall
thereby read and know, what are the thoughts and passions of all other
men, upon the like occasions.”® Unlike Descartes, he believes that knowl-
edge is acquired through the senses and is not innate; it has its real source
in sensation. Yet, by holding a mechanistic conception of nature, he is
able to assume that the reactions of human beings to given stimuli are
similar. Thus by examining his own passions and actions, he is actually
studying man in general. He is reading in himself not this or that par-
ticular man, but mankind.
When he speaks of methodology, Hobbes means the most expeditious
way of discovering effects from known causes, or causes from observable
effects. Deeply impressed by the scientific discoveries of his day, he
believed it possible to create a theory of man and the state equal in
clarity and definiteness to the physical laws of the universe. He saw no_
reason why the social scientist could not treat of human actions and
passions just as the physicist treats of weights and solids. He realized
that such an approach presupposes a mechanistic psychology which on
the one side denies freedom of will, and on the other asserts that man’s
actions are determined by his sense-impressions and by his automatic
responses to these impressions. He also saw that an exact science of
human behavior, and hence an exact political science, is possible only
if such behavior can be reduced to material particles moving in accord-
ance with certain physical laws. ‘lo establish this point, he endeavors to
demonstrate that the principles of mechanical causation are applicable
to all phenomena, including the human intellect and will.

Psychology of Man
In constructing his general psychology, Hobbes starts by describing
man’s passions and ethics in terms of motion. Maintaining that only the
body and its movements are real, he asserts that sensation must consist

> Leviathan, edited by M. Oakeshott (Oxford: Blackwell), p. 6. Excerpts from the

Leviathan are from this edition.
 HOBBES: THE SOVEREIGN LEVIATHAN 233

in the movement of particles. External objects exert pressure upon the

sense Organs and thereby generate a motion that continues inward until
it reaches the organic center in the brain. Here a reaction to the motion
takes place resulting in an outward endeavor or act upon the part of
the sentient subject toward the perceived object. “The cause of sense is
the external body or object, which presses the organ proper to each sense,
either immediately as in the taste and touch; or mediately as in seeing,
hearing, and smelling; which pressure, by the mediation of nerves, and
other strings and membranes of the body, continues inward to the
brain and heart, and causes there a resistance, or counterpressure, or
endeavor of the heart, to deliver itself.”® External stimuli or motion, in
other words, act upon the human brain in such a way as to cause auto-
matic and largely predetermined responses.
Hobbes was faced with the task of reconciling his mechanistic descrip-
tion of organic reaction with the universally accepted fact that man is
distinguished from the rest of the physical world by the faculty of reason.
He attempts to do this by claiming that man’s appetites and passions
fix the ends to be pursued while reason plays a purely instrumental
function to his desires. Thus the appetite sets a particular goal and this
in turn leads to a searching of the individual’s thought for an appropriate
sequence of means to accomplish the projected end. Hobbes does not
clearly explain whether the presence of the rational faculty introduces
an indeterminate element in what otherwise would be a system com-
pletely determined by nature and environment. But regardless of his
position on this point, his philosophy must be viewed as a form of
naturalism inasmuch as it denies any basic difference between man and
the rest of nature.
Hobbes’ second psychological assumption is that man is_ naturally
moved toward certain objects and away from others. The first are
objects of desire, the second of aversion. ‘Those toward which his appetites
move him are good and pleasurable; those which repel him are evil and
painful. In this connection, it is necessary to distinguish between volun-
tary motions and vital motions. The latter, “such as are the course of
the blood, the pulse, the breathing . . . to which motions there needs
no help of imagination,” are purely automatic responses that require no
?

mental intervention. The former consist of such actions as walking and

speaking, and these depend upon “a precedent thought of whither,
Odoyal,. Wy le
234 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

which way, and what.”? The process of voluntary motions differs little
in animals or men. Man, in fact, is an animal like all other animals and
as such is constantly exposed to manifold impressions which automatically
call forth desires and aversions. He has no more power than the beast
to determine freely his own wishes or acts of choice. However, because
of his reason he is much less at the mercy of momentary sense-impres-
sions. He can envisage the future much better than can animals and
can assess the consequences of alternative courses of action precisely
because his appetite has reason at its service. In view of Hobbes’ psy-
chology, this distinction between vital and voluntary acts does not appear
very meaningful since both classes of activity remain essentially physical
and reducible to the principles of mechanics.
The third proposition underlying Hobbesian psychology is the rela-
tively equal capacity of men for attaining their objectives. Unlike most
advocates of despotic government, Hobbes regards men as naturally
equal. Deficiency in the intellectual ability of an individual is generally
compensated for by greater physical strength or cunning or by some
other quality. “Nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of body
and mind, as that though there can be found one man sometimes mani-
festly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another; yet when all is
reckoned together, the difference between man and man is not so con-
siderable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit,
to which another may not pretend, as well as he.”’* Coupled with man’s
vanity, this very equality is a disturbing element in human relations since
each individual believes himself capable of satisfying his own desires.
Finally, Hobbes regards man as naturally and fundamentally selfish,
quarrelsome, power-hungry, cruel, and perverse. These characteristics are
largely the result of man’s efforts to gratify his appetites, since only by
satisfying his desires can the individual achieve happiness. This process
is a continual and perpetual one, a “progress of the desire from one
object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to
the latter.” Men want assurance, a feeling of security, that they will
be able to gratify not only their immediate but their future desires as
well. “The object of man’s desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one
instance of time, but to assure forever the way of his future desire.’ In
order to achieve this end, man needs power. All mankind, therefore, has
“a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceases only in
ibid, 1 13! 8 Ibid.
 HOBBES: THE SOVEREIGN LEVIATHAN 239

death.” This incessant struggle for power is not always caused by the
fact that “a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he had already
attained to; or that he cannot be content with moderate power: but
because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he
hath present, without the acquisition of more.”® A vicious circle is thus
created from which flows strife, enmity, hatred, and bitterness.

The State of Nature

Starting from these psychological premises, Hobbes concludes that the
normal condition of human life is one of unceasing conflict, of a fiercely
competitive struggle for power and prestige, and of war “of every man
against every man.” In this prepolitical state of nature, the individual is
completely free to do anything which he deems necessary for his own
preservation and security. “There is nothing that he can make use of
that may not be a help to him in preserving his life against his enemies;
it follows that in such a condition every man has a right to everything;
even to one another’s body.”?? The self-centered individual finds himself
in a world with other similarly motivated men who are striving after
their own satisfactions. With limited material goods available, several
men will inevitably desire the same thing. And since men are roughly
equal in their ability to preserve themselves and to satisfy their appetites,
no individual can be secure. “From this equality of ability, arises equality
of hope in the attaining of our end. Therefore if any two men desire the
same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become
enemies; and in the way to their end . . . endeavor to destroy or subdue
one another.’*! A few men are willing to recognize this equality and to
accept the fact that other individuals are just as capable of resisting
encroachments as they are of imposing their wills on them. The vast
majority, however, are led by vain conceit to overestimate their own
ability and strength, and hence they attempt to outdo their fellow
creatures at all costs. The result is perpetual conflict since the very
equality of men prevents any one from gaining permanent ascendancy
over the others.
In this state of nature, which Hobbes intends as a description of the
relations among men in the absence of a sovereign political power, there
are no legal or moral laws to govern human behavior. Neither principles
of right or wrong nor of justice or injustice have any place, since there
9 Ibid., I, 11. 10 Ibid., I, 14. “\ Ibid., I, 13.
236 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

is no objective standard of conduct. Whatever man desires is perforce

good and just; what repels him is evil and unjust. Nor is there any
security for the individual other than what his own strength and ingenuity
furnishes him. Under such conditions “there is no place for industry
because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of
the earth .. . no arts, no letters, no society; and which is worst of all,
continual fear and danger of violent death.”’* If anyone doubts that
nature has so constituted man, let him reflect on his own experiences,
Hobbes advises. When he goes to bed at night, he bars his doors and
windows, he puts his valuables in strong vaults, and he pays large taxes
to provide for a police force and a standing army. Given man’s nature as
pictured in the Leviathan, it is not difficult to visualize the intolerable
condition of a society without the political commonwealth and its sup-
pressive powers. The life of man in such a state of nature “would be
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’™

The Laws of Nature

Having described the precarious condition of man in his natural state,
Hobbes employs his mechanistic philosophy to generate a countermotion_
that will drive men into political society. The passions and the reason
supply the necessary impetus and the means of emerging from the primi-
tive state of anarchy. The strongest passion in man is fear of death and
this is followed next by the desire for commodious living. These two
passions incline men to seek peace, since war is a constant threat to the
life and material possessions of the individual. As the passions dispose
men toward peace, reason points out the way to obtain this desideratum
by formulating certain rules for making life secure. “And reason sug-
gesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn
to agreement. ‘These articles are they, which otherwise are called the
laws of nature.” A law of nature, as Hobbes defines it, is “a precept,
or a general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to
do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of
preserving the same."
Man has a natural right (in the sense of liberty) to seek out whatever
will satisfy any of his desires. Hobbes contends that each individual acts
in order to secure what he considers the greatest good or least evil avail-
able at the time of acting. But so long “as this natural right of everyman
12 Tid) "3 TMoykel, ME Ifloytel. 15 iss,
 HOBBES: THE SOVEREIGN LEVIATHAN VEG

to everything endures there can be no security to any man .. . of living

out the time which nature ordinarily allows men to live.” Reason there-
fore dictates that man should “seek peace and follow it.”'® This is the
first and fundamental law of nature. From it is derived the second law
which ordains “that a man be willing, when others are so too, insofar as
for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down
this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against
other men as he would allow other men against himself.”*° The third
law, a corollary of the second, is that men keep their covenants. Other-
wise, “the right of all men to all things remaining, we are still in the
condition of war.’'’ Hobbes enumerates seventeen more laws of nature
which are essentially precepts of conduct designed to contribute to the
preservation of peace.
The natural law for Hobbes is something quite different from what it
had been for his predecessors. What he refers to as natural law is merely
a set of materialistic principles for developing a workable society out of
the actions and interactions of human individuals. Expressed somewhat
differently, it is a body of rules or counsels of prudence whereby man is
enabled to overcome his fear of death and to enjoy comfortable living.
The new concept rejects any transcendent test of good or evil. What-
ever is the object of man’s desires is good, whatever the object of his hate
evil. The measure of goodness or badness is purely subjective, “for these
words of good, evil, and contemptible are ever used with relation to
the person that uses them; there being . . . [no] common rule of good
and evil, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves.’’'®
No obligation exists on the part of the individual to obey Hobbes’
rational precepts. To disregard them is simply foolish and inconsistent
with man’s natural desire to preserve his life. In his natural condition of
freedom, an individual may be deterred from performing an act because
he does not have the necessary power or physical means; he is never
prevented from acting by any consideration that the contemplated deed
is morally wrong.
There are additional differences between the Hobbesian and the older
concept of natural law. Hobbes distinguishes between man’s natural right,
or the freedom to do as he pleases, and natural law, or the course of action
he must follow to avoid self-destruction. He considers the latter as a set

15 [bid. 17 Ibid., If, 5;

16 [bid. 18 [bid., I, 6.
238 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT* ERA

of voluntary restrictions which man places on his natural right of liberty

for the sake of expediency. In traditional thought, natural rights are
those basic privileges which flow from the natural law. There is no
dichotomy between the two as Hobbes proposes. Natural law establishes
the order within which man’s natural rights are determined and made
legitimate. Hobbes, moreover, does not regard natural law as law in
the true sense of the term. “For the laws of nature . . . are not properly
laws, but qualities that dispose men to peace and obedience.”?® Antici-
pating later developments, he looks upon law as the command of a
sovereign agency that has the authority to make rules and the power to
enforce them. Natural law becomes law strictly speaking only after a
state is established and the ruler commands men to obey these precepts
of reason.

The Social Contract

Since the individual is inclined to seek peace for his own preservation
and since reason dictates that orderly living is not possible so long as
the state of nature persists, men must obviously seek some arrangement
that will remove them from their primitive condition. According to the
second precept of Hobbes’ natural law, men can assure their self-preserva-
tion only if they are willing to covenant with each other to give up their
absolute natural right to all things. However, in view of man’s selfish and
depraved tendencies, such an agreement runs counter to all the emotions
that lead to perpetual warfare. Thinking themselves cleverer than their
fellow men, individuals would break the rules whenever it appears to
their advantage to do so. Hobbes points out that man cannot be relied
on to keep his covenants without some external sanction — that of force.
Agreements “without the sword are but words and of no strength to
secure a man at all.”*° The only solution is to create a common or public
authority with sufficient coercive power to compel adherence to the
social covenant. Such an authority can be established if each individual,
in consideration of others doing likewise, transfers his natural right of
liberty to a beneficiary who is not a party to the contract. This divestiture
is made as though each person should say to the other, “I authorize and
give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of
men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize
19 Tbid., II, 26.
20 Ibid., II, 17.
 HOBBES: THE SOVEREIGN LEVIATHAN 239

all his actions in like manner. This done, the Multitude so united in
one person is called a Commonwealth, in Latin Civitas.’
The nature of the political state created by the covenant can be gathered
from the definition of the commonwealth as “One person of whose acts
a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made
themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the strength and
means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their peace and
common defense.”?? Apparently everyone who voluntarily joins the
assembly of men for the purpose of creating a state implicitly agrees to
follow the majority decision in the selection of the sovereign. “For if
he voluntarily entered into the congregation of them that were assembled,
he sufficiently declared thereby his will, and therefore tacitly covenanted
to stand to what the major part should ordain.”?*? Once a majority agree-
ment as to the ruler is obtained, “everyone, both he that voted for it
and he that voted against it, shall authorize all the actions and judgments
of that man or assembly of men in the same manner as if they were his
own.”** ‘The activist role of the people in the political process ends with
the selection of the first sovereign. The matter of succession is thereafter
determined solely by the holder of the office.
Several features of Hobbes’ definition of the social contract are of
peculiar significance. First, the covenant is not one between ruler and
tuled, but an agreement among individuals to relinquish the state of
nature and to create a civil society. Previous thinkers had spoken in
terms of a political covenant between the people or community and
the king or government. Viewing man as a social creature, they had
looked upon life in an organized society as the natural mode of living.
The contract which they sometimes referred to was one between the
community as a unit and the ruler. It was not one to create a political
society, since they regarded such a society as a natural institution that
comes into being without the necessity of contract.
Second, Hobbes’ social contract is made by individuals who are naturally
solitary and antisocial. This view is reminiscent of the Sophist claim that
man is naturally nonsocial and that justice arises from the mutual agree-
ment to refrain from mutual injury. Hobbes’ theory of the social compact
seems to suggest that men have no natural interests in common; yet his
argument shows that they all have a mutual and vital interest in the
21 [bid. 23 Tbid., Il, 18.
22 [hid. 24 Tbid.
240 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

preservation of civil society. For without this society, man’s life would
be in constant peril. Since men rationally unite in pursuance of a com-
mon end— self-preservation — why may they not be considered similarly
united in respect to other ends also? And if this is true, is not civil
society with its co-operative devices natural to man?
Third, the unity of the people which is created by the social covenant
is a consequence rather than a cause of sovereignty. The efficient cause
of the state is, in the first instance, the individual wills contracting
singly with each other. These wills are made one only as a result of their
contract and the erection of a common power, which alone is the
“people.” Hence the importance of the words “one person” in Hobbes’
definition of the commonwealth.” The multitude is reduced to one
not through the organic unity of the people but through the creation of
the political sovereign in whom the entire strength of the individual sub-
jects is conferred. This unity is real and not merely moral. Not consent
but submission of the wills of all to the will of one creates civil society.
The permeation of Hobbes’ political philosophy by the stark deter-
minism of seventeenth-century physics can here be seen. Before indi-
viduals enter into the social contract, they are nothing more than a.
disordered mass. After the compact, the political community that is
created by a chance collection of human individuals is held together
artificially by the unlimited power of the sovereign, just as material atoms
are controlled by physical force. So conceived, the state becomes “the
great Leviathan, or rather (to speak more reverently) the Mortal God
to which we owe under the Immortal God our peace and defence.’’**
Fourth, there is no place for unanimous consent in Hobbes’ version of
the social contract. Many men, a multitude, are required to create a
sovereign sufficiently powerful to enforce internal order and defend
against external aggression. The minority has no choice but to submit
to the new master or be destroyed by its preponderance of power. Hobbes
was forced to resort to the fiction of a social contract because a theory
of society in terms of individual interests was a foregone conclusion in
the mental climate of his day. The difficulty inherent in his version of
state origin is to explain how an individual can be deprived of his
alleged natural ght to full freedom if he refuses to enter into the
covenant. Hobbes attempts to explain this away by noting that those
who do not consent to the pact remain in a state of nature and are
25 See James Collins, op. cit., p. 197. 28 Leviathan, Il, 17.
 HOBBES: THE SOVEREIGN LEVIATHAN 241

therefore subject to whatever action the sovereign may take for the pro-
tection of the civic body. Whether an individual “be of the congregation
or not, and whether his consent be asked or not, he must either
submit to their decrees or be left in the condition of war he was in
before; wherein he might without injustice be destroyed by any man
whatsoever.”??

Sovereignty
The party to whom the individuals transfer their authority is known
as the sovereign. His position carries with it certain basic rights and
powers. The subjects cannot withdraw their grant of authority without
his permission because they have irrevocably covenanted to be bound
“every man to every man, to own and be reputed author of all that he
that already is their Sovereign shall do and judge fit to be done.” Since
the sovereign is not a party to the contract, there can be no breach of
covenant on his part, “and consequently none of his subjects by any
pretense of forfeiture can be freed from his subjection.”?® Whatever the
sovereign does is per se right and just and cannot be questioned by the
people. In order to justify this attribute of sovereignty and yet maintain
the pretense of individual liberty, Hobbes employs the novel device (later
used by Rousseau) of making every man the author of the acts of the
sovereign.?? Whenever the latter acts, it is in effect the individual acting.
“By this institution of a Commonwealth, every particular man is author
of all the Sovereign does; and consequently he that complains of injury
from his Sovereign, complains of that whereof he himself is author.”*°
The sovereign is above criticism and his policies immune from public
debate. Full power of censorship over all expressions of opinion and
doctrine is vested in him. “It is annexed to the sovereignty to be judge
of what opinions and doctrines are averse and what conducive to peace;
and consequently on what occasions, how far, and what men are to be
trusted withal in speaking to multitudes of people; and who shall examine
the doctrines of all books before they be published.’*! The position of
the sovereign is also above the civil laws of the commonwealth. “For
having power to make and repeal laws, he may when he pleases free him-
self from that subjection by repealing those laws that trouble him and
making new.”*?
27 Ibid., Il, 18. 29 See post, pp. 296 ff. 31 [bid.
28 Ibid. 30 Leviathan, II, 18. 32 Ibid., Il, 26.
242 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT: ERA

Hobbes sums up the unlimited authority which he attributes to the

sovereign in the following passage:
His power cannot, without his consent, be transferred to another. He
cannot forfeit it. He cannot be accused by any of his subjects of injury.
He cannot be punished by them. He is the judge of ata is necessary
for peace and judge of doctrine. He is sole legislator and supreme judge
of controversies, and of the times and occasions of war and peace.**
By the authority conferred on him, the sovereign has the right to use as
much power and strength as he deems necessary to maintain peace at
home and protection against enemies abroad. There is no moral law, no
tradition or customs, no fundamental restriction that can be raised against
the power of the leviathan. All the reservations which Bodin retained
in his theory of sovereignty are here flatly discarded. Once the citizen
has entered into the social pact and chosen the ruler, not only does his
political power come to an end, but he loses all his civil rights.
Hobbes’ conception of sovereignty recognizes a sphere of private activity
which should remain relatively free from state interference. This area
of individual freedom includes the right “to buy and sell, and other-
wise contract with one another, to choose their own abode, their own
diet, their own trade of life, and institute their children as they themselves
think fit.”** There are also certain acts which the subject may legitimately
refuse to perform. He has the right, for example, to disobey if the sov-
ereign commands him “to kill, wound or maime himself; or not to resist
those that assault him; or to abstain from the use of food, air, medicine,
or any other thing without which he cannot live.”** Since men enter
into a social contract for the protection of their lives, it would be
inconsistent for them to invest the sovereign with the right to annihilate
them. In both the state of nature and civil society, man cannot be obliged
to destroy himself or to refrain from resisting those who attempt to kill
or injure him. For similar reasons, no man is obliged to incriminate
himself. “If a man be interrogated by the sovereign or his authority con-
cerning a crime done by himself, he is not bound (without assurance of
pardon) to confess it; because no man ... can be obliged by covenant
to accuse himself.”*°
What value do these individual rights have if the sovereign is not
accountable to his subjects? Actually, they have none, since they are
38 Tbid., II, 20. 35 [bid.
34 Tbid., II, 21. 86 Ibid.
 HOBBES: THE SOVEREIGN LEVIATHAN DAS

both ethically and legally meaningless. Although Hobbes concedes a

sphere of private activity to the individual, the unlimited power which
he vests in the state places no legal or philosophical barriers in the way
of a ruler who might arbitrarily decide to assume control over every
aspect of human life. Unless the subject has the physical power and
means to resist encroachment on his private rights, in which event it
could be said that a true sovereign no longer exists, he has no choice but
to acquiesce or pay the penalty for disobedience.
Rebellion of the subjects is never lawful, although an individual may
resist any attempt on his life by the ruler. However, if an uprising does
occur and the sovereign proves incapable of suppressing it, the covenant
apparently terminates and the subjects are restored to the state of
nature. “The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to
last as long, and no longer, than the power lasts by which he is able
to protect them. For the right men have by nature to protect themselves,
when none else can protect them, can by no covenant be relinquished.’’*?
If the sovereign loses effective control of his society, the people are
thrown back upon their own resources and are free to turn to a new
leviathan who can protect them.

SUMMARY
Bodin’s doctrine of sovereignty had acknowledged certain limitations on
the power of the ruler. Hobbes discarded all such limitations by giving the
first statement of “genuine” sovereignty known to political thought. His
writings saddled upon the field of politics a concept that has led to the most
extreme forms of state domination, and that has made effective international
government impossible of attainment. He no doubt felt that a desperately ill
society, one plunged in disorder and turbulence, called for desperate remedies.
If his analysis of human nature is correct, if the basic drives in man are fear
and lust for power, and if man’s natural condition is antisocial, quarrelsome,
and completely selfish, perhaps the Leviathan is justified and the apologia
later offered for fascism and totalitarianism sound. As one writer has remarked,
the natural depravity of man presented by Hobbes asks and deserves the
totalitarian answer that the Leviathan offers.?8
Hobbes’ theory demonstrates the logical consequences of the antitraditional
view that there is no disposition in man to place his passions and appetites
under the rational principle. Reason, in his thinking, is no longer a judge of
the proper ends to be sought; it is only an instrumental agency for pointing
out the way to achieve the objects of one’s desires more swiftly and fully.
31 Ibid. 38 J. Bowle, op. cit., p. 331.
244 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

The psychical life of man is reduced to the mechanics of attraction and

repulsion, such as love-hate and courage-fear, which serve as the foundations
of human behavior. In the process, the Cartesian distinction between the
knowing subject and the known object is carried to extremes, with the mind
becoming merely a passive reflector of external phenomena.
Limited government and the rule of law lie at the heart of Greek-medieval
thought. Hobbes rejects both of these concepts in his effort to construct a
theory of the state that will ensure order and security. His notion of sover-
eignty can tolerate no restriction on the power of the political leviathan.
Unlike the traditional appeal to law and to the good sense of the average
man to obey social regulation, the new doctrine appealed to absolutism in
fear of anarchy. Given Hobbes’ concept of human nature every man is in
reality a tyrant. The question then is, do you want many tyrants, in which
case no citizen is secure, or one tyrant that is capable of enforcing peace and
order among all the populace.
Despite his absolutist tendencies, Hobbes is a forerunner of modern indi-
vidualism. His basic premise that the common good is not a natural end for
men but merely a pure figment of the imagination haunted political philosophy
for more than two centuries. His individualism found political expression in
the doctrine of the social contract, a doctrine based on an intellectual recogni-
tion by isolated individuals that they would personally gain through some form
of association. Hence, man creates civil society for much the same reason
that he fashions a saw or hammer to be used as an instrument for his own >
purposes. The state in this light is little more than an artificial contrivance,
lacking the moral and organic unity that brings men together in a continuing
endeavor for their mutual growth and development.
Despite his reference to natural law, there is no room in Hobbes’ theory
for any independent moral standard by which human behavior may be ap-
proved or condemned. The precepts of conduct which he offers are not moral
norms for judging political acts, but general rules of behavior which can be
relied on only when enforced by civil government. By abolishing the moral
test, Hobbes cleared the way for the purely utilitarian and pragmatic standards
which later were to assume great popularity. The social philosophy which he
formulated ends by deriving moral duties from political necessity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arendt, Hannah, “Expansion and the Philosophy of Power,’’ Sewanee Review,
October, 1946.
Balz, A. G. A., “Indefensibility of Dictatorship — and the Doctrine of
Hobbes,” Journal of Philosophy, March, 1939.
Chroust, A. H., “The Origin and Meaning of the Social Contract Doctrine
as Expressed by Greek Philosophers,” Ethics, October, 1946.
Fichter, J. H., “Thomas Hobbes on Absolutism,’’ Modern Schoolman, March,
1939.
 HOBBES: THE SOVEREIGN LEVIATHAN 245

Gerhard, W. A., “The Epistemology of ‘Thomas Hobbes,” The Thomist,

October, 1946.
Gotesky, R., “Social Sources and the Significance of Hobbes’ Conception of
the Law of Nature,” Ethics, July, 1940.
Gough, J. W., The Social Contract, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University
Press) 1957),
Grene, M., “On Some Distinctions Between Men and Brutes,” Ethics,
January, 1947.
Herz, John H., Political Realism and Political Idealism (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1951).
Jessup, B. E., “Relation of Hobbes’ Metaphysics to his Theory of Values,”
Ethics, April, 1948.
Kaplan, M. A., “How Sovereign is Hobbes’ Sovereign?” Western Political
Quarterly, June, 1956.
Laird, John, Hobbes (London: Benn, 1934).
Lamprecht, Sterling P., “(Hobbes and Hobbism,” American Political Science
Review, February, 1940.
Levy, A., “Economic Views of Thomas Hobbes,” Journal of the History of
Ideas, October, 1954.
Nagel, T., ““Hobbes’ Concept of Obligation,” Philosophical Review, January,
1959.
Oakeshott, Michael, Leviathan (Oxford: Blackwell, 1946).
Stewart, H. L., “Personality of Thomas Hobbes,’ Hibbert Journal, January,
1949.
Stewart, J. B., “Hobbes Among the Critics,” Political Science Quarterly,
December, 1958.
Strauss, Leo, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1952).
Trevor-Roper, H. R., “Fear as the Basis of Hobbes’ Political Philosophy,”
New Statesman and Nation, July, 1945.
Warrender, Howard, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1957).
Watkins, J. W. N., “Philosophy and Politics in Hobbes,” Philosophical
Quarterly, April, 1955.
“The Posthumous Career of Thomas Hobbes,” Review of Politics,
July, 1957.
Windolph, F. L., Leviathan and Natural Law (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1951).
 Chapter XIII

JOHN LOCKE: THE STATE LIMITED

“To understand political power right, and derive it from its

original, we must consider what state all men are naturally in”
(Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government, II, +).

Hosses’s Leviathan had received a cold reception on all sides. His view
that man was under no moral obligation in the state of nature and
his cavalier attitude toward religion were particularly shocking to his
English contemporaries.1 Supporters and opponents of the monarchy alike
repudiated his views, often with bitter invective. Those who sought to
uphold the Crown were not averse to his absolutism but to the grounds
on which he based it. His materialism and his theory of the social con-
tract were hardly compatible with the doctrine of divine nghts. On the
other side, his support of unlimited sovereign power evoked strong protest
from the Parliamentarians. No one but Hobbes seemed particularly
satisfied with the new twist that he had given to political philosophy.
During the latter part of Charles II’s reign, the doctrine of divine
rights and passive obedience again came into prominence. Theoretical
support was given to its revival by the posthumous publication of Sir
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha in 1680, during the controversies that led
to the Whig revolution. Although Filmer sought to sustain his defense
of divine rights on more rationalistic grounds than his predecessors had,
his rejection of the natural freedom and equality of all men placed him
outside the main current of seventeenth-century philosophy. Hobbes had
endeavored to stay within this stream by harnessing the dogma of natural
equality and the device of consent in support of authoritarianism. The
efforts of both Filmer and Hobbes were doomed to failure as the tradi-
~ 1See John Bowle, Hobbes and His Critics (New York: Oxford University Press,
1952) for an account of the political criticisms directed against the Leviathan by
Hobbes’ contemporaries.
246
 JOHN LOCKE: THE STATE LIMITED 247

tional concept of constitutionalism and limited rule began to reassert

itself in English political life.
In the early part of the century, James I had been able precariously
to maintain his position of supremacy despite increasing opposition. His
successor, Charles I, was not so fortunate. Forced to summon parliament
in 1640 for financial reasons, Charles became involved in a series of
disputes with that body that led to civil war and to his eventual execu-
tion. In the ensuing period Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the parlia-
mentary army, emerged as the strong man. The republican form of
government that had been established after the execution of the king
was soon converted into a virtual dictatorship. As Lord Protector, a
position created under the Instrument of Government (England’s first
and only written constitution), Cromwell enjoyed a position as absolute
as that of any Tudor or Stuart. On his death in 1658, the system which
he had established fell to pieces. Two years later, the Stuart dynasty in
the person of Charles II was returned to the throne, and the contest
between king and parliament began anew.
The opponents of Charles’s government sought to secure the passage
of an “exclusion bill” that would have removed the Catholic Duke of
York, the future James II, from succession to the throne. It was at
this time that the Tory supporters of the House of Stuart resurrected
Filmer’s Patriarcha in their efforts to provide a theoretical basis for
monarchical legitimism. The Whig justification for the exclusion act
rested on the premise that it was parliament’s duty to alter the succession
because the people allegedly did not want James as their king. This
position implied that government rests on popular consent, whereas the
Patriarcha denied that such consent is the basis of political authority.
The Tory efforts to sustain this latter view on theoretical grounds marked
the swan song of the divine right doctrine.
Charles II had succeeded in retaining a substantial measure of power
largely because of the disunity among his opposition. When James II
inherited the throne and attempted to restore political and other privi-
leges to the members of his faith, he provided the one ground on which
the opposing factions could unite. Since there were no constitutional
means of deposing the monarch, revolution was the only course open.
Men of varying shades of opinion accordingly joined in an invitation
to the Dutch Stadtholder, William of Orange, to “bring over an army
and secure the infringed liberties” of Englishmen. In the “Glorious Rev-
248 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT, ERA

olution” which followed, James fled to France while William and _his
wife Mary (the daughter of the deposed king), were proclaimed joint
sovereigns of England. The constitutional settlement, effected by parlia-
ment and set out in the Bill of Rights of 1689, placed certain conditions
and limitations on royal tenure. The monarchy was preserved but it was
now a monarchy dependent on legislative sanction. By its actions in
the post-revolutionary period, parliament demonstrated that it had be-
come theoretically as well as actually sovereign. Under title of mght, it
had made and unmade kings and prescribed the conditions under
which they were to hold office. These are the marks of a supreme political
power, not of a subordinate agency.

THE LEVELERS

The parliamentary victory meant that Whig constitutionalism, not

Tory authoritarianism, was to determine the development of eighteenth-
century England. It would be wrong, however, to assume that democracy
had been established in the process. The victory meant simply that
political control had been shifted from the king to a narrow oligarchy
of propertied interests, with parliamentary suffrage no more liberal than
it had been during the late middle ages. The political disqualification of
all but a small segment of the population had already evoked cries of
protest. As early as the period of the civil wars, the less prosperous ele-
ments of the middle class had started to press for a more democratic
government. Originating in the ranks of the Cromwellian army, the
Leveler movement, as it became known, was the first organized mani-
festation of a growing political consciousness among the lower economic
classes. Dissatisfied with the conservative plan of reform advocated by
the army officers, the Levelers under the leadership of John Lilburne and
Richard Overton demanded widespread political changes. The reforms
which they proposed included universal suffrage, representation in parlia-
ment on the basis of population instead of wealth, and constitutional
limitations on the power of government over individual nghts. Their
ideas were embodied in a written document, “The Agreement of the
People,” drafted in 1647.
The Levelers, many of whom were small property owners and shop-
keepers, had no intention of seeking the abolition of property rights but
 JOHN LOCKE: THE STATE LIMITED 249

only the curtailment of political monopoly by the privileged classes.

The proposals which they made met with instant opposition from the
army officers, such as Cromwell and Ireton, who represented in the
main the landholding and corporate interests of England. This group
was committed by conviction as well as economic status to a modifica-
tion, but not an abolition, of England’s traditional structure. Its members
looked upon parliament as the protector of property and vested rights;
and hence they considered dangerous and subversive any scheme that
would divest them of political control. The Manifestoes issued by the
Levelers in support of their demands for political reform anticipated in
large measure the constitutional patterns that later were to stir England
and America.? But in seventeenth-century Britain, their ideas were con-
sidered destructive of the country’s economic and social interests. Faced
with such a threat, the landed Anglican and the Presbyterian business-
man cast aside their differences to join forces in defense of the status
quo. The time had not yet arrived for the democratization of England.

JAMES HARRINGTON

James Harrington (1611-1677), a contemporary of Hobbes, represents

a more conservative and scientific approach to British political reform
than that employed by the Levelers. In his Oceana, he outlines a scheme
for the formation of a new republican government to be established in
the Commonwealth of Oceana, a fictitious country that obviously refers
to England. He employs the medium of a political utopia in his efforts
to construct a comprehensive science of politics that would account for
all political phenomena. The underlying basis of his theory is that the
form of government appropriate to a state depends upon the distribution
of property, and that in the long run government must inevitably reflect
the manner of this distribution in a community. Whatever class owns
a preponderance of the land must by sheer economic necessity command
the power to control government. When one man owns more land than
all others in the community combined, an absolute monarchy is usually
2In addition to the Levelers, there was a more radical and extremist group known
as the Diggers. Led by Gerrard Winstanley, the Diggers contended that private
property is one of the primary causes of social evil and corruption and should there-
fore be abolished. They advocated the common ownership of all land and the distribu-
tion of its produce on an equitable basis.
See D. M. Wolfe, ed., Leveller Manifestoes of the Puritan Revolution (New
York: Nelson & Sons, 1944).
250 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT: ERA

found; when ownership is in the hands of a small nobility, a mixed or

limited monarchy is common; and when landholding is widely dispersed,
a commonwealth or popular form of government normally exists.
Historically, Harrington’s thesis that property is the key which deter-
mines the character of government finds a large measure of verification.
Aristotle had realized the importance of this factor, but he had warned
that to permit government to be determined by property is to make politics
subservient to economics. Despite his theory of economic causation,
Harrington is likewise unwilling to see government placed wholly at
the mercy of economics. Although he feels that in the interest of stability,
supreme political authority must rest with those who own most of the
land in the community, he advocates the distribution of property within
limits so as to favor a particular form of government. Thus in his Oceana,
he proposes a system to ensure wider ownership among the upper middle
class —a group that he regards as best equipped to govern. He believes
that this plan would make it possible to secure the proper economic basis
for a commonwealth. The aristocratic class would play a predominant role
but it would be subject to constitutional restrictions. Moreover, it would
not hold a disproportionate amount of property in the community. For
if a state is to be stable, great variations in wealth must not exist among
classes; such differences tend to destroy the equilibrium that holds a
society together.
While Harrington believes that order in a state depends upon the
existence of a sovereign power, he also insists that ways be devised to
prevent the arbitrary or selfish use of this power. Institutional means
must be available to check the rulers if the objectives of civil government
are to be achieved. ‘This political balance is supplementary to the eco-
nomic balance. It can be attained through such devices as indirect elec-
tions, the secret ballot, rotation in office, and written constitutions that
are superior in status to other laws. He is convinced that there must be
a “government of laws and not of men,” and that the saying “give us
good men and they will make us good laws” is the maxim of a dema-
gogue. His Oceana is designed to ensure proper use of the enormous
power that must necessarily be vested in the state.

JOHN LOCKE
Despite their basic differences, both the Levelers and Harrington helped
to cast the ancient conception of natural right and consent into a new
 JOHN LOCKE: THE STATE LIMITED 251

mold. Influenced by the egoistic tendencies of the period, both were

inclined to emphasize individual rights at the expense of the traditional
notion of the primacy of the common good. The Levelers viewed civil
society as a mass of free individuals co-operating, not out of a sense of
fellowship and common destiny but primarily from motives of self-in-
terest. Harrington similarly felt that government should be designed
to protect an enlightened egoism. These threads were woven together
into a more formal and articulate theory of political individualism in
Locke’s theoretical justification of the 1688 constitutional settlement.
After six years of exile, John Locke (1632-1704) returned to his native
land on the same boat that brought the Princess Mary to join her hus-
band William of Orange on the English throne. He was born in Wrington
in the county of Somerset, of Puritan parents. His father was a small
landowner and lawyer who had fought in the civil war on the side of
the Parliamentary party. Locke was educated at Oxford, where he re-
ceived the bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He subsequently studied medi-
cine, and in 1667 became personal secretary and physician to the first Earl
of Shaftesbury, who organized the Whig party. During his patron’s
tenure as Lord Chancellor, Locke received several important public ap-
pointments that gave him practical experience and insight into the
realities of politics and administration. I] health caused him to retire
to France for four years, and this enforced leisure gave him the oppor-
tunity to develop his own philosophical views. Shortly after Locke re-
turned to England, Shaftesbury became involved in a plot against the
king and was forced to flee the country. Although Locke played no part
in the conspiracy, he fell under suspicion and was obliged to seek safety
in Holland. Early in 1689 he returned to England and the following
year published his major political opus, Two Treatises of Government,
a work which is sometimes referred to as the bible of modern liberalism.
It was written in defense of the revolutionary settlement, or as its author
expresses it to “establish the throne of our great restorer, the present King
William, to make good his title in the consent of the people.” The
first book is a refutation of the divine right theory of Filmer; the second
sets forth Locke’s own constructive ideas on the nature of the state and
its authority.

State of Nature
Like his predecessor Hobbes, Locke rests political obligation on a
252 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT *ERA

social contract. He begins his treatise on political philosophy by posit-

ing an original state of nature which he refers to as the great natural
community of mankind. This condition, as he describes it, is one of
living together under the guidance of reason but with no designated
political authority. “Men living together according to reason without a
common superior on earth with authority to judge between them are
properly in the state of nature.’’* In this prepolitical society men are free,
equal, and independent. Each individual possesses the natural liberty
“to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the
will or legislative authority of man.”* Each man is the equal of every
other human being, not necessarily in respect to virtue or capacity but
in the fact that he is absolute lord over himself and subject to no other
human authority.
While the state of nature is one of liberty, it is not one of license.
Nor is it a community of savages, but of civilized and rational anarchists.
Though man in this state has “an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of
his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or
so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use
than its bare preservation calls for it.”® Unlike the Hobbesian conception, .
Locke’s state of nature is not one of war. Peace prevails, although it is
a precarious peace. This state, moreover, is not devoid of law. Man’s
freedom and conduct are regulated by the natural law, which to Locke
means “real” law and not mere qualities disposing man to seek peace
as a matter of self-preservation. “The state of nature has a law of nature
to govern it, which obliges every one; and reason, which is that law,
teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and
independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty,
or possessions.”’?
How is a law of this kind to be enforced in the state of nature without
some form of governing agency? Locke recognizes the need for sanctions
other than those of a moral character since “the law of nature would,
as all other laws that concern men in this world be in vain if there
were nobody that in the state of nature had a power to execute that
law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders.”* He ob-
serves that nature has not failed in this respect since she provides a
~
4Second Treatise of Civil Government, III, 19. Excerpts from Locke are taken
from the World’s Classics Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947).
5 Ibid. IV, 22. T Ibid., Il, 6.
6 Ibid., Il, 5. 8 Ibid., Il, 7.
 JOHN LOCKE: THE STATE LIMITED 253

remedy for anarchy by making every man an executioner of the law with
authority to punish wrongdoers.
Man being born as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom
and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the
law of nature, equally with any other man, or member of men in the
world, has by nature a power not only to preserve his property, that
is, his life, liberty, and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other
men, but to judge of and punish the breaches of that law in others.®
There are certain serious defects, Locke admits, in a societal system
that must depend on self-execution of the natural law. First, “there
wants an established, settled, known law received and allowed by com-
mon consent to be the standard of right and wrong, and the common
measure to decide all controversies between them.” Although the natural
law exists and can be known to all rational creatures if they but take
the trouble to discover it, men do not reflect sufficiently under unsettled
social conditions and are biased by their own interests in determining
what the law is. Hence, in the prepolitical state the natural law is de-
prived of its proper promulgation. Second, “there wants a known and
indifferent judge with authority to determine all differences according
to the established law.” It is unreasonable for men to be judges in their
own cases since self-interest will tend to make them partial to themselves
and their friends. Finally, “there often wants power to back and support
the sentence when right, and give it due execution.”° Since an individual
must depend on his own capacity to enforce his natural rights, a just
claim may be left unsatisfied when the claimant does not possess suffi-
cient physical force to execute the law. Under such circumstances man’s
enjoyment of his personal and property rights is uncertain and insecure.

The Social Contract

Despite the freedom and independence which man enjoyed in the
state of nature, the shortcomings of that condition impelled him to unite
in political society. Although Locke touches upon man’s social nature
and his inclination to seek the company of others, he insists that the
individual is driven into political society by inconveniences of his natural
condition rather than by nature itself. “To avoid those inconveniences
which disorder men’s properties in the state of nature, men unite into
societies that they may have the united strength of the whole society
9 [bid., VII, 87. 10 Ibid., IX, 124-126.
254 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

to secure and defend their properties, and may have standing rules to
bound it by which everyone may know what is his.’’*?
Since men are “free, equal and independent” it follows that no man
without his consent can rightfully be subjected to the political authority
of another. To supply this element of assent, Locke follows the prevailing
pattern of his day by employing the device of the social contract. Men
agree with one another to enter into society and to establish a body politic
under one supreme government. By this compact, the people transfer to
the newly created community the power to execute the natural law, a
power which they individually enjoyed in the state of nature. “Because
no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the power
to preserve the property, and in order thereunto punish the offences
of all those of that society; there, and there only, is political society,
where every one of the members has given up this natural power, re-
signed it up into the hands of the community.”?? And by consenting
to the agreement to form a body politic, each person obligates himself
to submit to the majority will. “For, when any number of men have,
by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby
made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which
is only by the will and determination of the majority."
Several features of Locke’s social contract should be noted. First, the
motivating principle behind the agreement is not fear of destruction but
a desire to avoid the annoyances of the state of nature. Men are not
refugees from an earthly hell secking protection in the strength of an
all powerful sovereign; they are merely seeking an institutional device
that will make more secure the rights they already possess. Second, the
individual does not surrender to the community his substantive natural
rights, but only his right of executing the law of nature. Third, the right
which the individual resigns is not given to any particular person or
group but to the community as a whole. The contract is one to form
a political society. Once this society is established, it must then proceed
to set up a government. It goes about this task by drafting a trust in-
strument that creates a government with “fiduciary power to act for
certain ends.” ‘The political community is at the same time both creator
and beneficiary of this trust. As creator it sets the limits of the trustee’s
power; as beneficiary it is the recipient of the advantages accruing from
the exercise of this power. Although unanimous consent is required for
ti Ibid. XI, 136) M2 Vloyisl,. NAD, By. BS Toytel,, NAMIE, SIs,
 JOHN LOCKE: THE STATE LIMITED 2D

the original social contract, the will of the majority prevails in the
formation of the government and in subsequent lawmaking.

Limited Government

Locke’s description of the social compact indicates that he had no

intention of vesting arbitrary and absolute power in the hands of the
government as did Hobbes. His aim is to justify limited rule under a
government that derives its authority from the people and holds its
power in trust for their benefit and welfare. In such a political system,
public officials as well as private citizens must come under the law and
be subject to its sanctions. This means that the powers of government
must be limited by law and exercised in accordance with it.
Recognizing that in any organized community there can be only one
supreme political agency, Locke assigns this role to the legislative branch
of government. He avoids the pitfalls in the problem of sovereignty by
describing the legislature as a trustee of the law for the people. In
this capacity it may rightfully claim political supremacy while the com-
munity itself enjoys a reversionary sovereignty as the beneficiary of this
trust. Since political authority is of a fiduciary nature, “there remains
still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative”
when it acts contrary to the terms of the trust. “For all power given with
trust for the attainment of an end being limited by that end, whenever
that end is manifestly neglected or opposed, the trust must necessarily
be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it,
who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and
SeCULITY,.**
Locke lists four specific limitations on the powers of the legislature:
(1) It is obliged to obey the natural law which “stands as an eternal
tule to all men, legislators as well as others.”?> (2) It must rule accord-
ing to law and not by arbitrary decrees. “For all the power the govern-
ment has, being only for the good of the society, as it ought not to
be arbitrary and at pleasure, so it ought to be exercised by established
and promulgated laws, that both the people may know their duty, and
be safe and secure within the limits of the law, and the rulers, too,
kept within their due bounds.”"® (3) It cannot levy taxes on the property
of the people without their consent. “Tis true, governments cannot be
14 Ibid., XIII, 149. 15 Ibid., XI, 135. NS Tiostol, 2A STE
256 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

supported without great charge, and ’tis fit everyone who enjoys his
share of the protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for
the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent, i.e.,
the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves or their rep-
resentatives chosen by them.”!? (4) It cannot delegate its lawmaking
authority to other hands, “The power of the legislative, being derived
from the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be
no other than what that positive grant conveyed, which being only to
make laws, and not to make legislators, the legislative can have no power
to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands.”?*
The various limitations which Locke places on political rule indicate
how rich a storehouse of ideas he provided for American political thought.
All of the following can be attributed, at least in part, to his influence:
the Declaration of Independence with its emphasis on the inalienable
tights of man, including the right of the people to alter or abolish their
government when it becomes destructive of human ends and _ values;
the colonial argument of no taxation without representation; and the
distinctly modern principle of unlawful delegation of legislative power
which is frequently invoked in American constitutional law.

The Purpose of Government

Closely allied to the question of limited rule is that of the purpose
or end of government. The answer to this question seemed clear to
Locke. He believed with many of his English contemporaries that the
protection of property is the principal, if not the whole, business of
the state. To support this position he seeks to show that there is a
natural right of property which exists antecedent to the establishment
of civil society. Property in the state of nature is common in the sense
that each individual has the nght to obtain his subsistence from what-
ever nature offers. Once, however, he appropriates property by adding
his labor to it, such as by cultivating a field, he acquires a private in-
terest in it. By expending his energy on the fruits of nature he makes
them a part of himself. He acquires a right to that “which he hath mixed
his labor with.” It is a right which he brings with him when he enters
society. The primary function of government is to protect this property
right.
"4 Tbid., XI, 140.
18 [bid., XI, 141,
 JOHN LOCKE: THE STATE LIMITED jsy

Locke explains that when he uses the term property, he employs it

in an all inclusive sense to mean “life, liberty and estate.”?® Nevertheless,
he gives the right of property in the sense of land and goods special
prominence among these prerogatives.2° His thinking evidences no effort
to distinguish between the relative positions of property rights and human
values. Both categories are placed on the same plane and spoken of in
the same voice. Little regard is paid to the traditional conception of a
hierarchy of values with different levels of rights. Under this latter view,
the right of the individual to develop his moral capacities and to main-
tain his dignity as a human person stands at the hierarchical apex. Lower
in the scale are other values, such as property, that are indispensable to
the realization of the primary objective. If government is barred from
recognizing such gradation of values and is obliged to consider all rights
on the same plane, it cannot rightfully restrict one to the advantage of
the other.
What then is the purpose and function of the state? Locke holds
that civil government would be unnecessary if it were not for the in-
conveniences of the state of nature — inconveniences which hinder man
in the enjoyment of his life and property. Since man enters into political
society to correct these deficiencies, the functions of government are
necessarily limited to this end. Hence, the proper role of government
can be determined simply by ascertaining the shortcomings which force
man into political society. Locke points out that these deficiencies re-
volve around the insecurity of man’s life and property in the state of
nature. Prepolitical society is “full of fears and continual dangers” and
peace and quiet are uncertain. All that is needed is some organized power
to ensure order and settle disputes.
Like most of the Whigs of his day, Locke is not an advocate of
laissez faire but a mercantilist. He does not believe that economic rela-
tionships automatically balance and adjust themselves. He feels that
some governmental regulation of trade is necessary to protect and foster
commercial interests. The functions of government, however, are essen-
tially of a negative rather than positive character. Government is to pro-
tect property, keep order, and provide a peaceful environment in which
individuals can freely pursue their own ends. Social betterment and the

19 Tbid., XV, 173.

20 See, in this connection, J. W. Gough, John Locke’s Political Philosophy (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1950), p. 85.
258 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

removal of economic inequities are outside its jurisdiction. Locke speaks

of the common good, but his treatment of it is ambiguous and unsatis-
factory. His emphasis is almost wholly on private initiative and individual
right, to the neglect of public interests and the general well-being. In
the last analysis, the egoism inherent in his political philosophy tends
to reduce the common good to the aggregate sum of individual goods.

Majority Rule
Long before the eighteenth century, the principle that government
must rest upon the consent of the governed had become incorporated
into western thought. Locke makes this theory the basic point in his
solution to the problem of civic obligation. No man, he observes, can
be subjected to the will of another without his own consent. Unanimity
is required to form the social compact and to make the individual a
member of a commonwealth. There is no obligation, moral or otherwise,
on the individual to enter society; the impelling motive is merely that
of expediency. Anyone who refuses to join the pact may go his own
way and provide for himself elsewhere. Presumably the community could
rightfully enforce his departure, although this aspect is not clear. At.
any rate, once an individual has agreed to the original contract, he is
thereafter bound to accept the decisions of the majority. “And thus every
man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one
government, puts himself under an obligation to everyone of that society
to submit to the determination of the majority and to be concluded
byte?
Locke’s recourse to majority rule calls for explanation. If government
rests on consent, why should the decision of the majority be received
as the act of all? Why, in other words, should an individual be com-
pelled to act contrary to his wishes or his good judgment simply because
a numerical majority has so decreed? Locke’s answer is a practical one:
the community cannot otherwise continue to exist if each person is free
to reject those laws in which he has not concurred. “For that which acts
any community, being only the consent of the individuals of it, and
it being one body, must move one way, it is necessary the body should
move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent
of the majority, or else it is impossible it should act or continue one
body.”??
21 Second Treatise of Civil Government, VIII, 97. 22 Tbid., VIII, 96.
 JOHN LOCKE: THE STATE LIMITED 259

After the social pact is freely concluded, the element of individual

consent disappears and is replaced by the will of the majority. Again,
the justification for the changed character of man’s freedom is sheer
necessity. But why in the original contract should unanimous consent
be required and in subsequent acts of government only majority approval
demanded? If majority consent is justified as a necessary expedient to
prevent anarchy, is it not also justified on similar grounds to end the
chaotic conditions in the state of nature? Some of Locke’s commentators
say that he avoids this difficulty by including in the social pact an agree-
ment to submit to the will of the majority. If he had this in mind,
he certainly took little pains to emphasize it, apparently recognizing the
artificiality of attempting to preserve the formal principle of consent in
this manner.
There is a second difficulty implicit in the doctrine of majority rule,
a difficulty that Locke is well aware of and for which he attempts to
provide a corrective. The problem is an obvious one: what guarantee is
there that the majority will not on occasions exploit its superior power
and violate the rights of individuals? That majorities can be just as
tyrannical as absolute princes was later to be tragically demonstrated
during the French Revolution. Locke argues that the individual’s nghts
are less seriously threatened by majority rule than by monarchical ab-
solutism, an argument supported by historical experience. Yet from a
philosophical standpoint, it makes little difference whether man is subject
to the unqualified power of a leviathan or the unrestricted will of the
majority. The logical consequences in each case would be the same.
Locke’s philosophy takes account of this theoretical difficulty by recog-
nizing that behind the civil law (law expressing the will of the majority)
stands the natural law. ‘This law endows the individual with certain basic
rights which he does not lose on entering political society. Majorities as
well as absolute monarchs are morally obligated to respect these nights.
If they fail to do so, their acts lose all title to legitimacy, and brute force
then replaces right in the governance of man.

Natural Law
If, as Locke states, civil rule is limited by the natural law, the logical
and ultimate outcome of his political philosophy must be dependent on
his understanding of the character of this law. It will be recalled that
Hobbes looked upon the laws of nature as mere conclusions or theorems
260 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

which conduce to self-preservation.”* These precepts are not binding until

they are enacted into civil law by a sovereign power. Locke, on the con-
trary, holds that there are certain moral rules established by God which
are valid, whether observed by governments or not. Such limitations are
inherent in the fiduciary relationship which characterizes political rule.
If government violates them and endeavors “to take away and destroy
the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary
power,” it puts itself into “a state of war with the people, who are
thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the
common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and
violence.”** This remedy is revolution.
On the basis of these statements it appears that Locke unconditionally
rejects the Hobbesian view of natural law in favor of the traditional
concept. However, there are certain tendencies in his work which militate
against this conclusion and which raise the presumption that his natural
law provides no more of a philosophical barrier against the abuse of hu-
man rights than did that of his predecessor.?° Despite his more optimistic
view of man, his state of nature is basically no different than that de-
scribed in the Leviathan. Nature is full of fears and dangers, and mar
has a natural right to “do whatever he thought fit for his preservation”
within the bounds of the moral law. Since reason teaches that life and
property cannot properly be preserved in such a condition, man enters
civil society to overcome these difficulties. Man may be less warlike and
there may be fewer dangers in the Lockean than in the Hobbesian state
of nature, but these are largely matters of degree. The compulsion to
enter civil society in order to avoid the dangers and inconveniences of
the prepolitical state exists equally in each case.
The crucial and only important difference between Hobbes and Locke
in their approach to the state appears to be the latter’s insistence on
the binding character of the natural law regardless of civil sanction. Yet
a closer examination raises doubt as to whether there is a substantial
difference even in this respect.?® Characteristic of those who adhere to
23 See ante, p. 237.
24 Second Treatise of Civil Government, XIX, 222.
25 For a comparison of the thought of Locke and Hobbes in this regard, see H.
Johnston, “Locke’s Leviathan,’ Modern Schoolman, Mar., 1949, pp. 201-210.
26 For a carefully reasoned discussion holding that there is no substantial difference
between Locke and Hobbes in respect to their theories of natural law, see Leo Strauss,
“Locke’s Doctrine of Natural Right,” The Philosophical Review LXI (1952), pp.
475-502,
 JOHN LOCKE: THE STATE LIMITED 261

the empiricism of eighteenth-century epistemology, Locke rejects the

possibility of innate ideas. “All our ideas come from experience.” Com-
plex ideas are constructed from simple ideas by various operations of
the mind in much the same way that one sorts individual playing cards
into new combinations or puts together bricks to make a house. Man,
according to Locke, is able to know the moral law by observation and
by the “light of nature.” This natural light is vaguely defined as a com-
bination of sense and reason working together to discover the law of God.
Locke’s approach to human knowledge, and more specifically to man’s
ability to know the moral law, is highly restricted. All the facts which
we know are derived through our senses. Yet we do not know these
facts immediately but only through the ideas which the mind has of
them. Our knowledge is therefore real only so far as there is conformity
between our ideas and the reality they represent. But how do we know
that our ideas agree with outside reality? Locke’s epistemology prevents
such knowledge since by his own definition all knowledge is only of
the relations of ideas in our mind.
Locke’s strict empiricism causes him to reject any habitus of moral
principles in man and to deny that the natural law can be known from
man’s natural inclinations toward truth and virtue. He looks upon con-
science as nothing more than an individual’s own opinion or judgment
of the moral rectitude of his own acts; as such, it supplies no sanction
to the natural law. Nowhere does he purport to show what the meta-
physical relationship is between God and the human mind. Hence his
conception of reason as a guide to individual and social morality tends
to result in a relative standard defined by the majority view at any given
time and place. Considered in its entirety, his thinking appears to replace
the traditional idea of natural law with a moral teaching that is based
on the desire or instinct for self-preservation.?’

The Organization of Government

Whatever may be said of Locke’s metaphysics, his political philosophy
seeks to demonstrate that the natural rights of individuals may better
be protected under limited than absolute government. His causal and
practical theory, while incomplete and sketchy, is designed to achieve
constitutional government through the establishment of institutional safe-
27 See Leo Strauss, “Locke’s Doctrine of Natural Law,’’ American Political Science
Review, June, 1958.
262 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

guards against arbitrary rule. Underlying his thought is the belief that
the government of political society must be constructed in such a way
that it will be least incapable of oppressing its citizens. Locke purports
to see the ideal framework for governmental organization in the con-
stitutional settlement of 1688. This arrangement made Parliament legally
supreme, but retained the king as chief executive with certain prerogatives
and powers.
In discussing the imperfections of the state of nature, Locke notes
that prepolitical society lacked a public agency to promulgate, adjudicate,
and execute the natural law. When later he describes the organization
to be established for the commonwealth, he does not follow the same
division in listing the three categories of governmental powers. Instead,
he speaks of the legislative, executive, and federative or treaty-making
powers. These latter two functions are to be vested in the same depart-
ment of government. No mention is made of the judiciary as a separate
and independent branch.
This division of powers is necessary partly for reasons of convenience.
Since the legislature may do its work in a relatively short period, there
is no need for it to remain in session at all times. The administration of .
the laws, on the other hand, is a daily and continuing job that requires
the executive department to function all the year around. But more
important than convenience, the functional separation of legislative and
executive powers is essential as a check on arbitrary rule “because it may
be too great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for
the same persons who have the power of making laws, to have also
in their hands the power to execute them.’’*® Locke belongs to a long
line of theorists who believe that one of the weaknesses of mankind is
a tendency for those in authority to seek ever greater power.
The legislature in Locke’s scheme of government is to be elected from
time to time by popular vote. It is legally omnipotent; there is no appeal
from its decisions to any higher tribunal. Its power, however, is limited
to the public good of society. If it abuses its position, the people have
the right to resist. Parliament, in other words, is to remain at all times
responsible to the people who are the true holders of political sovereignty.
Their sovereignty is normally in abeyance; it becomes active only when
the government has been overthrown by revolution. In such case, the
government (but not civil society, which once created, is permanent) is
28 Second Treatise of Civil Government, XII, 143.
 JOHN LOCKE: THE STATE LIMITED 263

dissolved and political power or legal sovereignty reverts to the people.

They in turn would provide for a new government just as they had
established civil rule following the original social compact.
Although the legislative branch is to be elected by the people, it is
not necessary that there be a wide suffrage. Locke is no more a democrat
than the average Whig of his day. He was perfectly satisfied with the
constitutional settlement of 1688, which gave a virtual monopoly of
political power to the propertied class. He felt that this group was far
better qualified than the masses to direct the course of British govern-
ment. Sovereignty of the people does not mean democracy or universal
suffrage to him, but merely a conditional right of revolution in the people
should government breach its trust.
In answer to the question as to who shall judge whether the prince
or legislator is acting contrary to his trust, Locke categorically replies,
“the people.” Just as the master has the right to determine whether his
servant is acting properly, so the people have the authority to judge
whether their political deputies are acting according to the trust reposed
in them. If the prince or governors decline to submit to this way of
determination, “the appeal then lies nowhere but to Heaven” — meaning
revolution. Presumably heaven will give victory to the better cause. The
people must decide for themselves whether it is advisable to resort to
this drastic remedy. Locke contends that the right of revolution in the
people will not lead to governmental instability as some of his con-
temporaries claimed. He believes that people will not rebel for slight
reasons; in fact they “are more disposed to suffer than right themselves
by resistance.”

SUMMARY
The political thought of the seventeenth century is distinguished by two
major doctrines pertaining to the origin of government: divine right and social
contract. The first maintains that God has bestowed political power on certain
persons and that an act of rebellion against them is not only treasonous but
immoral. The second holds that civil government is the result of contract
among individuals. Locke is one of the leading exponents of the latter theory.
He saw in it a means of defending on philosophical grounds the cause of
constitutional government against the claims of absolutism.
Locke’s approach to the state and government is not unlike that of Hobbes,
although the conclusions he arrives at are quite different. Both look upon
civil society in essentially mechanistic terms. They view it as an institution
264 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

that would be wholly unnecessary were it not for the inconveniences or evils
which exist in the state of nature. The concept of community is entirely
missing in their writings. In its place is the notion of a group of isolated
individuals living together for reasons of security and convenience.
Locke, no more so than Hobbes, mentions the intellectual and moral
requirements or the perfection of human personality that make the state a
necessary and therefore distinctly natural institution for man. He does recog-
nize the natural law but tends to overlook the fact that it calls for duties as
well as rights and that it enjoins the common good as well as the protection
of private interests. This tendency to equate private with public good was
later to play a significant role in western thought. As Professor Sabine has
noted, Hobbes and Locke by a strange and undesigned co-operation helped
to fasten on social thought the presumption that individual self-interest is
clear and compelling while public or social interest, the common good, is
thin and unsubstantial.?°
Locke’s impact on subsequent political theory and practice has been great.
He became the philosophic godfather of the American Revolution and a
source of inspiration to the Founding Fathers; he gave theoretical formulation
in terms of contemporary thought to the principles of limited and constitu-
tional government; and he helped set the stage for institutional control of the
rulers. On the other side of the coin, the weaknesses inherent in his political
philosophy helped to pave the way for the exaggerated individualism which .
became one of the basic tenets of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century liberal-
ism. These defects also contributed to the deterioration of the sense of
community and encouraged the emphasis on property over human values.
Locke’s civil society, despite the moral premises on which he seeks to base it,
remains an artificial contrivance, not the natural state of man —an uneasy
cohesion of individual atoms held together not by any intrinsic principle of
moral unity but by an external force. For Hobbes this unifying element had
been supplied by the power of the leviathan; for Locke it was furnished by
the will and strength of the majority.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cherno, M., “Locke on Property: A Reappraisal,’ Ethics, October, 1957.
Crossman, R. H. S., Government and the Governed (London: Christophers,
ee
Czajkowski, C. J., he Theory of Property in John Locke’s Political Philosophy
(South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1941).
Gibb, M. A., John Lilburne, the Leveller (London: Drummond, 1948).
Gough, J. W., John Locke's Political Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1950).
Frank, Joseph, ‘T’he Levellers (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955).

29 A History of Political ‘Theory, op. cit., p. 529.

 JOHN LOCKE} THE STATE, LIMITED 265

Hamilton, W. H., “Property — According to Locke,”’ Yale Law Journal, April,

125
Johnston, H., “Locke’s Leviathan,’ Modern Schoolman, March, 1946.
Kelsen, Hans, “Foundations of Democracy: Property and Freedom in the
Natural Law Doctrine of John Locke,” Ethics, October, 1955.
Kendall, Willmoore, John Locke and the Doctrine of Majority Rule (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1941).
Lamprecht, Sterling P., The Moral and Political Philosophy of John Locke
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1918).
Lewis, H. D., “Original Contract,” Ethics, January, 1940.
Monson, C. H., Jr., “Locke and His Interpreters,”’ Political Studies, June, 1958.
Murphy, W. F., “The Political Thought of Gerrard Winstanley,” Review of
Politics, April, 1957.
Neilson, F., “Locke’s Essays on Property and Natural Law,” American Journal
of Economics and Sociology, April, 1951.
Reinhardt, I. J. F., “Political Philosophy from John Locke to Thomas Jeffer-
son,” University of Kansas City Law Review, December, 1944, and February,
1945.
Rotenstreich, Nathan, “Rule by Majority or by Principles,’ Social Review,
Winter, 1954.
Rowen, H. H., “Second Thought on Locke’s First Treatise (Confusion of
Property and Political Power),” Journal of the History of Ideas, January,
1956.
Simon, W. M., “John Locke: Philosophy and Political Theory,’ American
Political Science Review, June, 1951.
Strauss, Leo, “Locke’s Doctrine of Natural Law,’’ American Political Science
Review, June, 1958.
Waldman, T., “Note on John Locke’s Concept of Consent,” Ethics, October,
1957.
Yolton, J. W., “Locke on the Law of Nature,” Philosophical Review, October,
1958.
 Chapter XIV

THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

“Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night, God said: ‘Let
Newton be,’ and all was light” (Pope, Epitaph Intended for
Sir Isaac Newton).

Tue eighteenth century has often been labeled the “philosophical cen-
tury.” It was a period of intense intellectual activity in which the quest
for the hidden truths of the universe was accelerated with crusading zeal.
Reason became the high priest of a new intellectual cult; but it was no
longer the reason of the past. It was a new reason, supremely self-confident,
convinced of its autonomy, and certain that it had discovered the key
to unravel the innermost mysteries of the universe. Human omniscience
now became regarded as an attainable goal. As Cassirer has so well noted,
“the whole eighteenth century is permeated by this conviction, namely,
that in the history of humanity the time had now arrived to deprive
nature of its carefully guarded secret, to leave it no longer in the dark
to be marveled at as an incomprehensible mystery but to bring it under
the bright light of reason and analyze it with all its fundamental forces.”
The influence of the Enlightenment on social and political thought was
so substantial that its effects were felt well into the nineteenth century,
despite the challenging protestations of more sober minds.
Reason traditionally had recognized its limitations and its ultimate de-
pendence on the Divine Mind. With Descartes this reliance had been
virtually disavowed as human reason began to assert its complete auton-
omy. In Cartesian philosophy, thought starts from an intuitively grasped
certainty and proceeds by strict systematic deduction to piece out the
whole pattern of knowledge? The eighteenth century completed the
process of emancipation started by Descartes. Impressed by the great

1The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

EOS ps Ae
2 See ante, p. 228.
266
 THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 267

scientific discoveries of the age, the philosophers of the Enlightenment

turned to the model of contemporary natural science. In so doing they
sought to make the same methods which lead to exact insights into the
nature of the physical world applicable without reservation to the social
aspects of mankind. Impressive efforts were made to convert philosophy
into a natural science. In the process, philosophical questions were placed
on the same level with other problems and regarded as answerable by
similar means. Only the measurable facets of reality were considered
as real.
Newtonian physics, which had apparently succeeded in discovering the
mechanical laws of nature, gave encouragement to the belief that social,
political, and economic events could be treated in scientific fashion.
What science had achieved in the material world, it could also accom-
plish in the social sphere. Once the laws governing human behavior are
discovered, they can be incorporated in a social science analogous to
physics or biology. How men should live and act, or what makes them
happy and satisfied, are simply factual questions that can be investigated
as any physical phenomenon. Through a social science the good society
can be created with the same assurance that nuclear energy can be utilized
for various purposes. For men, just as atoms, are objects of nature, and
subject to similar laws.
The leaders in the new movement were a group of French thinkers
and writers known as the philosophes. Although they had various political
and social ideas, they were united by their faith in science, their acceptance
of Locke and Newton, and their antagonism toward the Catholic
Church. The philosophes, such as Voltaire, Diderot, Helvetius, and
Holbach, many of them the darlings of the salons, stress in_ brilliant
style the concept of a world governed by inevitable and impersonal law
—a world, moreover, that is progressing steadily toward a more glorious
era. They regard this universe as intelligible and capable of being sub-
dued to the uses of mankind. Similarly, they envision the new scientism
as the means of enabling the human creature to become the master and
possessor of nature. As knowledge increases and as man discovers the
laws of the universe, he places himself in a position where, if he cannot
fully control reality, he can at least manage it in the interest of human
happiness and well-being.

3 Kingsley Martin, The Rise of French Liberal Thought (New York: New York
University Press, 1954), p. 93.
268 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

Carl Becker, in his penetrating analysis of the philosophes, lists the

four major characteristics of their “religion”: (1) man is not naturally
depraved, he is naturally good and disposed to follow reason; (2) the
end of human existence is the good life on earth, not the beatific life
after death; (3) man through his own efforts, guided solely by reason and
experience, is capable of achieving this objective on earth; (4) the first
and essential condition of human living is the freeing of men’s minds
from ignorance, superstition, and intolerance.t This last goal can be ac-
complished only by scientifically studying the phenomena of nature—
by sweeping away the cobwebs of medieval superstition and letting in
the light of reason.
For the eighteenth century, the power of reason and the notion of
inevitable progress came to usurp the places formerly held by Christian
redemption and Divine Providence. The new movement took on the
character of a messianic enterprise or religious crusade. This meta-
morphosis was clearly evidenced by the transference from a religious
to a secular state of mind—a transference that reached its climax during
the French Revolution when the crucifix in the Paris cathedral was torn
down and an altar erected for the worship of “Reason,” the god of.
triumphant man. The ancient belief that man and his world are de-
rived from and dependent upon a transcendent power was dissipated in
the new order of thought. In its place came a practical terrestrianism,
“characterized sometimes by a resigned acceptance of a truncated spirit-
uality, sometimes by a simple agnostic matter-of-factness, unconcerned
with that of which it is largely unaware, and sometimes marked by a
heroic search for significance in the ‘absurdity’ of it all.”* Since western
culture had developed primarily from Christian roots, this process of
secularization took the concrete form of a de-Christianization.
Although the Enlightenment was by no means confined to France,
the most culturally advanced nation of the period, it found its most
characteristic and articulate expression there. To illustrate the significant
aspects of the movement, four French writers have been chosen for
brief examination: Voltaire for his critical and highly skeptical attitude
toward religion; Quesnay as the founder of the “physiocratic” theory of
economics; Condorcet for his idea of progress; and Montesquieu for his

4'The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1932), p. 102.
°'T. F. O'Dea, “The Secularization of Culture,” Commonweal, Apr. 20, 1956.
 THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 269

political theory. In addition, one English thinker of the Enlightenment,

David Hume, is considered because of his logical positivism and his
attempt to apply Newtonian methods to the study of human nature.

VOLTAIRE

Francois Marie Arouet (1694-1778), known by his assumed name of

Voltaire, was educated by the Jesuits in the Collége Louis-le-Grand. A
leading figure of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, he was one of
the most productive as well as popular writers of his day. His writings
reached far beyond the borders of his native France. Everyone who read
at all, read him. The “new” philosophy was consequently assured of a
wide audience. Prior to the publication of Voltaire’s Lettres philosophiques
in 1773, the ideas of the philosophes were known only to a small group
of French thinkers. With the appearance of the Lettres, many thousands
of readers came into contact with the dogma of scientific rationalism for
the first time. Newtonian physics and Lockean psychology were brought
down from the citadels of learning to the salons and the market place.
The results on the thought and action of the period were profound.
In his later years, Voltaire wrote that he would die with three theologi-
cal virtues: his faith in human reason which is beginning to develop
in the world; the hope that ministers in their boldness and their wisdom
will at length destroy customs which are as ridiculous as they are dan-
gerous; the charity which makes him grieve for his neighbor, complain
of his bonds, and long for his deliverance. This outlook, he states, is
more akin to the gospel of the New Testament than is the teaching
of its orthodox interpreters. Organized religion, as he put it, is narrow,
intolerant, and cruel. Every sensible person ought to hold it in horror.
Man must be snatched from the tyranny of the clerical impostors and
inspired with the spirit of tolerance and freethinking.
The early philosophes did not deny the existence of God. Following
the English deists, they held that creation implies a creator, and that
the operation of nature according to certain fixed principles necessarily
assumes the existence of some intelligent Being or first cause. Once this
impersonal force had fashioned the world, immutable laws came into
existence to govern it. “I shall always be convinced,” Voltaire remarks,
“that a watch proves a watchmaker and the universe proves a God.”
This idea of a first cause, of a Being who created and started the world
270 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

in motion and then withdrew to the side lines was contrary to the
Christian concept of a personal deity continually active and creative.
As Professor Hallowell has noted, Deism could not long retain its
impossible position perched precariously as it was between orthodox
Christianity and atheism.’ Some of the later philosophes such as Baron
d’Holbach (1723-1789) took the next logical step by discarding alto-
gether the idea of a creator and adopting the view that the universe was
the result of an accidental combination of atoms. Yet even this thorough-
going materialism could not dispense with the impelling necessity felt
by man for some transcendent object of worship. Holbach sought to fill
this need by extolling nature as the object of veneration while others
turned to a religion of humanity —to a worship of man. In place of
the love of God, “they substituted the love of humanity; for the vicarious
atonement, the perfectibility of man through his own efforts; and for
the hope of immortality in another world, the hope of living in the
memory of future generations.”” As Voltaire observes, even if there were
no God it would be necessary to invent one.
The new outlook which Voltaire typifies did not include any radical
ideas in the field of politics and government. Although the men of the
Enlightenment spoke out against oppression of all kinds and taught that
all men have equal nghts to liberty and property, they had no faith in
the capacity of the average man for self-government. Voltaire’s reference
to the masses as “Jes canailles” (scum) may not have been typical, yet
it was expressive of the suspicion that he and his colleagues held for the
“common” man. Impressed by the British constitution which had be-
come a symbol of freedom on the Continent, Voltaire saw the solution
to the problem of government in an enlightened monarch (that is, one
enlightened by the philosophes) who would carry out the necessary re-
forms. Despotism would be guarded against by extending the franchise
to the upper middle class and by setting up certain constitutional checks.
By these means, the political ideals of the philosophes could be at-
tained: “an enlightened and tolerant State, which guaranteed civil liberty
to every individual: a State whose policy was entirely secular, and which
was always on its guard against the encroachments of any Church: a
State in which the only laws were reasonable applications of a single.
universal and evident law of nature.’’’

6 Main Currents in Modern Political Thought, op. cit., p. 124.

7 Carl] Becker, op. cit., p. 130) 8 Kingsley Martin, op. cit., p. 147
 THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT ei

QUESNAY
The emphasis on freedom and the belief in a “natural order” carried
over into the field of economics. Reacting against the mercantilistic
policies which had characterized government since the rise of the ab-
solutist state, a group known as the Physiocrats turned for support to
the scientific rationalism of the day. The founder of the physiocratic
school, Francois Quesnay (1694-1774), belongs more to the classical
tradition than he does to the Enlightenment. He believes in the existence
of an objective order and in man’s ability to comprehend that order, but
he nowhere subscribes to the simple deductive approach to social ques-
tions.? Insisting that France’s ills were primarily economic, he set out
to show how these could be corrected. His disciples, however, soon turned
physiocratic thinking toward the easy rationalistic treatment of economic
and social problems. In the process, the original premises of the school’s
founder were quickly overlooked or rejected.
Starting with the notion that the organization of society is governed
by fixed and ascertainable laws, the physiocrats argue that the state should
not attempt to interfere with or regulate the production and distribution
of goods. They maintain that natural law applies to the circulation of
money just as much as it does to the circulation of blood. No physician
would attempt to interfere with the natural course of the circulatory
system in man. He might study and examine it in order to enlarge his
knowledge of the human body and its operations but he would never
attempt to tamper with its natural functionings. Similarly, no government
should be so foolish as to interfere with the natural operation of economic
or even social laws. To do so would be to flaunt the forces of nature
and to act contrary to her laws.
The Physiocrats were more concerned with economic liberty than
they were with political rights. ‘They had no interest in democratic govern-
ment or popular participation in the political arena. Their idea was a
benevolent despotism
—a state administered by an hereditary monarch
whose function would not be the creation of new laws but the mainte-
nance of a framework within which the laws of nature might freely
operate. Holding to the doctrine earlier expressed by Hobbes that pleasure
and pain are the motivating factors in human action and that each man

9 See in this connection, Thomas P. Neill, “Quesnay and Physiocracy,” Journal of

the History of Ideas, Apr., 1948, pp. 153-173,
272 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

is the best judge of his own interests,’° the Physiocrats conclude that a
healthy and happy society can result only if governmental restrictions
are reduced to a bare minimum. In Lockean fashion, they assert that
the function of the state is to safeguard the natural rights of the in-
dividual to life, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Government’s
role is simply to permit the free operation of social and economic laws
by preventing the invasions of individual liberty which sometimes occur
in society. The welfare and happiness of the community will be greatly
enhanced if the natural harmony that is inherent in the social order 1s
given free play and not interfered with by human regulation. Govern-
mental attempts to curb economic processes violate natural law and lead
to misery and chaos.
Mercier, a disciple of Quesnay, sums up the essence of the new economic
philosophy in revealing fashion:
Each of us, by favour of this full and entire liberty, and pricked by
desire of enjoyment, is occupied, according to his state, in varying,
multiplying, perfecting the objects of enjoyment which must be shared
amongst us, and thus increases the sum of the common happiness by
increasing his private happiness. And so each in the sum total of the
common happiness would take a particular sum which ought to belong
to him. We must admire the way in which every man becomes an
instrument to the happiness of others, and the manner in which this
happiness seems to communicate itself to the whole. Speaking literally,
of course, I do not know if in this State we shall see a few unhappy
people, but if there are any, they will be so few in number and the
number of the happy will be so great that we need not be much
concerned about helping them."
Soon to become known as “liberalism,” this line of thinking emerged
”

as one of the dominant forces in nineteenth century political thought.

Physiocratic thinking provided the doctrinal basis for the position of
the merchant and manufacturing classes. These groups had become so
self-sufficient by the middle of the eighteenth century that they were
anxious to free themselves from the mercantilist policy of state control.
The idea of a natural law of economics served their purposes admirably.

CONDORCET: THE THEORY OF PROGRESS

The belief that man is essentially good, that he is capable by virtue

10 See ante, p. 232 ff, 11 Quoted in K. Martin, op. cit., p. 234.
 THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT Die.

of his reason of fully understanding reality, and that he can manipulate

his environment through science gave encouragement to the idea of “prog-
ress.” Is there any reason why man cannot attain the knowledge and
means to contro] his future, to establish the perfect society on earth, and
to achieve complete happiness? None whatsoever, is the answer of the
eighteenth century. The attainment of these objectives will be made
possible as soon as more is learned about the laws which govern the social
order and as the science of society becomes better formulated and under-
stood. This optimistic view is well expressed by the Marquis de Con-
dorcet (1743-1794), a French philosopher and mathematician. In his
Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind,
he sketches the development of man from a barbarian past to a perfect
future ushered in by the French Revolution.” It is his thesis that man
will attain perfection by the use of reason and facts. Nature has set no
limits to the perfection of the human faculties; the perfectibility of
mankind is indefinite.
According to Condorcet, the story of progress is identical with that of
knowledge — knowledge that results from the accumulation of experi-
ence. Each generation knows more than the last, and passes on this
widened area of truth to its successors. As science and truth prevail in
the process, the errors and superstitions fostered by the priests and despots
for selfish and vested interests are gradually overcome. If the passage
from a tude society to a state of civilization has at times been a painful
struggle, it has been a necessary course in the gradual advance of the
human species toward absolute perfection. The outlook for the future,
moreover, need occasion no pessimism. Society will become increasingly
rationalized and scientific minded, the gross inequalities in education,
opportunity, and wealth which exist within and among nations will be
removed, and all wars will be outlawed. Humanity will enjoy peace and
prosperity and the sun will shine only upon free men on this earth, men
who recognize no other master than their reason.
In the glorious future envisaged by the new cult of progress, man will
want not merely the existence of subsequent generations but their sub-
lime happiness. His faith in science will lead him to expect extended
human longevity and the progressive curtailment of the powers of death.
As Condorcet himself asks, “Is it unreasonable to suppose that a period
must one day arrive when death will be nothing more than the effect
12 For a concise summation of Condorcet’s views see K. Martin, op. cit., Chap. 11.
274 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

either of extraordinary accidents, or of the slow and gradual decay of

the vital powers; and that the duration of the middle space, of the in-
terval between the birth of man and his decay, will itself have no assign-
able limit?”** Even time and death are waiting to be conquered.
The ancient theory of history is cyclical in character. It regards history
as an endless chain of recurrent events in which society reaches a certain
stage of development and then retrogresses. Polybius furnishes a good
example of this point of view. His belief in an inevitable law of growth
and decay with its tendency to cause one form of government to degener-
ate into another is characteristic of the cyclical theory. The Christian
concept of history, on the other hand (first given formal expression by
St. Augustine), rejects the ancient viewpoint by looking upon historical
development as linear in nature. It holds that history has a beginning
and end and that it represents a direct progress toward the ultimate goal.
This progress, however, is not necessary and inevitable. At times the
march toward perfection receives severe setbacks as the earthly city gains
predominance. During such periods, man is reminded of his wounded
nature and of his need for redemption.
The new historical view advanced by the Enlightenment is also linear °
in nature, but the progress which it envisions is a continuing and neces-
sary one, a steady advance from the kingdom of darkness to that of
light. History is not looked upon as “something which makes us, but
something which we make, which is the entirety of things which man
has made, which he is making, and which he is going to—or can —
make.”’* Fascinated by the belief in the infinite perfectibility of man,
the prophets of the Enlightenment envision a heavenly kingdom on earth
in which science and reason will reign triumphant.
Condorcet buttresses his theory of inevitable progress by the belief
that acquired characteristics are inheritable. Social and political conditions
in which knowledge can be freely acquired and transmitted are therefore
essential to a progressive society. Many of the evils of the past can be
attributed to the superior classes who kept the people ignorant in order
to exploit them. The only remedy for this practice is to make truth
available to all men so that none will be dependent on another. Rational

18 Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind (London:

1795); Da oOo:
14 Alexandre Koyre, “Condorcet,” Journal of the History of Ideas, Apr., 1948, p. 131.
 THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 275

man must become his own master if the human race is to progress. He
must cast off his servitude to political and priestly superiors. To do this,
he must become educated. But this education must not consist of doc-
trinal views imposed by those in authority. It must be based on known
facts and statistical data of high probability. In other words, it must be
truth arrived at by the method of the mathematical and natural sciences.

MONTESOUIEU

The most comprehensive political theorist of the Age of Enlighten-

ment was Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755). Born of a well-to-do
family of the petite noblesse, Montesquieu traveled extensively in Austria,
Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and England. He began his career
as a lawyer, but his interest in science and political institutions soon
directed his activities into the channels of writing. Combining the happy
facility for serious work with good living, he was able to win entry into
the French Academy at the unusually early age of thirty-nine. He shares
with the French philosophes their optimism in human progress, their
faith in science, their hatred of despotism, and their inordinate anti-
clericalism. He is also impressed, as they were, with British government
and the intellectual outlook of the English aristocracy and middle classes.
At the same time, he is more moderate in his approach, more aware of
the complexities of society, and less inclined to believe in the wisdom of
far-reaching social changes by human fiat.
Montesquieu’s objective is to form a science of politics by discovering
the rules which govern social phenomena. Standing in the tradition of
Aristotle, he seeks his answers in the concrete facts of life. Observation
and historical analysis are his chief instruments of research. The Spirit
of the Law, which embodies the nexus of his social and political thinking,
runs the whole gamut from analytic politics and economics to con-
temporary gossip and spicy anecdotes. While Montesquieu has an afhnity
for storytelling and is sometimes unduly fascinated with particulars, a
clear and logical principle dominates his writings. He notes in the preface
to his great work, “I have first of all considered mankind, and the result
of my thoughts has been, that amidst such an infinite diversity of laws
and manners, they were not solely conducted by the caprice of fancy.
I laid down the first principles, and have found that the particular cases
276 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

follow naturally from them; that the histories of all nations are only
consequences of them; and that every particular law is connected with
another law, or depends on some other of a more general extent.”?®
Three principles of particular significance to the development of polit-
ical thought emerge from the Spirit of the Laws. The first pertains to
the role that environment and circumstances play in the shaping of law
and society; the second to the relation between norm and relativity in
law and politics; and the third to the doctrine of separation of powers as
a preventive against despotism.

Environment and Politics

Montesquieu is emphatic in his insistence that laws and political
institutions must be adapted to the circumstances — historical, geographi-
cal, and climatic—in which a people lives. There is no exact code of
laws and no set form of government that is suitable for all communities.
The reconciliation of public authority and private mght—the central
problem of political philosophy —is not subject to a universally ap-
plicable solution. It must be achieved differently in different cultures; it
depends upon the configurations of time, space, and tradition.
The spirit of the laws and of political systems is to be found in their
relation to the people whom they affect and the environment in which
they operate. Hence, the most appropriate form of government is one
which best agrees with the disposition of the people for whom it is
established. Since natural forces such as climate and soil affect human
behavior, laws and social institutions should be “relative to the climate
of each country, to the quality of its soil, to its situation and extent, to
the principal occupation of the natives, whether husbandmen, huntsmen,
or shepherds . . . to the religion of the inhabitants, to their inclinations,
riches, numbers, commerce, manners and customs.’’?* Cold climates foster
energetic action, composure, and self-possession, while warm climates
breed inertia, passion, and emotion.
In his classification of governments, Montesquieu lists three types:
republican, monarchical, and despotic. The first may be either a democ-
racy, when sovereignty is vested in the whole body of the people, or an
aristocracy, when supreme power is lodged in only a select part of the
15 The Spirit of the Laws. Excerpts from Montesquieu are taken from the Hafner
edition translated by T. Nugent (New York: Hafner, 1949).
16 Tbid., I, 3.
 THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 20h

people. Monarchy is constitutional government by a single individual

while despotism is arbitrary and capricious rule by one. Monarchy also
requires the existence of an aristocracy or some intermediate power stand-
ing between ruler and people and acting as a modifying influence.
Despotism tolerates no such interference; the uplifted sword of the
tuler regulates and curbs everything. Unlimited by law, the tyrant rules
according to his own will and caprice.
Montesquieu notes that no form of government can be understood
without a proper appreciation of its principles or moving force. Thus a
republic, whether governed by the few or the many, depends on the civic
virtue and the public spirit of its people —a genuine love of country, a
willingness to sublimate individual self-interests when the common good
so demands, a sense of patriotism, honesty, frugality, and equality. The
spirit of equality, however, must not become excessive. Democracy is
endangered when each man desires to be the equal of those whom he
has chosen to rule over him.
Monarchy rests on the motivating factor of honor or a rivalry for
distinction among the social hierarchy, each class being anxious to guard
its rank and privileges. Although this may be a “false honor which moves
all parts of the government,” nonetheless, by this useful motive men
can be induced “to perform the most difficult actions, such as require
an extraordinary exertion of fortitude and resolution, without other rec-
ompense than that of glory and applause.”’* France had constitutional
government as long as the king retained the parliaments and consulted
with the aristocracy. When he failed to call the assemblies and to seek
the advice of the nobility, absolutism set in. In contrast to the motivating
forces of the other forms, despotism is dependent upon fear; it survives
only as long as its subjects are intimidated. It is, in short, a government
over slaves and not free men.

Social Relativism
Montesquieu is sometimes criticized for trying to combine an immu-
table natural law with a sociological and moral relativism. Such criticism,
however, is not entirely warranted since it is extremely doubtful that
he deviates materially from the traditional view of the relation between
an objective moral law and its application in given historical circum-
stances. At the outset of the Spirit of the Laws, he defines law as “human
11 Tbid., Ill, 6.
278 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ‘ERA

reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the

political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular
cases in which human reason is applied . . . and should be adapted . . .
to the people for whom they are framed.’!* At no time does he deny
the existence of a moral norm or standard to be found in the nature of
man and the universe. He expressly admits the existence of first princi-
ples and at least implicitly, if not directly, denies that the sociological
factors of time and circumstances take the place of these immutable
laws. It would seem, although admittedly he is difficult to interpret in
this regard, that his spirit of the laws refers simply to the different kinds
of customs and practices of a people, which are in effect the specific
determinations of first principles by that people.
This interpretation is supported by Montesquieu’s view that man is
not completely at the mercy of nature. As a free creature, he can help
to mold his own destiny and bring about his proper end. Unfavorable
climatic conditions may encourage moral degeneracy, but man can coun-
teract these disadvantages by spiritual forces. “The more the physical
causes incline mankind to inaction, the more the moral causes should
estrange them from it.’’!° The laws of a country must be realistic, but
they must not run counter to the basic principles of nature. If the cus-
toms of a people violate such principles, it is the duty of the government
to modify them through appropriate legislation. Certainly the predisposi-
tions of a people whether brought on by climate, soil, or historical cir-
cumstances, and whether violative of the natural law or not, are im-
portant factors that must always be taken into account when making
laws. ‘The inbred habits of a people, Montesquieu observes, cannot be
changed overnight, and any attempt to do so might precipitate a social
revolution.
As a true son of the Enlightenment, Montesquieu feels that the moral
order will become more perfect as the human race advances in knowl-
edge. He is confident that a painstaking investigation of empirical details
will eventually lead man to a deep insight and understanding of nature.
Aware of the complexity of the social organism, he realizes that an
enormous amount of investigation and research will be necessary before
intelligent reforms can be prescribed and meaningful knowledge of society
obtained. Once the needed facts are accumulated and analyzed, man
will be in a position to separate the constant forces of nature from the
18 Jbid., I, 3. 19 Tbid., XIV, 15.
 THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 279

variable tendencies of the human will, and thus effectively to control

the future.

Separation of Powers
Montesquieu is best known today for his doctrine of the separation of
powers. Previous political thinkers from Polybius to Locke had stressed
the value of a “balanced” constitution or a division of powers as a make-
weight against despotism. Prior to the seventeenth century, however, no
writer had given expression to the idea of separating powers solely on a
functional basis. The balanced constitution which earlier thinkers had
sought to achieve had been founded, either on the idea of preventing
any single social or economic class from becoming too predominant in
government, or on the simple principle that political power should be
divided among several agencies of the state so that each might act as a
check on the other. In this latter scheme, no clear-cut division had been
made between the nature of the functions to be entrusted to each agency.
The objective had been to maintain political equilibrium by giving a
portion of the sum total of governmental power, regardless of its
functional nature, to different agencies. Thus the king might exercise
certain legislative and judicial as well as administrative duties, while the
power of the senate or parliament would not necessarily be confined to
lawmaking.
It is doubtful that earlier theorists would have thought it feasible or
even possible to make a complete separation between policy-formulation
and policy-execution. Locke was one of the first to suggest the advisability
of such a division, but his views in this respect lacked preciseness and
failed to take account of the judiciary as a distinct and independent
branch.2° The task of developing and giving rational justification to the
threefold division of power which is so familiar to modern day political
science fell to the competent hands of the French baron.
Montesquieu is well aware that it is easier to condemn despotism than
to provide against it. ‘To form a moderate government, it is necessary
to regulate political power, temper it, and give as it were a ballast to
one power to enable it to withstand another. This task requires a master-
piece of legislation, which chance produces rarely and prudence seldom.
Montesquieu feels that the abuse of power can only be avoided by con-
stitutional arrangements in which each element of the government is
20 See ante, p. 262.
280 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

subject to the limitations of a balancing and opposing power. Such a

system is necessary since “constant experience shows us that every man
invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far
as it will go.”??
Political functions are commonly classified as legislative, executive, and
judicial. By vesting power over each functional category in different
branches of government, a monopoly of public authority by a single
individual or group is avoided and the conditions of political freedom
better assured. For
when the legislative and executive powers are united in the same
person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty;
because apprehensions may rise lest the same monarch or senate
should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
Again there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from
the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the
life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control;
for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the
executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression.??
‘This principle was echoed by Madison when he wrote in the Federalist-
Papers: “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and
judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether
hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very
definition of tyranny.”?%
But how effective is it to divide formal political power among three
departments of government when all three are actually under the control
of one social or economic group in the community? Montesquieu recog-
nizes the sociological implications of this question by endeavoring to
supplement the legal and organizational division of powers by a balancing
of social forces. To him, the monarch or executive represents social inter-
ests different from the legislature, while the judiciary represents every-
body and hence nobody in particular. Where does legal sovereignty rest
in such a system of divided authority? In the composite of the three
powers, is Montesquieu’s answer. And if they do not agree? They must
agree, he replies, for political change can come about only by a “move
in concert.” The need for action must be subordinated to the need
for consensus.
Montesquieu purports to have discovered the separation of powers
21 The Spirit of the Laws, XI, 4. 22 [bid., XI, 6. 23Now 47.
 THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 281

principle in the British constitution. But the constitution that he refers

to is the constitution of 1689 and not its eighteenth-century development.
At the very time that he was lauding British government for its separa-
tion of powers, England was actually establishing unified authority in
the House of Commons. Montesquieu failed to perceive that the develop-
ment of the cabinet system was destroying the very division of political
power which he felt was so essential to human liberty.
Montesquieu would not have been perturbed to learn that he had
misinterpreted British constitutional development. His primary concern
was the preservation of human liberty under law, and he felt that the
attainment of this objective depends more on the appropriateness of the
political structure to its environment than on any precise arrangement
of office. The important factor in ensuring moderate rule is the main-
tenance of a balance of political power in the community. It is immaterial
whether this balance is achieved by structural and organizational devices
or by other means. Montesquieu was convinced that the institutional
separation of powers is the best method of guarding against the abuse
of authority. He would be the first to point out, however, that the same
result has been attained in the British unitary system by traditional
respect for the limitations and responsibilities of public power. The
English experience shows that tradition, public opinion, and civic alert-
ness can be effective balancing forces in a mature society.

HUME

David Hume (1711-1776) was born at Edinburgh into a Scottish

family of moderate means. He abandoned the study of law and a com-
mercial career at an early age in order to devote his time to the study of
philosophy and general learning. His masterpiece, the Treatise of Human
Nature, appeared in 1739 but received little attention. The basic ideas
which it contained were later set forth in a simpler and more readable
style in such essays as the Enquiry into the Human Understanding and
the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. ‘These works at once
attracted a wide audience and, together with his celebrated History of
England, completed in 1761, brought him world-wide recognition. Fol-
lowing his success as a writer, he entered the British diplomatic corps.
He retired from public service in 1769 as an undersecretary of state.
Hume’s contribution to political thecry is secondary and at most sub-
282 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

sidiary to his work in general philosophy and epistemology. Although he

deals with certain political problems in his Essays, Moral and Political,
his significance to the history of political thought lies in the implications
which his theory of knowledge has for civil society. He regards philosophy
as an empirical “science of man” —a science that is to be conducted by
the methods of the natural sciences: observation and generalization. “As
the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences, so
the only solid foundation we can give to this science itself must be laid
on experience and observation.” T’aking an extreme empiricist position,
Hume insists that man cannot go beyond experience in his quest for
knowledge. Any hypothesis that pretends to explain the ultimate original
qualities of human nature must be rejected as presumptuous and
chimerical.
The western tradition rests heavily on the premise of a natural moral
law. Hume sets about to destroy this foundation by showing that no
such law can exist and that consequently all human behavior is without
rational justification. Like his empiricist predecessors, he maintains that
the immediate objects of the mind are its own contents or perceptions,**
but unlike them he insists that the scientific mind is incapable of giving-
any knowledge about material or spiritual substances. Man’s knowledge
is restricted to the appearances of things. The only connection or relation
of objects which can lead us beyond the immediate impressions of our
memory and senses “is that of cause and effect... . The idea of cause
and effect is derived from experience, which informs us that such par-
ticular objects in all past instances have been constantly conjoined with
each other.”®> Reason can tell us nothing about the relationships between
matters of fact. When two events are found to be related as cause and
effect, all that can really be known about them is that they occur
together with a certain degree of regularity.
When I examine, with the utmost accuracy, those objects which are
commonly denominated causes and effects, I find, in considering a
single instance, that the one object is precedent and contiguous to the
other, and in enlarging my view to consider several instances, I find
only that like objects are constantly placed in like relations of succes-
sion and contiguity.”®

24'To most of the contemporary empiricists, the mind resembled a container within
which ideas originating somewhere in the external world are filtered and in which they
circulate and form patterns as the figures in a mechanical slot machine.
25 Treatise of Human Nature, I, III, 6. SS Tov. I WWE Tee
 THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 283

We have no way of knowing with certainty, Hume states, that any

generalization based upon observed instances of phenomena remains true
when we attempt to apply it to cover unobserved instances. We know,
of course, that when the impression of one object is presented to us, we
immediately form an idea of that which usually accompanies it. When
we see a fire we think of heat, but it would be improper for us to say
that the fire caused the heat. We merely observe the conjunction in time
of fire and heat and infer a causal relation between the two, but we
cannot penetrate into the reason of the conjunction. We may suppose
but we can never prove that a necessary relationship exists in such cases,
since it is always possible to assume the contrary of any matter of fact.
In other words, it is possible for us to assume that the heat is not caused
by the fire. Consequently, the relations which men observe between facts
can never be objects of reasoning and can never “operate upon the mind
but by means of custom, which determines the imagination to make a
transition from the idea of one object to that of its usual attendant.”
Such an epistemological approach forecloses any true knowledge of
reality and hence any knowledge of a natural law, should such a law
exist. If there is no cause-effect relation and no natural moral law, human
behavior must be based on mere custom or expediency. There is no
fundamental reason why men should be virtuous unless it be useful or
convenient for them to be so. In advancing this theory of knowledge,
Hume also abandons the Greco-medieval view of the pre-eminence of
reason over passion. Reason, he states, can exert only a mediating influence
over the passion by showing it the consequences which will likely follow
any given course of action. To speak of the conflict between reason and
passion is meaningless since only a contrary impulse can oppose a_ pas-
sion. “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can
never pretend to any office than to serve and obey them.” Hume is not
the first thinker to assign a subordinate role to reason. A similar view
had been advanced at the close of the Middle Ages by Marsilius of
Padua, and since that time Machiavelli, Hobbes, and others had taken
analogous positions.
Despite his skepticism, Hume is unwilling to rest individual and social
behavior solely on utilitarian grounds as his successors were soon to do.
Recognizing the dangers to social and political stability inherent in a
philosophy of moral relativism, he seeks to temper its effects by finding
some basis for a natural morality in those factors that affect man’s pas-
284 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

sions and impulses. In his essay repudiating the social contract theory,
he notes that moral duties are divided into two kinds: those to which
men are impelled by a natural instinct which operates on them such as
love of children or pity for the unfortunate; and those which are not
supported by any original instinct of nature but are performed entirely
from a sense of obligation “when we consider the necessities of human
society, and the impossibility of supporting it, if these duties were
neglected.” The second category includes a regard for the property of
others and the willingness to observe promises.
For as it is evident that every man loves himself better than any other
person, he is naturally impelled to extend his acquisitions as much
as possible; and nothing can restrain him in this propensity but re-
flection and experience, by which he learns the pernicious effects of
that license, and the total dissolution of society which must ensue
from it. His original inclination, therefore, or instinct, is here checked
and restrained by a subsequent judgment or observation.*?
It is on this utilitarian basis that government is made possible and
that political obligation is founded. “A small degree of experience and
observation suffices to teach us, that society cannot possibly be main:
tained without the authority of magistrates, and that this authority must
soon fall into contempt where exact obedience is not paid to it. The
observation of these general and obvious interests is the source of all
allegiance, and of that moral obligation which we attribute to it.’’?8
Man owes obedience to the state not because of any natural or moral
duty or even because of any compact he has entered into, but simply
“because society could not otherwise subsist.” Hume insists that men
are united by more positive interests than an Hobbesian fear of each
other. They have “a general sense of the common interest” which may
be likened to the motive which induces two men to co-operate in
rowing a boat.?®
What restraints are there to deter men from seeking their own inter-
ests, even to the detriment of others, when they feel that they can get
away with it? Hume maintains that there are two such restraints: habit

27 Essays Moral and Political, “Of the Original Contract,” in Social Contract, The
World’s Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947), pp. 227-228.
28 Ibid., p. 228.
29 See Charles Vereker, The Development of Political Theory (London: Hutchinson
University Library, 1957), p. 133.
 THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 285

and the native sense of humanity or sympathy which man has for his
fellow creatures. Men in practice constantly make moral judgments which
generally agree with one another over a period of time. These judgments
are not due to any intuitive knowledge of a moral standard but to the
reactions of approval or disapproval which certain behavior evokes from
society. Long experience, for example, shows the expediency of certain
rules of social conduct. The beneficial effects which follow from observ-
ing these rules promote public feelings of moral approval toward their
maintenance and moral condemnation of their disregard. With the pas-
sage of time, this social pressure establishes a pattern of behavior that
becomes a matter of habit and custom.
Social approbation is not the only motivation at work in the cause of
the common good. Although the whole system of justice and morality
arises artificially from human self-interest, man is instinctively moved to
an immediate, sympathetic response of approval or disapproval when
he sees how certain actions and institutions affect the happiness of
humanity at large. This inherent sympathy fosters a regard for the general
welfare. As a result, actions and social arrangements which are conducive
to the common good win approval within an established society, despite
the conventional origin of the obligation of justice.
Interestingly enough, Hume not only laid the foundation for English
utilitarianism, but he also foreshadowed (although on a radically differ-
ent basis) the political conservatism of Edmund Burke.*° The ultimate
cause of all action is passion, not reason. Reason can only influence the
course of behavior by drawing attention to the probable consequences
of alternative courses of action. Hume calls those passions which are
uninfluenced by reason “violent,” and those upon which reason has
been brought to bear “calm.” On this distinction, he seeks to justify
aristocratic government. Those whose reasoning powers have been
developed by education and training and whose economic position is
secure are less likely to be led by their violent passions into seeking
immediate, at the expense of long range and lasting, advantage. Hence
the general happiness is best promoted in a community where political
power is vested in the hands of a wealthy, educated, and cultured class.
A neat conclusion, and one entirely in accord with the general temper
of British political thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
30 See post, Chap. XVI.
286 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

SUMMARY
The Age of Enlightenment was the high level mark of man’s belief in
human omniscience. To be enlightened is to understand that truth is to be
found in the “great book of nature open for all mankind to read.” The
unprecedented progress in the physical sciences that had started in the seven-
teenth century had continued unabated into the eighteenth. Imbued with
the spirit of the era, the philosophers of the Enlightenment sought to apply
the methods and principles which had proved so successful in the investigation
of physical phenomena to the study of metaphysics, ethics, politics, and even
theology. By following this procedure, they felt certain that all the perplexities
which confronted man in these spheres could be cleared up once and for
all. They saw no limit to man’s ability to ascertain the truth. The tools to
be employed in this monumental task were observation, experiment, and
analysis, accompanied by the application of exact methods of measurement.
They confidently expected that through the use of these instruments the
whole plan of the universe could be recognized and expressed by the human
mind.
There is no reason, so the man of the Enlightenment said, to doubt that
science could achieve as much in the realm of social and political relations
as it had in the physical order. Once the laws governing human behavior are
discovered and properly formulated, man’s real desires can be brought to
light and efficiently satisfied. Despite the scientific pretensions of their authors,
such views brought an inflexible or dogmatic outlook to the problems of state
and society — an outlook that tended to obscure the character of politics as a
practical science. Influenced by the belief that there are universal laws appli-
cable to all aspects of political behavior, men began to think in absolute
terms about such concepts as freedom and equality. There were exceptions
to this trend, such as those found in the writings of Montesquieu, but the
general direction of thought tended to make ethics and politics speculative
rather than practical sciences.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aiken, H. D. (ed.), Hume’s Moral and Political Philosophy (New York:
Hafner, 1948).
Buck, P. W., The Politics of Mercantilism (New York: Holt, 1942).
Coulson, Herbert H., “The Political Philosophy of Montesquieu,”’ The Amer-
ican Catholic Philosophical Association Proceedings, 1931.
Crane, R. S., “Montesquieu and British Thought,” Journal of Political
Economy, August, 1941.
Crocker, Lester G., “Truth and Falsehood in the Enlightenment,” Journal of
the History of Ideas, October, 1953.
Ehrlich, E., “Montesquieu and Sociological Jurisprudence,” Harvard Law
Review, April, 1916.
 THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT 287

Engel-Janosi, F., “Politics and History in the Age of Enlightenment,” Journal

of Politics, November, 1943.
Fletcher, F. T. H., Montesquieu and English Politics (London: Arnold and
Company, 1939).
Gay, Peter, “The Enlightenment in the History of Political Theory,” Political
Science Quarterly, September, 1954.
Holdsworth, W. S., “The Conventions of the Eighteenth Century Constitu-
tion,” Iowa Law Review, January, 1932.
Jacobson, N., “Political Realism in the Age of Reason: the anti-rationalist
heritage in America,”’ Review of Politics, October, 1953.
Koyre, Alexandre, “‘Condorcet,”’ Journal of the History of Ideas, April, 1948.
Laird, John, Hume’s Philosophy of Human Nature (London: Methuen, 1932).
Lowenthal, David, “Book I of Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws,”
American Political Science Review, June, 1959.
McRae, Robert, ‘““Hume as a Political Philosopher,” Journal of the History
of Ideas, April, 1951.
Oake, Roger B., ‘““Montesquieu’s Analysis of Roman History,” Journal of the
History of Ideas, January, 1955.
Price, K. B., “Ernst Cassirer and the Enlightenment,” Journal of the History
of Ideas, January, 1957.
Rowe, Constance, Voltaire and the State (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1955).
Smith, N. K., The Philosophy of David Hume (London: Macmillan, 1941).
Wickwar, W. H., “Helvetius and Holbach,” in F. J. C. Hearnshaw, ed., The
Social and Political Ideas of Some Great French Thinkers of the Age of
Reason (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1950).
Wolin, S. S., “Hume and Conservatism,” American Political Science Review,
December, 1954.
 Chapter XV

ROUSSEAU: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM

“By what inconceivable art has a means been found of making

men free by making them subject” (Rousseau, A Discourse on
Political Economy).

In THE latter half of the eighteenth century, reaction to the rationalist

culture and cold intellectuality of the Enlightenment began to set in.
Known as Romanticism, the new movement took many forms, some
clearly pagan, others Christian in inspiration and content. Whatever
the form, all were unanimous in their opposition to the mechanistic
concept of nature fostered by Newtonian physics and Cartesian philoso-
phy. All protested against the efforts to reduce political and social phe-
nomena to what resembled mathematical formulae. The Romantic
movement turned to the past and not to the future, but its historical
interest was dominated by a feeling for myth and poetry. The belief
in the capacity of human reason to comprehend all truth lost its per-
vasive hold as passion and feeling became the divine elements in man.
Although the reaction against reason did not lead to an abandonment of
the search for truth, intuition, emotion, and sentiment replaced the
intellect as the directive force.
The Romantic movement was essentially a revolt against accepted
moral and aesthetic standards. Its supporters greatly admired what they
referred to as la sensibilité, or a proneness to emotion. To be satisfactory,
this emotion must be completely divorced from thought or reason, and
it must be vigorous and passionate. The true romantic would be moved
to tears at the sight of a poor and homeless waif but would be totally
uninterested in a carefully worked out welfare plan for handling the
problem of abandoned children. The temper of the romantics can be
seen in their substitution of aesthetic for moral and utilitarian stand-
ards, in their praise of the pastoral and rural as against their contempt
288
 ROUSSEAU: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM 289

for the industrial and urban, and in their penchant for the strange and
occult in literature.
The apostles of Romanticism, such as Fichte and Heine in Germany,
Chateaubriand and Hugo in France, and Byron and Shelley in England,
helped to carry the premises of the new movement into practically every
branch of culture, art, and thought. Its followers included champions of
authoritarian statism as well as utopian socialists; devout Protestants and
sincere Catholics; moderates who sought only to rediscover old values
and emphasize the importance of tradition in society to extremists who
rejected all traditional authority and placed passion and emotion in stark
opposition to reason. By challenging the spirit of scientific rationalism,
the Romantic movement helped to uncover many of the basic fallacies
engendered by the Enlightenment. However, its extremist tendencies,
particularly its inclination to substitute the autonomy of feeling for that
of reason, proved equally as dangerous as those it had exposed. When
feeling is freed from the directive discipline of reason, it can lead man
in any direction; and if the Romantic proclamation of the primacy of
emotion led some to God, it led many more to the worship of the
sacred Ego.1
Political speculation no more escaped the influence of the Romantic
movement than did literature or the arts. The real apostle of the new
spirit in the field of political philosophy was Jean Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778). Born of a low middle class family that had migrated to
the city-state of Geneva in the sixteenth century as religious refugees,
Rousseau was educated in the orthodox Calvinist religion. His mother
died in childbirth; his father combined the professions of watchmaker
and dancing teacher. The discipline, or rather the lack of it, which the
widowed father exercised over the son was not conducive to the develop-
ment of the child’s personality and character. On many a night the
young boy was kept awake until late hours listening to romances and
adventure stories which his father read aloud.
When Jean Jacques was ten, his father fled from Geneva to avoid
imprisonment for an altercation with another citizen. The boy was taken
charge of by his mother’s relatives who tried without success to apprentice
him out in various trades. At the age of sixteen, he ran away from
Geneva and began a life of wandering, dissoluteness, debauchery, and
yet withal brilliant writing. He committed petty crimes of larceny, moving
1 Hallowell, op. cit., pp. 165-166.
290 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

from place to place with the help of various patronesses, and living on
-his wits more than anything else. He callously adopted and changed
religions when it seemed materially advantageous for him to do so.
Rousseau came to wide public attention in 1749 when his Discourse on
the Arts and Sciences won the prize offered by the Academy of Dijon
for the best essay on the theme: “Has the restoration of the sciences
contributed to purify manners?” His two major works, the Social Contract
and Emile appeared in 1762. When the latter was condemned by the
parliament of Paris, Rousseau was forced to leave France to avoid arrest.
At Hume’s invitation, he went to England, where he was lionized by
London society. After quarreling with his host whom he accused of
plotting against his life, he returned to Paris in 1770, where he spent his
last years suffering from delusions and hallucinations. He died in 1778
in great poverty.
The writings of Rousseau are at many points ambiguous and inconsist-
ent, if not contradictory. This fact has led to a wide divergency of
opinion among his interpreters. To some he appears as the champion of
individual liberty, to others as the father of state absolutism. In Emile
and the opening chapters of the Social Contract, he displays himself as
an unmitigated individualist and a passionate lover of a prepolitical state
of unbridled liberty. Conversely, in his Discourse on Political Economy
and in the major portion of the Social Contract, he appears to advocate
the total submersion of the individual in the state and to insist that only
in political society can man fulfill his nature. As Professor Hearnshaw
has so well stated, ‘““The sum of the matter seems to be that Rousseau
from time to time, and even at the same time, uttered opinions dia-
metrically opposite to one another concerning toleration and persecu-
tion, concerning primitive man and civilized society, and concerning
countless other matters. He was an unsystematic thinker, untrained in
formal logic. He was an omnivorous reader with undeveloped powers of
assimilation. He was an emotional enthusiast who spoke without due
reflection. He was an irresponsible writer with a fatal gift for epigram.’”?
Those who have tried to reconcile the inconsistencies which appear
in Rousseau’s thought are often reduced to such phrases as “when he is
true to himself,” or when he fails “to be true to his own best insight.”
Yet in spite of the difficulties inherent in his writings, a study of the
2F. J. Hearnshaw, The Social and Political Ideas of Some Great French Thinkers
of the Age of Reason (London: Harrap & Co., 1930), pp. 185-186.
 ROUSSEAU: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM rot

social thought of the Genevan expatriate is rewarding not only because

of its historical importance and the brilliant literary style in which it is
presented, but also because of the incisive manner in which it raises some
of the basic questions of political philosophy.

THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL OBLIGATION

Like many of his predecessors and those who were to follow him,
Rousseau is not concerned primarily with the actual institutions and
governmental organs of existing states; his purpose is to discover the basis
of political obligation and to solve the problem of state authority versus
individual freedom. This objective is voiced in the familiarly known
passage which opens the Social Contract: “Man is born free, and every-
where he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others and still
remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I
do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can
answer.’? How in other words, can the state with its exercise of coercive
power be morally justified? On what rational or moral grounds can I as
an individual be subjected to the forces of the entire community?
Obviously the authority which the state exercises over me cannot be
based on mere physical strength since force may do almost any other
thing except create a right. “To yield to force is an act of necessity, not
of will—at the most, an act of prudence.”* Submission to physical
coercion cannot in itself imply a moral obligation.
Aristotle and the traditionalists found the answer to the problem of
political obligation in the natural character of the state as an institution
essential to the perfection of man’s being. They considered obedience to
lawfully constituted authority to be as much a moral duty as the obedience
a child owes to his parents. Men may be free to choose their form of
government, but they are under moral compulsion to form political
society and to submit to its reasonable demands. For them to do other-
wise would be to act contrary to nature. This traditional solution is not
open to Rousseau since he repudiates the existence of an original social
instinct which drives men together and denies that the state is a natural
institution. Only the family enjoys this title, and even here the natural
authority of the parent continues only so long as needed for the preser-
3], 1. Excerpts from Rousseau are taken from Everyman’s Library edition. The
Social Contract and Discourses, trans. by G. D. H. Cole (New York: Dutton, 1913).
A Ibid; 3153:
292 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

vation of the child. Once the need ceases, the natural bond is dissolved.
The children are then released from the obedience they owe to the
family, and the latter in turn is relieved of the obligation to care for
the children.
If the formal relationship of parent and child continues beyond the
point of need, it must be by mutual agreement among the parties. “Tf
they remain united, they continue so no longer naturally but voluntarily;
and the family itself is then maintained only by convention.” Man’s
first law is to provide for his own preservation; as soon as he reaches
maturity, he becomes the “sole judge of the proper means of preserving
himself, and consequently becomes his own master.’® No individual
has a natural authority over his fellow creatures (except parent over
child); similarly, no human agency or association has such right. Thus,
a society which is not natural can get authority only from the indi-
viduals who create and make it up.

THE STATE OF NATURE

If “no man has a natural authority over his fellow creatures, and force’
creates no right, we must conclude that conventions form the basis of
all legitimate authority among men.’* We are thus back at the starting
point of Hobbes and Locke. What are the reasons that lead men to
form the social compact? Why is it necessary for them to establish some
form of political authority? What motives prompt them to give up their
natural freedom and voluntarily enter civil society? In the Social Con-
tract, Rousseau avoids any description of the state of nature. He contents
himself with the assumption that men at some time in their primitive
condition had reached the point where the obstacles in the way of their
preservation became so great that the human race would have perished
had they not changed their manner of existence. His Discourse on the
Origin and Foundation of Inequality, written seven years earlier, pictures
man living in a sort of garden of Eden in a simple, happy, and carefree
existence. During this stage the individual pursued in isolation his basic
needs, living by instinct and not reason, his desires never going beyond
his physical wants. Basic to his nature were two instincts: self-preservation
and sympathy (pitié) or compassion for the plight of others.? Since these
8 Ibid., I, 2. 6 Ibid., I, 4.
7 “Compassion is a natural feeling, which, by moderating the violence of love of
self in each individual, contributes to the preservation of the whole species. It is this
 ROUSSEAU: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM 293

original and primitive traits assisted more than they harmed the indi-
vidual and his fellow creatures, it is proper to say that man is by nature
good. In making this assertion about the inherent goodness of man, the
founder of modern political romanticism shows no evidence of his
religious background. His view that man is naturally good runs counter
to the Calvinist doctrine of original sin.
Rousseau states that man’s cares and desires increased as the human
race grew and contacts among men became more frequent. As these
changes took place, the individual found it necessary to engage in mutual
undertakings with others in order to satisfy his growing needs. From the
moment “one man began to stand in need of the help of another; from
the moment it appeared advantageous to any man to have enough
provisions for two, equality disappeared, property was introduced.’’®
Greed, slavery, human misery, and the quest for power then became
predominant in human society. The fear of his fellow men and their
institutions caused the individual to become suspicious, self-seeking, and
power hungry. Hobbes’ condition of war again reappears, but it is no
longer the state of nature; it is now the civil state. Wickedness and
violence appear only after man has entered society and become sub-
jected to all the artificial desires that it fosters. Man’s motives unper-
verted by civilization are good; it is the corrupting influences of society
and its institutions which make him what he is. His reliance on the
brutal forms of social life calls into play a narrow egoism, and changes
his native sympathy into seeking power and dominance over others.®
Despite the glowing terms in which he speaks of the peacefulness of
primitive society, Rousseau envisions no return to it. To go back is
impossible; the habits of civilization cannot be discarded. Man must
recognize the existence of society, he must accept the institution of pri-
vate property, and he must accommodate himself to the advancement of
the arts and sciences. Contrary to what one might expect, Rousseau
does not regard the state as a necessary evil. In what would appear to
be a reversal of his earlier thinking, he turns to the Aristotelian concept
of the state as an agency of human perfection. Outside of civil society

compassion that hurries us without reflection to the relief of those who are in distress:
it is this which in a state of nature supplies the place of laws, morals, and virtues.”
(A Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind, contained
in The Social Contract and Discourses, op. cit., p. 184).
8 Ibid., p. 199.
9See John A. Clark, “The Definition of the General Will,” Ethics, Jan., 1943, pp.
79-88.
294 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

man is a stupid and unimaginative animal; in it he is an intelligent

being and a man. Although in the political state man “deprives himself
of some advantages which he received from nature, he gains in return
others so great, his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas
so extended, his feelings so ennobled, and his whole soul so uplifted,
that, did not the abuses of this new condition often degrade him below
that which he left, he would be bound to bless continually the happy
moment which took him from it forever.’?°
The task is not to destroy the state; it is to find its true basis, to solve
the riddle of political obligation, and to define the proper relationship
between civil society and the individual. If this undertaking can be
accomplished, the path toward genuine social and political reform can
be marked out with certainty and clarity. And if the political com-
munity can be stripped of the abuses which incite man to wrongdoing,
the pristine integrity and goodness of the state of nature will be restored.
In this sense, man will return to nature.

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

Granted that civil society is a necessity and that consent is the only
legitimate basis for political authority, the problem as Rousseau formu-
lates it is “to find a form of association which will defend and protect
with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate,
and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself
alone, and remain as free as before.’”* If an association of this nature
can be discovered, the problem of political obligation as it is posed in
the Social Contract will apparently be solved. On the one hand, anarchy
will be prevented by the establishment of public authority; on the other,
the individual will retain his perfect liberty. Rousseau purports to see
the answer to the dilemma he has raised in a contract to form civil
society. By this agreement, the individual parties become a people, a
community; they create a society and endow it with legitimate authority.
Unanimity is required in this original agreement since no man can be
forced to withdraw from his natural state without his consent.
What are the terms of the social contract? The answer rests in the
motives or purposes that prompt men to make it. These are essentially
twofold: the need for a corporate society that can mobilize the com-
10 Social Contract, I, 8. 11 Tbid., I, 6.
 ROUSSEAU: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM 295

mon power in support of each member; and the desire of the individual
member to remain at liberty even though united with all others in mutual
dependence. Both of these major objectives are attained by a mutual
pact in which “each of us puts his person and all his power in common
under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate
capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.’’!”
Once the social contract is consummated, immediately “in place of
the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of associa-
tion creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many members
as the assembly contains voters, and receiving from this act its unity, its
common identity, its life, and its will.’!* To this collective body — the
political community— each individual surrenders completely and un-
reservedly himself and all his rights. “These clauses, properly understood,
may be reduced to one— the total alienation of each associate, together
with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as
each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and,
this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to
others=/*
Locke had held that the individual on entering civil society surrenders
only the right of interpreting and enforcing the law of nature. Rousseau
follows Hobbes in arguing that the individual surrenders his rights com-
pletely; but unlike the latter, he holds that the alienation is not made
to any one person or group of persons but to the community as a whole,
of which each member is an indivisible part. “Each man, in giving him-
self to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over
which he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over him-
self, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of
force for the preservation of what he has.”?> In other words, the indi-
vidual gives himself to society on terms equal for all men, acquiring over
all the others the same power that he surrenders to them. Not only does
he thereby recover the equivalent of what he loses, but he gains the
additional strength of the whole group that comes from union. Every
duty which he owes the other members is balanced by a duty they per-
form in part for his benefit, and meanwhile all of the members have
gained the strength that comes from union."°
12 Ibid., I, 6. 14 Tbid.
13 Tbid. 15 [bid.
16 See E. H. Wright, The Meaning of Rousseau (London: Oxford University Press,
1929), Chap. 3.
296 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT
ERA

By this ingenious line of reasoning, Rousseau attempts to show that

the social contract endows the individual with the power of the group
and yet leaves him with absolute liberty. Self-imposed political chains
have advantages similar to those of a rope that is shared by a group of
mountain climbers. Rousseau’s efforts to explain political obligation again
demonstrate the consequences of rejecting a moral and natural duty on
the individual to submit to legitimate social control. Without such obli-
gation, man is compelled to seek some type of artificial reconciliation
between freedom and authority.

THE GENERAL WILL

By the act of social union there is simultaneously created a new col-

lective person: the state. This public person or body politic “is also a
moral being possessed of a will.’ What this will, known as the general
will, actually is and how it is discovered are questions crucial to Rousseau’s
political theory. Unfortunately, he nowhere satisfactorily answers them.
He is primarily concerned with demonstrating that the state is similar
to a physiological organism in which there can be no more conflict
between the purposes of the whole and of the part than there can be
between the health of a living body and one of its organs. If, therefore,
the state is a common self with its own life and will, there can be no
conflict between it and the natural liberty of the individual. For the true
will and interest of the part must necessarily coincide with the will and
interest of the whole.
Each member in adhering to the social pact agrees to identify his
individual will with the general will of the community in all matters of
public concern. The will which so arises from the political union has
three important characteristics: it is always right and always tends to the
public advantage; it is neither the will of the majority nor the sum total
of individual wills; and it is sovereign and finds its expression in law.
The general will is an expression of what the common interests require.
It is based on the theory that, when a group of individuals participate in
a civil compact, their many wills (each itself egoist) offset and influence
one another in such a way as to create a new will which is always directed
toward the common good. The formation of the general will, as described
by Rousseau, appears to be almost a mechanical or physical process.
Through the mutual interaction and fusion of individual wills, as though
 ROUSSEAU: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM oo,

they were atoms, the will of the state emerges. Although this will is
always right in the sense that it desires the common good, Rousseau con-
cedes that the people can fail to understand what this good is in con-
crete cases. He recognizes that they do not always act from unselfish
motives. “Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always
see what that is; the people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived,
and on such occasions only does it seem to will what is bad.”* To
minimize the possibility of error, the people stand in need of a leader
who can formulate the laws. The nature and function of this leader who
is referred to as “legislator” will be discussed in a subsequent section.
How is the general will to be formulated? Rousseau is careful to state
that it is not arrived at by taking the sum total of the wills of those who
make up the community since individual wills tend to partiality. When
men leave out of sight the public aspect of a question and are influenced
by the expected consequences to themselves as private individuals, the
decision which they arrive at, even though unanimous, is not founded
on a genuine view of public interest. It is based merely on “a sum of
particular wills.” The general will results only when men sublimate their
private interests and are able to answer afhrmatively the question, “Is
this for the public good?”
Rousseau does not deny that individuals may have vices and private
interests which run counter to the general will.

In fact, each individual, as a man, may have a particular will contrary

or dissimilar to the general will which he has as a citizen. His particular
interest may speak to him quite differently from the common interest:
his absolute and naturally independent existence may make him look
upon what he owes to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution,
the loss of which will do less harm to others than the payment of it
is burdensome to himself . . . he may wish to enjoy the rights of
citizenship without being ready to fulfil the duties of a subject.’
Hence, in order that the social pact may not be a meaningless formula,
it includes the agreement that “whoever refuses to obey the general will
shall be compelled to do so by the whole body.”*® But if the individual
is compelled by the force of political authority to act against his will,
how does he remain as free as he was before entering society? Rousseau
replies that when man’s individual will appears at variance with the
general will, he is simply deceived as to what his own true will is. In the

17 Social Contract, II, 3. Lett DICeee eee c 19 Tbid.

298 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

social body, the true interests of the whole and the parts are identical,
and the will of the whole being general and for the good of the totality
can never err while the will of the individual being directed at particular
things may sometimes be deceived. My real interests lie in the common
good, and if I will the common good I am necessarily willing my own
welfare. By compelling me to heed the general will, the state is merely
forcing me to follow my own real will, “which is no more than to say
that it may be necessary to compel a man to be free.” The compulsion is
not external; it is not the imposition of another will on mine. The general
will is in effect no more than my own will coming back to me, even
though I may not recognize it. By following this will, I am fulfilling my-
self and finding my true freedom.
Even if we accept Rousseau’s metaphysical gymnastics, we are still
confronted with the important question as to how the general will is to
be determined or recognized. If it is formulated by the citizen body, as
Rousseau says it must be, is it to be identified with the majority; and
if so, how can it be reconciled with divergent minorities? Moreover, what
assurance is there that the people will be motivated by public rather
than private interests in their deliberations? The Social Contract implies°
that the true general will results automatically when men are permitted
to express their own views freely and without pressure or coercion. If
such is the case, the task of political science is to devise a governmental
system in which this freedom is assured to all individuals. Rousseau
recognizes that unanimity in popular decision-making is a virtual impos-
sibility and that in the enactment of laws (through which the general will
is expressed) the vote of the majority has to prevail as a matter of prac-
tical necessity. his means in effect that the general will is what the
greater number declares it to be. However, Rousseau insists, the majority
rules over the individual not by virtue of its numbers but because the
individual has given his consent to its authority.

THE NATURE OF THE STATE

Some of the confusion in Rousseau’s general political philosophy is

probably due to his ambivalent view of the nature of the state —a view
that vacillates between a mechanistic and organismic concept of civil
society. At one and the same time he makes the state an artificial crea-
tion of man established by social contract and a “moral and collective
 ROUSSEAU: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM 299

body” with a will of its own separate and apart from the will of its mem-
bers. The two views are patently inconsistent. The one regards the state
as a mere instrument or mechanism, the other as an organism composed
of human beings. The first can be created by an act of agreement among
men; the second by some inner compulsion which, as in a biological
specimen, forms and organizes the member parts into an integral unit.
Rousseau seeks to join these two concepts in an uneasy combination. He
wants the individual members of the state to be free but he also wants
them to be wholly subordinate to the community. He is apparently con-
vinced that total subordination is essential if the ends of society are
to be attained.
Traditional thought emphasizes that the vital principle of the state is
to be found in the unity which results from the collectivity of individual
wills joined together in pursuit of a common end. Such a unity is not
something superimposed on the community by an external force, as the
Leviathan proposes, nor that of the unity of a herd bound together by
an unconscious impulse. It is a feeling of common purpose and interests
and of mutual objectives which amalgamates the people into a social
body. Its moving principle is rational, not biological or mechanical.
Rousseau feels the need for going beyond the artificiality of the social
pact, but he rebels against any acceptance of the traditional organic
doctrine. His body politic emerges from the Social Contract as some kind
of metaphysical entity which he calls the “state” when passive, the
“sovereign” when active, and a “power” in relation to other states.
Rousseau’s state is analogous to or at least an embodiment of the
general will. As such, “it is in the position of an individual who makes
a contract with himself; and this makes it clear that there neither is
nor can be any kind of fundamental law binding on the body of the
people.”?° When individuals unite in political society, they agree to
submit themselves to the direction of the general will. It is true that
in this act of submission each person alienates “only such part of his
powers, goods, and liberty as is important for the community to control.”
It is also true that “the sovereign cannot impose on its subjects any
fetters that are useless.” But these reservations are of little worth since
the “sovereign is sole judge of what is important and useful.” As nature
gives each man “absolute power over all his members, the social compact
gives the body politic absolute power over all its members also.”
20 Ibid., I, 7. 21 Ibid., Il, 4.
300 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

Rousseau believes that the people organized as a community, when

given the proper conditions, will always act in the interest of human
freedom. He also believes that the general will is always right — ignoring
the fact that for fallible man to create an infallible will is a contradiction
in terms. In the final analysis, his political philosophy provides a very
feeble obstacle to collective tyranny. The classical concept that political
tule is always subject to the limitations of the natural law plays little
part in Rousseau’s thinking. He refers to it only briefly at points, in-
timating that it is based more on emotion and feeling than on reason.
He recognizes no standard of justice extraneous to the general will which
determines its rightness or wrongness. Natural law for him is no more
than what the people as a political body decree it to be.

DIRECT DEMOCRACY

Law is the voice of the general will, which in turn is the will of the
people organized as a body politic. It is not, Rousseau emphasizes, the
command of an individual or group compelling us to act against our
will. Such would not be law but force. Law is not made by compulsiori
but by agreement and consent of the people. And since the people are
subject to the laws, they should “be their author: the conditions of the
society ought to be regulated by those who come together to form it.’
All the members of the political community should share equally in
making the law since they all have a common interest in living together.
Sovereignty, therefore, does not rest in the monarch or government but
in the community in its collective and legislative capacity.
But how does a multitude carry out for itself “so great and difficult
an enterprise as a system of legislation”? In modern democracies, the
answer is found in representative parliaments elected by the people.
Rousseau, however, will have nothing to do with representative goy-
ernment, calling it an “iniquitous and absurd system which degrades
humanity and dishonors the name of man.”?* Law, as he continually
reiterates, is the declaration of the general will in which the people
must participate personally and not by proxy. To entrust the responsi-
bility to others is to give up one’s freedom. The people of England,
“regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during
22 Ibid., II, 6.
28 Ibid., III, 15.
 ROUSSEAU: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM 301

the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected,

slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.”
Rousseau feels that freedom is more secure when the people are able
to assemble periodically for the expression of the general will. He realizes
that any theory of primary or direct democracy is suited at most to the
small city-state such as existed in Athens and was still found in the
Switzerland of his day. “All things considered, I do not see that it is
possible henceforth for the Sovereign to preserve among us the exercise
of its rights unless the city is very small.’”’?> Ideally, the state should be
neither too large for good government nor too small for self-preservation.
If too large, the social tie among the people is weakened, popular par-
ticipation in the legislative process is made difficult, and the citizens
have less affection for their magistrates whom they seldom see. If too
small, the state cannot sustain its population and it runs the risk of
being swallowed up by its larger neighbors. The problem is to find a
political arrangement that will permit primary democracy and yet enable
a small state to maintain its existence in a world of larger states.
Rousseau apparently visualizes a system in which the large state would
be broken up into many smaller sovereign units bound together for
their mutual defense in some type of federation. If historical conditions
make reductions in the size of the states impossible, Rousseau suggests
an arrangement in which the seat of government would be moved periodi-
cally to different sections of the country. “Nevertheless, if the State can-
not be reduced to the right limits, there remains still one resource; this
is, to allow no capital, to make the seat of government move from town
to town, and to assemble by turn in each the Provincial Estates of the
country.”?° This idea, like his treatment of federation, is only casually
suggested but never developed. Possibly he had in mind an early practice
of the trade unions whereby local branches in different towns rotated as
the governing organ of the whole union for a fixed period. This device,
as Rousseau should have known, had proved wholly unrealistic and im-
practical, and had soon been abandoned.
Experience has demonstrated the need for representative institutions
in any large country which seeks to adhere to the principle of true
self-government. The nature of the general will obviously precludes any
acceptance of the representative device. It is only, Rousseau states, when
each individual is free from the influence of others and particularly of
24 Ibid., III, 15. 25 Ibid. 3S Morel. ONL. Ns.
302 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

political parties, factions, and interest groups that he expresses his real
feelings. The general will is formed when every individual feels himself
spontaneously allied with every other member of the community. Only
then is individual selfishness canceled out in voting and a residuum of
genuine common will left.
If, when the people, being furnished with adequate information, held
its deliberations, the citizens had no communication one with another,
the grand total of the small differences would always give the general
will, and the decision would always be good. But when factions arise,
and partial associations are formed at the expense of the great associa-
tion, the will of each of these associations becomes general in relation
to its members, while it remains particular in relation to the State; it
may then be said that there are no longer as many votes as there are
men, but only as many as there are associations. The differences be-
come less numerous and give a less general result.?
Similarly, under a system of representative government there are no
longer as many votes as there are citizens, but only as many as there
are representatives. In such case, there can be no true expression of the
general will. ;
It is clear from what has been said that the principle of subsidiarity
is alien to Rousseau’s thinking. His political philosophy permits of no
voluntary groups or partial societies to supplement individual action.
Such groups — trade unions, professional associations, political parties—
endanger the true expression of the general will by the influence which
they exert over the individual. They should be banned in any properly
ordered state so that each citizen should think only his own thoughts.
If for some reason voluntary associations are permitted, they should be
kept small and numerous in order that they may neutralize each other.
In no case should they be allowed to play an important part in society
or to come between the individual and the state.

THE LEGISLATOR

Rousseau recognizes that the creation of a government requires great

skill and ability and that few people have the attributes necessary for
such a task. ‘To remedy this deficiency, he introduces his notion of a
“legislator,” a sort of modern Lycurgus or Solon. The holder of this
title must be a person of extraordinary genius, an expert who could
27 Tbid., Il, 3,
 ROUSSEAU: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM 303

draft a constitution suitable to the needs and requirements of the par-

ticular people involved. His proposals would then be submitted to the
voters for ratification. Such a legislator would possess neither lawmaking
nor executive powers; his job is to design the machinery of government
and the basic principles for its operations.?* Once this task is accom-
plished and the general directions for the government to follow marked
out, the people presumably would be able to rule themselves. Whether
the legislator would continue in existence as a pre-eminent adviser to
and a formulator of laws for the popular assemblies is not clear.
The Greek city-states had frequently called in distinguished men with
political experience to serve as lawgivers, and even modern parliamentary
bodies find it necessary to rely heavily on expert advice in lawmaking. If
this is all that Rousseau means, there is nothing that is radical in his
general idea of the legislator. Such a device would resemble the modern
system in which a group of able delegates draft constitutional provisions
for submission to popular referendum. Unfortunately, Rousseau couches
his description of the office in such rhetorical and mystical language
(“the great soul of the legislator is the only miracle that can prove his
mission,” or “it is not anybody who can make the gods speak, or get
himself believed when he proclaims himself their interpreter”?®) that
it is impossible to know exactly what he has in mind.

GOVERNMENT

Government is defined in the Social Contract as “an intermediate

body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their
mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and
the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political.”*° The term “govern-
ment” is therefore limited to the executive branch; it does not, as is
commonly understood, include the legislative power since that is left
in the hands of the people. “I call then government, or supreme admin-
istration, the legitimate exercise of the executive power, and prince or
magistrate the man or the body entrusted with that administration.”**
Government comes into being not by virtue of any contract between
the people and its rulers but by an act of the sovereign will. “The
"28 “The legislator occupies in every respect an extraordinary position in the state.
If he should do so by reason of his genius, he does so no less by reason of his office,
which is neither magistracy, nor Sovereignty” (ibid., II, 7).
29 Tbid., II, 7. s0 [bids 1th 31 [bid,
304. POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT ERA

institution of government is not a contract but a law; that the depositaries

of the executive power are not the people’s masters but its officers; that
it can set them up and pull them down when it likes; that for them
there is no question of contract but of obedience and that in taking
charge of the functions the State imposes on them they are doing no
more than fulfilling their duty as citizens, without having the remotest
right to argue about the conditions.”*? In the interest of stability the
established government should not be overturned except for serious cause;
but this is a matter of prudential policy and not a rule of right.
Government, in the sense used by Rousseau, is the instrumentality
whereby the citizens as sovereign apply the laws which they make to
themselves as subjects. Although the citizen obeys the government, he
is its sovereign master because of his participation in the general will.
Thus while he must comply with the law, he also creates it. As executor
of the law, government must always play a strictly subordinate role and
never attempt to substitute its own will for the general will from whence
it derives its authority. In practice, however, governments sometimes
usurp the position of sovereign authority by developing a general will
of their own. Whenever they do so, they pervert their role in society °
and destroy the true basis on which the political community is formed.
Rousseau has no strong feeling as to which form of government is
best. In fact, since government is subordinate to the sovereign will, it
matters little to him in principle whether it is democratic or monarchical
so long as it is suitable to the needs and circumstances of the particular
people whom it serves. Influenced by Montesquieu, who had attempted
to establish a relation between the size of a state and its form of govern-
ment, Rousseau observes that generally democratic governments suit
small communities, aristocratic governments those of middle size, and
monarchies large states. His own preference leans in the direction of an
elected aristocracy. As he states, “assemblies are probably more easily
held, affairs better discussed and carried out with more order and dili-
gence, and the credit of the State is better sustained abroad by venerable
senators than by a multitude that is unknown or despised.’’** That the
wisest men should govern the many is the best and most natural arrange-
ment “when it is assured that they will govern for its profit and not
for their own. There is no need to multiply instruments, or get twenty
thousand men to do what a hundred picked men can do even better.”*4
32 Ibid., III, 18. 38 Ibid., III, 5. 34 Ibid,
 ROUSSEAU: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM 305

To entrust the administrative duties of government to the multitude

would be an obvious impossibility even in a normal sized community.
Since Rousseau limits government to the executive function, he can
argue for an aristocratic form of rule without affecting the truly democratic
character of his state. The people would still retain the lawmaking power;
they would merely entrust administrative responsibilities to a group of
capable officials. It is clear that if lawmaking is placed in a category dis-
tinct from the government itself, any classification of governmental forms
as normally understood becomes meaningless. When, for example, polit-
ical thinkers speak of an aristocratic government they generally mean
a system in which both policy-making and its execution are vested in
a select group. This meaning cannot be attached to Rousseau’s classifica-
tion. Yet in spite of these differences in terminology, the modern concept
of democracy bears some kinship to Rousseau’s doctrine of govern-
mental forms. What he refers to as an elective aristocracy, we call democ-
racy. Lawmaking power in modern democratic theory remains with the
people and is normally exercised by their representatives. At the same
time there is general agreement, at least in the theory, that the administra-
tion of government should be placed in the hands of able men: an
aristocracy of political and managerial talent.

SUMMARY
It is difficult to appraise Rousseau’s political philosophy or to measure it
against the standard of the western tradition since we cannot always be sure
of the exact meaning that he intends to convey. Not only does he disregard
the demands of consistency but he rarely bothers to define his terms, frequently
using them in different senses at different times. Moreover, his flare for
epigrammatic expression and his poetic tendencies compound the difficulty
by precluding the reader from taking his more dramatic statements at face
value. Any conclusions pertaining to his political philosophy can be based only
on what appears to be its general tenor and logical implications.
Rousseau places great value on the human person but his individual is a
man of emotion rather than reason; a man who prefers instinct to intellect,
and beauty to a sense of objective fact. This practice of basing beliefs about
reality upon the emotions of the heart rather than the conclusions of the
intellect has serious drawbacks. There is no logical reason to suppose that
such beliefs will be true. For even if the heart says the same thing to all men,
which obviously it doesn’t, this fact can offer no proof for the existence of
anything outside our own emotions. Bertrand Russell, who certainly is no
306 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT
ERA

supporter of traditional philosophy, has this to say in commenting on Rous-

seau’s sentimental illogicality
The old arguments at least were honest: if valid, they proved their point; if invalid,
it was open to any critic to prove them so. But the new theology of the heart
dispensed with argument; it cannot be refuted, because it does not profess to prove
its points. At bottom, the only reason offered for its acceptance is that it allows
us to indulge in pleasant dreams. This is an unworthy reason, and if I had to
choose between Thomas Aquinas and Rousseau, I should unhesitatingly choose
the Saint.35
Whatever the deficiencies or contradictions of Rousseau’s political philoso-
phy, this ardent apostle of political romanticism occupies an influential position
in the history of political thought. Eighteenth-century thinkers like Montes-
quieu and Voltaire belong almost exclusively to their era, but Rousseau reaches
out into the succeeding generations. His influence was predominant not only
in France where the Social Contract became the bible of the Revolution, but
in Germany as well where it served as the starting point for the Hegelian
state. Robespierre could shout of the Jacobins, “our will is the general will,”
and Marx could later insist that a society must be “forced to be free’’ in order
for man to find his true self.
The frontispiece of the first edition of the Social Contract shows a picture
of Hobbes “sovereign” with his head cut off. No other illustration could have
better revealed the anomaly in Rousseau’s thinking. Although a bitter foe
of despotism, he seeks his answer to human freedom in a form of democratic
absolutism that requires the individual to surrender himself completely to the
community. The body politic thus becomes a headless leviathan motivated
and directed by the general will —a will shared by all but actually possessed
by none. This will, moreover, is not the will of any individual or group of
individuals. It is an essentially empty will without specific objects. As such it
is subject to manipulation by anyone who claims to have an insight into its
nature. This characteristic of the general will has made it easy for modern
totalitarian governments to justify in its name arbitrary acts of force with
considerable plausibility.°¢
By the act of divestiture which man makes to the community, he relieves
himself of the sense of moral responsibility and transfers it to the general
will. ‘Thereafter, the question whether he is acting justly or unjustly, morally
or immorally, need no longer trouble him. All that is necessary for him to
do is to follow the dictates of the state instead of his conscience, Rousseau
starts from the premise that only the human person matters. He ends by
actually dwarfing the individual in a social whole that exercises total powers.
Rousseau is a strong proponent of direct democracy in which all men, not
a privileged class or a select few, participate. His idea of a community of free
men associated in a small city-state, sharing the responsibility not only for
their individual interests but for the collective good of the whole, is certainly
35 A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1945), p. 694.
36 See A. R. M. Murray, An Introduction to Political Philosophy, op. cit., p. 134.
 ROUSSEAU: POLITICAL ROMANTICISM 307

within the western tradition. It is when he becomes immersed in his philo-

sophical calisthenics that his political theory becomes hazy; and if he emerges
from his metaphysical bouts more a collectivist and totalitarian than a democrat
and constitutionalist, his intrepreters are not to be blamed for the doubts
which they express. Had Rousseau been content to look upon democracy as
a desirable form of government— one which gives man the fullest opportunity
for self-growth and development — rather than a spiritual principle of some
sort, and had he been willing to accept the state as a natural institution, he
would not have found it necessary to go so far as to attribute infallibility to
the general will.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Babbitt, Irving, Rousseau and Romanticism (Boston: Houghton, 1919).
Cassirer, Ernst, The Question of Jean Jacque Rousseau (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1957).
Chapman, J. W., Rousseau — Totalitarian or Liberal? (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1956).
Clark, J. A., “The Definition of the General Will,” Ethics, January, 1943.
Cobban, Alfred, Rousseau and the Modern State (London: Allen and Unwin,
1934).
“New Light on the Political Thought of Rousseau,” Political Science
Quarterly, June, 1951.
Green, F. C., Jean Jacques Rousseau: A Critical Study of His Life and
Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955).
Kelsen, Hans, “Foundations of Democracy: Rousseau’s Doctrine of Democ-
racy,” Ethics, October, 1955.
Laski, Harold J., “A Portrait of Jean Jacques Rousseau,” Yale Review, July,
1928.
Lewis, H. D., “Some Observations on Natural Rights and the General Will,”
Mind, January, 1938,
McNeil, Gordon H., “The Cult of Rousseau and the French Revolution,”
Journal of the History of Ideas, April, 1945.
“The Anti-Revolutionary Rousseau,’ American Historical Review,
?

July, 1953.
Mitchell, E. T., ““A Theory of Corporate Will,” Ethics, January, 1946.
Nisbet, Robert A., “Rousseau and Totalitarianism,” Journal of Politics, May,
1943.
Ogden, Henry, “The Antithesis of Nature and Art, and Rousseau’s Rejection
of the Theory of Natural Rights,” American Political Science Review,
August, 1938.
Osborne, A. M., Rousseau and Burke (New York: Oxford University Press,
1940).
cen “On the Intention of Rousseau,” Social Review, December, 1947.
Talmon, J. L., The Rise of Totalitarian Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press,
1952).
wee D., “Influence of Rousseau on Political Opinion,” English Historical
Review, July, 1933.
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 THE SEEDBED OF
PART SIX CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHY
1%
 Chapter XVI

EDMUND BURKE: POLITICAL CONSERVATISM

“A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, would be

my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the
conception, perilous in the execution” (Burke, Reflections on
the Revolution in France).

Tue reaction against the cold intellectualism and abstract reasoning of

the Age of Enlightenment was not confined to the protestations of
Rousseau and his fellow romanticists. Opposition of a more formidable
and enduring character came from those who became known as con-
servatives. Although their philosophy contains romantic strains, it em-
bodies features that differ radically from both the extreme romanticism
of Rousseau and the exaggerated rationalism of the philosophes. These
two latter movements, in fact, have a common tendency. Political ro-
manticism, particularly as it finds expression in the Social Contract, calls
for no less of a social transformation than the rationalists envision in
their mathematical formulation of human rights and social arrangements.
The conservatives, on the other hand, with their veneration of the past
and their suspicion of any wholesale alteration of the social order, find
themselves at odds with both of these “alien” doctrines.
Political conservatism had been the dominant force in British theory
and practice from the Revolution of 1688 to the opening decades of
the twentieth century. Ficlipsed for a time by the successes of the Labour
party, it has shown new vitality and vigor in recent years. Evidence of
its renascence can be seen in the efforts of the Conservative party to
engender a basically moderate and conservative approach to politics among
its younger members. In this revival, the writings of the great English
statesman, Edmund Burke, have emerged as the bible of the new con-
servatism. As one of the intellectual spokesmen of the Conservative party
advised its members several years ago: “In him [Burke] is contained all
Sil
a12 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

that is necessary to political salvation. ‘Back to Burke’ ought still to be

our motto. Read and reread the Reflections on the Revolution in France:
this is an exercise that should be performed at least once a year.”? The
surprising feature about the Burkean revival is that it has been so intense,
articulate, and definitive in the United States, a country more noted for
its action than its theory.”
The birth of conservatism as an articulate political philosophy can
be traced to the period of Burke, and especially to the publication of
his Reflections on the Revolution in France. For “almost singlehanded
he turned the intellectual tide from a rationalist contempt for the past
to a traditionalist reverence for it.”* To study Burke, therefore, is to study
a major facet of modern political thought.

EDMUND BURKE

Edmund Burke was born in Dublin in 1729. His father, an Anglican,

was an attorney of moderate means; his mother was a Roman Catholic.
Burke adopted the religion of his father and, like him, married a Catholic.
He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he won a classical
scholarship for his literary proficiency. After receiving his degree from
Trinity, he studied law at the Middle Temple in London. The practice
of law did not prove to his liking and he soon abandoned it to devote his
time to literary pursuits. His first published work was an essay entitled
“Vindication of Natural Society” which appeared in 1756. Five years
later he entered public service as an assistant to the Irish Secretary. In
1765 he became secretary to the British prime minister, and the following
year he began a long career as a Whig in the House of Commons.
Burke was the leading spokesman of his party in its contest with
George III, a monarch who was determined to rule as well as reign. He
viewed the King’s efforts to restore the pre-1688 prerogatives of the throne
as a distinct threat to English constitutional development. Similarly, he
opposed Britain’s policy toward her American subjects, contending that
the actions of the crown constituted an unconstitutional interference
pati Utley, The Good Society (London: The Conservative Political Centre,

Nie as ae Clinton Rossiter, Conservatism in America (New York: Knopf,

1955); Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (Chicago: Regnery, 1953); Peter Vierick,
Conservatism Revisited (London: Lehman, 1950).
3 Peter Viereck, Conservatism, From John Adams to Churchill (Princeton: Van
Nostrand, 1956), p. 5.
 EDMUND BURKE: POLITICAL CONSERVATISM 313

with the jurisdiction that the colonies had long exercised over their in-
ternal affairs. He saw in the resistance of the colonists to the arbitrary
proposals of the government another phase of his own resistance to royal
encroachment. His attitude toward the French Revolution was entirely
different. The violence and usurpation of the mobs and the uprooting
of the old institutions and traditions of French society shocked his sense
of law and order. Turning to his pen, he condemned the Revolution
with an eloquence and feeling that led him at times into excesses of
sentiment and extremes of disapproval. Despite these deficiencies, his
Reflections on the Revolution in France remains to this day the classical
expression of political conservatism and the source of most conservative
arguments.
Burke’s last years were not happy ones. He lost his only son in 1794,
he was plagued by financial difficulties (as he had been most of his life),
and he became increasingly concerned over the course of the French
Revolution and its possible repercussions on the rest of Europe, in-
cluding his beloved England. He was also deeply disappointed at his
failure to attain cabinet status, a position which he felt his ability and
his long career of distinguished public service warranted. His death came
in 1797 at the age of sixty-eight.
Burke made no effort to compose a systematic treatise of politics. His
political philosophy is found chiefly in four works: Thoughts on the
Causes of the Present Discontents (1770), Speech on Conciliation with
America (1775), Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), and An
Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791), all written in response
to a contemporary political situation. The Reflections is his most im-
portant and comprehensive political work. Written in the form of a
letter to an imaginary French correspondent, it endeavors to distinguish
between the orderly development of English institutions and the dis-
orderly establishment of the French political system in the wake of the
Revolution. In the course of this work and his other tracts, Burke had
occasion to examine many of the basic principles underlying the state
and political authority. His writings, considered in their entirety, con-
stitute a fairly composite political philosophy despite the controversial
eloquence which characterizes them.

View of Man
While Burke does not discuss his view of human nature in formal
314 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

or philosophical terms, he neither shares the optimism of the Enlighten-

ment as to man’s perfectibility nor accepts the unduly pessimistic outlook
of Hobbes. He feels sure that man’s nature is basically good; it was in-
jured but not vitiated by original sin. Man is subject to temptation and
often acts according to the promptings of his passions rather than his
reason. Nevertheless, under proper guidance and bolstered by religion,
he is capable of leading a reasonably good and salutary life and of striving
toward the perfection of his nature. As Burke observes in speaking out
against the popular misconception that men in public office are uni-
versally corrupt, “neither expecting to find perfection in men and not
looking for divine attributes in created beings in my commerce with
my contemporaries, I have seen not a little public spirit, a real sub-
ordination of interest to duty, and a decent and regulated sensibility to
honest fame and reputation.”*
Burke has no illusions as to the equality of men. Equality can be
attributed to them only in their essential nature as human, rational, and
moral creatures of God. Beyond this and beyond equality of treatment
before the law, it is ridiculous to look for anything like equal talent, merit,
or virtue among the mass of people. Any attempt to reduce all individuals
to the same social, economic, and intellectual level would be improper
and unnatural. “Believe me, Sir, those who attempt to level, never
equalize. In all societies consisting of various descriptions of citizens,
some description must be uppermost. The levelers therefore only change
and pervert the natural order of things, they load the edifice of society
by setting up in the air what the solidity of the structure requires to be
on the ground.”®
Man is a complex being, a creature of will, emotion, and habit as
well as reason. It is not possible, Burke insists, to arrive at a knowledge
of human nature merely by abstract speculation divorced from the totality
of experience. We can obtain a reasonable understanding of it only by
observation and study, by empirical investigation together with rational
reflection, and by placing heavy reliance on the accumulated experience
of the past through which man’s nature manifests itself. It is useless to
believe that we can construct a science of human affairs in the same
way that we formulate a discipline involving the physical aspects of
nature.

4 The Works of Edmund Burke (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1865), II, 240.
S ibid se1il 295.
 EDMUND BURKE: POLITICAL CONSERVATISM 315

Burke points out that this distinction is of prime importance to the

field of politics. The student or statesman should remember that in
approaching the subject of governmental reform he is dealing primarily
with human beings and not the laws of physics or mathematics. If he
keeps this distinction uppermost in mind, he will bring to his task a
caution, an unwillingness to disturb the existing order without grave
cause, and an awareness that politics ought to be adjusted to human
nature, of which reason is but a part but by no means the greatest part.

Nature of the State

In discussing the nature of the state, Burke flatly rejects the argument
that society is a contract to be dissolved at the pleasure of any genera-
tion. Men are not tied to one another by papers and seals. The state is
not a man-made machine but a social or moral organism that has evolved
and developed in accordance with forces that no individual can fully
comprehend. As a social body it is bound together by ties of common
interests, loyalties, traditions, sentiments, and habits. In an eloquent
passage Burke asserts that
the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partner-
ship agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or
some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary
interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be
looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in
things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary
and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership
in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the
ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations,
it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but
between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who
are to be born.®
Burke admits that the constitution of an individual state is in the nature
of a contract by which men set up a particular form and type of govern-
ment. But it is not men who create civil society any more so than they
create marriage. The nuptial agreement is made by two specific parties,
but the institution of marriage is a product of nature. The same may be
said of the state.
Man is a social creature not because of any mere gregarious animal
instinct or historical accident but because he is intrinsically determined
6 Ibid., III, 361.
316 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

to a social and political life by the very depths of his intellectual and
moral nature. Although he plays a major part in shaping the state and its
institutions, he cannot wholly understand the intricate organism that
has assumed such an important role in his life. He does know that with-
out civil society he could not possibly arrive at the perfection of which
his nature is capable. He also knows that “He who gave our nature to
be perfected by our virtue, willed also the necessary means of its per-
fection — He willed therefore the state.” In these views as in much of
his political thought, Burke is essentially Aristotelian: an upholder of
the organic and corporate nature of the state as against the mechanistic
concept of the social contract theorists.
Burke’s discussion of the nature of political society demonstrates a
strain that runs throughout his writings. He believes that human in-
stitutions are ultimately the work of the divine intellect and hence are
not fully intelligible to human reason. There is an aura of mystery
surrounding life which is beyond the capability of the human intellect
to penetrate. History is in a sense the unfolding of Divine Providence,
a revelation of God’s will in the order of time and space. Man therefore
does well to heed the experience of the past and to respect the spirit of
historical continuity.
Human institutions are not matters of concern to man alone; they
are as it were a part of the divine order whereby God governs the world.
To tamper with them unwarrantedly and without sufficient reason is
like an amateur foolishly meddling with a highly complicated and ex-
pensive piece of machinery. Burke’s feeling for divine immanence in the
social order and its historical development is not, however, Hegelian.’
He has no intention of substituting the “rational and necessary unfolding”
of the Absolute in history for the natural law or of making the state
the external manifestation of the Universal Idea at any given period in
history.

The Conservative Approach to Politics

Since society and government are not fully intelligible to man, political
reformers should be extremely cautious. When changes become necessary
in the social and political order, they should be made with moderation
and restraint, for such alterations may interfere with the natural course
of the state’s constitutional development and hence may adversely affect
7 See post, p. 369.
 EDMUND BURKE: POLITICAL CONSERVATISM 317

the fundamental interests of the community as a corporate whole. Burke

points out this danger in arguing that while parliamentary government
in England has developed from obscure origins, the fact that it has
evolved so successfully is evidence of its validity.
Our constitution stands on a nice equipoise with steep precipices and
deep waters upon all sides of it. In removing it from a dangerous
leaning toward one side there may be a risk of over-setting it on the
other. Every project of a material change in a Government so com-
plicated as ours is a matter full of difficulties, in which a considerate
man will not be too ready to decide, a prudent man too ready to
undertake, or an honest man too ready to promise.®
The essence of social conservatism, as seen through the eyes of Burke,
is the preservation of the ancient moral traditions of humanity. He views
society as a spiritual reality possessing an eternal life but a delicate and
involved constitution. It cannot be torn apart and reconstructed as though
it were a machine. Change is, of course, necessary since society is not
a static institution, and a state without the means of some change is
without the means of its conservation. The wise statesman does not
attempt to resist change blindly; he endeavors to render it as gradual
as possible so that it can be accomplished without violence or injustice
to the people.
Burke would have been in complete agreement with the statement later
made by Disraeli that in a progressive country change is constant; and the
great question is, not whether you should resist change which is inevitable,
but whether that change should be carried out in deference to the man-
ners, laws, and traditions of the people, or in deference to abstract princi-
ples and arbitrary and general doctrines. Burke notes that the principles
of conservation and change operated at two critical periods of English
history, the Restoration and the Revolution of 1688. In both instances,
although the bond of union had been weakened, the political fabric was
not cast aside in its entirety by the people. Instead, in each case “they
regenerated the deficient part of the old constitution through the parts
which were not impaired. They kept these old parts exactly as they were,
that the part recovered might be suited to them.”
All reformation should proceed upon the principle of reverence to
antiquity. The Divine purpose is revealed to man through the unfolding
of history. It is foolhardy to disregard the collective wisdom of mankind,
8 Works, III, 361. 9 Ibid,
318 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

a wisdom that has been acquired through thousands of years of experi-

ence and meditation, and that finds expression in the customs and tradi-
tions of a people. Any attempt to transform radically the social and
political structure, such as occurred in the French Revolution, is to do
violence to the orderly growth and development of society. Burke insists
that any social planner who believes that he can draft a blueprint of a
new society as the engineer maps out a new construction project is a
fraud. It is inconceivable to him how any man can be so presumptuous
as to consider his country a tablet upon which he may scribble whatever
he pleases.
A good statesman always considers how he shall make the most of the
existing materials of his country. Certainly the French government prior
to the Revolution was not such “as to be incapable or undeserving of
reform, so that it was of absolute necessity that the whole fabric should
be at once torn down, and the area cleared for the erection of a theoretic,
experimental edifice in its place.”*° If a great alteration in the social or
political order is really necessary, nature will fit the minds of men for it.
In such case “every fear, every hope will forward it; and they who persist
in opposing this mighty current in human affairs will appear rather to
resist the decrees of Providence itself than the mere designs of men.”
Burke places the burden of proof upon those who advocate modifica-
tion of the old order. True change must grow organically out of the
concrete historical environment and fabric of a people and its institu-
tions. If an attempted reform disregards the continuity of tradition and
indiscriminately uproots the past, it leaves a legacy of uncertainty and
instability. Peter Viereck, a perceptive proponent of the “new conserva-
tism,” contends that the failure of the Third and Fourth French Republics
to gain sufficient respect and support from the people can be attributed
largely to the destruction of the unifying monarchical tradition that had
played such a large role in the national history of France. “For respect,
in countries with old traditions, depends on an aura of legitimacy and
historic continuity.”*?

The Prescriptive Constitution

Much of Burke’s conservative political philosophy centers about what
he refers to as “prescriptive” rights. He defines prescription as
10 Tbid., III, 399. 11 Tbid.
12 “Politics and Change,’ Commonweal, Mar. 4, 1955, p. 577.
 EDMUND BURKE: POLITICAL CONSERVATISM 319

a presumption in favor of any settled scheme of government against

any untried project, that a nation has long existed and flourished
under it. It is a better presumption even of the choice of a nation,
far better than any sudden and temporary arrangement by annual
election. Because a nation is not an idea only of local extent, and
individual momentary aggregation; but it is an idea of continuity, which
extends in time as well as in numbers and space. And this is a choice
not of one day or one set of people, not a tumultuary and giddy choice;
it is a deliberate election of the ages and of generations.*
Prescriptive rights grow out of the practices and experiences of many
successive generations since these form the repository of the collective
intelligence of the human race.
Burke declares that there are only two qualifications necessary for those
who exercise political rule: virtue and wisdom. These characteristics can
be present either actually, when the individual in fact possesses them,
or presumptively, when the individual is assumed to have such qualities
because of his wealth or good birth. Ownership of land is the clearest
indication of virtue and wisdom; hence the man of property has a prescrip-
tive right to play a major role in the governance of society. The possession
of family wealth and the distinction which attends hereditary possessions
are the surest guarantees for the protection and transmission of the great
traditions of a people. They are, even at their worst, “the ballast in the
vessel of the commonwealth.” Civilized society requires orders and classes
and a veneration of social distinctions of duty and privilege. For in the
last analysis, it is the men of wealth and good birth who provide the
community with the leadership necessary for its well-being. They are the
“great oaks” who introduce moderate reforms from above; they make
power gentle and obedience liberal. So long as they remain within the
limits of the state constitution, no better form of rule could be asked.
To discover the rights which arise by prescription, man need only
turn to the record of the past. For the human species is wise and “when
time is given to it, as a species it always acts right.” Burke argues that
it was the failure of the French to respect prescriptive nghts and to retain
their ancient institutions that brought violence and chaos to the nation.
So long as the revolutionaries insisted on speaking only of the abstract
rights of men and on repudiating the past, it was vain to talk to them
of the practice of their ancestors and the fundamental laws of their
country.
13 Works, VII, 94-95.
320 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Burke notes that the English people have acted quite differently from
the French. Working after the pattern of nature they hold and transmit
their government and their privileges in the same manner that they enjoy
and transmit their property. Should abuses creep into the British political
system as they did in France, they would be eradicated in an orderly
and constitutional fashion with due regard for the preservation of the
established institutions and traditional spirit of the nation. The French,
in seeking to rectify the abuses of their government, began poorly because
they started by despising everything that belonged to them.

Natural Law and Natural Rights

Burke makes no attempt to define natural law in philosophical terms,
but he leaves little doubt that he accepts the existence of a transcendent
moral order to which human acts and human laws should conform. Even
the people themselves “have no right to make a law prejudicial to the
whole community . . . because it would be made against the principle
of a superior law, which it is not in the power of any community, or of
the whole race of man to alter.”** It would be hard, Burke notes in his
Tract on the Popery Laws, “to point out any error more truly sub-
versive of all the order and beauty, of all the peace and happiness of
human society, than the notion that any body of men have the right
to make what laws they please.” The first obligation of man is to obey
the laws of God. Similarly, the primary business of the legislator or
statesman is to ascertain, obey, and promote obedience to these laws
as they are discerned in the natural order.
Burke reacts sharply against the rationalist doctrine that the natural
law and its applications can be arrived at simply by a process of abstract
reasoning. In Aristotelian fashion he distinguishes between the speculative
and practical functions of the human mind:
IT never govern myself, no rational man ever did govern himself, by
abstractions and universals. I do not put abstract ideas wholly out of
any question, because I well know that under that name I should
dismiss principles; and that without the guide and light of sound,
well-understood principles, all reasonings in politics, as in everything
else, would be only a confused jumble of particular facts and details,
without the means of drawing out any sort of theorctical or practical
conclusion."

14 Jbid., VII, 41. 15 Ibid.

 EDMUND BURKE: POLITICAL CONSERVATISM 321

By accepting the natural law, Burke also affirms man’s possession of

natural rights. However, he vehemently opposes the Jacobin appeal to
rights derived from a mythical state of nature that antedated civil society.
Man’s true rights are based on human nature and Divine sanction. Since
the state exists for the sake of man, it must faithfully observe the basic
tights which he possesses as a creature of God. Since the conservation
and secure enjoyment of natural rights is the great and ultimate purpose
of civil society, all forms of government are only good in so far as they
are subservient to this purpose.
In stressing the primary importance of the practical reason in human
behavior, Burke notes that morals and politics cannot be dealt with as
speculative sciences. The lines of morality are not like the ideal lines
of mathematics. They are broad and deep, as well as long. When it comes
to dealing with issues in the concrete order of reality, prudence instead
of logic chopping is essential. Freedom, for example, is a basic human
right but it can be made meaningful only within the context of a given
situation. It is idle to discuss the relation of freedom to law as an abstract
problem. Is it, Burke asks with his usual eloquence, “because liberty in
the abstract may be classed amongst the blessings of mankind that I
am seriously to felicitate a madman who has escaped from the protecting
restraint and wholesome darkness of his cell, on his restoration to the
enjoyment of light and liberty? Am I to congratulate a highwayman and
murderer, who has broke prison, upon the recovery of his natural right?’’®
Burke points out that the extent of the nght of liberty, as that of
other natural rights, must vary with time and circumstances. What is
permissible for the individual to do under one set of circumstances might
be disastrous to society under different conditions. A proper balancing
between freedom and authority must constantly occur in the political
community. To give liberty is easy; it only requires that the reins be
released. But to strike a proper balance between freedom and authority
requires sound judgment and prudence.
Burke is not a moral relativist as some of his commentators have sought
to show. The whole tenor of his thinking indicates otherwise. While he
often praises utility and expediency as correct principles of political
action, he always does so on the condition that they be directed toward
proper ends. His strictures against abstract reason simply stress the fact
that the basic precepts of the natural law must find application in his-
16 [bid., III, 241.
322 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

torical reality. The classical distinction between the practical and specula-
tive sciences involves a subordination of the former to the latter; that is
to say, the practical science directs action toward an end known by the
speculative intelligence’? Burke notes this relationship in stating that
the business of the speculative philosopher is to mark out the proper
ends of government while that of the politician is to find the proper
means toward these ends and to employ them with effect.

Theory of Government
Consistent with his emphasis on the practical reason, Burke holds
that there is no ideal form of government that is appropriate for all
peoples and circumstances. Questions pertaining to the type of govern-
ment, the franchise, and the qualifications for office should be settled
by practical considerations and not by metaphysical abstractions — always,
of course, giving due regard to the experiences of the past. He feels that
in general, the most satisfactory arrangement is a mixed type of govern-
ment standing midway between an absolute monarchy and a democracy
with widespread popular participation. He sees the most desirable form
in a constitutional monarchy modeled after the English example. Such
a type is conducive to maintaining the balance and equilibrium essential
to a stable social and political order. Its character is that of a “monarchy
directed by laws, controlled and balanced by the great hereditary wealth
and hereditary dignity of a nation; and both again controlled by a judicious
check from the reason and feeling of the people at large, acting by a
suitable and permanent organ.’’!§
Burke’s mixed government consists of a constitutionally limited mon-
archy, an hereditary body such as the House of Lords to represent the
wealth and aristocracy of the nation, and a popularly elected assembly.
Lawmaking is accomplished in accordance with the wishes of the majority,
but this majority is not to be taken indiscriminately from the whole
population. It is to be a “proper” majority drawn only from a body of
electors qualified by tradition, education, wealth, and birth to participate
in the political function. The “common man” is excluded from exercising
the franchise or holding public office because he has neither the wisdom
nor the time to exercise political power intelligently. “The occupation
of a hair-dresser, or of a working tallow-chandler, cannot be a matter of
17 See ante, pp. 66-67.
18 Works, III, 395.
 EDMUND BURKE: POLITICAL CONSERVATISM 323

honour to any person — to say nothing of a number of other more servile

employments. Such descriptions of men ought not to suffer oppression
from the state; but the state suffers oppression, if such as they, either
individually or collectively, are permitted to rule.”!® In support of this
position, Burke quotes Ecclesiasticus: “the wisdom of a learned man
cometh by opportunity of leisure. . . . How can he get wisdom that
holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad; that driveth oxen; and
is occupied in their labours; and whose talk is of bullocks?’’°
While Burke is a firm believer in constitutional and parliamentary
government, he is not an advocate of democracy, as the term is under-
stood today. Some of his most ardent admirers contend, and perhaps
rightfully so, that Burke would have dreaded the modern democratic
state. His lack of confidence in the ability of the common man and his
almost inordinate esteem for the landed aristocracy caused his political
beliefs to be cast within an oligarchical framework.
Whatever the form of government, Burke takes it for granted that
the domination of the political community by mediocrity is contrary to
nature. The good ruler is one who employs the service of able men in
the governance of the state. These men are to be drawn from the ranks
of the wiser, the more expert, and the more opulent members of the
community; and they are to furnish guidance and protection to the
weaker, the less intelligent, and the poorer groups. Despite his talk of
the “natural aristocrat,” it is evident that Burke actually regards wealth
and good birth as the true marks of political virtue. This strong bias
blinded him to the fact that the England of his day was ruled by a
narrow oligarchy which, even though it may have been beneficent in
many respects, actually stifled the discovery and recognition of natural
talent.

The Role of the Representative

One of the problems that has intrigued political thinkers for several
centuries is the proper role of the representative. One view is that he
shall be a mere delegate for the people of his district to exercise their will
and carry out their instructions. Opposed to this is the theory that the
representative should be free to exercise full independence of judgment
regardless of the desires of his constituents. Burke gives classic expression
19 Tbid., III, 296.
20 [bid.
324 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

to this latter position. Speaking to a group of voters in the city of Bristol,

he concedes that a representative should keep in touch with his con-
stituents at all times. “Their wishes ought to have great weight with him;
their opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his
duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasure, his satisfactions to theirs — and
above all, ever and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.”*?
But, Burke continues, a member of parliament is responsible for the
well-being of the whole nation and empire. As a representative he must
be free to exercise his best judgment in the common interest whether
it agrees with the wishes of his constituents or not.
In Burke’s time, the practice of sending instructions to members of
parliament from the constituencies was fairly common. Expressly repudi-
ating this practice, Burke points out that parliament is not a congress of
ambassadors from different states but a deliberative assembly of one
nation with one interest, that of the whole. Answering the contention
that the will of the representative ought to be subservient to that of
the voters, he points out that “government and legislation are matters
of reason and judgment and not of inclination; and what sort of reason
is that in which the determination precedes the discussion, in which one
set of men deliberate and another decides, and where those who form
the conclusions are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who
hear the argument.”??
The tendency in the conservative creed to look with suspicion on the
common judgment is present in Burke, as we have already had occasion
to observe. He feels that by proper restrictions on candidacy, member-
ship in parliament can be limited to men of experience and wisdom.
Representatives of this caliber can guide the state toward its proper
objectives and help to promote the true interests of society regardless of
whether these interests are so recognized by the people. As the following
passage illustrates, Burke holds a sort of divine rights concept of the
representative’s position
His unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience,
he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or ‘to any set of men
living. * These he does not derive from your pleasure — no, nor from
the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for
the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes
you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead
of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.?$
21 Ibid, I, 85. 22 Ibid., II, 87. 23 [hid., IL, 88,
 EDMUND BURKE: POLITICAL CONSERVATISM 525

The Significance of Burke

Edmund Burke stands as a stalwart champion of the conservative spirit
in political thought. An advocate of cautious reform and a vigorous
opponent of sweeping schemes for social improvement, he left a legacy
of ideas which continue to exert great influence in the sphere of political
philosophy and in turn on political action. He teaches that politics is
the art of the possible. The prudent statesman always acts temperately
and cautiously; he is not a doctrinaire planner nor a fanatical ideologist.
Prudence in statesmanship means action informed by principles and
guided by circumstances.
Burke stresses the belief that society is not founded on a social con-
tract which the parties are free to modify or cancel at will, but on a sense
of inner compulsion and a pattern of traditions and practices that are
the products of a natural and organic growth. He does not object to
change, but to the heritage of eighteenth-century French liberalism with
its insistence on radically reshaping the political order in total disregard
of history and with no other basis than rootless abstractions.
Burke detests extremes whether of the right or left. He does not con-
sider himself a crusading force against the powers of darkness. Recogniz-
ing the relativity of political issues and conflicts, he tries to strike up
an acceptable balance between divergent interests by compromise, adjust-
ment, and accommodation. Political virtue in his eyes is primarily a matter
of prudence. He believes that the solution of social and political problems
can best be accomplished by a reasonable and moderate approach. His
ideal is a political order entrusted to a responsible and public-spirited
aristocracy.
Conservatives of many colors have gone to the Burkean shrine for
support. Some of them have displayed demogogic tendencies; others
have demonstrated a deep interest in the social betterment of man and
a genuine concern for the principles of democratic government. Some who
claim allegiance to Burke stress the weakness of man; others seek to
combine constitutional procedures with social humaneness. Some empha-
size orders and classes and deny social equality; others insist that con-
servatism is betrayed when it becomes the exclusive property of a single
social or economic minority. Some are inclined to regard poverty and
misfortune as part of the natural order of things and religion as the
consolation for all such ills; others maintain that the moderate and
326 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

evolutionary forces of the center must strike a workable balance between

the urgent need for social reform and the equally urgent need for per-
sonal freedom. In this process of assimilation, the true meaning of
Burke’s political philosophy is often lost sight of or distorted.

THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION IN FRANCE

The reaction to the French Revolution and the “liberal” philosophy

which it represented took a more pronounced or extreme form among
certain continental writers. This is particularly true of such Catholic
émigrés as Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821), a sympathizer of the French
royalists, and Vicomte de Bonald (1754-1840), a French nobleman who
fled from his native land when the monarchy collapsed in 1791. Both
of these men employ the language of conservatism in support of their
basically antidemocratic or authoritarian philosophies. Going beyond
Burke, they call for a return to the tradition of those medieval church-
men who viewed the problem of human government solely in terms of
subordination to the will of God and who regarded politics as a branch
of theology.
De Maistre in his Essay on the Generative Principles of Political Con-
stitutions (1810) follows Burke’s central theme that constitutions and
political institutions are the products of slow organic growth. He main-
tains that one of the great errors of the eighteenth century was the belief
that a political constitution could be written down and created a priori.
Both reason and experience demonstrate that a constitution is a divine
creation, and that precisely what is most fundamental in the laws of a
state cannot be written down. De Maistre sees an incredible presumption
in the belief that man’s intellect and judgment without divine guidance
are sufficient for the attainment of human perfection. The doctrine of
popular sovereignty and popular consent is pernicious to good order;
the sanction for laws and government must rest in an authority superior
to man. Like Bonald and the other French conservatives, he looked upon
Divine Providence as the only acceptable explanation of history. Man
is essentially unfit to create anything or to alter the course of history.
Instead of trying to establish new social and political worlds, he should
accept the order of creation.
In attacking the notion that constitutions or universal rights can be
 EDMUND BURKE: POLITICAL CONSERVATISM a2y

concocted by the use of pure reason, De Maistre lists four propositions

which he holds to be “uncontestably true”:
(1) The fundamental principles of political constitutions exist before
all written law.
(2) Constitutional law is only the sanction of an unwritten pre-existing
tight.
(3) That which is most essential and truly fundamental is never
written.
(4) The weakness of a constitution is actually in direct proportion to
the number of its written articles.
De Maistre insists that it is difficult to alter things for the better.
Society is too complex and reason too feeble to risk social innovation.
Even if faults exist, it is better to leave the community alone than to
tamper with it. The word reform will always be suspected by wisdom.
Bonald maintains that the state is similar to a house of correction and
that its prime purpose is to tame man’s wicked instincts.24 Contrary to
Rousseau who held that man is naturally good and that it is civilization
which corrupts him, Bonald declares “Nous sommes mauvais par nature,
bons par la societe” (We are evil by nature, good by society). It is the
task of the state and the church to regulate the conduct of man and to
save him from his evil tendencies. He agrees with De Maistre that the
prelates, the noblemen, and the high dignitaries of the state are the
true repositories and guardians of truth. It falls to them to teach the
people truth and falsehood in the moral and spiritual order. Others have
no right to reason about these things.
In Bonald, as well as De Maistre, the long discredited view that civil
society is but a remedy for sin reappears once again. Bonald and his
intellectual colleagues look to the monarchy, under the spiritual guidance
of the church, as the stabilizing and directing element in the state. They
have little regard for the efficacy of institutional checks on government,
such as those proposed by Montesquieu and others. The only safeguard
against the abuse of power, according to Bonald, is the ethical limita-
tions set by the religious conscience.
The French conservatives are on sound ground in several respects.

24 Bonald’s political writings are contained in his Essay on the Natural Laws of the
Social Order and in Primitive Legislation.
328 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

They stand in the spirit of the Greco-Christian tradition when they

declare that the human intellect is not the creator and source of truth,
that society cannot be refashioned as a sculptor shapes his clay, that a
civil society devoid of religion contains the seeds of its own destruction,
and that authority as well as freedom is essential to the well-being of a
people. At the same time, they depart from this tradition when they
imply that man is not fit for self-rule because of sin; when they refuse
to give recognition to the necessity for change in social and political
institutions; and when they tend to discredit the natural and autonomous
character of the state by viewing it as a church society. Their conservatism
is static, rigid, reactionary, and authoritarian. A true Burkean conserva-
tive will oppose tyranny from above — from the monarchy and privileged
classes — as well as from below — from Jacobins and the sheer force of
numbers. De Maistre and Bonald are too eager to support the former
in their legitimate reaction to the latter.

SUMMARY
There are certain basic canons that have been commonly recognized by
intellectual conservatives from the days of Burke to the present time. These
can be summarized as: (1) man is a blend of good and evil; he is neither
perfect nor is he perfectible; (2) society is the product of slow historical
growth; (3) existing institutions embody the wisdom of prior generations;
there is a presumption in favor of that which has survived the test of time;
(4) religion is the foundation of civil society; (5) prudence, experience, and
habit are often better guides than reason and logic; (6) society requires classes
and orders — the superior classes must be allowed to have a hand in the direc-
tion of the state in such a way as to balance the numerical preponderance of the
inferior classes; and (7) duties are superior to rights.*° Although the meaning
of these principles has changed from generation to generation and even from
thinker to thinker, there is a substantial area of agreement among genuine
conservatives in respect to their ultimate assumptions.
The tide of conservative-liberal debate still runs strong. It will doubtlessly
continue on marked as it has been more by rhetoric than clarity of thought,
more by looseness of definition than conciseness of meaning, more by emotion
than reason, The labels, liberal and conservative, will remain disconcertingly
vague and confusing. And through it all, Burke will probably continue to be an
important center of theoretical attention — at least until the fad changes.

25 See S. P. Huntington, “Conservatism as an Ideology,” American Political Science

Review, June, 1957; and Herbert McClosky, ‘“‘Conservatism and Personality,” ibid.,
Mar., 1958.
 EDMUND BURKE: POLITICAL CONSERVATISM 329

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, Stuart G., “Democracy, the New Conservatism, and the Liberal
Tradition in America,” Ethics, October, 1955.
Cobban, Alfred, Edmund Burke and the Revolt Against the 18th Century
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1929).
Coker, Francis W., “Some Present-Day Critics of Liberalism,’’ American
Political Science Review, March, 1953.
Crick, Bernard, “The Strange Quest for an American Conservatism,” Review
of Politics, July, 1955.
Crowley, P. J., “Burke and Scholasticism,’’ New Scholasticism, April, 1954.
Griffith, E. S., “Cultural Prerequisites to a Successfully Functioning De-
mocracy,” American Political Science Review, March, 1956.
Hallowell, John H., The Moral Foundation of Democracy (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1954).
Hutchins, Robert M., “The Theory of the State; Edmund Burke,” Review
of Politics, April, 1943.
Jones, Aubrey, Pendulum of Politics (London: Faber and Faber, 1946).
Kirk, Russell, “Burke and Natural Rights,” Review of Politics, October, 1951.
Koyre, Alexandre, “Louis de Bonald,” Journal of the History of Ideas, January,
1946.
MacDonald, H. M., “The Revival of Conservative Thought,” Journal of
Politics, February, 1957.
Mazlish, B., “Conservative Revolution of Edmund Burke,” Review of Politics,
January, 1958.
McClosky, R. G., American Conservatism in the Age of Enterprise (Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1951).
Murray, John C., “The Political Thought of Joseph de Maistre,” Review of
Politics, January, 1949,
Nisbet, Robert A., “De Bonald and the Concept of the Social Group,” Journal
of the History of Ideas, June, 1944.
Parkin, Charles, The Moral Basis of Burke’s Political Thought (London:
Cambridge University Press, 1956).
Powers, R. H., “Degradation of Aristocratic Dogma (Burke’s social and
political program),” Partisan Review, Winter, 1957.
Rogow, A. A., “Edmund Burke and the American Liberal Tradition,” Antioch
Review, Summer, 1957.
Rothbard, M. N., “Note on Burke’s Vindication of Natural Society,” Journal
of the History of Ideas, January, 1958.
Stanlis, P. J., “Edmund Burke and the Natural Law” (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 1958).
White, H. B., “Edmund Burke on Political Theory and Practice,” Social
Research, March, 1950.
Wilson, Francis G., The Case for Conservatism (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1951).
 Chapter XVII

THE UTILITARIANS

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two

sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to
point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what
we shall do” (Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of
Morals and Legislation).

Wirs the rejection of natural law, the nineteenth century turned to

other standards for determining the moral propriety of human acts and
the ethical validity of human institutions. In England the movement
away from the doctrine of natural law found expression in the philosophy
of utilitarianism which dominated British political thought during the
first seventy-five years of the nineteenth century. David Hume, together
with the French philosopher, Helvetius, and the Italian thinker, Beccaria,
were the principal architects of the new doctrine, but it was Jeremy
Bentham who molded it into a formal theory of social reform. Its pro-
ponents were distinctly middle class in character and its program essen-
tially a defense of middle class interests.
The Utilitarians are sometimes referred to as Philosophical Radicals
because of their efforts to give a theoretical underpinning to representative
democracy and universal suffrage. Actually they were cast more in the
role of pamphleteers than profound thinkers. As one commentator has
observed, their function was more that of the Socratic gadfly than it
was the sober architect of a democratic constitution. Certainly the utilitar-
ians could not be accused of being abstract philosophers, standing out-
side the stream of daily life. hey were active in public affairs, serving
as effective lobbyists for legal, penal, and political reforms and for the
improvement of working conditions in British factories and mines.
The nature of utilitarianism and its relevancy to political thought can
best be observed in the work of its two most noted representatives, Jeremy
Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
330
 THE UTILITARIANS opr

BENTHAM

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), like his predecessor Hobbes, was an

infant prodigy who read Latin before he was four and conversed in
French at the age of six. His father was a wealthy lawyer who looked
forward to seeing his son upon the Woolsack. After graduation from
Oxford, Bentham took up the study of law and was admitted to the
bar in 1769. His career as a practicing lawyer was short. Instead of de-
voting his energies toward establishing a law practice, he spent his time
studying the defects of the existing legal system. Convinced from his
reading that the well-being and happiness of a society depended upon
wise legislation, young Jeremy decided that his particular job in life
was to labor at the reform of law. The substantial inheritance which he
received from his father enabled him to live independently and to pursue
the life he desired. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Parliament in
1790, and thereafter he made no further attempts to become an active
participant in the political arena.
Bentham was a prolific writer, but he seldom completed what he
began. His mind seemed to jump from one subject to another and his
attention from one project to others that captured his immediate in-
terest. Because of this lack of sustained effort, much of his work appears
as fragments or introductions. Thus the title to his work on political
science is “Fragments on Government,” and to his most widely known
book on utilitarian theory is “Introduction to the Principles of Morals
and Legislation.” A Tory until he was sixty, Bentham became a proponent
of expanded democratic government when his proposals for legal reform
failed to win parliamentary support. Earlier, he had assumed that those
holding political power wanted only to know what was good in order
to embrace it. As he grew older, he became convinced that the ruling
oligarchy in England was against reform and indifferent to the public
interest because it was not truly representative of the people.
Shortly after Bentham published his Principles of Morals and Legis-
lation in 1780, he devised an elaborate plan for prison reform. He pro-
posed the construction of a model prison (the Panopticon), a circular
building so designed that the warden could watch the movements of
every inmate from his office in the center of the structure. For over
fifteen years he gave a large part of his time and fortune in urging the
British government to adopt his plan for this goldfish bowl prison. Parlia-
BEY SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

ment did pass a bill in 1794 authorizing the establishment of such a

prison but the project was never carried out. Bentham’s efforts at penal
and legal reform, however, brought him international fame. When he
visited Paris in 1825 he was accorded a triumphal reception, and the
governments of Spain and Portugal authorized his works to be printed
at national expense.
Bentham was heir to the new scientific and secular spirit that had
emerged during the eighteenth century. When he came across the
magic phrase “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” in Joseph
Priestley’s pamphlet, An Essay on the First Principles of Government
(1766), he is said to have cried “Eureka,” believing that he had dis-
covered the determining principle of public and private morality. (Priestley
had borrowed the phrase from Beccaria’s short treatise on Crimes and
Punishment.) What remained to be done was to formulate a scientific
basis for measuring happiness. Once this was accomplished, man would
have a precise standard of social behavior that would no longer be de-
pendent upon the abstract principles of natural law or the uncertainties
of individual conscience. Bentham’s importance to political philosophy
rests in his efforts to achieve this objective.

The Principle of Utility

In the opening chapter of the Principles of Morals and Legislation,
Bentham informs his readers that the doctrine of utility “is the founda-
tion of the present work.” He then proceeds to define utility as the
“principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever,
according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or
diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question.”?
Happiness which is described as “enjoyment of pleasures, security from
pains,” is equated with goodness, and unhappiness or pain with evil.
A right action is one which increases happiness while a wrong action is
one which diminishes it. Moral approbation is therefore attached to the
former and moral condemnation to the latter. Like Hobbes, who defined
good as the object of desire and evil as the object of aversion, Bentham
fixes a nonmoral stamp on human actions.
Of an action that is conformable to the principle of utility, one may
always say either that it is one that ought to be done, or at least that
1 Principles of Morals and Legislation, I, 2. Excerpts are taken from Blackwell edi-
tion (Oxford: Blackwell, 1948).
 THE UTILITARIANS p58

it is not one that ought not to be done. One may say also that it is
right it should be done —at least that it is not wrong it should be
done; that it is a right action —at least that it is not a wrong action.
When thus interpreted, the words ought, and right and wrong, and
others of that stamp, have a meaning: when otherwise, they have none.”
As conceived by Bentham, the doctrine of utility is purely quantitative
in nature, recognizing no distinction among the quality or kinds of
pleasure. The sole test of differentiation is the quantum of pleasure that
various acts bring. When we say that good music or poetry is better
than cheap movies, we can only mean that it gives more pleasure, not
that it gives a different and a higher kind of pleasure. As Bentham puts
it, quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry. He
realizes that the moment one introduces the element of quality in the
utilitarian formula, he is appealing to a different standard of goodness.
An individual may experience more satisfaction in eating his favorite
dish than in reading a Shakespearian sonnet. According to Bentham’s
scale, the act of sensual gratification would be the better of the two
for such a person since it gives him a greater quantity of happiness.
When Bentham is pressed to give some empirical proof of the validity
of his doctrine, he asserts that its truth is self-evident. Is the principle
of utility, he asks rhetorically, susceptible of any direct proof? No, he
replies, “for that which is used to prove everything else, cannot itself
be proved: a chain of proofs must have their commencement somewhere.
To give such proof is as impossible as it is needless.”* Aristotle and his
successors had insisted that first principles are self-evident and their
validity not susceptible to empirical verification or demonstration. It is
rather strange to hear similar words uttered by one who insists on the
strictly scientific approach to moral and social problems.

The Calculus of Pleasure

In order to place utilitarianism on a purely scientific basis, Bentham
had to devise an empirical standard of measurement to determine the
quantity of pleasure or pain which results from a particular act. His
famous “felicific calculus” was formulated in answer to this need. Basic
to this test is the assumption that pleasure and pain, although subject
to no linear or weight measurement, can nevertheless be mathematically
2 Ibid., I, 10.
8 [bid., I, 11.
a34 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

calculated. If this premise is correct, the decision as to utility, and hence

rightness, can be reduced to a problem of simple arithmetic.
There is little sophisticated theory in Bentham’s test. It attempts to
measure the quantity of pleasure by the coarsest and most mechanical
criteria. Seven factors must be taken into account in determining the
utility of an act: (1) its intensity, (2) its duration, (3) its certainty or
uncertainty, (4) its propinquity or remoteness, (5) its fertility or “the
chance which it has of being followed by sensations of the same kind,”
(6) its purity or “the chance it has of not being followed by sensations
of the opposite kind,” and (7) its extent or the number of persons to
whom it extends or who are affected by it.* Once these determinations
are made, the values of all the pleasures are totaled up on one side of
the ledger and those of all the pains on the other. The extent to which
the sum of one exceeds the other will give the degree of utility or dis-
utility of the particular act.
Bentham does not maintain that this elaborate calculation should be
made before every human act. “It is not to be expected that this process
should be strictly pursued previously to every moral judgment, or to.
every legislative or judicial operation. It may, however, be always kept in
view; and as near as the process actually pursued on these occasions
approaches to it, so near will such process approach to the character
of an exact one.”® The rightness or wrongness of many acts is generally
accepted in terms of their known consequences of pleasure and pain, and
it is only when the propriety of an act is in dispute that it is necessary
to resort to the calculus. With adequate time and all the facts at his
disposal, man can make completely accurate calculations.
As a scientific instrument, Bentham’s “objective” test for measuring
the quantity of pleasure is sheer nonsense. Not even an omniscient God,
remarks a modern commentator on utilitarianism, could make such
calculations “for the very notion of them is impossible.’”® Nowhere does
4 Bentham wrote the following verse to lodge “more effectually in the memory these
points on which the whole fabric of morals and legislation may be seen to rest’’:
Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure—
Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure.
Such pleasures seek, if private be thy end;
If it be public, wide let them extend.
Such pains avoid, whichever be thy view;
If pains must come, let them extend to few
(ibid., I, 4).
5 Ibid., IV, 6.
‘John Plamenatz, The English Utilitarians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1949), p. 73.
 THE UTILITARIANS 335

Bentham attempt to define pleasure and pain or to formulate a scale

of values for determining the relative importance of the factors he lists.
Whether more consideration should be given to the intensity of a
pleasure or pain than to its duration, or whether the certainty of pleasure
should be more heavily weighted than its fertility are but a few of the
unanswered questions. How, moreover, can a numerical value be attached
to the intensity of a pleasure? Can the degree of pleasure that an in-
dividual derives from an act be measured by some device in much the
same way that blood pressure is determined, or must the subjective
judgment of the individual be accepted? Bentham conveniently disregards
these questions, just as he does those pertaining to qualitative differences.
It is true that men compare the consequences of alternative actions
but in doing so they do not add, subtract, divide, or multiply. In making
their choice, they may take into consideration the dimensions of pleasure
that Bentham refers to, but this process does not involve a mathematical
calculation of quantities of pleasure and pain. If utility is to stand as an
objective test of morality, recourse must obviously be had to other means
of measurement than the felicific calculus.

Utilitarianism as a Standard of Good and Evil

Bentham sees clearly the need for some standard external to the in-
dividual for judging human conduct. Previous systems “consist all of
them in so many contrivances for avoiding the obligation of appealing
to any external standard, and for prevailing upon the reader to accept
the author’s sentiment or opinion as a reason for itself.’ If an individual
is inclined to think that his own approbation or disapproval of an act is
a sufficient foundation for him to judge of its validity, he should ask
himself whether his view is to be the standard of right and wrong with
respect to every one else, or whether every other individual’s view has
the same privilege of being a standard for his own actions. If the former,
the principle would be despotic; if the latter, it would be anarchical.
Natural law has no part in utilitarian thinking. Bentham discards it
as just a name for irrational prejudice and as “simple nonsense . .
nonsense upon stilts.” He speaks contemptuously of those who believe
in right reason or natural justice. Whether an act is right or wrong
never depends upon a knowledge of goodness or evil as such, but only
upon the tendency of that act to increase or diminish the sum total of
7 Principles of Morals and Legislation, op. cit., I, 14.
336 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

the happiness of the person whose interest is in question. Bentham holds

that by applying this utilitarian test, morality becomes grounded on
objective norms and not on the whim and caprice of individual men.

The “Common Good”

On its face, utilitarianism appears to be a strictly egoistic doctrine.
Why talk of the interests of the community, Bentham asks, unless we
know what is the interest of the individual. “A thing is said to promote
the interest or to be for the interest of an individual when it tends to
add to the sum total of his pleasures; or, what comes to the same thing,
to diminish the sum total of his pains.’”* The community is merely a
fictitious body composed of the individual persons who are its members.
The interest of society is therefore nothing more than the sum of the
interests of the several members who compose it. Yet the utilitarian
formula of the greatest happiness of the greatest number implies that
it is as much an individual’s duty to give pleasure to others as to seek
it for himself. Or to express it in less positive terms, that which gives
pleasure to one person is good so long as it does not diminish the
happiness of other persons more. Bentham’s ethical hedonism means in
reality that no man can attain his own greatest happiness unless all
other men do the same. We do well to further the interests of others
in the hope that they in turn will advance ours. Hence an individual
must seek other men’s pleasures as a means to his own. This philosophical
“logrolling” is often exemplified in the activities of legislative bodies.
Bentham contends that the greatest happiness principle can be achieved
in practice by totaling up individual pleasures and pains according to the
felicific calculus formula.
Take an account of the number of persons whose interests appear to
be concerned; and repeat the above process with respect to each. Sum
up the numbers expressive of the degrees of good tendency which the
act has with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the
tendency of it is good upon the whole. Do this again with respect to
each individual in regard to whom the tendency of it is bad upon
the whole. Take the balance; which, if on the side of pleasure will
give the general good tendency of the act with respect to the total
number or community of individuals concerned; if on the side of
pain, the general evil tendency with respect to the same community.’
Sibid., |, 5.
9 Thid., IV, 6,
 THE UTILITARIANS 337

An action may then be said to conform to the principle of utility when

the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the community is
greater than any it has to diminish it. The balance sheet of pleasure
and pain can serve as a policy-making guide to those charged with the
governance of the community.
Bentham’s version of the common good leaves at least one important
question unanswered. Upon which side of the equation is the heavier
stress to be placed: on happiness or number? Is an act of government
which brings a high degree of pleasure to a few and some discomfort
to the many to be preferred to an act which brings a modest degree of
happiness to many but great pain to a few? A formula which merely
adds up pleasures and pains can furnish no answer to this dilemma. The
greatest happiness principle may be highly commendable as an expres-
sion of aspiration and hope, but as an operative social formula it has
little to offer.

The Quality of Benevolence

Bentham apparently realizes the dangers inherent in any theory of
unmitigated individualism since he trys to temper the doctrine of self-
interest with something akin to a social conscience. After reiterating that
the only interests which guide men are their own, he introduces with
a touch of his magical wand the sentiment of “benevolence.” An in-
dividual has the purely social motive of sympathy or benevolence for
consulting the happiness of other men. In some vague way this sentiment
constitutes a restraining guide on individual action and induces men
to consult not only their own happiness but that of the general good.
Bentham is in difficulty here since benevolence or sentiment is obvi-
ously alien to any exact science of ethics and morals. Hobbes had bal-
anced his theory of extreme individualism by a total concentration of
power in the sovereign. Helvetius, while acknowledging that men _neces-
sarily pursue their own happiness, had sought to solve the problem of
social stability by linking individual interest to the general advantage.
The virtuous man is not one who sacrifices his personal pleasure to
the common good, but one whose individual desires and passions con-
form so closely to the public interest that he may be said to be virtuous
by necessity. Bentham rejects the Hobbesian solution, but at the same
time he is unwilling to rely entirely on the equating of private and public
good through the process of natural harmonization or even by means
338 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

of law. As a result, he deviates from his insistence that morals must be

dealt with scientifically by the admission that there is an unmeasurable
factor which influences human conduct. His element of benevolence im-
plies that government can rely on a certain amount of socially advantageous
behavior that is prompted by other than self-seeking motives.

The Nature and Role of the State

The utilitarians are not concerned with the moral legitimacy of gov-
ernment; they are primarily interested in it as a social fact. They regard
the state as an association of individuals —a fictitious body — organized
for the promotion of happiness. The basis of government is not con-
tract, but human needs. States originally came into being as a matter
of convenience with no one fully understanding what had happened.
Later, they were taken for granted because everyone felt that they were
indispensable.
According to Bentham, the state is a political society in which there
exists a habit of obedience to a governor or governors whose commands
are laws. Men obey the laws not because they are ordinances of right.
reason, but because “the probable mischiefs of obedience are less than
the probable mischiefs of resistance.” They comply with the edicts of
government, in other words, because it is useful for them to do so and
not because there is an element of intrinsic justice embodied in the laws.
“That is my duty to do which I am liable to be punished according to
law if I do not do.”
Bentham eschews any theory of the ideal state. His major interest in
politics is to bring about improvements in existing societies by the in-
telligent use of government. The business of the state, as he describes it,
is to promote the happiness of society by punishing and rewarding. To
forbid any act is a restriction on individual liberty, and all punishment
per se is an evil since it inflicts pain. One of the chief tasks of govern-
ment, if not its only duty, is to reconcile conflicting claims “so to regulate
the motive of self-interest that it shall operate, even against its will,
towards the production of the greatest happiness.” Since punishment,
however, is an evil, “upon the principle of utility, if it ought at all to
be admitted, it ought only to be admitted in as far as it promises to
exclude some greater evil.” By a judicious application of artificial pains
to particular acts which are disturbing to the peace and good order of
society, the state can make it unprofitable in terms of utility for an
 THE UTILITARIANS 339

individual to perform such an act. Hence, by using the felicific calculus

test, the proportion to be established between crime and punishment
can be worked out with geometrical precision. In this way lawmakers
and judges can provide a degree of punishment sufficient to cause a
somewhat higher quantity of pain to the wrongdoer than the quantum
of pleasure that he would experience in committing the wrong. The
value of the punishment must not be less in any case than what is
sufficient to outweigh that of the profit of the offense.
Bentham’s conception of the role of government is essentially that
of his laissez-faire contemporaries. All government is a necessary evil;
its only justification is that its coercive action creates less pain than it
prevents. Men are not to be interfered with in their quest for pleasure
so long as their acts do not tend to diminish the total happiness of the
community. There is no feeling in Bentham for civil society as a positive
instrument of human perfection. He sees no relationship between the
state and the moral life of its members. An individual should be left
free to pursue his own pleasure as he himself determines so long as he
does not unduly infringe on the happiness of others. “With few ex-
ceptions, and those not very considerable ones, the attainment of the
maximum enjoyment will be most effectually secured by leaving each
individual to pursue his own maximum of enjoyment, in proportion as
he is in possession of the means.”
In practice, Bentham and his fellow utilitarians are strongly committed
to the principle of constitutional government. Philosophically, however,
they depart from the traditional pattern by viewing law as the product
of will rather than reason. Law is nothing more than the expression of
the sovereign will of the state. When government commands, men must
obey; they can never raise the defense of natural law or natural rights
against the sovereign. Legally also, the powers of the state are unlimited
and absolute. The extent to which the commonwealth should exercise
its authority is to be determined simply by the principle of utility.
Bentham goes on to say that although there are no assignable bounds
to the supreme political power, there are some practical limitations on it.
People are habitually disposed to comply with the law, but there is a
point beyond which “the subject is no more prepared to obey the gov-
erning body of his own state than that of any other.” If government
persists in enforcing an unpopular law, common resistance may arise.
When this occurs the dispute should be rationally and scientifically re-
340 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

solved by reference to the principle of utility. The objectors should base

their decision to resist or submit
according to what should appear to them worth their while — accord-
ing to what should appear to them the importance of the matter in
dispute — according to what should appear to them the probability
or improbability of success — according, in short, as the mischiefs of
submission should appear to be a less, or a greater ratio to the mischiefs
of resistance."°
Thus the boundaries of state authority are marked out solely by utilitarian
and not by moral considerations.
When his reform plans failed to win the support of parliament,
Bentham came to believe that the fundamental problem of government
is to make it advantageous for the rulers to promote the greatest happiness
of the greatest number. He feels that this objective can best be attained
through the device of democracy, since in such a system it is to the
tulers’ self-interest to satisfy the desires of the community. He therefore
favors the adoption of every means that will increase the dependency of
the representatives on the people. These include annual sessions of.
parliament, universal suffrage, the secret ballot, and abolition of the
monarchy and House of Lords.

JOHN STUART MILL

Among the ardent disciples that Bentham gathered about him was
James Mill (1773-1836), an English journalist and economist. Mill be-
came Bentham’s most intimate friend and his stanch propagandist. The
prominence of the name Mill in political theory is not due to James,
however, but to his eldest son, John Stuart (1806-1873). Educated ex-
clusively by his father under a rigorous and strict discipline, the young
Mill was taught Greek at the age of three, Latin at eight, and political
economy and logic (including Aristotle’s logical treatises in the original)
at twelve. As someone has remarked, his knowledge had such a head start
that his understanding was never able to catch up with it. When he was
seventeen, he entered the services of the India Company, where he te-
mained for thirty-five years until its dissolution in 1853. He was elected
to Parliament in 1865, but was defeated in the general election three
years later.
_ 10 A Fragment on Government, IV, 39, Blackwell edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1948).
 THE UTILITARIANS 341

Cradled and nurtured on utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill adopted his

father’s views with willing enthusiasm. Since his position with the India
Service gave him ample time for intellectual pursuits, he spread the
Benthamite gospel through newspaper and journal articles. By the time
he was twenty, he had become the acknowledged leader of the utilitarian
movement. Impaired health and an acute mental depression brought a
temporary end to his intellectual activities. He emerged from his illness
with the conviction that utilitarianism as conceived by his father and
Bentham was too narrow and unsatisfactory. In seeking to restate the
doctrine so as to remove its “insufficiencies,” Mill went far toward re-
pudiating the position of his utilitarian predecessors.

Utilitarianism Revised

Mill’s treatise on utilitarianism opens by pointing out that in the

practical sciences, such as ethics or politics, all action is for the sake
of some end. Rules of conduct must consequently be dependent upon
the end to which they are subservient. “When we engage in a pursuit,
a clear and precise conception of what we are pursuing would seem to be
the first thing we need, instead of the last we are to look forward to.”™
If there is a determinable end, then the test of right or wrong in in-
dividual cases is the conformity or nonconformity of the act to the end.
Rejecting the classical concept of natural law as Bentham had done,
Mill states that whatever consistency moral beliefs have attained in the
past has been due principally to the tacit influence of an unrecognized
standard — the effect of actions on man’s happiness.
Aware of the objection that utilitarianism is a completely hedonistic
doctrine, Mill seeks to show that the happiness it refers to is of a
qualitative as well as a quantitative character. He maintains that there
is no incompatibility with the principle of utility in acknowledging the
fact that some kinds of pleasures are of a higher quality than others.
A person may prefer one pleasure over another even though it is at-
tended with a greater amount of discontent. The highly endowed in-
dividual requires more than sensual pleasure to make him happy. To
such a person, dissatisfaction under some conditions is better than satis-
faction. “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied;
better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”
11 Utilitarianism (London: Parkerson, and Bourn, 1863), p. 2.
342 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

In contrast to Bentham’s denial of qualitative differences in pleasure,

Mill’s position presents utilitarianism in a more attractive light. Yet at
the same time, it constitutes a virtual rejection of utility as a scientific
criterion of right and wrong. For once the element of quality is intro-
duced, it is no longer possible to measure pleasure as one weighs potatoes.
How is one able to determine which of two pleasures has the more in-
trinsic value? Mill can only state that the judgment of those who have
experienced both must be relied on. Comparisons between qualities of
pleasure are not different in principle from comparisons between quanti-
ties, and even the latter must be referred to the verdict of those most
competent to judge. For “what means are there of determining which is
the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of two pleasurable sensations,
except the general suffrage of those who are familiar with both? Neither
pains nor pleasures are homogeneous, and pain is always heterogeneous
with pleasure.”!2 And if the appraisals of the judges differ, the decision
of the majority must be accepted as final.
The moment a utilitarian admits that pleasures can be graded as
superior or inferior in quality, he is put in the illogical position, as
Sabine points out, of demanding a standard for the measurement of a
standard.** He is also ignoring the fact that if pains and pleasures are
not homogeneous, the calculation and comparison of their quantities
is impossible. All that can be determined is the frequency and order of
men’s preferences. The fact that individuals prefer some pleasure over
others is no proof that those they prefer are superior in quality to the
others unless it is first assumed that individuals normally prefer what is
superior to what is inferior.1*
Mill also diverges from the utilitarian school in a second and perhaps
more significant aspect. While he accepts the principle of the greatest
happiness for the greatest number, he rejects Bentham’s method of
applying this principle by means of the “‘felicific calculus.” His reluctance
to look upon pleasure solely in quantitative terms is prompted in part by
his intense belief in the dignity and character of the individual. He
emphasizes on several occasions that although utility is the ultimate
criterion for all ethical questions, it must be a utility that is grounded
on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being. In order for

12 Tbid., pp. 15-16.

13 A History of Political Theory, op. cit., p. 708.
44 See John Plamenatz, The English Utilitarians, op. cit., pp. 136-137.
 THE UTILITARIANS 343

men to be truly happy, they must “have their minds fixed on some object
other than their own happiness”; they must fix them “on the happiness
of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit,
followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end.’’®
In place of Bentham’s felicity, Mill substitutes the development of
individual character. He insists that man’s primary end is self-perfection,
not the attainment of pleasure. A life devoted to personal pleasure-seek-
ing is as frustrating as any other pattern of conduct which disregards the
whole nature of man. For man is a social as well as a rational being, and
a good portion of his happiness depends upon the satisfaction of his
social impulses.
Mill is more moderate than Bentham in his criticism of natural law,
but he makes it quite clear that he accepts no transcendent moral
standard as the basis of human conduct. The ultimate sanction for
utilitarian morality is the subjective feeling in the mind of the individual.
This sanction has its roots within and not outside the mind; the re-
straining conscience is only a feeling in the mind, a set of acquired
habits. The test of utility provides an empirical device for determining
what action an individual should take. If he fails to follow the indicated
course, he may be punished by the state or incur the contempt of his
fellow creatures, or he may be disturbed by pangs of remorse. Moral
responsibility in the traditional sense is in no way involved.

Human Freedom

The essay On Liberty, written in 1859, presents a fervent and at times

eloquent defense of human freedom. Its chief objective is to point out
democracy’s attendant dangers and to show how they can be guarded
against. The essay is clearly related to Mill’s utilitarian philosophy with
its psychological premise that men invariably seek the fulfillment of their
individual desires. In his version of utilitarianism, men would seek higher
forms of pleasure, their moral purpose would be more certain, and their
social consciousness more acute if only they adequately understood them-
selves. He feels that the institutions and practices of organized society
too often hamper the enlightenment and intellectual progress of the
individual, and, consequently, the pleasures which men seek are fre-
quently of a low order.
15 Autobiography, 5th ed. (London: 1875), p. 142.
Bae SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Tracing the history of individual rights and state authority, the essay
notes that in the past, with the exception of ancient Greece, the relation-
ship between ruler and subject was viewed as necessarily antagonistic. The
belief that government represents an interest opposite to that of the
people led in time to the establishment of various constitutional checks
on the ruler. As further developments occurred, men began to feel that
the state should not be an independent power opposed to the people, but
should be identified with them. Once this identification was made, the
interest and will of the government were looked upon as the interest
and will of the nation as a whole. Carrying this belief to the extreme,
Rousseau contended that there is no need to place restrictions on govern-
ment since the people have no need to limit their own power over
themselves.
Mill reacts strongly against the idea that the evolution of government
from a position of hostility toward the popular will to one of identification
with it necessarily solved the problem of liberty. When we talk of self-
government or the will of the people, what we really mean is the will
of the most numerous or the most active part of the people — the majority,
or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority.
‘There is no assurance that this majority will not be despotic in its treat-
ment of minorities. In addition, quite apart from political oppression,
there is the danger of tyranny through social control or collective public
opinion — by the attempt of society to impose, by means other than
civil penalties, its own ideas and practices on those who dissent from
them. Mill sees grave danger to personal development in the noticeable
tendency of society to enforce conformity in customs, beliefs, and morals
on all its members.
Mill maintains that there is one very simple test for determining the
validity of social or governmental control over individual actions. The
sole purpose for which the power of the state can rightfully be exercised
over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent
harm to others. The only part of the individual’s conduct, for which
he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. His own good,
either physical or moral, is not sufficient justification for the state to
intervene. Yet even on this basis the range of governmental activity is
broad, since in a complex society actions that affect only a single person
are likely to be few and inconsequential. Mill endeavors to reduce this
sphere somewhat by permitting conduct which occasions no evident
 THE UTILITARIANS 345

harm to any particular individual even though it may not be conducive

to the common good. The fact, for instance, that a person may be
impairing his capacity to render service to society in general is not sufficient
reason for public interference.

But with regard to the merely contingent, or, as it may be called,

constructive injury which a person causes to society, by conduct which
neither violates any specific duty to the public, nor occasions perceptible
hurt to any assignable individual except himself, the inconvenience is
one which society can afford to bear for the sake of the greater good
of human freedom."
An individual is free to get drunk or not as he sees fit. If by virtue of
his drinking he becomes a less productive member of society, the state
has no right to punish him. If, however, his drunkenness leads to vio-
lence or to failure to support his family, public intervention is permissible.
In demarcating the area of human freedom, Mill lists three major
categories: freedom of speech, freedom of vocation, and freedom of
association. No society in which these liberties are not respected is free,
whatever may be its form of government. In justifying these freedoms,
he uses a purely utilitarian or pragmatic argument. It is important that
man be free to express his views because (1) his opinion may possibly
be true; (2) while it may be in error, it may contain a portion of truth;
and (3) whether true or untrue, it will stimulate thought and response.
“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is in robbing
the human race: those who dissent from the opinion still more than
those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the op-
portunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose what is almost
as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth,
produced by its collision with error.”*? If all men, therefore, were of one
opinion and there was only one dissentient, “mankind would be no more
justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would
be justified in silencing mankind.”** There is no intimation here of any
inalienable or natural rights possessed by man. Human freedoms are to
be protected simply because they are useful to society.

Limitations on Individual Freedom

Mill’s concept of individualism appears to be typical of nineteenth-
16 On Liberty, Gateway edition (Chicago: Regnery, 1949), p. 103.
WP ToyGl,; {> Alle 18 Tbid., p. 22.
346 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

century liberalism. He is not, however, as extreme an individualist as

might appear at first sight. While the self-fulfillment of the human per-
son is stressed throughout his works, this fulfillment must always take
place within the context of the common good. Individuality is to be
cultivated but within the limits set out by the rights and interests of
others. Restrictions on personal freedom should be imposed only to the
extent that they are essential to the self-development of others. As soon
as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of
others, society has jurisdiction over it. By developing his individuality,
each person not only becomes more valuable to himself but is capable
of being more valuable to others. Individual freedom, in other words,
contains a substantial measure of social content.
The essay On Liberty is not the plea of a visionary divorced from
reality. It fully recognizes the need for restraint, even in the exercise
of basic human rights. It speaks eloquently in behalf of freedom of
speech and opinion; yet at the same time it cautions that the right is
not valid at all times and under all circumstances. Actions are not as
free as opinions and “even opinions lose their immunity when the
circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their
expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act.” An opinion
that corn dealers are starvers of the poor “may justly incur punishment
when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of
a corn dealer.”* Nearly sixty years later, the United States Supreme Court,
speaking through Justice Holmes, gave judicial sanction to this same
view in the well known “clear and present danger” doctrine. The question
is, the Court said, “whether the words used are used in such circumstances
and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that
they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right
to prevent.”?°
There are further limitations which Mill places on the liberty of the
individual. Freedom to act and speak as one sees fit applies only to mature
human beings. Children do not enjoy this liberty since they are still in a
stage where they must be protected both against injury from others and
against their own actions. A backward people is in a similar position; it
does not have the capacity of being guided to its own improvement by
conviction or persuasion. Liberty as a principle “has no application to
2 1 Dids pe 70
20 Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 52 (1918).
 THE UTILITARIANS 347

any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become
capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.”? Compulsion
may properly be used to enforce compliance with the pattern of behavior
prescribed by the parent or ruler, provided the purpose always be the
good of the child or subject.
Mill parts company with many of his contemporaries in rejecting the
classical theory of economics. Contrary to Ricardo and others, he does
not believe that wages, profits, and rents are determined by immutable
laws of nature. He sees no reason why man should not change the eco-
nomic order if he finds it useful to do so. It may be unwise or impractical
for government to interfere with wages or profits, but such action would
not be a violation of individual liberty. Mill views trade as a social act
which comes under governmental jurisdiction since it affects the interests
of society in general. In his early years he upheld the doctrine of free
trade, not on the basis of individual freedom but on purely pragmatic
grounds. He argued that while economic restraints affect only that part
of human conduct which society has the authority to regulate, they are
wrong solely because they do not really produce the desired results.
Mill is unable to shake himself completely free from the suspicion of
government. He feels that there is more likelihood of an activity being
poorly performed by public authorities than by private means. He is
convinced that private enterprise in a free competitive position results
in greater benefits to society than a controlled economy. However, he
does not believe that the pursuit of individual interest automatically
results in the good of society. He is willing to have the state intervene
in economic affairs to prevent injustices and to remove obstacles in the
way of bettering the happiness of the general public. For this reason he
supports the right of government to restrict inheritances, regulate child
labor, control natural monopolies, limit working hours, and even abolish
the wage system in favor of a co-operative association of producers.
Mill’s writings give evidence of an awareness of subsidiarity as an oper-
ative principle applicable to all aspects of social living. Although he
prefers private initiative to public action, he urges governmental inter-
vention in cases where private means prove unable to meet the needs of
society. His position in this respect is strikingly similar to that found in
the modern formulation of subsidiarity. He notes three objections to
governmental interference in the social and economic order. First, the
21 On Liberty, op. cit., p. 13.
348 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

ordinary processes of business, industry, and education are likely to be

accomplished better by individual than governmental initiative. “Speaking
generally, there is no one so fit to conduct any business, or to determine
how or by whom it shall be conducted, as those who are personally
interested in it.” Such individuals or groups are closer to the problem,
they are more aware of its many implications, and they have a more
vital concern in its solution. Second, when government assumes the
responsibility for a particular function, the opportunity for individual
growth and development through direct participation in its execution is
diminished. “In many cases, though individuals may not do the particular
thing so well on the average as the officers of government, it is nevertheless
desirable that it should be done by them rather than by the government,
as a means to their own mental education —a mode of strengthening
their active faculties, exercising their judgment, and giving them a familiar
knowledge of the subjects with which they are thus left to deal.”?? Third,
when the state takes over a task that can be performed adequately by
private means, it increases the burden on government and adds unneces-
sarily to its power.

Ideas on Government
Mill refutes the social contract theory saying that no good purpose is
answered by inventing a contract in order to deduce social obligations
from it. The fact that society is indispensable to man’s well-being and
development imposes an obligation on him to contribute to its main-
tenance. “The social state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so
habitual to man, that, except in some unusual circumstances or by an
effort of voluntary abstraction, he never conceives himself otherwise than
as a member of a body.”** Man as the recipient of society’s benefits is
under a distinct obligation to bear his share of maintaining the social
entity. Taxation, military service, and compulsory education are among
the legitimate duties that government may impose on him without in
any way violating his freedom.
Mill is by no means a doctrinaire or even enthusiastic democrat. He
favors universal suffrage, not because he considers it an abstract natural
tight but because he feels that it is the most practical way of securing
good government while preserving individual freedom. Like his father
22 Tbid., p. 127.
23 Utilitarianism, op. cit., p. 45.
 THE UTILITARIANS 349

and Bentham, he has no great love for the masses or the rule of the
numerical majority; yet he sees no other way of avoiding oppressive
government. Bentham originally preferred a strong monarch who could
accomplish the reforms that the philosophical radicals considered neces-
sary. He turned to democracy largely out of impatience at the failure
of the ruling oligarchy in England to support his proposals. Mill’s father
likewise accepted democratic government with less than full enthusiasm.
He viewed it primarily as a device to eliminate the dangers that result
when political power is vested in one or a small number of individuals.
While sharing his father’s distrust of human nature, John Stuart takes
a more constructive attitude toward democracy. He believes that the
freedom to participate in political decisions engenders a sense of responsi-
bility and contributes to man’s development. The average person has
little ability to reason — his opinions can be no more than mediocre at
the best — but he has the desire to listen to reason and the capacity to
respond to wise leadership. Democracy to the younger Mill means essen-
tially rule by an educated elite selected by the people. Democracy as
represented by the Jacksonian doctrine would have appalled him.
In his Considerations on Representative Government, Mill gives classic
expression to the doctrine of representative democracy. Answering the
argument that an absolute monarchy would be the best form of govern-
ment if a superior and eminent ruler could be found, he describes the
situation that would exist under such a person. “One man of superhuman
mental activity managing the entire affairs of a mentally passive people.
Their passivity is implied in the very idea of absolute power. The nation
as a whole, and every individual composing it, are without any potential
voice in their own destiny. They exercise no will in respect to their
collective interests.” What sort of human beings, he asks, can be found
under such an arrangement? “What development can either their thinking
or their active faculties attain under it?”?4
The ideally best form of government is that in which sovereignty is
vested in the whole community, “every citizen not only having a voice
in the exercise of that ultimate sovereignty but being, at least occasionally,
called upon to take an actual part in the government by the personal
discharge of some public function, local or general.”*® This participation
is important for two reasons: the rights and interests of an individual are
24 Considerations on Representative Government (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1867), pp. 56-57. 25 Ibid., p. 64.
350 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

only secure when he himself is able and habitually disposed to stand up

for them; and the general prosperity and well-being of the people are
better promoted in proportion to the amount and variety of personal
energies enlisted in furthering them. Participation in the actual govern-
ance of the modern state, however, must be largely vicarious. The whole
citizen body cannot take part personally in any but some very minor
portions of the public business. It therefore follows that “the ideal type
of a perfect government must be representative.”?°
Although Mill believes that government by the majority is the most
practical way of ruling society, he is acutely aware of the need for safe-
guarding the rights of minorities. To provide what he considers the
necessary checks against the possibility of tyranny by the majority, he
advocates proportional representation, reconstitution of the House of
Lords, plural voting, and the open ballot. He supports the first because
of his belief that the method of electing by majority vote in single mem-
ber districts gives insufficient representation to minorities. He urges that
a “Chamber of Statesmen” composed of high government officials, uni-
versity professors, and representatives of the nobility replace the hereditary.
House of Lords. Because of the ability and experience of its members,
this chamber could be entrusted with the power to draft the bills that
come before Commons.
Evidencing his confidence in an intellectual elite, Mill proposes a
system of weighted or plural voting whereby university graduates and
members of the legal profession would be given two votes. Such a system
would tend to leaven the vote of the masses and reduce the dangers of
class legislation. Finally, he maintains that voting is a civic responsibility
which should be exercised openly under the eye and criticism of the
public. He believes that the selfishness and personal interests of the voter
constitute a greater source of evil than the possibility of coercion by
others. When an individual is forced to declare his vote openly, he is
more likely to consider the public welfare than his own selfish interests.

LIBERALISM

Utilitarianism is but another form of liberalism, a doctrine that had

its beginnings during the Renaissance and that reached its fullest expres-
sion during the nineteenth century. Like conservatism, there is semantic
26 [bid., p. 80.
 THE UTILITARIANS 351

confusion in the use of the term. The modern liberal is as different from
his eighteenth- and nineteenth-century predecessor as the democratic
socialist from the Marxist. The earlier brand of liberalism is often charac-
terized as integral or classical to distinguish it from its present-day counter-
part. The discussion here will be limited to a brief description of classical
liberalism and an example of how it found extreme expression in the
writings of Herbert Spencer.

Classical Liberalism

The predominant characteristic of liberalism is its accent on the indi-

vidual. From the beginning, it has sought to vindicate the right of each
person to work out his own destiny free from all but a minimum of social
control. In pursuing this objective it has endeavored to limit the ambit
of political authority and to discover a system of rights which the state
is not entitled to invade. It was under liberal principles that the new
middle class rose to a position of political dominance. Largely because of
this close association, liberalism developed policies and ideas which har-
monized with the class interests of the bourgeoisie. Among these was
the theory that natural laws infallibly regulate economics, and hence the
state should not intervene in this field except as the guardian of a free
market.
The chief attributes of classical liberalism can be summed up in
this way:
1. Reason, not faith or emotion, is the only true guide to man’s actions.
2. Man is essentially good and perfectible.
3. There are certain natural laws in human affairs — social, political,
and economic— that can be discovered by scientific investigation.
4. There are certain inalienable rights peculiar to man by virtue of his
humanity, and the sole purpose of the state is to preserve and protect
these rights.
5. History is a record of continual progress in which mankind, through
its own efforts, is steadily improving. Change in the social and political
order should therefore be welcomed and encouraged, not feared and
impeded.
6. Revealed and organized religion is not necessary to man’s moral
progress.
7. Individual freedom is best assured by constitutional government.
352 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Not all of these characteristics are, of course, peculiar to liberalism; some

of them had long been embedded in the thought of western civilization.

Spencer
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), a British sociologist, exemplifies the
most extreme form of classical liberalism. Applying the theory of biological
evolution to human society, Spencer holds that only the fittest can survive
and progress in the competitive societal struggle. (It was he, not Darwin,
who coined the well-known phrase “survival of the fittest.”) He warns
that the state should not attempt to interfere in the social and economic
order, since such intervention is both futile and harmful. It impedes the
law of natural selection and consequently lowers the standards of society
as a whole.
Spencer notes that “a stern discipline which is a little cruel that it
may be kind” pervades all nature. Man should not be led by a feeling of
pity for others to follow a course of action that would impede the puri-
fying process of nature. It may seem harsh, for example, “that widows
and orphans should be left to struggle for life or death. Nevertheless,
when regarded not separately, but in connection with the interests of
universal humanity, these harsh fatalities are seen to be full of the highest
beneficence — the same beneficence which brings to early graves the
children of diseased parents and singles out the low-spirited, the intem-
perate, and the debilitated as the victims of an epidemic.”??
In his best known work, Man versus the State (1884), Spencer notes
that the function of liberalism in the past was to limit the powers of
kings; in the future its function will be to restrict the powers of parliament.
He urges that the state leave man alone so that the process of evolution
may go on without hindrance, and the laws of nature operate freely.
He believes that government will become less and less needed as the
individual becomes more perfectly adapted to society. Only for the time
being is a limited amount of government necessary since men still have
some of the predatory instincts of their ancestors. “Only by the process
of adaptation itself, can be produced that character which makes social
equilibrium spontaneous. And hence, while this process is going on, an
instrumentality must be employed, first, to bind man into the social state,
and second to check all conduct endangering the existence of that state.’”’28
27 Social Statics (New York: D. Appleton, 1865), p. 354.
28 Ibid., p. 74.
 THE UTILITARIANS 355

This is the role that government is designed to play in the liberal

weltanschauung.
Spencer’s political philosophy is based on the view that society is a
mere collection of human atoms, that man is by nature a solitary animal,
and that the state is mere coercion. The state is a necessary evil, one
that must exist for the time being while man is passing from social
immaturity to civilization. It is, in brief, a transitory institution that will
vanish away in the society of the future where some kind of amiable
anarchism will prevail. In the introduction to his Social Statics, Spencer
declares that to the bad, government is essential; to the good, it is not.
“It is the check which national wickedness makes to itself, and exists
only to the same degree. Its continuance is proof of still-existing barbarism.
What a cage is to the wild beast, law is to the selfish man.” There is a
close parallel here between Spencer’s belief that social progress will
eventually make political government useless and the Marxian claim that
the state is destined to wither away.
Spencer’s social and political philosophy marked the swan song of
laissez-faire liberalism. His rabid individualism could not withstand the
pressures for reform that even his liberal contemporaries were beginning
to advocate. As the evils of unregulated capitalism grew in intensity and
scope, all hopes of salvaging classical liberalism as the social philosophy
of modern society vanished. Only the most stubborn and _ reactionary
proponents of the old school continued to preach its doctrine in undiluted
form. The others realized that capitalism and perhaps even democracy
were doomed unless widespread reforms were instituted in the social and
economic orders.

SUMMARY
Utilitarianism was a passing phenomenon in English political thought. Its
apparent simplicity had great appeal to those who were seeking practical
reform, but this same simplicity also served for a time to conceal the weak-
nesses inherent in the doctrine. Mill realized the inadequacies of utilitarianism
as originally formulated and sought to remold it along more humane lines
while preserving the “greatest happiness” principle. As Lord Lindsay has
pointed out, utilitarian ethics and psychology are indefensible when undiluted
by the common sense and human sympathy which Mill allowed to taint the
rigid doctrine of his elders.”°
Utilitarianism has little to offer to the development of political philosophy
29 The Modern Democratic State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 139.
354 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

beyond that which Hobbes and others have contributed. What theoretical
significance it possesses lies in its attempt to establish a precise test of social
and political morality based entirely on man’s desires. This effort, like that of
Hobbes, sought to explain all reality in purely mechanical terms. Although
utilitarian theory was closely associated with a laissez-faire concept of gov-
ernment, it could be made readily applicable to a socialized or even totalitarian
state. Based on a natural law standard, which the utilitarians rejected, the
greatest happiness principle might be interpreted as analogous to the traditional
view of the common good; but based solely on man’s desires, the doctrine freed
political power from all philosophical restraints.
In practice, utilitarianism has much in common with the western tradition,
despite the philosophical differences between the two. The social and legal
reforms which it sponsored were salutary and generally progressive. But even
in the practical sphere utilitarianism could contribute little in the way of
a positive approach to the changes that technological developments were
precipitating in the structure of modern society. Its negative theory of the
state and its lack of any dynamic conception of the social good gave little
political guidance at a time when circumstances were forcing government to
assume a larger responsibility for the general welfare.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Philosophy, January, 1942.
Barker, Ernest, Political Thought in England, 1848-1914 (London: Home
University Library, 1932).
Baumgardt, David, “Bentham’s Censorial Method,” Journal of the History of
Ideas, October, 1954.
Brebner, J. B., ‘Laissez Faire and State Intervention in 19th Century
Britain,” Journal of Economic History, 1948.
Brinton, Crane, English Political Thought in the 19th Century (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1949).
aes J. H., “J. S. Mill and Democracy,” Political Studies, June and October,
957.
Coates, W. H., “Benthamism, Laissez Faire and Collectivism,” Journal of the
History of Ideas, June, 1950.
Davidson, William L., Political Thought in England: The Utilitarians from
Bentham to J. S. Mill (London: Home University Library, 1935).
Ewing, A. C., “Utilitarianism,” Ethics, January, 1948.
Halévy, Elie, The Growth of Philosophical Radicalism, trans. by Mary Morris
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1955).
Hall, Everett W., “The ‘Proof’ of Utility in Bentham and Mill,” Ethics,
October, 1949.
Harris, A. L., “J. S. Mill’s Theory of Progress,” Ethics, April, 1956.
Harsanyi, J. C., “Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics and Interpersonal
Comparisons of Utility,” Journal of Political Economy, August, 1955.
 THE UTILITARIANS 355

Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860-1915

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1945).
Irvine, William, “Shaw, the Fabians, and Utilitarians,” Journal of the History
of Ideas, April, 1947.
Johnson, A., “Liberalism Old and New,” American Journal of Economics and
Sociology, April, 1948.
Larrabee, H. A., ‘“Bentham’s Handbook of Political Fallacies,” Thought,
Summer, 1953.
Letwin, S. R., “Utilitarianism: A System of Political Tolerance,” Cambridge
Journal, March, 1953.
Mack, M. P., “Fabians and Utilitarianism,” Journal of the History of Ideas,
January, 1955.
Magid, Henry M., “Mill and the Problem of Freedom of Thought,” Social
Research, Spring, 1954.
McGreal, Ian, “A Naturalistic Utilitarianism,” Journal of Philosophy, August
Bl 1950:
Mitchell, Wesley C., “Bentham’s Felicific Calculus,” Political Science Quar-
terly, June, 1918.
Neill, Thomas P., The Rise and Decline of Liberalism (Milwaukee: Bruce,
1954).
Pea A., “Benthamism in England and America,”’ American Political
Science Review, October, 1941.
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Pratt, R. C., “Benthamite Theory of Democracy,” Canadian Journal of
Economics and Political Science, February, 1955.
Ruggiero, Guido de, The History of European Liberalism (London: Oxford
University Press, 1927).
Rumney, H., Herbert Spencer’s Sociology (London: Williams and Norgale,
1934).
Bye J. S., “John Stuart Mill, Pioneer of Democratic Liberalism in Eng-
land,” Journal of the History of Ideas, April, 1943.
Swabey, William C., ‘““Non-Normative Utilitarianism,” Journal of Philosophy,
July 8, 1943.
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Wallas, Graham, Men and Ideas (London: Norton, 1940).
 Chapter XVIII

THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE

“For Truth is the Unity of the universal and subjective Will;

and the Universal is to be found in the State, in its laws, its
universal and rational arrangements. The State is the Divine
Idea as it exists on Earth” (Hegel, Philosophy of History).

Berore the close of the eighteenth century, empiricism as a theory of

knowledge and individualism as a theory of politics had gained wide
recognition. The former had come into being as a protest against the
rationalism of the Enlightenment; the latter was merely a continuance.
of the atomistic tendencies that had made their appearance with the
Renaissance and Reformation. Hume represented the epitome of the
new empiricism with his attack on natural law and his insistence that
there can be no certain knowledge about anything except that which is
observable. Locke and Bentham were typical of the social individualists
who denied completely the organic character of the state and who sought
to explain political obligation by showing that obedience to government
is in the private interests of the individual.
Neither empiricism nor individualism has stood unchallenged. Both
have evoked strong counterattacks, the most far reaching of which came
from the German “idealists.” The focus of political and social philosophy
during the seventeenth century was in England and during the following
one hundred years in France, but the nineteenth century belongs to
Germany. The fermentation in political thought which took place there
was in part due to Germany’s long delayed transformation from feudalism
to the modern national state. As the character of the nation’s political
and social arrangements changed, the need for theoretical articulation of
the new course of events became more pressing. The period between the
outbreak of the French Revolution and the middle of the next century
proved to be productive years in German political thought as its thinkers
356
 THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE aby

sought to redefine the relation between the state and the individual. The
dialectical idealism of Hegel and the dialectical materialism of Marx
are products of this era.
Political idealism, foreshadowed in part by Kant, reached the zenith
of its expression in Hegel. Later it enjoyed considerable vogue in England
through the writings of such political theorists as T. H. Green and Bernard
Bosanquet. Idealism cannot be simply defined; it represents different
things to different thinkers. Basically, it places the emphasis on mind as
in some way prior to matter, holding that the underlying reality of the
universe resides in ideas, ideal forms, or an absolute. Common to all
members of the idealist school is the notion that pure or abstract reason
is supreme over sensation or experience. In its extreme form, idealism
holds that all reality exists only in personal consciousness — only mind
is real and matter has no existence independent of a mind that perceives it.
Political idealism is the application of an idealistic philosophy to the
interpretation of the state and its operations. It seeks an understanding
of civil society and its institutions in purely rationalistic terms with little
or no reference to experience. In all of its forms, political idealism rejects
the mechanistic and utilitarian concepts of the state because of their
materialistic connotations. Professor Hallowell, in describing the idealism
of the period here concerned, states that it was: philosophically, an
attempt to rescue knowledge from Hume’s skepticism and its consequent
destruction of science; ethically, an endeavor to save man’s moral con-
sciousness from a diet of utilitarian self-interest; and politically, a reaction
to the extreme individualism of the times.

IMMANUEL KANT

It will be recalled that Hume looked upon causation as nothing but a

set of happenings or connections in which one event follows another.’
The fact that things occur in a certain order forms in the human mind
the habit of expecting them to happen in the future as they have in
the past. No necessary association, no cause and effect relationship, exists
between these events or ideas. Consequently, neither the principles of
natural science nor the laws of morality have any universal necessity.
Hume’s empirical theory of knowledge places in sharp perspective the

1 Main Currents in Modern Political Thought, op. cit., p. 235.

2 See ante, p. 282.
358 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

problem of the relation of the mind to external objects. His position,

moreover, precludes any true knowledge of an object. Objects as such
are simply a set of impressions and ideas, and there is no way of getting
from the latter over to the objects which lie outside of them. If this is
true, the human mind cannot possibly know reality.
The German idealists saw the dangers implicit in a skepticism which
rejects the existence of both natural science and a science of morals.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the first modern thinkers to
endeavor to answer the epistemological problem basic to Hume’s theory.
Born in Koenigsberg, an old Prussian town on the northeastern frontier
of Germany, Kant’s long life was devoted almost exclusively to academic
pursuits. In describing him, the German poet Heine observes that the
history of his life is hard to write inasmuch as he had neither life nor
history, for he lived a mechanically ordered and abstract old bachelor life
in a quiet retired street in Koenigsberg. Heine goes on to say that it is
doubtful whether the great clock of the cathedral there did its daily
work more dispassionately and regularly than Kant. Legend has it that
his fellow townspeople set their watches by him as he passed their doors
on his daily walk.
After attending the University of Koenigsberg and serving as tutor in
several aristocratic families, Kant was appointed an instructor, and later
professor, of logic and metaphysics at the university. His intellectual
development was slow and it was not until after he had reached middle
age that he demonstrated his profound capacity for creative thinking.
He was fifty-seven when he wrote the Critique of Pure Reason, the most
important of his many significant works. His political ideas are contained
largely in his Metaphysical Foundations of the Philosophy of Law, Prin-
ciples of Politics, and Perpetual Peace.
Kant’s contribution to the field of political theory is neither original
nor substantial. Although his essay, Perpetual Peace, is a penetrating
study of the problem of modern nationalism and world peace, his treat-
ment of the state is largely a mixture of the political thinking of
Montesquieu and Rousseau. Kant’s importance to politics lies in his
general philosophical formulations which so deeply influenced German
intellectual life. His attempt to bridge the gap between mind and reality
and to restore ethics to the status of a practical science is vitally relevant
to political philosophy, which must deal with human actions and social
institutions in a time and space context. He is also of particular importance
 THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE 359

to the historical development of political philosophy because of the influ-

ence that he had on Hegel and later “idealist”? writers.
The intricate philosophy formulated by Kant defies any brief summa-
tion. ‘The most that can be done here is to point out those features of
his thinking that are important to political philosophy. His theory of
knowledge and his theory of morals are particularly relevant in this respect.

The Kantian Theory of Knowledge

Kant sees the weakness in the rationalist claim that true knowledge
can only be based upon the insights of reason unpolluted by the senses.
At the same time he is aware of the grave danger to science and morals
in the Humean analysis of knowledge, with its relegation of reason to
the role of handmaiden for the senses. To overcome the deficiencies
inherent in both of these positions, he endeavors to combine the two
approaches, rationalistic and empirical, by demonstrating that knowledge
is a joint product of mind and matter. His analysis of this process differs
radically from the traditional theory of knowledge, which also stresses
the interdependency of mind and the senses.
Kant first makes the distinction between a priori knowledge which
exists altogether independent of experience, and a posteriori knowledge
which arises only through the senses. The former gives rise to analytical
judgments in which the predicate is contained within the subject; the
latter results in synthetic propositions in which the predicate lies com-
pletely outside the subject and adds something to it. Thus all propositions
which are known only through experience are synthetic. To illustrate
the difference between the two types of knowledge, Kant refers to two
statements: “all bodies are extended” (they occupy space) and “all bodies
are heavy.” He cites the first as an example of an analytic judgment and
the second as a synthetic judgment. The concept of the predicate
“extended” is a necessary part of the subject body and really adds nothing
to it “for I need not go beyond the conception of body in order to find
extension connected with it, but merely analyze the conception, that is,
become conscious of the manifold properties which I think is that con-
ception, in order to discover this predicate in it.”* Extension, in other
words, is an integral part of the definition of body. The same observation
cannot be made of weight since this is a quality which a body acquires
when placed in a gravitational field, and hence it can be discovered by
3 Critique of Pure Reason, trans. by J. Meiklejohn (New York: Willey, 1900), p. 7.
360 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

experience alone. According to these definitions, rationalism abounds in

purely analytic judgments while empiricism makes use of wholly syn-
thetic propositions.
It is evident to Kant that analytic judgments cannot contribute to the
advance of science through new discoveries since the mind must have
recourse to the objects of sense experience in order to acquire new
materials. Conversely, synthetic judgments based on sense experience
alone can have no scientific validity because the senses deal with the
singular and contingent. The problem, as he conceives it, is to determine
whether judgments that are both a priori and synthetic are possible. Only
such judgments can satisfy the scientific requirement of a knowledge that
is empirically founded as well as necessary and universal.
Kant’s proof of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments begins
in rationalistic fashion by affirming the supremacy of thought over being.
The intellect of man is endowed with the forms of space and time and
with certain categories such as substance, quality, quantity, and cause
and effect. Since these intellectual forms are a priori (that is, they exist
in the mind independent of any sense experience), they possess the
attributes of universality and necessity. The function of these forms of
sensibility is to organize sensory matter into definite structured patterns
so that the human mind may attain a knowledge of external objects in
their temporal and spatial aspects. Kant explains that any experience we
have must always take on these forms given by our own mind. And
since the structure of consciousness in general is the same for all indi-
viduals, the human mind is able to make certain universal judgments for
all possible sensory experiences.
The crucial question in this whole process is whether it is possible to
know reality. Hume warned that we are on firm ground only so long
as we confine our speculation to the appearance of objects and do not
attempt to probe their substantial essences. Kant sees no necessity to
refute this premise in order to demonstrate the possibility of science.
He points out that we must distinguish between the things of our
experience (phenomena) and the things-in-themselves (noumena). The
latter are not objects of knowledge. The human mind is capable of know-
ing things as they appear in conformity with the intellectual forms, but
it cannot reach to a knowledge of these objects as they are in themselves.
While we know that our experience must always take on the forms of
time and space and of the various categories, we cannot possibly know
 THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE 361

anything beyond this except that a noumenal realm must exist. Kant
insists that it is not necessary for knowledge to go beyond these experi-
ences since the appearance of sensory matter constitutes an objective
realm that will sustain scientific judgments. By imposing an order on the
external world through the intellectual forms, man is able to obtain an
accurate description of objects as they appear to exist and to make facts
intelligible. In this way, the natural scientist is able to establish empirical
laws to explain past and predict future events even though he cannot
actually know reality.
Kant’s attempt to overcome Humean skepticism results in a theory
of knowledge quite different from traditional epistemology. By denying
that the human intellect can penetrate to the real essence of things
through abstraction, he rejects metaphysics as a science. To sustain
logically his theory of a priori synthetic judgments, he is forced to pay
the price of restricting their application to the world of experienced
phenomena. He could not extend the application of such notions as
cause and substance. Contrary to Kant’s approach, realistic metaphysics
does not hold that the mind imposes intellectual forms on external
objects. Instead, it maintains that there is a real foundation for universal
necessity in the objects of experience themselves, and that intellectual
concepts as well as sense perceptions are derived in some fashion from
external reality. The traits of universality and necessity are based on the
essential structure which the intellect, in close co-operation with the
senses, abstracts from the real existents.*

Kantian Ethics
The empirical theory of knowledge implies that there can be no
ultimate demonstration of the truth or falsity of a moral proposition.
Human actions can be observed and their logical consequences noted,
but no judgment can be made that they are morally good or evil. Kant
is not satisfied with this position since he feels the distinct need for a
rational foundation of moral obligation. He can accept neither the moral
relativism of the empiricists nor the moral dogmatism of the rationalists.
Nor will his critical view of metaphysics permit him to accept the
concept of natural law as the basis of human conduct. He does not deny
the existence of an independent order of being to which man ought to
4See in this connection, J. Collins, A History of Modern European Philosophy,
oy, Cite, De Ale
362 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

conform in his behavior; he simply maintains that such an order belongs

to the world of noumena and therefore cannot be demonstrated by the
speculative reason. On this basis, as he admits, there can be no intellectual
proof of the existence of God.
Despite his epistemological hesitations, Kant is convinced that there
is a supreme principle that controls all moral judgments. Man feels
obliged to subject himself to law; he feels a sense of oughtness and of
duty. Individuals may differ in their views as to the propriety of specific
acts, but each one cannot help assuming that he is morally responsible
for his conduct. There are certain postulates of the practical reason
which are fundamental to this assumption of moral conduct: man is a
moral being with a free will and an immortal soul, and he lives in an
ordered world directed by an ordering intelligence. These postulates are
given to him by his reason. Their truth or falsity cannot be proved;
they must be taken on faith. Man is impelled to accept them if the
world is to have any meaning for him at all. This approach is somewhat
analogous to saying: we need a God; our moral sense of duty demands
a God; hence there must surely be one.
By reflecting on the rational concept of law and duty, man is made
to feel that he should act solely for duty’s sake even though such action
conflicts with his inclinations and desires. Since moral consciousness func-
tions in terms of duty, Kant formulates his standard for ethical conduct
in the form of a command or imperative. There are two types of im-
peratives: the hypothetical, which tells us what we must do if we wish
to achieve a certain end; and the categorical, which tells us what we
ought to do as moral beings. It is the latter which demands that we
behave in a certain way regardless of our personal desires or inclinations.
Kant verbalizes this supreme principle of morality in a dictum that is
similar to the Golden Rule: “Act as if the maxim of your action were
to become by your will a Universal Law of Nature.”® An act is morally
good if the agent is willing that the maxim or principle behind it be
universalized as law for all men. Kant uses the following example to
illustrate his point:
An individual finds himself forced by necessity to borrow money. He
knows that he will not be able to repay it, but sees also that nothing
will be lent to him unless he promises stoutly to repay it in a definite
5 Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. by T. K. Abbott
(New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1949), p. 38.
 THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE 363

time. . . . Suppose, however, that he resolves to do so, then the maxim

of his action would be expressed thus: When I think myself in want
of money, I will borrow money and promise to repay it, although I
know that I never can do so. . . . How would it be if my maxim were
a universal law?¢
The categorical imperative is completely a priori. It does not give
particular directives for human conduct nor even proximate guidance in
individual circumstances. It merely expresses the fact that man has an
obligation toward society without determining or specifying just what he
is obliged to perform. So long as he adopts as his rule of conduct in a
practical situation what he is willing for everyone else to do, his action
is morally proper. Although this does not seem to be a very satisfactory
criterion for virtue, the imperative is of importance to political philosophy
since its objective is to ensure a maximum of free action for all members
of the community through self-regulation.

The Kantian Antinomies

According to Kant’s epistemology, the human intellect can get beyond
sense experience only by postulation and not by knowledge. When the
mind attempts to acquire a knowledge of the noumena, it is troubled
by antinomies or mutually contradictory propositions, each of which
can apparently be proved. Two of these major contradictions involve the
dichotomy between transcendental ideas and science, and between free
will and causal determination of human conduct. These antinomies are
of importance to the subsequent development of political philosophy
since they constitute in large measure the starting point of Hegel’s
thinking.
As an example of the first antinomy, Kant points out that in the arena
of experience, there is an antecedent cause for every effect. No matter how
far back this line of causation is carried, we are always justified in assuming
a prior cause. This process can go on ad infinitum. We maintain, as our
reason must lead us to maintain, that there is some primal cause which
is the cause of the phenomenon we experience but which lies outside
of it. When we follow this procedure, however, we are by the same
logic forced to look for another cause antecedent to the first cause,
since we have brought the noumenal system within the field of causality.
When the intellect becomes involved in an apparent contradiction of this
6 Ibid., pp. 39-40.
364 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

kind, it is trying to know something that obviously lies outside the

limits of its possible knowledge. Man must then turn to faith, in the
sense of accepting the postulates, rather than to knowledge.
The second contradiction raised by Kant concerns the apparent dichot-
omy between man as necessarily determined by the physical laws of
nature and man as a self-conscious ego with a free will. As a physical
being in the field of experience, the phenomenal world, man is subject
to the law of cause and effect. This subjection implies that human actions
are completely determined by preceding events. On the other side of
the coin, man is conscious of a sense of responsibility for his conduct —a
recognition which infers that human acts are not automatically caused
by preceding events but through the volition of a free being. Kant explains
this antinomy by noting that man as a physical creature belongs to the
phenomenal world and as such is subject to its empirical laws, but as a
rational being he transcends the phenomenal order. It is this latter aspect
of man that is free and that brings him into contact with the noumenal
world to which morality belongs. Again, it is by postulation and not
through knowledge that Kant establishes the moral nature of man.

The Political Theory of Kant

The political problem for Kant is the realization of the categorical
imperative, a self-operating lawfulness, in practice. If all men would act
in complete conformity to universal law, the perennial problem of
reconciling the moral freedom of the individual with the like freedom
of his fellow creatures would be solved. But there is a certain depravity
or selfishness rooted in the nature of man that causes him at times to
act contrary to his sense of duty. Because of this weakness, man is in
need of a master to break his self-will and compel him to obey a will
that is universally valid. If society is to exist, its members must be com-
pelled to act according to law. Kant holds that the state must be founded
on the freedom of every member as a man, on his equality as a subject,
and on his self-dependency as an individual. All laws passed by the state
should be informed by these principles.
The free moral will can function effectively only when men are pro-
tected from the evil acts of their fellow creatures. It is here that the
tole of the state as the enforcer of order becomes evident. In a certain
sense, the political community personifies the categorical imperative, for
it is through the instrumentality of its laws that the voluntary actions of
 THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE 365

individual persons are harmonized in accordance with the universal law

of freedom. The imperative, in short, provides the moral basis or test
for effecting this reconciliation. The state through its laws and institutions
endeavors to enforce the observance of the Golden Rule in the social
and political order.
Kant’s political philosophy is partially in the liberal tradition since it
posits an essentially negative role for the state, that of ensuring an ordered
coexistence of individuals. He feels that the state in performing this
function is actually contributing to the moral development of its citizens.
For working against the tendency every citizen has to commit acts
of violence against his neighbor, there is the much stronger force of
the government which not only gives an appearance of morality to
the whole state (causae non causae), but, by checking the outbreak
of lawless propensities, actually aids the moral qualities of men con-
siderably, in their development of a direct respect for the law. For
every individual thinks that he himself would hold the idea of right
sacred and follow faithfully what it prescribes, if only he could expect
that everyone else would do the same. This guarantee is in part given
to him by the government; and a great advance is made by this
step which is not deliberately moral, towards the ideal of fidelity to
the concept of duty for its own sake without thought of return.’
Kant is convinced that a satisfactory political order, national or inter-
national, cannot be attained until the principle of disinterested obedience
to the moral law is accepted by mankind as the ethical basis of legal
obligation. Man must realize that freedom does not mean the ability
to do what he desires; it means acting in accordance with the dictates of
his rational will, the source of universal law. The individual who follows
his appetites and passions is not free; he is a slave to his lower nature.
Man must pursue his individual ends within a legal constitution which
embodies the universal will and which assures freedom to each through
the laws applicable to all. The maintenance of this constitution is the
chief duty of the state.

HEGEL

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was born at Stuttgart,

Germany, the son of a minor customs official. His personal life, like that
of Kant, was relatively uninteresting. One writer has remarked that he
7 Perpetual Peace, trans. by M. C. Smith (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1948),
p. 39.
366 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

lived apparently for no other purpose than to play secretary to the

Absolute.* After receiving his doctorate in theology at the University of
Tubingen, Hegel served for a time as tutor at Berne and Frankfurt and
later as headmaster of a high school in Nuremberg. In 1816, he accepted
a professorship at the University of Berlin where he remained until his
death in 1831 during the cholera epidemic. His brilliant tenure at Berlin
was climaxed by his appointment as rector of the university in 1829.
Because of his teachings and writings he became in effect the official
philosopher of the Prussian state. Shortly before his death, he was
decorated by Frederick William III in recognition of his outstanding
contributions to German intellectual life.
There are few thinkers whose ideas have had greater influence on
the future course of events than this German schoolman. His most im-
portant works are the monumental three volume study entitled Science
of Logic (1816), the Philosophy of Right (1821), and the Philosophy
of History (1837), the last named having profound effect on subsequent
political theory. Not one to regard his accomplishments lightly, Hegel
believed that he had reached the pinnacle in philosophical thinking. As
he modestly exclaims, “It is clear that no method can be accepted as
scientific that is not modelled on mine.” Hegel’s influence on the develop-
ment of political thought has been roundly denounced. Ernst Cassirer,
for example, remarks
But it was the tragic fate of Hegel that he unconsciously unchained
the most irrational powers that ever appeared in man’s social and
political life. No other philosophical system has done so much for
the preparation of fascism and imperialism as Hegel’s doctrine of the
state — this divine idea as it exists on earth.°
And Hobhouse, writing while German bombs were falling on London
during World War I, exclaimed that he was witnessing the visible and
tangible outcome of a false and wicked doctrine —the foundations of
which lay in the works of Hegel.'°
Hegel’s interest in political theory was secondary to his metaphysical
interpretation of the universal order. His philosophy is difficult to com-
prehend and equally difficult to summarize. Bertrand Russell says that
8H. D. Aiken, The Age of Ideology (New York: New American Library, 1957),
Dawe
9 The Myth of the State, op. cit., pp. 343-344.
10 Metaphysical Theory of the State (London: Allen & Unwin, 1918), p. 6,
 THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE 367
it is the hardest to understand of all the great thinkers. Yet a knowledge
of some of its more basic premises is essential to an analysis of nineteenth-
and twentieth-century political thought. If Hegel had done nothing else
but provide a metaphysical framework for Marxian thought, this accom-
plishment alone would rank him high among the influential thinkers of
the world.

Hegel’s Idealism
Although he greatly admires Kant, Hegel feels that his predecessor
failed to answer definitively the questions which were raised by Hume’s
ruthless empiricism. He believes that a much stronger case can be made
against the empirical position which denies the possibility of establishing
a rational basis for morality. To his way of thinking, the dualism of
thought and being, or mind and object, is the weak point in the Kantian
answer to Hume. This aspect of Kant’s philosophy had forced him to
hold that reason is incapable of attaining knowledge of things-in-them-
selves and had led to his so-called antinomies. Hegel reasons that if
this dualism can be effectively bridged, the problem of knowledge and
truth will be solved. His attempt to accomplish the task results in
absolute idealism: the theory that the underlying reality of the universe
resides in the divine or absolute idea.
According to Hegel, nature is a coherent whole, an external mani-
festation of an absolute or divine reason which is progressively revealed
in time and space. The absolute is spirit (geist).11 This spirit is all
enveloping although completely spiritual. It embraces the material world
and the whole range of human experience. It is based upon every judg-
ment included in total experience. It “unfolds its own nature in the
phenomena of the world’s existence.” The finite is real only in the sense
that it is a phase in the self-development of the absolute spirit. The
world, in brief, is the expression of the thought of the absolute. In-
dividual minds and actions are all parts or phases of the divine mind.
They constitute steps in the development or self-actualization of the
geist. The logical world in this way is made identical with the real world.

11 The absolute or spirit is God in the Hegelian conception. His God, however, is
organic with the world and has no reality outside that relation. If the world would
cease to exist, He would cease to exist with it. God does not, as in the Christian
conception, transcend the world; He is immanent in it. He starts from absolute non-
being and evolves in and through the world of time and space to His consummation
in absolute being.
368 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Thought and being, subject and object, matter and form are all ulti-
mately encompassed within the unity of an absolute mind. By this act
of legerdemain, the duality which so troubled Kant is benignly eliminated.

The Dialectic
Hegel asserts that the spirit or reason has not yet achieved its full
nature; it is still in the process of becoming — “a potentiality striving
to realize itself.” It must progressively actualize itself until it reaches
perfect knowledge. This actualization takes place in a spatio-temporal
context. Hegel calls the process by which the idea is developed “dialecti-
cal.” The term is from the Greek dialego, meaning to debate or discuss.
It originally referred to a process of discussion in which the Sophists
would try to entrap their opponents in contradictions. The Socratic
dialogues illustrate this approach, although Plato and the Greek classicists
looked upon the dialectic, not as a sophistic sport, but as a means for
critically examining into the truth of an opinion. Hegel uses the term
in a completely different sense than the ancients; to him it means a sub-
stantive process of logical development rather than a mere method of
logical procedure.
In working out his philosophy, Hegel seizes upon the classical idea
of opposites or contradictions. The Greeks had observed that every event
or force, if pushed too far, will tend to produce its opposite. Thus if
monarchy degenerates into despotism, it will lead to democracy; similarly
democracy carried to the extreme of mob rule and license will result in
dictatorship. Hegel purports to see the key to all development in the
interplay between extremes. He maintains that the absolute spirit finds
expression in nature according to a process of contradiction. Every con-
cept contains its own contradiction or opposite hidden away within itself.
These contradictions are not obstacles to truth (as they were for Kant),
but the very measures for attaining truth. But what about the traditional
law of contradiction which holds that a proposition cannot be both
true and false at the same time? This law poses no difficulty to Hegel
since the principle of contradiction is merely a rule of formal thought
operating at the empirical or finite level. Contradictions exist for the
human mind only in its state of incomplete reflection on the truth of
being. Nothing is wholly false and nothing that we can know is wholly
true. Both the assertion and negation of a statement may be regarded
 THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE 369

as true if they are understood as imperfect expressions of a higher proposi-

tion which contains all that is significant in both of them.
In the dialectical process, truth unfolds itself in progressive changes
through the interplay or conflict between opposites. Every event or idea
(thesis) tends to generate an opposing or contrary event or idea (an-
tithesis). In the conflict which ensues between these opposites, a new
development (synthesis) results. This synthesis is different from the
pre-existing contradictories but it is not a compromise. It contains what
is vital in both thesis and antithesis and embodies it in a richer and
more comprehensive entity. The new creation then proceeds to raise
its Own apparent contradictory or negation; and again the dialectical
drama repeats itself, with each new synthesis marking a further step in
the self-development of the absolute.

The Hegelian Philosophy of History

Hegel regards history as the revealing of Spirit “in the process of
working out the knowledge of that which it is potentially.” It is the
temporal march of the absolute in its road toward perfect fulfillment.
The history of the world “begins with its general aim — the realization
of the Idea of Spirit—only in an implicit form.” The actions of in-
dividuals and nations by which they seek to satisfy their own purposes
are, at the same time, “the means and instruments of a higher and
broader purpose,” the media through which the world spirit attains its
objectives. History is exclusively occupied with showing how “Spirit
comes to a recognition and adoption of the Truth, the dawn of knowl-
edge appears, it begins to discover salient principles, and at last it arrives
at full consciousness.”?? Spirit is self-determined; it assumes progressive
forms which it successively transcends. By a proper study of history,
man can acquire a knowledge of this evolutionary pattern or general plan
of divine reason and thereby arrive at an historically objective standard
of values. Hegel intends that such a standard shall fill the place left
vacant by the “collapse” of natural law.
The status quo in history represents the thesis of the dialectical triad
while the revolutionary movements, the process of “becoming,” con-
stitute the antithetical principle. Fixed customs, laws, and rights clash
wae Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. by J. Sibree (New York: Wiley Book
Company, 1944), pp. 25, 53.
370 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

with contingencies that are adverse to the established system. These

conflicts are essential phases in the development of truth as it strives
toward consciousness of itself. To carry through the antithetical principle,
the divine idea uses great leaders, “world historical individuals,” as its
instrumentalities. These leaders have no consciousness of the general
idea that they are helping to unfold —they may act for purely selfish
reasons — but they have insight into the requirements of the time and
what is ripe for development. “They are great men, because they willed
and accomplished something great; not a mere fancy, a mere intention,
but that which met the case and fell in with the needs of the age.”
These men are able to arouse others to action and to win their support
since people “feel the irresistible power of their own inner Spirit thus
embodied” in these leaders.
The fate of the world historical individuals is not a happy one. Reason
stirs them to further the temporal actualization of the spirit, but then
discards them once their work has been accomplished.
If we go on to cast a look at the fate of these World-Historical persons,
whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit — we shall
find it to have been no happy one. They attained no calm enjoyment;
their whole life was labor and trouble; their whole nature was nought
else but their master-passion. When their object is attained they fall
off like empty hulls from the kernel. They die early, like Alexander;
they are murdered, like Caesar; transported to St. Helene, like
Napoleon.**
It is the cunning of Reason “that it sets the passions to work for itself
while that which develops its existence through such impulsion pays the
penalty and suffers loss.’

Theory of the State

The Hegelian concept of the state must be examined against the back-
drop of his doctrine of spirit becoming actualized through the dialectic.
The state plays the same role for him that classes do for Marx: the
medium whereby the ultimate goal of the world and society is to be
achieved. Hegel maintains that spirit seeks the attainment of its objective
not only through individuals but also the state. This institution is, in
fact, the very core of historical life. It is the highest embodiment of
the divine idea on earth and the chief instrumentality used by the
13 [bid., p. 31. 14 Ibid., p. 33.
 THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE 371

absolute in manifesting itself as it proceeds toward perfect fulfillment.

“The state is mind on earth and consciously realizing itself there... .
In considering the idea of the state, we must not have our eyes on
particular states or on particular institutions. Instead we must consider
the Idea, this actual God, by itself.”® All the worth and spiritual reality
which a human being has, “he possesses only through the state.”
In formulating his theory of the state, Hegel rejects the social con-
tract doctrine as wholly untenable. He criticizes Rousseau for reducing
the union of individuals in a civil society to a contract and therefore
to something based on their arbitrary wills, their opinion, and _ their
capriciously given consent. Political obligation must be anchored on
something more substantial than the mere acquiescence of individuals.
The state is not an artificial mechanism created by man to preserve
order and satisfy his needs; it is far different from that. It is an organic
whole composed of individuals grouped into classes, voluntary associa-
tions, and local communities. These parts have no meaning except in
relation to and as parts of the whole. It is only as a member of the
body politic that the person has objectivity, genuine individuality, and
an ethical life.
Idealist political thought generally views the state as an organism which
is self-differentiating in such a way that the life of the whole appears
in all of the parts. Hence the true life of the latter —the individuals
and their social groupings —is found in and is identical with the life
of the whole. As the embodiment of the absolute, the state is not a
means for securing the welfare of the individual; it is an end in itself.
And since it has a higher end than its parts, it can demand that these
be sacrificed to its interests. Hegel and his followers insist that this
sacrifice can legitimately be demanded only for the true rational and
universal end of the state, and that the doctrine is not to be twisted
into a justification of the arbitrary acts of rulers working for their own
ends. Yet what despot or dictator has failed to proclaim that his actions
were in the true interests of the people?
Consistent with his metaphysics, Hegel views the state as the product
of a long and unconscious, but nevertheless predetermined, development.
The absolute mind first found external expression in the family, where
a substantial unity based on love existed. But as the children came of
15 Philosophy of Right, trans. by T. M. Knox (London: Oxford University Press,
1942), p. 279.
ya SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

age, they married and established new families, which were independent
of the households from which their members had been drawn. In this
way the original family disintegrated into a plurality of families. With
this development people began to find themselves dependent on others
for various necessities. In order to satisfy their private and particular
needs and to further their individual interests, they formed associations
and created institutions for enforcing order and protecting property.
Hegel refers to this level of development as “civil society.”
The unity of civil society was no more than that of a partnership,
the sort of unity that might result from a social contract. While each
member was free to pursue his own end, he realized that he could not
fully attain his objectives without the co-operation of others. Conse-
quently he was willing to enter into arrangements with his fellow crea-
tures for mutual support and assistance. The relationship thereby created
was one based on the self-interest of each participant and not on the
unity of mutual love as in the family. Even though the family remained,
its role was distinctly inferior to that of civil society. “To be sure, the
family has to provide bread for its members, but in civil society the
family is something subordinate and only lays the foundations; its effective
range is no longer so comprehensive.”** At this stage, the private pur-
poses of the individual began to come in conflict with the common ends
of the community. The dialectic between the universal as represented in
the unity of the family and the particular as found in the competitiveness
of civil society was then resolved by the emergence of the political state.
In the interplay between the universal and particular, the original unity
of the family was restored but on a much higher plane. The necessity
of co-operation caused man to recognize himself as a member of a social
body. At first he looked upon such co-operation as merely an expedient;
later he came to view it as a moral and ethical mandate. In this evolu-
tionary process, man’s particularity was mediated as the universal gradually
reasserted itself. Finally in the state, universal and particular were com-
pletely reconciled as the end of the individual became identical with
the universal end of the state. This conclusion raises the danger that
the individual will be completely swallowed up in the universal whole.
Hegel attempts to allay any such fear by insisting that the universal
is bound up with the complete freedom of its particular members and
with private well-being. This compatibility of interest is to be achieved
16 [bid., p. 276.
 THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE 373

in Rousseauean fashion by equating the true will of the individual

with that of the whole.”

The State and Human Freedom

Hegel formulates his ethical theory through the dialectical contrast
between right and morality. Right, as the thesis, represents the objective
demands of the individual on society. Morality, as the antithesis, repre-
sents the subjective duty of the individual in his relations with others.
The synthesis is found in concrete ethical life with the state as the
supreme actuality of the ethical idea. “The determinations of the in-
dividual will are given an objective embodiment through the state and
thereby they attain the truth and their actualization for the first time.
The state is the one and only prerequisite of the attainment of particular
ends and welfare.’’®
The freedom of the individual is directly related to the actualization
of the universal. Freedom for man does not consist in satisfying his
individual desires without reference to the universal will. True liberty
consists in acting in harmony with universal reason as it progressively
develops. Man acts in conformity with his real will and not according
to his selfish or brutish impulses only when he seeks to identify himself
with the spirit. Freedom can never be the unlimited power of choice,
but only the right to act rationally. As the external embodiment of the
ethical idea of reason, the state expresses the universal will and therefore
the true will of every individual contained within it. Hence the individual
is really obeying the laws of his own true rational self by serving and
obeying the state. In this way, he is able to find genuine freedom. Pro-
fessor Collins succinctly sums up this phase of Hegel’s political philosophy
in the following passage:
In the state, men have borne home forcefully to them that they are
free, personal subjects only within an encompassing whole, which is
itself a self-conscious subject or social individual. The universal
actuality, which began to display itself in family and civil society, is
made manifest as the self-determining rational concept, in the state.
Individuals and intermediate social groups are teleologically regulated
by the concept of rational freedom, which is given its plenary incar-
nation in the state. Hence the state has absolute might over its
17 See ante, p. 297. “
18 Philosophy of Right, op. cit., p. 280.
a4 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

component members, both as individuals and as groups, precisely in

order to achieve maximal freedom.'®
In Hegelian thought, the individual possesses no value independent
of the political society of which he is a member. His freedom consists
in conformity with objective mind as actualized in the laws and customs
of the state to which he belongs. The complex of social institutions and
habits of any society reflect the real will of its members, and hence
embody “rational” freedom. The free person is one who is able to identify
himself totally with the duties and obligations imposed on him by the
political community. Or to express it in another way, since the state
constitutes the entire social fabric and totality of human life, it becomes
the true self in which the individual is absorbed.
Political idealism is theoretically incompatible with constitutional
government. Hegel declares that “the development of the state to con-
stitutional monarchy is the achievement of the modern world,” but his
idea of limited rule is contradicted by his general metaphysics. Man
achieves his perfection only in so far as he conforms to the universal
will. Since the state is the most perfect expression of this will, it has
the “highest right against the individuals.” Hegel’s exalted metaphysical
conception of the state completely negates all philosophical foundations
for human rights and lends ethical justification to totalitarianism. Even
from a practical standpoint, his constitutionalism is a curious blend of
limited rule and absolutism. The Prussian state which he greatly ad-
mired was certainly far from a constitutional monarchy of the British
type. His concept of the state reminds one of a remark that Napoleon
purportedly made to a delegation of envoys from the German states,
“Je ne suis pas votre prince, je suis votre maitre” (I am not your prince,
I am your master).
By the same token, Hegel’s political idealism is essentially anti-demo-
cratic in character. Sovereignty is vested not in the people, but in the
state as a metaphysical organism. Hegel has little confidence in the
ability of the people for self-rule. Commenting on the role of the legis-
lative branch, he flatly denies that the people or their representatives
are in the best position to know what is in their true interests. Such
knowledge can result only from profound comprehension and insight,
and it is precisely this ability that is lacking in the vast majority of

19 A History of Modern European Philosophy, op. cit., p. 647.

 THES IDEALIST) THEORY -OF ‘THE STATE B79

_ people. Reason dictates that the government of the state be entrusted

to a trained and professional bureaucracy. This elite corps should par-
ticipate in lawmaking as well as administration. The elected members
of the legislature should serve more in the nature of watchdogs over
the bureaucracy than as lawmakers. Not all of them, moreover, should
be popularly elected. Representatives of the landed aristocracy should
hold their offices by virtue of inheritance. The remaining members should
be selected on a functional basis by classes and associations. Hegel re-
minds us that man is not free when he is forced to obey the command
of a majority that does not embody the universal and rational will.
Every state therefore must devise institutional machinery to guarantee
as far as possible that political power be exercised by a class that has
the ability, character, and merit to know what the universal reason wills.
Hegel’s preoccupation with the universal would seem to call for a
subordination of the nation state to a larger and more comprehensive
unit. His preference for a strong state to an anarchic collection of in-
dividuals should also have led him to prefer a world political organiza-
tion of some sort to an anarchic group of autonomous national entities.
Such, however, is not the case. The development of the absolute, he
declares, requires a multiplicity of states since no single one is capable
of bearing the whole idea. Each is a participant in the divine process and
each has its own individual mission and its own distinct contribution.
It is true that at a particular period in history, one state may become
the preferred vehicle of the absolute. ‘This favored state may be recog-
nized by its dominant position on the world scene. Its role as the chosen
arm of destiny gives it a distinct superiority over other nations; but the
position is not of a permanent character. Once the chosen state has
served its purpose, it loses the interest of the absolute and recedes into
the background in much the same way that “world historical individuals”
do. The idea then marks out a new nation for prominence on the
international scene.
Hegel argues that conflict between states is as healthy as it is in-
evitable. There should be wars from time to time since the more perfect
revelation or unfolding of the universal can come only through struggle.
He regards Kant’s vision of world peace as a mere illusion. Even if states
were to join together in a close alliance or were to submerge their
identity in a world organization, the new political arrangement would
of necessity engender an opposite tendency and create a new danger. For
376 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

there is no way to avoid the dialectical process in the march of world

history.

SUMMARY
Idealism in one form or another has permeated political thinking since the
days of Plato. It has usually empasized the unity of the state and the pre-
dominant position of the common good over the good of the individual. The
philosophical premises on which it rests have forced it into extreme positions.
As a result, it has not been able to effect a satisfactory reconciliation, either
in theory or practice, between the state and the individual or between
authority and freedom. The common objective of the political idealists has
been to combat individualistic theories which view the state merely as the
product of man’s will.
The idealist tendency to sublimate human individuality to the political
entity converts the idea of the common good into an all-encompassing sphere
that leaves little room for individual discretion. In this process, human
freedom is assured by a curious metaphysical device that equates the true
will of the individual with that of the totality. This solution neatly avoids
the problem of the one and the many, or of individual freedom and state
authority. There is also a strong reliance on intuition among the political
idealists. Hegel, in distinguishing between creative and reflective reason,
defines the former as unconscious and instinctive — reason unaware of itself,
which is manifested in the artistic or active instincts of the mind. Reflective
reason, on the other hand, can only analyze and comprehend what the
creative reason has already blindly accomplished. This intuitionism later
became an important element of the fascist creed.
Both Kant and Hegel reject the concept of natural law. To replace its func-
tion as an objective standard of ethical conduct, Kant substitutes his cate-
gorical imperative and Hegel his universal will as actualized in the political
and social institutions of the state. According to the latter view, man is
assured of the moral character of his actions when he conforms to the customs
and laws of the particular society in which he is living, since the fabric of
social life and the state system rest upon an essentially “rational” basis, In
other words, “the real world is as it ought to be.” Whatever exists must
necessarily be true.
Nineteenth-century political idealism, particularly in the form which Hegel
gave to it, had far-reaching repercussions. Totalitarianism, both of the right
and left, found in it a ready source of theoretical support. The dialectical
process supplied Marx with the logical device that enabled him to fashion his
theory of scientific socialism. Similarly, the deification of the state gave
fascism the ideological weapon that it needed for self-justification. These
assertions do not imply that the doctrines of communism and fascism are
Hegelian, or that Hegel is to be held responsible for them; they indicate
 THE IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE Ba |

simply that totalitarian apologists of the twentieth century were able to use
Hegelian premises to rationalize their position,

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bosanquet, Bernard, The Philosophical Theory of the State, 3rd ed. (London:
Macmillan, 1920).
Buber, Martin, “The Validity and Limitation of the Political Principle,”
Cross Currents, Spring, 1957.
Cannon, D. J., “Comparison between Kantian Ethics and St. Thomas,”
Irish Ecclesiastical Review, September, 1942.
Carritt, E. F., “Hegel and Prussianism,” Philosophy, April, 1940.
Cook, T. I., and Leavelle, A. B., “German Idealism and American Theories of
the Democratic Community,” Journal of Politics, August, 1943.
Costanzo, Joseph, “Critique of Kant’s Principles of Politics,” New Scholasti-
cism, April, 1951.
Dawson, Christopher, ‘Politics of Hegel,” Dublin Review, October, 1943.
Evans, D. O., Social Romanticism in France, 1830-1848 (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1952).
Foster, M. B., The Political Philosophies of Plato and Hegel (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1935).
Green, Thomas H., Principles of Political Obligation, new ed. (New York:
Longmans, 1942).
Hancock, R., “Ethics and History in Kant and Mill,” Ethics, October, 1957.
Harris, Frederick P., The Neo-idealist Political Theory; Its Continuity with
the British Tradition (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1944).
Heckscher, G., ‘““Calhoun’s Idea of Concurrent Majority and the Constitutional
Theory of Hegel,” American Political Science Review, August, 1939.
Hogan, J., “Hegelian Dialectic and Dialectical Materialism,” Irish Ecclesiastical
Review, April, 1949.
Kaufmann, W. A., “Hegel Myth and Its Method,” Philosophical Review,
October, 1951.
Kelsen, H., “Foundations of Democracy: Property and Freedom in the
Philosophy of Hegel,” Ethics, October, 1955.
Knox, T. M., “Hegel and Prussianism,” Philosophy, January, 1940.
Liddell, A. F., “Importance of Human Personality in the Philosophy of
Hegel,” Journal of Philosophy, March, 1957.
Mathur, G. B., “Hume, Kant and Pragmatism,” Journal of the History of
Ideas, April, 1955.
Mure, G. R. G., An Introduction to Hegel (New York: Oxford University
Press a1 940\)),
Ortega y Gasset, Jose, “Kant and the Modern German Mind,” Yale Review,
Autumn, 1941.
Reinhardt, C. H., “Hegel and State Totalitarianism,” Dublin Review, January,
1938.
Reiss, H. S., “Kant and the Right of Rebellion,” Journal of the History of
Ideas, April, 1956.
ed., The Political Thought of the German Romantics, 1763-1815
(New York: Macmillan, 1955).
378 SEEDBED OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Sabine, G. H., “Hegel’s Political Philosophy,” Philosophical Review, May,

1932.
Stanford, L., “Hegelian Concept of Man,’ American Catholic Philosophical
Association Proceedings, 1951.
Townsend, H. G., ‘Political Philosophy of Hegel in a Frontier Society,”
Monist, January, 1936.
Tucker, R. C., “Symbolism of History in Hegel and Marx,” Journal of
Philosophy, March, 1957,
Viereck, Peter, “Realpolitik, Fichte, Hegel, and Treitschke,”’ Journal of Social
Philosophy, July, 1941.
Wheeler, M. C., “Concept of Christianity in Hegel,” New Scholasticism, July,
1957.
 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL
PART SEVEN
PHILOSOPHY
 Chapter XIX

“SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM

“The final causes of all social changes and political revolutions

are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in man’s better
insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the
modes of production and exchange. ‘They are to be sought, not
in the philosophy, but in the economics of each particular
epoch” (Engels, “Scientific” versus “Utopian” Socialism).

Durinc the eighteenth century fundamental economic changes began

to take place in the western world — changes so far reaching that they
eventually revolutionized the whole mode of human living. The process
of transformation has become known as the “industrial revolution.”
Sparked off by a long series of new inventions, machine power gradually
substituted itself for human exertion. With the mechanization of pro-
duction, people began to move from the farm to the city, the factory
system replaced manufacturing in the home, and the industrialist sup-
planted the landed baron and even the merchant in importance. The
industrial revolution did not suddenly appear full blown on the world
scene. Its beginnings can be traced as far back as the period of the
Reformation when capital began to be invested in land for profit. How-
ever, it was not until after 1750 that the great advances in scientific and
technical processes began to be made, initially in agricultural production
and later in manufacturing. The movement first became evident in Eng-
land, but by the middle of the nineteenth century it had made significant
gains on the Continent.
The transformation in economic practices that grew out of the indus-
trial revolution was accompanied by a reversal of economic theory. From
1500 until well into the eighteenth century, mercantilism had prevailed
in western Europe. One of the principal characteristics of this policy is
state monopoly or regulation of trade and industry. Wealth is looked upon
in terms of precious metals, and the test of a nation’s well-being is the
38]
382 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

amount of bullion in its coffers. In 1776 Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations

struck a final blow at the theory of mercantilism. Maintaining that con-
sumer goods, not gold or silver, are the most important forms of wealth,
Smith lays primary stress on production as the key to a nation’s economic
well-being. He also argues that government should interfere with industry
and commerce as little as possible, since external regulation interferes
with the operation of natural economic laws and upsets the harmony of
interests in nature. Just as the national welfare can best be promoted by
giving each individual the widest possible scope to seek his own interests,
so the greatest wealth accrues to a country that lets nature take its course
in the free competition of the market. Such competition keeps prices low,
yields a fair return to the producer, and secures the greatest good of the
greatest number.
Smith is the founder of the classical school of economics, so called
because it was the first to attempt the formulation of laws universally
applicable to man’s economic life. The classical economists who followed
Smith, such as Thomas Malthus (1776-1834) and David Ricardo (1772-
1823), cast doubt on his picture of a freewheeling capitalism in which
all would prosper. Whereas Smith believes that a policy of laissez faire
will result in the good of the many, Malthus and Ricardo hold no such
sanguine view. Malthus contends that poverty is unavoidable because
population grows by geometrical proportions while the supply of food
increases by an arithmetical ratio. With population tending to outstrip
the means of subsistence, poverty, starvation, and misery are always around
the corner for the great mass of people. Ricardo supplies the answer to
this threat in his iron law of wages. According to this “natural” economic
law, wages of the worker inevitably sink to the lowest level necessary
for his subsistence. The natural price of labor is that necessary to enable
the laborers to exist and perpetuate the race, without either increase or
diminution. Any improvement in this level is reflected in a rising birth
rate. This in turn results in a labor surplus and a decline in the wage
scale which, like goods and commodities, is governed by the law of supply
and demand. All social legislation designed to ameliorate the lot of
the worker is not only futile but dangerous to the welfare of the state.
Men should not tamper with the natural functioning of economic laws.
The industrial revolution complicated the process of government. The
massing of people in large urban areas, the concentration of capital, the
spread of markets throughout the world, and the increase in the number
 “SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM 383

of wage earners altered political as well as social and economic relations.

With the vast changes that were taking place in the modes of produc-
tion and distribution, and their consequent effects on society, the neces-
sity for a reformulation of social and political theory became painfully
evident. The utilitarians and other liberal thinkers, such as Herbert
Spencer, endeavored to recast political philosophy in terms of crass in-
dividualism. Hegel saw the fatal weakness in this approach, but the meta-
physical subtleties of his own works offered little to a world steeped
in industrial growth. The first efforts to be directed primarily at rede-
fining political theory in the light of the new economic environment
were undertaken by the socialists.

“UTOPIAN” SOCIALISM
The term socialism came into use during the early nineteenth century.
It embraces a wide variety of social and economic theories, ranging from
those that call only for public ownership of certain natural monopolies
to those that are completely Marxist. The many types of socialism are
alike in that they advocate the common ownership and control of at
least some of the basic means of production. They differ considerably
among themselves in several fundamental respects: (1) the extent and
degree to which common ownership and control of property are advo-
cated; (2) the ideological or philosophical doctrines which underlie
their programs; and (3) the means that are used to attain their objectives.
Dissatisfied with social conditions that had been aggravated by the
industrial revolution, a number of nineteenth-century French and English
writers began to question the justice and validity of the capitalistic sys-
tem. French socialism goes back to the revolution of 1781 and to Francois
Babeuf (1760-1797) who argued that all men have an equal right to
the good things of this earth. The idea that political equality is not
sufficient — that there must be at least some degree of economic equal-
ity — became more prevalent in French thought as the impact of
technology was felt on the Continent. Henri Saint Simon (1760-1825),
an old line aristocrat who had fought with Lafayette in America, advo-
cated that inheritance rights should be abolished, that everyone should
work, and that the formula for distributing the fruits of production
should be “from each according to his capacity, to each according to
his deserts.”
Charles Fourier (1772-1837), another French reformer, called for a
384 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

major remodeling of the social order. As a child, he had witnessed the

dumping of surplus rice from ships in order to keep the price of the
grain up. Convinced of the unsoundness of the competitive system,
Fourier proposed the reorganization of society into small self-sufficient
units (phalanxes of 1620 persons) in which the members would pool
their capital for the common good. The doctrine of Fourierism spread
to the United States where some thirty phalanxes were founded, all of
them short-lived.'
Louis Blanc (1811-1882), the son of a minor French official, represents
still another approach to social reform. In his chief work, Organization
of Labor, he proposes the establishment of national workshops financed
by the state but owned and operated by co-operative groups of working-
men. After paying interest to the government on the money advanced
and after setting aside sufficient funds for paying old age pensions and
replacing machinery and equipment, the balance of the earnings are to
be distributed to the workers on the principle, “from each according to
his abilities, to each according to his needs.” This formula was later
adopted by Marx.
In England, the socialist movement was pioneered by Robert Owen
(1771-1837), a successful cotton manufacturer who had started his career
as a shopboy and had amassed a fortune by the age of forty. Like the
French socialists, Owen’s approach to the problems of his day is essen-
tially romantic. Firmly convinced that man’s character is shaped by his
environment — “it is formed for and not by him” — he believes that if
only this point could be made clear to the world, people would take
steps to ameliorate the lot of the poor instead of blaming them for
their condition.
Owen proposes that the government establish co-operative villages for
the poor rather than pay out doles. These villages would be self-sufficient
units similar to the phalanxes of Fourier. ‘They would raise the produce
needed for their own consumption and exchange their surplus goods of
different kinds with each other. ‘Their aim would be not only to relieve
the necessities of the poor, but also to train good citizens. Co-operative and
noncompeting units of this type would gradually replace the capitalistic

1 The most famous of the American phalanxes was Brook Farm founded at West
Roxbury, Massachusetts, by George Ripley, transcendentalist and literary figure. Among
others connected with the enterprise were Hawthorne, Emerson, Bronson Alcott, and
W. H. Channing. The most successful Fourieristic community was established by
Albert Brisbane at Red Bank, New Jersey.
 “SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM 385

system as people became acquainted with their great value. The New
View of Society represents Owen’s first efforts to propagandize these con-
victions. In 1825 he founded a co-operative settlement known as New
Harmony on a 30,000 acre tract in Indiana. Two years later the project
came to an inglorious end as the settlers fell out among themselves.
Although these various theories and experiments are of little impor-
tance in themselves, they provide a transition to the modern forms of
socialism. All of them constituted attacks on the existing capitalistic sys-
tem, and all of them proposed a way of life based on some form of
collective control. The solutions they offered, however, were too divorced
from reality, too utopian and romantic, to meet with any substantial
measure of success. The social reform movements which they spawned
generally collapsed when practical benefits for the workers were not im-
mediately forthcoming. It was while utopian socialism was floundering that
Karl Marx offered his doctrine of “scientific” socialism to the world.

KARL MARX

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was born in Treves, a small town in the Ger-
man Rhineland. He was a descendant of a long line of Jewish rabbis on
both sides of his family although his father, a well-to-do lawyer, was a
convert to Protestantism. Marx received his educational training at the
universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena. While a student, he became particu-
larly interested in the Greek materialists, as evidenced by the title of his
doctoral thesis, “On the Difference between the Natural Philosophy of
Democritus and of Epicurus.” After receiving his doctorate at Jena,
Marx sought to obtain a university appointment. When his efforts proved
unsuccessful, he turned to journalism, joining the staff of the Rheinische
Zeitung, a democratic-liberal newspaper published at Cologne. In 1843
shortly before the paper was suppressed by the Prussian government, he
went to Paris, where he came into close touch with many of the French
socialists.
During his stay in France, Marx met Friedrich Engels, the son of a
wealthy German textile manufacturer. Engels at the time was managing
a factory in Manchester, England, but like Owen he was unhappy and
dissatisfied with existing social conditions. Through Engels, Marx be-
came acquainted with British labor conditions and British economics.
The friendship and close collaboration of the two which began in Paris
386 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

lasted until Marx’s death forty years later. Most modern Marxists regard
their writings as merely different books of the same testament.
Marx was expelled from France several years after he took up residence
there because his articles in one of the Paris newspapers called for a
German revolution. He then went to Brussels where he was instrumental
in forming the communist league, an organization that sought to bring
together those who were advocating a new brand of socialism. At its
congress in 1847, the league authorized Marx and Engels to draft the
Communist Manifesto. This document was published the following year
and became one of the most influential political tracts of all times. When
the revolution of 1848 broke out, Marx returned to his native Rhineland
to take part in the movement. Upon its collapse, he fled to London,
where he remained for the rest of his life.
In 1864 the International Working Men’s Association, the First In-
ternational, was founded in London. Its membership consisted mainly
of continental exiles and a few British trade union leaders. The associa-
tion’s objective was to serve as a council representing the proletariat of
all countries. Marx quickly became the dominant force in the new or-
ganization, but the many dissident elements within it foredoomed it to
failure. The defeat of the Paris Commune, which Marx had supported
against the wishes of many in the International, marked the end of the
organization.” Marx thereafter took no active part in politics but devoted
his time to studying and writing.
Constantly plagued by poverty and ill health, Marx’s life was not a
happy one. His personality was unattractive, his attitude toward others
callous and domineering, and his methods ruthless. In 1843 he married
Jenny von Westphalen, the daughter of a high government official, to
whom he remained devoted throughout his life. Of the six children who
were born of the marriage, three died at an early age. The family was
sustained largely through the generous assistance of Engels. Although
Marx took an active part in socialist movements and although his works

2'The Second International was established in 1889 to act as a permanent link

between the socialist parties of the various countries. It was a loose federation of
individual parties that differed widely in ideology and method, each claiming to follow
its Own course in accord with national conditions. The Second International came to
an end during World War I. The Third International, the Comintern, was organized
in Moscow in 1919. It became strictly an agency of the Russian Communist party
to promote the cause of communism throughout the world. The Comintern was
dissolved by the Soviet Union in 1943 as a gesture of reassurance toward its World
War II allies.
 “SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM 387
were soon to have world wide repercussions, few outside the circle of his
immediate followers were aware of his tremendous significance when
he died.

The Marxian Dialectic

Marx’s theory of communism is based on certain underlying con-
cepts: (1) historical development takes place through the synthesis of
inherent tensions or contradictions — the dialectic; (2) social and political
institutions are shaped and determined by economics — historical ma-
terialism; and (3) the dialectical movement of history finds expression
chiefly in the conflict between economic groups — class struggle. Marx
accepted in modified form the dialectic of Hegel and the political
economy of the orthodox classical or Manchester school. These two
strains of thought furnished the intellectual material upon which he drew
heavily.
The University of Berlin was the center of Hegelianism while Marx
was a student there. The followers of Hegel were divided into two camps,
the right wing which concerned itself primarily with religious apologetics
in an attempt to show that Hegelian philosophy and Christianity were
compatible; and the left wing which viewed the development of the
absolute as a materialistic rather than a logical process. Ludwig Feuerbach,
one of the leftist leaders, provides the connecting bridge between Hegel
and Marx. In his Essence of Christianity (1841) and his Essence of Reli-
gion (1845), he explains away God as a projection of human desires and
needs and as man’s supreme optical illusion. Anthropology, not theology,
is the supreme science. Hegel had claimed that it is the absolute idea —
God — which develops in history and which expresses itself in nature and
in man as it evolves in and through the world of time and space. Feuer-
bach maintains that the absolute which Hegel speaks of is not God but
nature unfolding itself in an endless process of dialectical development.
Marx seizes upon the Feuerbachian thesis to rationalize his own de-
testation of religion and to make the transition from Hegelian idealism
to materialism. By proclaiming in effect that the absolute is no more
than a reflection of matter, he seeks to use the dialectic as the governing
force in the evolution of history. His intention is to turn it from a mere
law of thought, as it is in Hegelian theory, to a true law of historical
causation. For this purpose, the dialectic must first be given a concrete
meaning that will serve the purposes of causal explanation and prediction
388 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

in the social order. It can then be shown that social events, like biological
and physical phenomena, are rooted in and determined by matter.
Marx was intensely antireligious (“I hate all gods,” he once exclaimed)
and his philosophy rests upon a materialistic metaphysics. However, he
is never explicit in what he means by materialism. Feuerbach called him-
self a naturalist and humanist, to avoid the identification of his doctrine
with the crude materialism of those who worshiped sensual pleasures
to the exclusion of intellectual values. There is reason to believe that
Marx has a similar view. Unlike the early materialists who were largely
concerned with the physical world, he is primarily interested in man
and society. He speaks of dynamic materialism, probably to distinguish
it from the theory that matter evolves solely under the pressure of its
environment. He indicates that the materialism he is referring to involves
a process of development from within. In Hegelian thought, the idea
moves forward by the contradictions inherent in being; so also in Marxian
doctrine, the contradictions in matter evolve through inherent tensions.
The seed must decay before new life emerges. Environmental factors
may hinder or assist the evolutionary process but the driving force must
come from within.

Historical Materialism
Engels defines historical materialism as “that view of the course of
history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of
all important historical events in the modes of production and exchange,
in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the
struggles of these classes against one another.”® Historical phenomena, in
other words, are determined by economic factors. The culture, philosophy,
politics, and even religion of any epoch are shaped by its method of
production. As the economic structure of a society changes, so also does
its social and political character.
According to the Marxian analysis, the way in which men satisfy their
wants constitutes the foundation of society. Their social and_ political
systems are the superstructure which they erect on this foundation. Human
beings must have food, drink, clothing, and shelter first of all, before
they can interest themselves in such matters as politics, science, art, and
religion. The production of the immediately requisite means of sub-
3 Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, ed. by E. Aveling (London: S. Sonnenschein,
1892), p. xix.
 “SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM 389

sistence, therefore, constitutes the foundation upon which social institu-

tions and ideas are built.
At each stage of history the class which controls the means of pro-
duction controls society. But the situation never remains static. The
mode of production (the thesis) generates an opposing movement (the
antithesis) which Marx refers to as the “productive forces” of the
economy. ‘I’he mode of production encompasses not only the technologi-
cal processes of manufacturing and supplying goods but also the relation-
ships (master-slave, lord-vassal, capitalist-worker) which characterize the
existing organization of labor. It refers broadly to the conditions under
which society produces and exchanges. The productive forces, on the
other hand, represent the capacity to produce, the actual forces which
stimulate production, and which are affected by scientific discoveries and
the development of new techniques.
Sooner or later every society reaches a point at which the economic
structure, the mode of production, hampers the full use of the produc-
tive forces which le within it. “At a certain stage of their development,
the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing
relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same
thing — with the property relations within which they have been at
work hitherto.”* When this occurs, that is to say when new productive
forces are developed which cannot be properly utilized by existing institu-
tions, the time is ripe for social revolution to effect a new synthesis.
Historical materialism means that the manner of producing the re-
quirements of life determines in the last instance the social ideas and
institutions of an era. There is a close relationship between a particular
level of technique and a particular kind of society. Fundamental changes
in the former will bring about basic modifications in the latter. A set
of social institutions must conform to a given mode of production; when
it fails to do so, revolution is inevitable. ‘The Marxian concept of history
starts from the principle that production is the basis of every social order
and that the division of society into classes is determined by what is
produced and how it is produced and exchanged. Thus the hand mill
gave us society with the feudal lord, and the steam mill society with
the industrial capitalist. In the latter case, the new levels of technique
necessitated changes in the social order. It became impossible for inde-
4 Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Chicago: Kerr and
C@,, WOR), IZ.
390 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

pendent workers, each owning his separate means of production, to operate

industrial plants. A collectivized method of production had to be worked
out in some way —the result was the establishment of a capitalistic
system.
Marx’s approach to history has had considerable influence on modern
thinking. Few historians would accept his thesis of dialectical develop-
ment or complete economic determinism. Yet no social scientist today
would examine an historical problem without considering the economic
organization of the particular society, the interplay of class interests
within it, and the influence that technological advances have upon its
politics. Marx demonstrates that an examination of history in terms of
economics can be fruitful. Yet by turning what is essentially a method
of investigating historical phenomena into a dogma, he commits himself
in advance to finding only that which fits his doctrine.

Class Struggle
Referring to his own time, Marx declares that the bourgeoisie
— by
subjecting nature’s forces to man, applying chemistry to industry, and,
devising new machines and means of transportation and communication
— have created more massive productive forces than all preceding genera-
tions together. Like the sorcerer’s apprentice, this class now finds itself
unable to control the powers that it has conjured. When this stage is
reached, it becomes apparent that the material productive forces of society
have come in serious conflict with the mode of production, or what is
more appropriate to say, with the social and property relationships of
the day. The need for readjustment is reflected in the growing intensity
of the class struggle.
The importance of economic group conflicts to the political process
and the idea of the divergence of group interests had frequently been
expressed by theorists prior to Marx. No pre-Marxist writer, however,
had advanced the concept of class struggle as an inherent and inevitable
fact of human life. As Marx writes,

No credit is due to me for discovering the existence of Classes in

modern society nor yet the struggle between them. Long before me
bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this
class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the
classes. What I did that was new was to prove:
 “SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM 391

(1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular

historic phases in the development of production;
(2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the
proletariat;
(3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the
abolition of all classes and to a classless society.
Class struggle and the classless society are necessary consequences of the
contradictions inherent in a capitalistic economy. These results must
happen regardless of whether certain empirical conditions are fulfilled.
Marx is not saying in the language of science, “given these conditions,
these results will follow.” He is saying that the world is destined to
evolve in this way by virtue of its own inner dialectic.
Hegel had referred to nations as the vehicles of the dialectical move-
ment.® Marx now substitutes classes for nations. He states that in the
course of providing a livelihood, the members of a society become divided
into classes which perform different functions and occupy different
positions in the social organization. Conflicts of interest constantly arise
among these groups as each seeks to further its own well-being. The
history of mankind is a continuous struggle of classes. The struggle,
moreover, cannot be avoided or resolved, since it is inescapably a part of
and essential to the dialectical development of history.
Although Marx casts his philosophy of history into a mold suggested
by the Hegelian dialectic, he is actually concerned only with one triad:
capital, labor, and the classless society. As presently constituted, society is
characterized by a simple division between those who own the means
of production and those who do not. The era of capitalism has not
abated the class struggle; it has intensified and simplified it. “Society as
a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps,
into two great classes directly facing each other — bourgeoisie and _pro-
letariat.”’ The middle class, comprising those who stand between the
exploiters and the masses, is gradually being eliminated. Wealth is be-
coming concentrated in fewer and fewer hands as the small tradespeople,
shopkeepers, craftsmen, and peasants sink into the proletarian ranks.

5 Letter of Marx to Weydemeyer in Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence

(1846-1895), trans. by Dona Torr (New York: International Publishers, 1942), p. 57.
6 See ante, p. 370.
7Communist Manifesto, Crofts Classics edition (New York: Appleton-Century-
Crofts, 1955), p. 10.
au CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

As this development continues, the misery of the proletariat increases

and its dissatisfaction and resentment grow. The worker becomes in-
creasingly aware of the injustice of the whole capitalistic system; he
begins to organize and to prepare for the impending clash. “Along with
the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital who usurp
and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows
the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, and exploitation; but
with this too grows the revolt of the working class—a class always
increasing in number, and disciplined, united, organized by the very
mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself.”* The revolu-
tionary movement receives “fresh elements of enlightenment and prog-
ress” as “entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of in-
dustry precipitated into the proletariat.” Finally, when the class struggle
nears the decisive hour, a number of the remaining bourgeoisie who
have come to comprehend theoretically the historical movement as a
whole join the proletarians. The thesis, capitalism, has now called into
existence its antithesis, organized labor, and from the conflict between
the two the classless society emerges.
Marx differentiates the capitalist-worker conflict from previous class
struggles. In the past, one class merely established a new class rule
after overthrowing the dominant group in power. Under the modern
capitalistic system, the proletariat has gradually absorbed all social groups
with the exception of the small aggregation of capitalists. The victory
of the proletariat, therefore, is the victory of all society and not an
insignificant minority of it. Once the proletarian triumph is complete,
class conflict will come to an end since all class divisions have been
eliminated. The new synthesis will apparently be free from the inner
tensions which tend to rip society asunder.
This abrupt ending to the dialectic is one of the glaring inconsistencies
of Marxian thought. Man, who throughout all his past has engaged in
economic warfare, suddenly changes his whole nature and becomes well
disposed toward his fellow human beings. Does this mean that history,
which manifests the class struggle and which progresses through dialecti-
cal development, has run its course. Marx is apparently aware of this
inconsistency. He intimates that the dialectic is an eternal movement
whose inner laws dictate that contradictions will be transmuted into
higher and nonviolent forms once the class struggle ends. What these
8 Capital, Modern Library Edition (New York: Random House, 1906), p. 836.
 “SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM 393

future forms of contradiction will be, he nowhere states. Marx, of course,

holds that man is not innately aggressive and corrupt; it is the circum-
stances of his social environment — the predatory effect of the capitalistic
system — which determines him to act as he does.

Marxian Economics
The economic theories advanced by Marx are designed to show that
capitalism inevitably produces conditions which lead to its overthrow
and which pave the way for socialism. As already noted, Marx attempts
to bring back every fundamental social and political change to an eco-
nomic cause. Several aspects of his economic doctrine that are closely
related to the development of his political theory will be briefly
examined here.
In his major economic work, Das Kapital, Marx discusses the question
of value at great length. He points out that the worker must sell his
labor like any commodity since he does not own the means of produc-
tion. As a commodity, his labor has both use and exchange value. The
first consists in the value of the goods which his work produces; the
second in what he is paid. The difference between the two is surplus
value, which Marx defines as the difference between the value of the
product and the value of the elements consumed in the formation of
that product. To cite a simple example: a worker produces five pairs of
shoes which sell on the market at $5 each; for his day’s toil, he receives
$10. ‘The material used in the manufacture of the shoes and the allocated
overhead costs amount to $10. The worker has thus created a surplus
value of $5 which will go to the capitalist as profit.
Following Ricardo, Marx maintains that the amount which the worker
receives is determined solely by the cost of sustaining him and _ his
family at a subsistence level. But the laborer actually works only part
of the day to produce the equivalent of these wages; the remainder of
the time he is producing surplus value or profit for the capitalist. Marx
argues that this amount properly belongs to the worker since it is his
labor which is responsible for the added value. By appropriating it, the
capitalist is engaging in a form of theft.
Marx describes capital as the sum total of all privately owned means
of production employed for the acquisition of surplus value. He dis-
tinguishes between two kinds of capital: constant and variable. That
part which is represented by machinery and raw materials is constant
394 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

since the value of it, or of its wear and tear, reappears in equal propor-
tions in the manufactured product. Its value in the new article is no
greater than in its original state; it does not undergo any qualitative
alteration of worth in the process of production. The value of a piece
of cloth that is converted into ten suits remains constant since the ma-
terial is wholly used up in making the product. On the other hand,
variable capital, or that part which is used to purchase labor power,
undergoes an alteration of value in the process of production. It not
only reproduces the equivalent of its own worth but also an excess or
surplus value.
According to Marx, there is a tendency to cheapen the cost of pro-
duction by increasing the relative proportion of constant capital in-
vested in machinery. The lower the cost of labor can be kept in relation
to that of raw materials and machinery, the greater the rate of profit to
the manufacturer. The system of competition aggravates this tendency.
To meet the constant threat of his industrial rivals, the capitalist is forced
to expand his plant and to buy more machinery. This necessity compels
him to reduce his labor overhead in order to lower the cost of produc-
tion and thereby set aside sufficient profits for increasing his constant
capital. For the larger the rate of surplus value, the greater is the amount
of capital that can be accumulated. In this ruthless but inevitable
process, the battle of competition is fought by lowering the price of
the commodities. ‘The cheapness of these depends “on the productiveness
of labor and this again on the scale of production. Therefore the larger
capitals beat the smaller.”? The small entrepreneur is forced out of
business as capital accumulates in fewer and fewer hands.
While the battle of industrial competition is going on, the workers
derive no benefit from the increased production. They are unable to win
higher wages since new machinery and better technological devices create
large reservoirs of unemployed workers. In their competition for jobs,
the unemployed keep wages down to a bare subsistence level. This surplus
population is the lever of “capitalistic accumulation.” It forms “a dis-
posable industrial reserve army, that belongs to capital quite as abso-
lutely as if the latter had bred it at its own cost. Independently of the
limits of the actual increase of population, it creates, for the changing
needs of the self-expansion of capital, a mass of human material always
ready for exploitation.’?°
9 Ibid., p. 686. 10 bid. ps 693.
 “SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM 395

From Capitalism to Communism

The communist society which Marx speaks of does not immediately
follow the social revolution of the workers. There are several steps which
mark the transition from capitalism to true communism: the acquisition
and consolidation of political supremacy by the proletariat, the socializa-
tion of the means of production, and finally the communist society. The
first step is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class by
seizing control of the state. Government by the proletariat must be
substituted for government by the bourgeoisie.
There is considerable dispute whether Marx taught that the transfer
of power in the first stage can be accomplished only by violent revolu-
tion or whether it can be achieved by peaceful and democratic means.
Marx is not consistent in working out this aspect of his theory. In the
communist manifesto he unequivocally states that the ends of com-
munism “can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing
conditions.” He points out that the owners of the means of production
sincerely believe that the present system is the best not only for them-
selves but also for the general public. Their stake in the community is
too high to permit them to step aside voluntarily and let history run its
course. Consequently they resist change and refuse to abdicate freely.
Later his attitude in this regard seemed to soften. He indicates that it
might be possible for the workers to attain their objective by peaceful
means in countries like England and the United States. Since, however,
he did not pursue this distinction further, the orthodox opinion of violent
class warfare as an essential element of communism has prevailed.
The second or intermediate stage of transition is known as socialism.
Economically, this stage is marked by the centralization of all instru-
ments of production in the hands of the state and by a concerted effort
to increase total production as rapidly as possible. Politically, it is charac-
terized by the dictatorship of the proletariat and by the solidification of
the instruments of power. “Between capitalist and communist society lies
the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other.
There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the
state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.””™
During the intermediate stage the proletariat will use its political su-

11 Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (New York: International Publishers,

1938) pe 7%
396 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

premacy to wrest all capital from the bourgeoisie and to place it under
state control. The measures that will be used to accomplish this objective
are listed in the Communist Manifesto:
(1) abolition of property in land and application of all rents to public
purposes;
) a heavy progressive or graduated income tax;
) abolition of all nght of inheritance;
) confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels;
) centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of
a national bank;
) centralization of the means of communication and transport in
the hands of the state;
) extension of factories and instruments of production owned by
the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the
improvement of the soil in accordance with a common plan;
(8) equal obligation of all to work and the establishment of industrial
armies, especially for agriculture;
(9) combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual
abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more
equable distribution of the population over the country; and
(10) free education for all children in public schools and abolition of
child labor in its present form,
Marx anticipates many of the social reforms that later became an estab-
lished part of democratic practice. A surprisingly large number of the
measures he advocated, such as a graduated income tax and public edu-
cation, have been adopted in most of the democratic countries of the
world by peaceful and constitutional means.
The transition stage in the march toward the communist heaven con-
tinues to retain some of the marks of a capitalist society. It is “still
stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it
emerges.” The political state remains in existence and the proletariat
uses the organs of government to socialize completely the means of
production and to stamp out the last vestiges of capitalism. During this
stage also, complete justice and equality in the social and economic order
cannot be expected. Human exploitation will be eliminated, but the
distribution of the articles of consumption will continue to be based on
the amount of labor performed by each individual. The worker will re-
ceive back from society exactly what he contributes to it in the way
of labor.
The system of remuneration proposed for the interim period is not
 “SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM 207

perfect since it is still based on the principle that the right of the
worker to consumer goods is proportionate to the labor he supplies. Such
a practice “tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment and _thus
productive capacity as natural privileges. It is therefore a right of in-
equality in its content. .. .” It fails to recognize that people are not all
endowed with equal ability and facilities. One man is strong and healthy,
another is weak and sickly; one man is married and has a large family,
another is unmarried with no family responsibilities; one man is superior
to another in mental ability and talent. “Thus with an equal output, and
hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact
receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on.”!?
The principle that each is to be rewarded according to his ability is
a defect, Marx admits, but such practice is unavoidable in the first
phases of communism. Unless one is willing to indulge in utopian specu-
lation, he must not think that people will immediately after the over-
throw of capitalism learn to work for society rather than for themselves.
The spirit of individualism and selfishness has been too long inculcated
by a bourgeois society to be uprooted overnight. The spirit of true
communism can only be established gradually by abolishing the causes
of selfishness, which are spawned by an unjust social order, and by a
long process of education. The final stage of communism will be attained
only after society has been properly prepared and conditioned.

The Political State

Equating the state with government, Marx views it as an instrument
that is used by the dominant class to achieve its objectives. In the past,
the state was employed by the minority to suppress and exploit the
majority. During the intermediate state of socialism it will be used by
the proletarian majority in behalf of the overwhelming mass of the
people. It will be retained, in other words, to serve as an agency for
destroying capitalism. With the accomplishment of this task, there will
be no further need for the state or government, just as there is no need
for the glass blower once the glass is shaped.
While Marx’s concept of the state is essentially mechanistic, his view
of the social body is wholly organismic. By accepting historical material-
ism as the basis of his theory, he is compelled to consider society as a
substantial unity in which individual man functions as a cell within a
12 Ibid., pp. 9-10,
398 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

living body. Obviously, there is no place for constitutional government

or subsidiarity in such a doctrine. The state exists to serve the needs
of the dominant class; its role does not change when the workers seize
political power. It merely becomes the tool of the proletariat instead
of the bourgeoisie. In this capacity, it must extend its power to all fields
of human life in order to “liberate” man from the religious, moral, and
cultural prejudices of the past.
Although he has no patience with an “uneducated” majority, Marx
apparently envisages a workers’ democracy during the transition period
in which a system of self-government will exist within the proletarian
ranks. The communist manifesto proclaims that the first steps in the
revolution of the working class are the raising of the proletariat to a
position of power and the establishment of democracy. Later, Marx speaks
approvingly of the Paris Commune of 1870 because its officers were
elected by democratic suffrage and were responsible to the people.
Regardless of practice, communism is theoretically incompatible with
democratic government. According to Marx, the character of political
and social institutions must be sought in the material conditions of
society. When the economic substructure changes, the cultural and polit-
ical superstructure also undergoes modification. Man has little choice
in the matter; the doctrine of dialectical materialism deprives him of
any reasonable power of self-determination in either the political or the
economic sphere. Since the proletarian revolution and the resultant dic-
tatorship are inevitable, resistance is pointless. Man must accept the
processes of nature; he has no freedom of choice as to either the form
of political society or the objectives that it should seek.

The Communist Society

The final phase of communism will be attained when all class dis-
tinctions have disappeared and all production has been concentrated “in
the hands of a vast association of the whole nation.” When this point
is reached, there will be no further need for political government. “As
soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as
soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon
our present anarchy in production . . . are removed, nothing more re-
mains to be repressed.”"* The state has no purpose in a classless com-
13 F. Engels, “Scientific v. Utopian Socialism,’”’ Selected Works (Moscow: Foreign
Language Publishing House, 1950), Vol, 2, p. 138,
 “SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM 399

munity since the substitution of socialism for capitalism removes the

source of all human conflict.
The state will not vanish suddenly; it will gradually atrophy as its
functions fall into disuse. As the transition from socialism to communism
proceeds, “state interference in social relations becomes superfluous in
one domain after another, and then dies out of itself; the government
of persons is replaced by the administration of things and by the conduct
of processes of production. The state is not abolished. It withers away.’
This doctrine is grounded on the utopian belief that in a fully socialized
society the individual will have no reason to violate the social order since
this order guarantees the highest possible degree of happiness to everyone.
Neither Marx nor Engels has much to say about the new society
that will come into being. At no point do they describe its duration, its
organization, or its operating techniques. Neither of them makes any
pretense of being a social planner, mapping out a blueprint for the ideal
society. They sneer at the utopian socialists for attempting such “tom-
foolery.” Theirs was a scientific socialism produced by the inexorable
course of history. The details of organization and operation are only
supplementary to the character of the new society; little purpose would
be served by spending much time on such matters.
In the communist utopia, the mode of distribution will undergo radical
change. Instead of each individual being paid in accordance with what
he produces, distribution will be governed by the principle “from each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordina-
tion of individuals under division of labour, and therewith also the
antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after
labour, from a mere means of life, has itself become the prime necessity
of life; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round
development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth
flow more abundantly — only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois
tight be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from
each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.*®
Assuming that two individuals have the same needs, the one with ex-
ceptional talent will receive no more remuneration for his services than
the unskilled laborer. Similarly, the clerk with a family to support will

14 Tbid.
19 Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, op. cit., p. 31,
400 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

receive a greater share of the produce of society than the unmarried

scientist with no family responsibilities. At the same time, each will be
expected to serve the community to the best of his ability.

SUMMARY
Marx and Engels lived in an era of economic dislocation brought on by
the changing mode of production. They witnessed the most inhumane phase
of the industrial revolution: human misery, inequitable distribution of wealth,
intolerable living conditions, exploitation of unorganized labor. Had their early
impressions been formed at the turn of the present century, when the worst
abuses of the new economic order were being abated, their approach to social
problems might have been less rigid, less dogmatic, and less revolutionary.
There were answers, other than those offered by Marx, to the nineteenth-
century defenders of laissez-faire economics who were so loudly proclaiming
the primacy of an uncontrolled and unregulated economy. Unfortunately, the
non-Marxist replies received little audience in an age that was intoxicated by
the spirit of scientism.
Marx believed that the course of history was on his side. He purported
to see the inexorable drive toward a socialistic future as the dialectical process
unfolded itself in the world of reality. Proletarian consciousness had only to
be more fully awakened for the transformation to take place. The process
was a slow one; it could perhaps be speeded up by revolution, but the results
were inevitable. As Engels remarked on one occasion, ““Man has only to know
himself, to measure all conditions of life against himself, to judge them by
his own character, to organize the world according to the demands of his
own nature in a truly human way, and he will have solved all the mddles
of our age.”’ But how is man as a creature or victim of economic forces over
which he has no control to mse to such heights?
Marxism is actually faced with certain basic incompatibilities. These incon-
sistencies led to the enormous gulf between reality and philosophy which
developed when the doctrine went beyond the phase of theoretical formula-
tion. On the one hand, Marx felt compelled to rest his system on a determin-
istic basis in order to stress its scientific character. One of the results of this
emphasis is the theoretical subordination of political power to the economic
forces operating in nistory. On the other hand, later communists found it
necessary to emphasize the voluntaristic aspects of Marxism as they actively
sought to shape the course of history. Marx taught that man can discover the
dialectical laws governing social behavior and perhaps influence their accelera-
tion, but he can do no more. Lenin and his successors virtually rejected the
principle of determinism by maintaining that man is able to guide the
direction of the dialectic. Acting under the pressure of political reality, they
forced objective determinism to abdicate in favor of subjective voluntarism.
Marx had attempted to hold the two in equilibrium, but the incompatibility
 “SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM 401

between them could no longer be suppressed once the doctrine of communism

had gone beyond the phase of a mere untried hypothesis.1°
Communism is more than a political philosophy or an economic doctrine;
it is a metaphysics translated into action. It is a philosophy that seeks to offer
an integral interpretation of the whole of reality. It is a theology, a religion,
with a program aimed at action and not abstract doctrinal exposition. It
seeks to explain the universe by denying a transcendent God. In similar
fashion, it attempts to solve all the problems of man and society in the light
of its materialistic canons. Marxian man is a wholly material individual
influenced by every change in his environment; he is not the man of
Chnistianity.
Marxism is a complete negation of natural law. It regards a moral action
as one that corresponds to the aims of the social order — aims that are fixed
by man himself. For the Marxist, an ethical norm does not guide and mold
society; on the contrary, that conduct is moral which fits into human society.
Ethics does not shape the world, but the world shapes its own ethics. Truth
and morality have meaning only in so far as they are useful to the construction
of a socialist society. Communist ethics, therefore, becomes the ethics of the
party which has assumed the task of bringing socialism to fruition.
Discard its atheism, and the whole superstructure of communism must
fall. Its doctrinal strength lies in the fact that it has become a religion. Like
Christianity, it holds that the present is merely a preparation for the future;
but unlike Christianity which seeks to bring about the kingdom of God
that is not of this world, communism endeavors to create an earthly garden
of Eden for mankind. While Christianity looks to the world beyond, it
recognizes the present life of man, and seeks to make that life happy and
fulsome. Communism, in contrast, ignores the realities of human nature and
the present life of man in its quest for the apocalyptical vision of the earthly
paradise. It consequently thinks nothing of sacrificing the individual to its
messianic task. As Christopher Dawson describes it,
The cause of the proletariat is the cause of social justice in the most absolute sense.
It is a cause for which the communist is ready to suffer and die and to cause the
suffering and death of others. All this is the fruit not of his philosophy or of his
materialism but of the underlying religious impulse which finds expression in the
revolutionary apocalyptic. It is a spiritual passion which has lost its theological
object and has attempted to find independent justification in a purely rational
theory.!8

Redemption is not to be found in the sacrifice on the cross but in the

creation of a new society in which the means of production are socially owned.

16 See V. V. Aspaturian, “The Contemporary Doctrine of the Soviet State and its
Philosophical Foundation,’ American Political Science Review, Dec., 1954, pp.
1031-1057.
17See G. Peterffy, “The Ethics of Communism,” in The Philosophy of Com-
munism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1952), pp. 225-240.
18 Religion and the Modern State (London: Sheed and Ward, 1935), pp. 86-88.
402 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

The philosophical problem in the words of Marx is not to understand the

world but to change it. In this respect, he would not have been disappointed
with his efforts. The doctrine which he advanced has had startling effect on
the course of world history. It has also had a dynamic impact on modern
political thought and practices. So strong has his influence been that the
defenders of democratic theory have been forced to re-examine their philo-
sophical premises. The result has been a renewed interest in the basic tenets of
the western social and political tradition which Marx so completely and
deliberately disregards.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bailey, Sydney D., “The Revision of Marxism,” Review of Politics, October,
1954.
Berlin, Isaiah, Kar] Marx, 2nd ed. (London: Home University Library, 1948).
Bloom, Solomon F., “The Withering Away of the State,” Journal of the
History of Ideas, January, 1946.
Bowles, R. C., “Marxian Adaptation of the Ideology of Fourier,’ Southern
Atlantic Quarterly, April, 1955.
Chang, S. H. M., The Marxian Theory of the State (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1931).
Cole, G. D. H., The Meaning of Marxism (London: V. Gollancz, 1948).
Feuer, L. S., “J. S. Mill and Marxian Socialism,” Journal of the History of
Ideas, April, 1949.
Grampp, William D., “On the Politics of the Classical Economists,” Quarterly
Journal of Economics, November, 1948.
Guest, David, A Textbook of Dialectical Materialism (New York: International
Publishers, 1939).
Halloway, Mark, Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America (New
York: Library Publishers, 1951).
Harris, A. L., “J. S. Mill’s Theory of Progress (Comparison between him and
Marx),” Ethics, April, 1956.
“Utopian Elements in Marx’s Thought,” Ethics, January, 1950.
Hook, Sydney, From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the Intellectual Development
of Karl Marx (New York: Humanities Press, 1950).
Hunt, R. N. Carew, The Theory and Practice of Communism (New York:
Macmillan, 1951).
ores C., “Politics, History, and Psychology,” World Politics, October,
1955;
Krieger, L., “Marx and Engels as Historians,” Journal of the History of Ideas,
June, 1953.
La Farge, J., “Philosophical Basis of Communism,” American Catholic Philo-
sophical Association, Proceedings, 1933,
Lewis, J. D., “Individual and the Group in Marxist Theory,” International
Journal of Ethics, October, 1936.
Lindsay, A. D., Karl Marx’s Capital: An Introductory Essay (London: Oxford
University Press, 1925).
 “SCIENTIFIC” SOCIALISM 403
McCoy, C. N. R., “Logical and Real in Political Theory: Plato, Aristotle and
Marx,” American Political Science Review, December, 1954.
Miliband, Ralph, “The Politics of Robert Owen,” Journal of the History of
Ideas, April, 1954.
Negley, G., and Patrick, J. M., The Quest for Utopia: An Anthology of
Imaginary Societies (New York: H. Schuman, 1952).
Niebuhr, Reinhold, “Marxism in Eclipse,” Speculum, June, 1943.
Robinson, Joan, An Essay on Marxian Economics (London: Macmillan, 1942).
Simon, W. M., “History for Utopia: Saint Simon and the Idea of Progress,”
Journal of the History of Ideas, June, 1956.
Stocks, H. L., Materialism in Politics (London: Oxford University Press,
1937).
Tiger Robert C., “The Cunning of Reason in Hegel and Marx,” Review
of Politics, July, 1956.
Venable, Vernon, Human Nature; the Marxian View (New York: Knopf,
1945)
yanks F. G., “Democracy and Marxism,” Social Order, October, 1955.
 Chapter XX

MODERN COMMUNISM

“The important thing is to retain power, to consolidate it, and

to make it invincible” (J. Stalin, Leninism).

Tue student of politics must go beyond Marx if he hopes to under-

stand and evaluate communism as it is known and practiced today. Even
before Marx’s death, his followers had begun to interpret his writings
in ways that usually suited their own purposes or that seemed compatible
with the historical exigencies of the moment. As a result we have the
Marx of the social democrats, the Marx of the revolutionary left, and
the Marx of the Soviet dictators. Men of great power and influence, in-
cluding Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, have gone to the doctrinal
fountain of Marxism to find theoretical justification for their political
actions. Their efforts to fit communist theory to political reality have
produced many strange results. The Procrustean bed has been shaped
and reshaped to conform to the diverse needs of the new theoreticians.
Only a philosophy that contained elements of ambiguity could serve
in this capacity.
Marx intended that his theoretical formulations be the basis and
stimulus to action, and in this he was not disappointed. By 1900 Marxist
parties and groups were well established on the Continent.’ The largest
and best organized of these was the German Social Democratic party
founded in 1875 at Gotha. During the following decade socialist parties
were organized in Austria, Belgium, France, Holland, Italy, and the

1 Most of the Marxist parties adopted the name “‘socialist’’ or “‘social democratic.”
To be a socialist in the late nineteenth century was, generally speaking, to be a
Marxist. The word “communist,” which had been originally used in the 1848 manifesto
to distinguish Marxian socialists from the utopian socialists, returned to use with the
Russian revolution. In 1918 the Bolsheviks officially adopted the name “communist.”
Since that time the term has been associated exclusively with the revolutionary brand
of socialism.
404
 MODERN COMMUNISM 405

Scandinavian countries. In Great Britain a socialist mass movement did

not develop until after 1914. The trade unions which existed prior to
that time confined their activities almost exclusively to economic func-
tions. The Russian Social Democratic party, in terms of popular sup-
port, was likewise a relatively insignificant force before 1917. However,
it early developed a corps of able leaders and exerted considerable influence
on international socialism.

REVISIONISM VERSUS ORTHODOXY

Marx’s successors may be divided into three main groups: revisionist,

orthodox, and revolutionary. The first recognizes the class struggle as a
factor in historical development but maintains that it is diminishing in
intensity. It also questions the belief in the inevitability of catastrophic
change and seeks to turn the socialist movement into democratic channels.
The second school accepts the basic philosophical and economic premises
of Marxism; and while it remains revolutionary in theory, it has become
essentially evolutionary in practice. The third group is distinctly revolu-
tionary both in doctrine and practice. It stresses the importance of view-
ing the class struggle in political terms and the necessity of using vio-
lence to achieve the ends of socialism.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a number
of socialist writers began to suggest certain modifications in Marxist
theory. They felt that a reassessment of its doctrinal position was called
for in view of the failure of its major predictions to come true, and in
the light of the changing social scene. Marx had assumed that the
proletariat would sink into greater misery; instead, even by the time of
his death, the worker’s lot had considerably improved. He had stated
that the middle class would gradually disappear into the ranks of the
proletariat; on the contrary, the middle class had become stronger. He
had foretold an impending economic crisis, but no such disaster occurred.
With the changes for the better in the economic, social, and political
environment, the socialist parties found themselves in something of a
dilemma. They had for all practical purposes become the political repre-
sentatives of the working class interests, and in this capacity had been
able to achieve practical gains for the worker within the framework of
the existing order. Yet as heirs of Marxist ideology, they were committed
to the overthrow of this same order by revolutionary means. This dilemma
406 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

found reflection in the works of the socialist theoreticians who succeeded

Marx.

Eduard Bernstein
Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932), a German bank clerk, was attracted
to socialism early in his career. Forced to leave Germany in 1878 after
the passage of the antisocialist laws, he became the editor of the German
socialist paper, Social Democracy, published first in Zurich and later
in London. His principal work, Evolutionary Socialism was written in
1899; the following year he returned to Germany.
The rise of the Social Democratic party to a prominent place in Ger-
man politics had brought with it a split in party ranks. One faction
believed that gradual reform through parliamentary means would never
destroy the capitalistic system; the other insisted that a socialist society
can and should be attained by constitutional methods. During the
1890’s the latter wing became increasingly critical of the party leadership
for interpreting Marx too literally. Holding that the traditional dogma
of scientific socialism was inadequate, it demanded that the party revise
the theoretical assumptions on which it was based. It pointed out that’
the Social Democratic party received considerable support from the middle
classes, and that it had to decide whether to accept the role of a responsi-
ble parliamentary party or run the risk of alienating many of its followers.
Proponents of this point of view urged that the organization strive to
achieve practical gains within the existing political framework, and that
it forget about dogma in determining its day-to-day policies. The theoreti-
cal revision of Marxism along these new lines was largely the work of
Eduard Bernstein. During his stay in England, Bernstein had come in
close contact with the Fabian leaders. He was greatly influenced by their
rejection of many phases of Marxian doctrine and by their belief in the
gradual evolution of society toward state socialism.
In his early writings Bernstein claimed to be defending Marx against
improper interpretation, but by the time he left England he had become
firmly convinced that much of the Marxian analysis of capitalism was
untrue or obsolete. ‘To use his words, the further development and elabora-
tion of the Marxist doctrine must begin with criticism of it. He holds
that Marx miscalculated when he assumed that the lot of the proletariat
would become increasingly worse until the day of revolution. On the
contrary, the class struggle is actually becoming less intense with the
 MODERN COMMUNISM 407

passage of time. The development of joint stock companies has dispersed

ownership of the means of production and has increased the number of
capitalists. With the advance in political democracy and the resulting
reversal in the state’s attitude toward trade unions and social legislation,
significant gains have been made by the worker in the political and
economic spheres. The proletariat is no longer faced by a hostile state
dominated by the capitalists. The rights of the propertied minority have
ceased to be a serious obstacle to social progress.
Bernstein’s revisionism is best expressed in a sentence from his Evolu-
tionary Socialism. “What is generally called the goal of socialism is
nothing to me, the movement everything.” He explains that he does
not mean to deny the ideals and ultimate goals of socialism, but to urge
that its program not be undermined by its sense of historical mission.
It is unimportant whether the socialist movement ever reaches its final
goal of a classless society. Socialism is daily bringing new gains to the
worker — this is the important fact to keep in mind. Referring to the
English experience, he states that no intelligent socialist has any thought
of an imminent victory for socialism by means of a violent revolution,
and none dreams of quick conquest of Parliament by a revolutionary
proletariat. Socialism must remain subordinate to the democratic process.
Class struggle may be endemic, but the socialist movement can gain
more adherents and win more benefits for the worker by adhering to
democratic methods than by preaching class war.
Bernstein deviates from Marxism in another significant and funda-
mental aspect. Condemning historical materialism and the dialectic, he
denies that socialism can be ethically justified on the basis of economic
pressures or class struggle. No matter how worthy the goals of socialism
may be, there are right and wrong ways of striving for them. An ethics
that is founded on human personality and on the moral character of
man must replace one that is based on the pressure of material forces.

Karl Kautsky
The chief defender of Marxism against the criticisms of the revisionists
was Karl Kautsky (1854-1938). Born in Prague, Kautsky lived most of
his life in Germany. In 1883 he founded the socialist paper, Dei Neue
Zeit, which became the leading theoretical organ of Marxism. From 1885
to 1890 he resided in London, in close association with Engels. For many
years, Kautsky was accepted by Lenin and other leading socialists as the
408 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

great authority on Marx. Even after his attacks against the Russian com-
munists, his early works were still cited in the Soviet Union as the best
introduction to socialism (with the qualifying remark that he had subse-
quently fallen away from true Marxism on several important points).
Kautsky accepts the Marxian tenets of class struggle, historical ma-
terialism, and the inevitability of revolution. He admits that many of
the predictions of Marx and Engels have not been fulfilled literally, but
he contends that the founders of socialism were able to determine the
direction of economic development for many decades in a degree that
the course of events has impressively justified. Rejecting the statistical
evidence of Bernstein which indicates that the possibility of class warfare
is diminishing, Kautsky endeavors to show that the conditions leading
to such a struggle are actually materializing. He argues that the joint
stock company or corporation (which Bernstein regards as a means of
diffusing wealth) is actually an effective instrument for concentrating
capital. “Through the corporation the savings of even the poor are
placed at the disposal of great capitalists, who are enabled to use those
savings as if they were a part of their great capitals. As a result the
centralizing of their own great fortunes is increased still more.’”?
In defending historical materialism, Kautsky emphasizes that individ-
ual phenomenon in history cannot always be explained in economic terms.
Nor can the entire spiritual and cultural life of a period be similarly
explained, since any given era inherits much from an earlier time. Only
the new ideas are erected on the economic conditions of the particular
period; the others must be traced back to their origins. Kautsky uses
the case of Christianity to illustrate his point. Acknowledging that Chris-
tian ideas cannot be derived from existing economic conditions, he states
that we must go back to the time when the movement first appeared
in world history as a new phenomenon. In doing so,

we must investigate its origins during the first centuries of our era
when the democracy of antiquity broke down and an all powerful
Caesarism arose. ‘lhe economic relations of the time and their con-
sequences, the impoverishment of the masses, the concentration of
wealth in a few hands, loss of population, constant civil war . . . the
cessation of all political activity among the people, for the impoverished
masses became corrupted and could be bought while the rich sunk
2 Road to Power (Chicago: Kerr & Co., 1909), p. 52.
 MODERN COMMUNISM 409

themselves in debauchery: —this was the real basis out of which

Christianity arose and makes it explicable.
Thus the Marxist proposition about the relation between the economic
substructure and the cultural and institutional superstructure is uncon-
ditionally valid only for the actually new appearance in history.
Unlike the revisionists, Kautsky believes in the revolutionary character
of the socialist parties. But as Sidney Hook points out, he is careful to
distinguish between a revolutionary and a revolution-making party.* Rev-
olutions are not made or promoted; they are the inevitable product of
history. They occur as spontaneous consequences of economic and social
processes. We know, says Kautsky, “that our goal can be attained only
through revolution. We know that it is just as little in our power to
create this revolution as it is in the power of our opponents to prevent
it.” A social revolution is a profound transformation of the entire social
structure brought about by the establishment of new methods of pro-
duction. It is not a process that occurs overnight; it may be spread over
decades. The less violent it is and the more peaceful the nature of the
forms under which it is consummated, the more successful it will be.
Kautsky is outspoken in his opposition to the Bolsheviks. He con-
sistently maintains that socialism without democracy is unthinkable.
Democracy is the shortest, surest, and least costly road to socialism, just
as it is the best instrument for the development of the political and
social prerequisites for socialism. Democracy and socialism are inex-
tricably intertwined. ‘The Russian revolution was a deviation from Marx-
ism not only because it tried to proceed faster than historical develop-
ments warranted but also because it represented a seizure of political
power by a minority. The result was frightful tyranny. Kautsky argues
that the socialist revolution should not take place until the workers
represent the majority and until they are properly educated to assume
responsible political power. Only in a democracy can these pre-condi-
tions to socialism be attained. Democracy may sometimes repress its
revolutionary thought, but it is the indispensable means for the proletariat
to obtain the ripeness which it needs for the conquest of political power
and the bringing about of the social revolution. The historical mission
3 The Materialistic Conception of History (Berlin: J. H. W. Dietz, 1927), Vol. I,
p. 819.
4 Marx and the Marxists (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1955), p. 51.
410 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

of the proletariat is a high one. Its objective is not to acquire power

in order to oppress others but to abolish class rule and bring justice
to all. The actions of the Bolsheviks did violence to these precepts.
Despite their doctrinal differences, both Kautsky and Bernstein helped
to steer the course of the German Social Democratic party into demo-
cratic and constitutional channels. After World War I, the Social Demo-
crats, together with the Catholic Center party, played a prominent role
in founding the Weimar Republic. In the first election held under the
new government, the party acquired the largest single representation in
the Reichstag. Now thoroughly committed to a revisionist program, it
was deserted at the outset by the more intransigent members who formed
the German Communist party. In the ensuing years, the Social Demo-
crats as a center group were caught between the crossfire of the extreme
right (Nazis) and the extreme left (Communists).

REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNISM

With the triumph of the Bolshevik revolution, all the doctrinal differ-
ences among the successors of Marx became largely matters of academic |
or historical interest. There was now only one official Marxian doctrine,
that laid down by the Russian Communist party. While democratic
socialist parties with Marxian leanings continued to exist in European
countries, their doctrinal foundations became secondary to their program
of activities. The socialists who rejected the revisionary approach joined
the ranks of the communist parties that were being organized under
Soviet direction.
Prior to the Revolution, Russian socialist thought had been far from
unified. Deep seated differences had divided the Russian Social Demo-
cratic party into two wings, the Bolsheviks (majority) and the Men-
sheviks (minority), the one led by Lenin, the other by L. Martov. The
split had occurred at the party Congress in 1903. The faction headed
by Lenin favored a small, undemocratic, well-disciplined organization
with membership rigidly limited to professional revolutionaries. It advo-
cated immediate steps leading toward revolution and opposed co-opera-
tion with the nonsocialist parties. The Mensheviks favored a broadly
based and democratically operated party open to any sympathizer, co-
operation with other liberal parties, and participation in parliamentary
government. They held that Russia must pass through an intermediary
 MODERN COMMUNISM 411

bourgeois stage like the rest of Europe, and that capitalism and industry
must progress much further before the time would be ripe for socialism.
The Bolsheviks had lost their narrow majority in the party long before
1917. However, their swift and incisive action in precipitating the over-
throw of the provisional government in Russia placed them in the seat
of power. Since the Mensheviks had co-operated with the provisional
government headed by Kerensky, their doom was sealed once the revolu-
tionaries were successful. Communism now entered a new stage in its
development. Political power had been seized in the name of the working
class and the dictatorship of the proletariat had been established. The
first step toward the cherished socialist dream had been achieved. The
principal architect and theoretical spokesman of the new order was
Nicolai Lenin.

LENIN

Nicolai Lenin (1870-1924) was born as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the

son of a middle class intellectual. His father was a school official, his
mother a member of the lesser gentry. All five children in the family
became revolutionaries, one of them being put to death at the age of
seventeen for conspiring against the Czar. Lenin attended the University
of Kazan but was expelled for political agitation. He then went to St.
Petersburg where he studied law and was admitted to the bar. Some
time later his propagation of Marxist doctrine led to his arrest and
deportation to Siberia for three years. During his exile there he assumed
the name of Lenin, after the River Lena located near his place of im-
prisonment. In 1900 he left Russia, spending much time in London,
Paris, and Geneva. Five years later he returned to participate in the
abortive revolution of 1905. Forced to flee in order to avoid arrest, he
spent most of the following ten years in Switzerland, devoting himself
to secret propaganda work. Early in April, 1917, he returned to Russia
with the assistance of the German government. In November of the
same year, he directed the successful uprising against the moderate
Kerensky regime that had succeeded the Czarist government only ten
months earlier.
Lenin was a man of unbounded energy, great self-confidence, and keen
intellect. His talent was practical and political rather than theoretical and
scientific. Although he was not a brilliant or original thinker, he had
5p CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

the capacity to turn Marxian theory in the direction he desired. Most

important of all, he had an amazing facility for assessing a situation, and
a remarkable sense of timing. He not only knew how to act boldly but
he also knew when to act. During the confusing summer of 1917, Lenin
alone of all the political leaders was completely confident that he knew
the course to be followed. It was this supreme self-assurance, together
with his intense determination, that finally convinced the skeptical Bol-
shevik hierarchy to follow his bold plan. During his exile abroad, Lenin
had been coeditor of the revolutionary journal Iskra, the Spark. Before
he died, he was able to enkindle the Marxian spark into a mighty flame.

Organization and Methods

Lenin spent twenty years in preparation for the time that the Bolshe-
viks would gain control of the state. He had carefully worked out the
general plans for organization and the theoretical basis for the revolution
long before the November, 1917, coup d’état. In 1902 he wrote a
pamphlet entitled What Is to Be Done, a handbook of communist or-
ganization and strategy, and in the summer of 1917 he finished his most
important work, The State and Revolution. Since his theoretical in-
terests are action-oriented, the techniques and organization of revolu-
tionary movements loom large in his thinking. All of his earlier writings
are directed toward the establishment of an organized party of the
working class based on a clear understanding of Marxist doctrine.
Like Hitler’s Mein Kampf, the 1902 pamphlet proved to be an accu-
rate blueprint of party goals, strategy, and tactics. In it Lenin declares
that no movement can endure without an organization of leaders, and
that the more widely the masses participate in the movement the more
essential it is to have such an organization. This group must consist
largely of professional revolutionaries who have been trained in the art
of combating the political police. It must be a small compact core
consisting of reliable, experienced, and hardened workers, operating
under rules of strict secrecy. Such a party obviously cannot be organized
along democratic lines as the Mensheviks insisted. “Think it over a
little,” Lenin told his fellow socialists, “and you will realize that broad
democracy in party organization amidst the darkness of the autocracy
and the domination of the gendarmes is nothing more than a useless
and harmful toy.” Conditions of this kind call for a highly disciplined
party that is hierarchical in structure and centrally controlled.
 MODERN COMMUNISM 413

Lenin has no patience with those who believe that the workers will
spontaneously become adherents to socialism through their own efforts.
The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively
by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness.
It would be foolish for the Russian Social Democratic party to sit by
and wait patiently until socialist ideas had permeated the working class.
The impetus for revolution will never come from a mass organization
which includes the lukewarm and timid; such a group inevitably spends
much of its time in debate and compromise. Leadership must be as-
sumed by a party that is the most advanced, class conscious, and revolu-
tionary part of the working class. As stated in a resolution adopted by
the Communist International in 1920, “the Communist party is the
organized political lever by means of which the more advanced part of
the working class leads all the proletarian and semi-proletarian mass in
the right direction.” Such a party knows the true interests of the worker
better than he knows it himself. If necessary, it can force him to follow
the path that leads to his true destiny.

Revolutionary Character of Communism

In addition to working out an organizational pattern and plan of action,
Lenin made three major contributions to the development of com-
munist theory. He pruned out all evolutionary tendencies in Marxism;
he put definite meaning into the expression “dictatorship of the prole-
tariat”; and he adapted Marxism to the conditions of an undeveloped
industrial society.
Lenin opens his State and Revolution with a vigorous attack on those
who seek to adulterate or disregard the revolutionary aspects of Marxian
teaching. Citing Engels’ analysis of the state as “the product of the
irreconcilability of class antagonisms,” he notes that the state is an
organ of class domination. The group which holds economic power 1s
able to become politically dominant. In this position it can use the
apparatus of state power —the bureaucracy, army, and police —to hold
down and exploit the other classes. Lenin concludes that if the oppressed
class is to gain control of the state, it can do so only by violent revolu-
tion since the exploiters will never relinquish their control peacefully.
Once capital has gained control “it establishes its power so securely,
5 The resolution is printed in Blueprint for World Conquest (Washington: Human
Events, 1946), p. 73 f.
a1 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

so firmly, that no change of persons or institutions or parties in the

bourgeois republic can shake it.” The liberation of the oppressed stratum
of society “is impossible without a violent revolution.”® The following
passage from the Theses Adopted by the Second Congress of the Third
International in 1920 is worth noting in this connection:

Only a violent defeat of the bourgeoisie, the confiscation of its

property, the annihilation of the entire bourgeois government apparatus,
from top to bottom, parliamentary, juridical, military, bureaucratic,
administrative, municipal, etc., up to the individual exile or internment
of the most stubborn and dangerous exploiters, the establishment of a
strict control over them for the repressing of all inevitable attempts at
resistance and restoration of capitalist slavery—only such measures
will be able to guarantee the complete submission of the whole class
of exploiters.
In answer to those who interpret Marx’s statement about the withering
away of the state as a negation of revolution, Lenin retorts that these
words refer to the remains of proletarian statehood after the socialist
revolution. The bourgeois state does not wither away, but is destroyed
by the proletariat in the course of the revolution. What withers away
after the uprising is the proletarian state which replaces the capitalist
state as a matter of necessity during the period of transition to a
communist society.
With respect to Marx’s belief that socialism might be peacefully
achieved in some of the more advanced industrial states, Lenin main-
tains that any such hope has been completely expelled by the rapid
growth of imperialism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. During this period the capitalistic organization of society
assumed imperialistic characteristics: monopoly capitalism within coun-
tries but bitter competition between nations for new markets and raw
materials. As control of industry passed from the hands of the pro-
ducers into those of the bankers, the era of finance capitalism arrived.
Herein lies the chief cause of modern war, for the bankers with their
high stakes in industrial expansion tend to push their governments into
dangerous foreign adventures. Under these circumstances “which have
been created in the whole world, and most of all in the most advanced,
powerful, most enlightened and free capitalist countries . . . to admit
6 State and Revolution (New York: International Publishers, 1932), p. 20.
7 Reprinted in Blueprint for World Conquest, op. cit., p. 44.
 MODERN COMMUNISM 415

the idea of a voluntary submission of the capitalists to the will of the

majority of the exploited — of a peaceful, reformist passage to socialism —
Is... a concealment of truth.”®

Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Marx and Engels were never clear as to the meaning of the dictator-
ship of the proletariat. Lenin, on the other hand, is quite precise in
interpreting this facet of Marxian doctrine. He points out that the
transition from a capitalist to a communist society is impossible without
a political transition period, and that the state in this period “can only
be the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” Once the workers
have seized control of the state, suppression is still necessary; but this
time it is “the suppression of the minority of exploiters by the majority
of the wage slaves of yesterday.” When there is suppression, there must
also be violence and “there cannot be liberty or democracy.” The pro-
letariat needs the state “not in the interest of freedom but for the pur-
pose of crushing its antagonists.”® Lenin speaks of democracy for the
vast majority of the people and exclusion from democracy of the ex-
ploiters and oppressors of the people; but the proletariat that he refers
to does not constitute a majority of the population, nor for that matter
a majority of the workers.
In the theses of the Communist International, Lenin declares that
“the dictatorship of the proletariat is the most complete realization of a
leadership over all workers and exploited . . . on the part of the only
class prepared for such a leading role by the whole history of capitalism.”
He makes it clear that this leadership cannot come from the proletarian
class as a whole. The rank and file of workers are unable to grasp the
real significance of Marxism. They have been too long exposed to bour-
geois ideas and institutions to rise up spontaneously and embrace revolu-
tionary socialism. They must undergo a period of training, indoctrination,
and reorientation under the direction of the revolutionary elite. The
leadership of the proletariat must be in effect the leadership of its most
advanced element — the best representatives of the class, perfectly con-
scious and loyal communists enlightened by the experience gained in
the stubborn revolutionary struggle. In the last analysis, the dictatorship
8 [bid., p. 44.
9 State and Revolution, op. cit., p. 73.
10 Reprinted in Blueprint for World Conquest, op. cit., p. 50.
416 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

of the proletariat means nothing else than the dictatorship of the com-
munist party.
Lenin seeks to justify this autocratic view by pointing out that the
attainment of political power by the workers does not put an end to the
class struggle. Many pitfalls remain in the way before the last remnants
of capitalism can be wiped out. The resistance of the exploiting class
will “increase tenfold after its overthrow and the dangers of counter-
revolution will be ever present. Only by having such a closely united
organization of the best part of the working class is it possible for the
party to overcome all the difficulties which confront the proletarian
dictatorship in the days following the victory.” Therefore, until proletarian
tule has been established beyond the possibility of a bourgeois restoration,
the party can have but a small minority of the workers in its ranks.
“Only when the final overthrow of the capitalist order will have become
an evident fact — only then will all or almost all the workers enter the
ranks of the communist party.”"! Until that time arrives, all individuals
must submit unquestionably to the direction and control of the prole-
tarian vanguard.
Not only does the dictatorship of the proletariat mean complete control
by a minority party, but more correctly it signifies the dictatorship of a
small group or even a single individual within that party. Lenin declares
that in order to lead the working class during the long struggle, the
Communist party must establish the strictest military discipline within
its own ranks. The victory of the workers cannot be achieved without a
severe discipline, a perfected centralization, and the fullest confidence of
all members in the leading organ of the party. Lenin characterizes the
structure of the party as one of democratic centralism: the election of
the upper party units by those immediately below, the unconditional
subordination of subordinate units to the decision of those above them,
and a strong party central organ whose decrees are binding upon all the
leaders of party life between party conventions. What he really means is
that the degree of democratic activity on the part of the membership
is completely determined by the central source. Trotsky described the
system graphically while he was still a Menshevik, noting that the
organization of the party takes the place of the party itself; the central
committee takes the place of the organization; and finally the dictator
takes the place of the central committee.
11 Ibid, p. 74.
 MODERN COMMUNISM 417.

Socialism in a Non-Industrial State

Communism achieved its first success in a country that was practically
devoid of the economic characteristics listed by Marx as preconditions to
its establishment. According to him socialism comes into being as a
result of the contradictions inherent in a capitalistic society; hence socialist
revolutions will occur first in those countries that are highly industrial-
ized. No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for
which there is room in it have developed. Yet in 1917 Russia was a
predominantly agricultural country with an industrial potential that was
still in its infancy, and with an industrial proletariat that comprised only
a small part of the population. There was still plenty of room for the
development of the productive forces within the existing social order.
How therefore could the Bolshevik revolution outrun the industrial and
economic conditions which Marx had laid down as prerequisite to the
socialist revolution?
Lenin himself in 1905 had maintained that a time of preparation must
elapse between the bourgeois and the proletarian revolutions. Even if
the overthrow of the Czarist government in March, 1917, could be
construed as the former, the socialist revolution in November of that
same year would still appear premature. Lenin, however, insists that the
precipitation of the 1917 uprising was in conformity with orthodox
Marxian doctrine. He contends that the world economy should be viewed
as a whole instead of by individual states. When this is done, it becomes
apparent that capitalism has reached the end of its development. The
successful social revolution will in all likelihood spring up first in those
regions where capitalism is weak and not firmly entrenched rather than
in the highly industrialized countries. The front of capital will be pierced
where the chain of imperialism is weakest.
Lenin borrowed his theoretical explanation of the Bolshevik revolution
from Trotsky, who as early as 1906 had written that the transfer of power
to the working class would depend more on the international situation
and the fighting preparedness of the workers than it would on the level
of the productive forces. It is possible, Trotsky stated “for the
workers to come into power in economically backward countries sooner
than in advanced countries.” Prophetically, he added that the Russian
revolution would create conditions in which power would pass into the
hands of the workers before the bourgeoisie could develop their ability
418 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

to govern.!2 The two revolutions, bourgeois and proletarian, can thus

be combined in certain circumstances.
Lenin’s rationalization of the Bolshevist seizure of political power
constitutes a gross deviation from orthodox doctrine. His attempt to
color these activities with a pseudo-Marxist gloss cannot conceal their
repudiation of the deterministic aspects of communist theory. As Lenin
admits, politics cannot but have precedence over economics. Give me
an organization of revolutionaries and “we shall overturn the whole of
Russia.” Voluntaristic man here assumes supremacy over deterministic
nature. The forces of the dialectic give way to the will of man.

The Classless Society

Despite the fact that the Russian communists have built up one of
the most powerful and all encompassing governmental structures that the
world has ever seen, Lenin and his successors have not abandoned the
Marxian theory of eventual disappearance of the state. They follow Marx
in holding that there are two stages to the attainment of the true com-
munist society. During the first or socialist stage, many of the character-
istics of the old society will remain. The means of production will become
public property but the state will continue in existence, differences in
wealth will still exist, and the individual will be paid in proportion to
the amount of work he performs. “Every member of society performing
a certain part of socially-necessary work receives a certificate from society
to the effect that he has done such and such a quantity of work. According
to this certificate he receives from the public warehouses where articles
of consumption are stored, a corresponding quantity of products. Deduct-
ing that proportion of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker,
therefore, receives from society as much as he has given it.”
It is impossible for communism to free itself entirely of all tradition
and all taint of capitalism during this initial phase. Formal equality will
be attained by the common ownership of the means of production, but
real equality —the realization of the rule “from each according to his
ability, to each according to his needs” —will take time to achieve.
People must first be educated and conditioned to accept an unselfish
social order of this kind. ‘They must be cured of their egoism and purged

12 A Review and Some Perspectives, Eng. trans. (Moscow: Communist International,

1921), pp. 35-38.
18 Lenin, The State and Revolution, op. cit., p. 76.
 MODERN COMMUNISM 419

of the vices and weaknesses that have been engendered by private owner-
ship. Only when their character has been remolded, when men become
saints, will the higher end be reached. The state will wither away com-
pletely only
when people have become so accustomed to observing the fundamental
tules of social intercourse and when their labor is so productive that
they will voluntarily work according to their ability. The narrow
horizon of bourgeois right which compels one to calculate with the
stringency of a Shylock whether he has not worked half an hour more
than another, whether he is not getting less pay than another — this
narrow horizon will then be left behind. There will then be no need
for society to regulate the quantity of products to be distributed to
each; each will take freely according to his needs."4
How long will this process take? Communist theoreticians furnish no
answer to this question. All that is certain is that the course will be long
and protracted. “But how rapidly this development will go forward, how
soon it will reach the point of breaking away from the division of labor,
of removing the antagonism between mental and physical labor, of trans-
forming work into the first necessity of life — this we do not and cannot
know’”?> Lenin even hints that this final goal may never be reached. Reply-
ing to the charge of utopianism, he retorts that “it has never entered the
head of any Socialist to promise that the highest phase of Communism
will arrive.” The great socialists “in foreseeing its arrival, presuppose not
the present productivity of labor and the present ordinary run of people.”*®
It is interesting to note that the Soviet state did attempt for a time to
enforce some equality in pay but this effort was soon abandoned. The
principle of higher pay for higher productivity and responsibility is today
accepted in the U.S.S.R. as fully as in capitalist countries. Communist
apologists now argue that those who produce more or who occupy posts
of higher responsibility have greater needs. One of them recently wrote
that Marxism is the enemy of wage leveling. All indications are that the
present wide range in compensation will continue even in a purely com-
munistic society, and that Marxian theory is gradually being reshaped
to justify such a practice.
Lenin is as vague as Marx in describing the final stage of communism.
The state will begin to wither away when capitalist resistance has been
completely destroyed and classes abolished. Political power will gradually

Pinder io0) 15 [bid., p. 79. 16 Ibid., p. 80,

420 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

become less necessary since such power is precisely the official expression
of antagonisms in bourgeois society. Once the fundamental cause of
social misconduct — the exploitation of the masses — has been removed,
the need for the subjection of one man to another will vanish, since
people will become accustomed to observing the elementary conditions
of social life without force and subordination.*’
Some antisocial behavior on the part of a few individuals will doubt-
lessly continue, but no special governmental machinery will be needed
to handle these cases. They will be taken care of by the citizen body
itself “as simply and as readily as any crowd of civilized people, even
in modern society, parts a pair of combatants or does not allow a woman
to be outraged.’’* Lenin also speaks of the eventual disappearance of the
distinction between manual and intellectual work (work with the hands
and work with the brains), and the establishment of a system in which
all can take their turn at managing and working. The mechanics for
putting into effect and administering the pure communist order, how-
ever, are matters for future determination.

STALIN

When Lenin died in 1924, a spectacular struggle for power took place
within the Communist party. The two principal contenders for the apos-
tolic succession were Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. Stalin (1879-1953),
whose real name was Dzhugashvili, was a Georgian, born in the Caucasian
town of Gori. His father was a shoemaker, his mother an illiterate washer-
woman. He became a Marxist while studying for the Orthodox priesthood
at the theological seminary in Tiflis. After his expulsion from the school,
he joined the Bolshevik wing of the Communist party. His revolutionary
activities soon brought about his arrest and deportation to Siberia. When
the Bolsheviks succeeded in taking over the government in 1917, he
became commissar of nationalities. Five years later he was elected secretary
general of the Communist party. The word “stalin” means “man of
steel,” a name Stalin began to use at the time he joined the revolutionary
movement.
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), whose original name was Lev Davidovich
Bronstein, was an early convert to Marxism. He spent most of his youth,
including a short stay in New York City, as a propagandist and agitator.
17 Ibid., p. 74. 18 Ibid., p. 75.
 MODERN COMMUNISM 421
He took a major part in the Bolshevik revolution and was named com-
missar of war. In contrast to the taciturn and dull Stalin, Trotsky both
wrote and spoke brilliantly. Lenin, during his last illness, left a “testa-
ment” in which he referred to the hatred that divided Stalin and Trotsky,
and advised that the former be dismissed as party secretary because he
was too rough and inclined to abuse power. The struggle between the two
contenders began immediately after Lenin’s death and continued without
interruption until Trotsky was finally expelled from Russia in 1929.
Stalin’s position as secretary general had enabled him to gain control of
the party machinery, and through it to oust his rival from power.
Stalin’s contribution to the theory of communism is slight. His reputa-
tion as a Marxian scholar was poor, even among his colleagues. As one
of them reminded him during a theoretical discussion, “Don’t make a
fool of yourself. Everybody knows that theory is not exactly your field.”
But while Stalin’s contributions to Marxian doctrine may not be
intellectually profound, they are of considerable importance to the de-
velopment of contemporary Russia and to world history in general. Two
of the additions or alterations which he made to the Leninist version
of Marxism are of particular significance: the doctrine of socialism in a
single country, and the justification for the continuance of the totalitarian
state even after socialism is attained.

Socialism in One Country

Lenin and Trotsky always spoke in terms of world revolution. They
considered it imperative that the Russian revolution be followed by
similar uprisings in other countries. Trotsky, for example, insisted that
socialism in Russia must fail unless it is followed by communist victories
elsewhere. In fact, one of the major justifications offered by the Bolsheviks
for seizing power in an economically backward country was the expecta-
tion that their example would spark uprisings in other more highly
industrialized states. ‘These states in turn would supply Russia with the
technical and economic assistance necessary for her survival and develop-
ment. When these revolts failed to occur, the Bolsheviks had to re-
examine their position. Should they direct their efforts toward the instiga-
tion of uprisings elsewhere and slow down socialization in their own
country? Or should they temporarily discard the idea of world revolution
and proceed to socialize the homeland fully? Trotsky insisted that the
Bolshevik program should adopt the first course. He maintained that
422 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

socialism in Russia must ultimately fail unless helped by international

revolution. Stalin, on the other hand, seeing the unlikelihood of revolution
on any notable scale in the near future, held that socialism could be
successfully established in one country even though the rest of the world
remained in the capitalist orbit.
Answering the question as to what is meant by the doctrine of a
socialist victory in a single state, Stalin explains that it refers to the
possibility of the proletariat assuming power and using that power to
build a complete socialist society in one country, with the sympathy
and support of the proletarians of other countries. The technical back-
wardness of Russia is not an insuperable obstacle to the construction of
such a society. The Soviet Union does not need the aid of the capitalist
states, only the support of communist sympathizers who will promote
Russian interests in these countries by legal or illegal means. With the
adoption of Stalin’s position, the Soviet Union became the fatherland of
the workers in all countries, and communists everywhere became its agents
or fifth columnists. In the Stalinist version of history, Russia is destined
to become the center of a new civilization, the savior of all mankind.

The State in Stalinist Theory

In 1936 Stalin proclaimed that the lower stage in the development of
communism had been successfully achieved. Production had been com-
pletely socialized, the class system abolished, and Soviet society freed
from exploitation. In a report to the Congress of the Soviets, Stalin stated
that the new constitution of 1936 was “built on the principles of fully
developed socialist democracy.” In the main, “we have already achieved
the first phase of communism, socialism.”?® A few years later, he declared
that the Soviet Union was moving toward the higher state of full com-
munism. ‘hese developments immediately raised the question: if socialism
in Russia has progressed to the point where there is no longer any
exploiting group to suppress and no class differences or antagonisms, why
is the state becoming more powerful instead of disappearing? What
reason is there for the continued existence of its coercive machinery?
And how can its failure to show any withering at all be reconciled with
communist doctrine???

19 Joseph Stalin, Selected Writings (New York: International Publishers, 1942),

p. 386.
20 See C. B. Hoover, “The Soviet State Fails to Wither,” Foreign Affairs, Oct., 1952.
 MODERN COMMUNISM 423

Stalin was sensitive to this obvious difference between Marxian theory

and Soviet practice. Addressing the 18th Party Congress, he noted that
It is sometimes asked: We have abolished the exploiting classes; there
are no longer any hostile classes in the country; there is nobody to
suppress; hence there is no more need for the state; it must die away.
Why then do we not help our socialist state to die away? Why do
we not strive to put an end to it???
Replying to these questions, he maintains that certain general propositions
of the Marxian doctrine of the state were incompletely worked out and
inadequate. One such deficiency is the failure to take into consideration
the international situation of a state which is the only one that has
established socialism. The Soviet Union finds itself in just such a position.
Surrounded by hostile noncommunist nations, it has no choice; it must
retain the apparatus of the state so long as the danger of attack by
capitalistic countries remains.
No matter how far advanced Russia is toward true communism, the
Soviet state must remain until the capitalist encirclement is liquidated
and replaced by socialist encirclement. When Engels spoke of the wither-
ing away of the state, he did not have in mind a situation in which
socialism was victorious in a single country. He proceeded “from the
assumption that socialism had already been victorious in all countries,
or in a majority of countries, more or less simultaneously.”*? Stalin goes
on to say that the state’s function of suppressing internal opposition
to communism has ceased in the Soviet Union since the exploiting class
has been abolished. But the function of defending the country from
foreign attack remains; and this task demands total mobilization and
full direction of the nation’s resources. Stalin’s addendum to communist
doctrine fails, however, to explain why such a situation requires the
continued existence of the secret police and a regime of terror, purges,
and internal suppression. If democratic states have been able to mobilize
for total war without destroying human freedom why is it not possible for
a socialist state that has abolished all internal dissension to do likewise?
Stalin’s attempt to rationalize the continued existence of the Russian
state constitutes an open repudiation of Marxist political doctrine. Marx
and his followers had looked upon the state as an instrument of exploita-
tion and as a product of class antagonisms. Stalin transforms it into an
21 Selected Writings, op. cit., p. 468.
22 Ibid., p. 471.
474 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

instrument for protecting Soviet society (now admittedly devoid of class

conflict), from capitalist aggression abroad. In his exegesis, he goes even
further toward repudiating Marxian theory by converting the proletarian
dictatorship into a more powerful system of guidance of society by the
state. In doing so he changes the state “from the Marxist image of a
class-cleft society into a symbol of class harmony; from an institution
representing the interests of a specific ruling class to one representing
the interests of society as a whole . . . and from a symbol of social
immorality and oppression into one of high ethical value.** The fact
that the Soviet state has its origin in a doctrine which tolerates political
government only temporarily because of its inherent undesirability thus
becomes one of the most fantastic contradictions in the history of political
thought.
The failure of the state to wither away has left Marxist theoreticians
with the single alternative of justifying it as the central institution of
progress and freedom. Thus the Soviet state in contemporary thought
“is venerated as a positive and constructive force whose creative mission
it is to produce the environmental influences which will spawn and
preserve the human and spiritual values of future Soviet man.”** As the
headline to a leading editorial in Izvestia on October 12, 1957 reads:
“The Socialist State-Mighty Instrument for Building Communism.” With
the adoption of this new attitude toward the state, the original reasons
for its abolition have disappeared. Stalin’s thesis that the state will wither
away once capitalistic encirclement is liquidated can no longer be taken
seriously. Perhaps as the Russian lawyer and diplomat A. Y. Vyshinsky
once remarked, the problem of the dying away of the state is a purely
theoretical problem. Modern communism intends that it shall remain
just that.

The Deification of Stalin

As Stalin consolidated his position of leadership, he completely de-
stroyed whatever degree of freedom remained in the Soviet Union. From
1930 until his death in 1953, he ruled as an absolute and ruthless dictator.
In a series of brutal purges, most of Lenin’s original colleagues were
liquidated. The long standing regulation that all party members should
master the principles of Marxism-Leninism was changed to the require-
23 V, V. Aspaturian, op. cit., p. 1032.
24 Ibid., p. 1047.
 MODERN COMMUNISM 475

ment that they simply accept these doctrines as laid down by the party
hierarchy. Critical thinking of any kind was not to be tolerated. The
will of Stalin was substituted for that of the communist party; the in-
terpretation of Marxism became the interpretation that Stalin gave to it.
After Trotsky’s expulsion from the country in 1929, Stalin began to
industrialize the Soviet Union with a speed and ruthlessness that had
no precedent. In one year, 25 million persons were forcibly shifted from
farms to industrial centers. Incentive rewards were given to skilled workers
and technicians. Any manifestations of discontent were violently crushed.
In the course of a decade, Stalin succeeded in transforming Russia from
one of the most backward states of the world into a great industrial power.
The costs in human rights and human dignity were beyond calculation.
Soviet totalitarianism demonstrates in practice a striking resemblance
to Nazism. This similarity became particularly noticeable after 1930 in
the development of a Fuehrer cult that extravagantly praised and lauded
Stalin. In one issue of Pravda, his name appeared on the front page no
less than 101 times. Even the Soviet national anthem was changed to
contain the words “Stalin brought us up in loyalty to the people. He
inspired us to great toil and acts.” And one of the leading Russian poets
wrote of him:
I would have compared him to a white mountain — but the mountain
has a summit.
I would have compared him to the depths of the sea — but the sea has
a bottom.
I would have compared him to the shining moon— but the moon
shines at midnight, not at noon.
I would have compared him to the brilliant sun, but the sun radiates
at noon, not at midnight.
Other Soviet writings which appeared just prior to Stalin’s death indi-
cated that a revision of the Marxist-Leninist views on the role of the
“sreat personality” in history were in the making.
But the dialectic moved on, and Stalin with it. After his death in
1953, no single individual emerged supreme. Control fell into the hands
of a small committee; and while jockeying for power continued, there
was a concerted effort on the part of the Soviet leaders to tear the halo
from Stalin and to denounce one-man tule. The most significant episode
in this campaign was a speech made by Nikita S. Khrushchev, the secre-
tary general of the Communist party and now Soviet premier. Denouncing
426 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

the “crimes of the Stalin era,” Khrushchev declared that Stalin’s disregard
of the principle of collective leadership and his attempts to create a
“cult of the individual” had done great harm to the Soviet Union. The
time has now arrived “to eradicate the cult of the individual as alien to
Marxism-Leninism and not consonant with the principles of party leader-
ship and the norms of party life.”?° Khrushchev, however, has evidenced
more and more the marks of a strong man despite his conspicuous disa-
vowals of individual rule. Significantly in this respect, the downgrading
of Stalin has apparently ceased, and it may be only a matter of time
before his re-enshrinement is complete. Soviet experience raises the ques-
tion whether it is possible for the collective leadership principle to work
in a monolithic and totalitarian structure.

SUMMARY
Communism today reigns supreme over a substantial portion of the globe,
encompassing within its orbit 900 million people or a third of the world’s
population. From its beginning in the center of Europe it has come to affect
in one way or another every corner of this planet and every individual on it.
No phase of human thought or action has been left untouched. States under ~
communist rule control a greater range of human activities than any before
in history, with the possible exception of the Nazi and Fascist governments.
Statesmen everywhere are acutely conscious of communist power as they
undertake to shape the foreign and domestic policies of their countries. No
social or political thinker can afford to ignore communist doctrine and its
achievements. The seed which Karl Marx planted over a century ago has
blossomed forth into a system that poses a major threat to mankind.
The efforts of communism to make reality conform to totalitarian thought
involve terror and indoctrination as well as social and institutional reorganiza-
tion. Unlike the dictators of the past who sought to preserve the status quo
to protect their own interests, twentieth-century totalitarianism aims to
destroy all traditional institutions and to replace them with a society patterned
on certain ideal blueprints. Ideology is used in the form of daily exhortation
to give meaning to the unending search for the utopian tomorrow.?° The task
of governing a people is made infinitely easier if the subjects can be induced
to accept the ideology of the rulers. The tremendous social upheaval that
was brought about by the communist revolution meant misery, hardship, and
even death for many. It is well to remember that at the same time soviet

25 The text of Khrushchev’s speech has been published in pamphlet form by

The New Leader (New York: 1956).
26 Z. Brzezinski, “Totalitarianism and Rationality,’ American Political Science
Review, Sept., 1956, p. 755.
 MODERN COMMUNISM 427
industrialization and collectivization opened up unprecedented opportunities
for many others. Those who have so profited have acquired a self-interest
in the new order that prompts close allegiance to it.
Communism preaches a classless society, yet in the process of building this
society it has created a new and powerful class of exploiters that will defend its
position with desperate tenacity. Milovan Djilas, a former communist leader
in Yugoslavia, recently wrote that communism as practiced today is actually
a new form of class society.27 The communist state while pretending to
abolish social differences must always increase them by acquiring the products
of the nation’s workshops and granting privileges to its ruling group. It must
loudly proclaim the dogma that it is fulfilling the historical mission of
liberating mankind from every misery and calamity while it acts in exactly
the opposite way. This is a class, Djilas writes, whose power over men is the
most complete known to history. It is the undemocratic control of this closely
ingrown group which is the basis of the social power of the communists. The
state owns the means of production, the party controls the state, the privileged
few run the party. It is unlikely that the new rulers will readily relinquish
their posts of great power, for they have too many vested interests to protect.
The dialectic remains, but those who pay lip service to it can indefinitely
prolong its next operation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
“The Soviet Union Since World War II,” Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, May, 1949.
Anderson, C. A., “Soviet Russia and the Nature of Society,” Southwestern
Social Science Quarterly, September, 1952.
Arnold, G. L., “Stalinism,” Political Quarterly, October-December, 1950.
Becker, F. B., “Lenin’s Application of Marx’s Theory of Revolutionary
Tactics,” American Sociological Review, June, 1937.
Black, C. E., “Marxism, Leninism and Soviet Communism,” World Politics,
April, 1957.
Bochenski, I. M., “On Soviet Philosophy,” Review of Politics, July, 1951.
Brzezinski, Z. K., The Permanent Purge (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1955).
Bullock, A., “Communism in Practice,” Speculum, October, 1946.
Crossman, Richard (ed.), The God That Failed (New York: Harper, 1949).
Einaudi, Mario, Communism in Western Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1951}.
Florinsky, Michael T., “Stalin and Marxian Theory,” Current History, Apmil,
1945).
eee C. J., and Brzezinski, Z. K., Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955).
Haimson, Leopold, The Russian Marxists and the Ongins of Bolshevism
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955).
21 The New Class (New York: F. A. Praeger, 1957).
428 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Historicus, “Stalin on Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, January, 1949.

Kelsen, Hans, The Political Theory of Bolshevism: A Critical Analysis (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1949).
Koestler, Arthur, Darkness at Noon (New York: Macmillan, 1941).
Kulski, W. W., The Soviet Regime (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press,
1957).
Leites, Nathan, A Study of Bolshevism (Glencoe: Free Press, 1954).
Moore, B. Jr., “Some Readjustments in Communist Theory: A Note on the
Relation Between Ideas and Social Change,” Journal of the History of
Ideas, October, 1945.
Page, Stanley W., Lenin and World Revolution (New York: New York
University Press, 1959).
“Russian Proletariat and World Revolution: Lenin’s View to 1914,”
American Slavic Review, February, 1951.
Plamenatz, H., “Deviations from Marxism,” Political Quarterly, January, 1950.
Selznick, P., The Organizational Weapon (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952).
Smith, D. G., “Lenin’s Imperialism: a Study in Unity of Theory and Prac-
tice,” Journal of Politics, November, 1955.
Taborsky, Edward, “The Struggle for Stalin’s Heritage,” Southwestern Social
Science Quarterly, September, 1955.
Ulam, Adam B., “The Historical Role of Marxism and the Soviet System,”
World Politics, October, 1955. ;
Vishniak, Mark, “Lenin’s Democracy, and Stalin’s,” Foreign Affairs, July,
1946.
Poa mee D., Three Who Made a Revolution (New York: Dial Press,
1948).
 Chapter XX]

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

“A sound, happy, moral civilization cannot be built up on a

basis of evil material surroundings. Poverty, disease, ignorance
and slumdom are not only inconsistent with our conviction that
there is a divine spark in every man, but they are the certain
forerunners of bitterness, strife and war. It is no use to either
our personal or our social salvation merely to profess our
Christianity and our democracy. We must employ them ruth-
lessly to create a physical human environment of justice and of
decency, in which they themselves will be able to survive and
become powerful factors for controlling the future of the
world” (Sir Stafford Cripps, Toward Christian Democracy).

IN SEEKING to differentiate among the various types of socialism, two

basic distinctions can be made: one pertaining to method; the other to
philosophical premises. The first depends on whether the brand of
socialism is evolutionary and democratic, or revolutionary and totalitarian.
If the former, it is referred to as democratic socialism; if the latter, as
communism. The second distinction rests on whether the movement is
inspired by Marxian philosophy, or by traditional and less doctrinaire
principles. Communism is always revolutionary, totalitarian, and Marxist.
Democratic socialism is evolutionary, nontotalitarian, and either Marxist
or non-Marxist. If it embraces Marxian doctrine, it is referred to as
orthodox socialism; or Marxism stripped of its revolutionary aspects.
Socialism, in the democratic sense, has no consistent or uniform
doctrinal basis. Whatever unity it possesses lies in its program of social
reconstruction rather than in its philosophical premises. The potpourri
of thought that has entered into its theoretical formulation has con-
tributed to this result. One need glance only at the diverse elements that
have helped to shape its development to realize why doctrinal consistency
is impossible. These sources range from socialists who accept dialectical
materialism but reject revolution to those who are inspired by ethical
429
430 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

idealism; from atheists and rational humanists to religiously motivated

individuals and groups.
Today, socialism generally stands for a modified program of gradually
reforming the social and economic structure of society by legal and
political means. Unlike communism which calls for total collectivism,
socialism runs the gamut from a small to a high degree of public owner-
ship. Some of its followers advocate the socialization of natural monopolies
only; others insist on the complete abolishment of the capitalistic system.
Modern socialism tends to determine on an empirical rather than a priori
basis whether, in a particular instance, it will be in the common interest
to transfer a specific industry to public ownership or control. In other
words, socialism as an inevitable and automatic need has given way to
the principle of extending state ownership only when it can be demon-
strated that definite improvements in the social order will result. As a
contemporary British socialist has observed, “the main task of socialism
today is to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of either
industrial management or the state bureaucracy — in brief, to distribute
responsibility and so to enlarge freedom of choice.”*
The beginnings of evolutionary socialism have already been observed:
in the works of the German revisionists. The present chapter is devoted
to a discussion of democratic socialist theory as it found expression in
Great Britain and the United States. For this purpose, several English
writers and one American author, Norman Thomas, will be considered.

BRITISH SOCIALISM

There have been examples of socialism since time immemorial. Com-

munal living and the rejection of private in behalf of group ownership
have appeared among various peoples and sects throughout the course
of history. Socialierm as a major political force, however, did not come
into being until the industrial revolution when it arose in the form of a
protest movement. As a political philosophy it developed in opposition
to a capitalistic economic system with its supporting credo of liberalism.
Nineteenth-century capitalism was brutally exploitive and ruthlessly com-
petitive. The social discontent and unrest that it engendered were reflected
in the utopian socialist school and later in Marxism.
1R. H. S. Crossman, “Towards a Philosophy of Socialism,” in New Fabian Essays
(London; Turnstile Press, 1952), p. 27.
 DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM 431

Great Britain was the first to precipitate the industrial revolution; it

was also among the first to develop socialist ideas. As early as 1799,
Robert Owen began his experiments with model communities, and there
were strong socialist overtones to the Chartist movement of the early
nineteenth century. From the start, British socialist ideas were couched
in democratic terms as the character of English political life demanded.
Orthodox Marxism, even when divested of its revolutionary tenets, found
little reception. England’s economic pre-eminence during most of the
nineteenth century discouraged the development of socialism. Until the
closing decades of the century, Great Britain enjoyed a phenomenal
growth of trade and commerce and an unrivaled position as the workshop
of the world. The belief in free competition as the regulator of economic
relations reigned supreme. From 1875 on, the luster of liberalism gradually
dimmed as American and German competition began to cut inroads
into British trade and as depressions started to come with irritating
regularity. Up to this time, labor and the trade unions had generally
supported the Liberal party; but with heavy increases in unemployment,
the workers became disenchanted with the party and its policies.
By the early 1880’s the liberal-labor alliance began to show signs of
disintegration. The socialists and some union leaders were now urging
that labor pursue its own independent political course. In 1885 the Social
Democratic Federation was founded on Marxian principles, and in 1892 the
Independent Labour party was created as a predominantly working class
body. The latter was designed to detach the trade unions from liberalism
and to establish an independent political party on a class basis. Neither
group succeeded in winning over the bulk of labor. It was not until 1906
that the various movements for labor’s political independence culminated
in the founding of the British Labour party.

Fabian Socialism
While the events noted above were taking place, a collateral movement
of considerable importance to the theoretical development of democratic
socialism was beginning to win recognition. In 1884 the Fabian society
was founded by a group of young middle class intellectuals who had
broken away from the Fellowship of the New Life (a small association
that had stressed ethical reform and utopian community-making rather
than political action). The new society adopted the name Fabian after
Fabius Cunctator, the Roman general who had exhausted Hannibal by
432 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

employing a series of delaying tactics. The organization attracted among

its early members George Bernard Shaw and Sidney Webb. Shaw at
the time was an obscure journalist and Webb a minor clerk in the
colonial office. Under their guidance, the Fabians endeavored to do for
British socialism what the philosophical radicals, with Bentham and Mill
at their head, had previously done for British liberalism.’
The society became definitely committed to socialism with the adoption
of its Basis or statement of policy in 1887. This document opens with
the announcement, “The Fabian Society consists of socialists. It therefore
aims at the reorganization of society by the emancipation of land and
industrial capital from individual and class ownership and the vesting of
them in the community for the general benefit.” The Basis ends with
the declaration that Fabians seek to achieve their objectives “by the general
dissemination of knowledge as to the relation between the individual and
society in its economic, ethical, and political aspects.”* Later the Basis
was replaced by a simple expression of socialist faith which states that
the organization “aims at the establishment of a Society in which equality
of opportunity will be assured, and the economic power and privileges of
individuals and classes abolished through the collective ownership and.
democratic control of the economic resources of the community. It seeks
to secure these ends by the methods of political democracy.’”*
There was no complete unity of thought among the early Fabians
except in their opposition to capitalism and in their insistence on the
use of evolutionary, peaceful, and democratic means. Some wanted full
nationalization, others objected to giving the state such vast powers;
some wanted the association transformed into an independent socialist
party, others insisted that it was organized for thought and discussion
and not for electoral action; some called for closer identification with
the Labour party, others believed that such identification would destroy
the society’s role as an unfettered intellectual force.
For the most part, the Fabians accept the Marxian belief in the in-
evitability of socialism. Their interpretation of history is essentially eco-
nomic, laying considerable stress on the tendency toward the concentra-
tion of economic power. Yet few of them agree with Marx’s doctrine
7M, Beer, A History of British Socialism (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1921), Vol.
ONG in G. D. H. Cole, A History of Socialist Thought (London: Macmillan,
1956), Vol. III, Part 1, p. 125.
4 Ibid., p. 127.
 DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM A393

that social revolution will be brought about by the increasing misery

of the working class. Webb holds a theory of continuity of develop-
ment from capitalism to socialism but he does not believe that this
development is dependent upon a progressive deterioration of the worker’s
position. He regards the social reforms which are improving the lot
of the worker as the beginnings of socialism within the framework of
capitalistic society, and he argues that these developments will ultimately
lead to public ownership.
The Fabians reject entirely the Marxian concept of class warfare as
the instrument of change. Socialism is destined to come into being as
the culmination of an evolutionary and natural development in which
capitalism will be progressively modified by democratic means. As a
community comes to understand that the competitive system assures
the happiness and comfort of the few at the expense of the many, it
will dispense with private landlords and capitalists. It will also realize
that nothing short of common ownership of the means of production
can guarantee social justice in human society. The Fabians believe that
if the desirability and advantages of socialism are brought home to the
people, victory will be inevitable.
Neither Webb nor his colleagues have any illusions about a socialist
utopia in which all strife is abolished and each worker gives according
to his ability while receiving according to his need. They oppose all
pretensions to hamper socialization with schemes for equal wages, equal
hours of work, or equal authority. Even after socialism is fully established,
the state will remain in existence and each individual will tend to be
rewarded in proportion to his capacity and service.
As understood by the early Fabians, socialism does not necessarily
mean the nationalization of all means of production under state control.
The Webbs, for example, continually stress the need for developing
municipal as against national enterprises to the fullest possible extent.
They anticipate that a large number of industries will gradually fall
into the hands of local and regional rather than national bodies. There
are certain industries and services, such as the railroads and coal mines,
which must be operated as national monopolies. The remainder can be
taken over by local government units —the municipality or county—
or when these are inadequate, by regional public authorities created for
this purpose. Most Fabians feel that Great Britain possesses the neces-
sary governmental machinery to carry out socialist measures and that no
434 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

radical transformation in its political organization or structure is called

for. The problem, as they visualize it, lies in making proper use of this
machinery — from the parish council to the central government —in a
manner that will be conducive to the well-being of the whole citizen
body. They have no dogmatic preference for complete state socialization,
but are eager to explore other avenues and to leave as large a field as
possible for local public or even private co-operative enterprise.
G. D. H. Cole, a prominent British socialist and political philosopher,
sums up Fabian social and political theory in the following perceptive
passage:
It involved, fundamentally, an identification of Socialism with collec-
tive control and planning under the auspices of a democratic parlia-
mentary system. It brought together into a single doctrine the political
tendency toward the control of society by a government responsible
to a democratic electorate and the economic tendency towards the
centralized planning of production, distribution and exchange; and
it welcomed these two tendencies as flowing together towards an
outcome which could be best described as Socialism.®
The Fabians have exerted strong influence on British political thought
and practice. They were successful in building a bridge between the
socialists and the trade unionists and in preparing the public mind for
the acceptance of socialist reforms. As Clement Attlee in the preface to
the New Fabian Essays observes, “The British Labour and Socialist
movement has to a large extent lived on the thinking of the Fabian
essayists and their successors.”® Similarly, G. D. H. Cole refers to the
Labour party as a “larger reincarnation of Fabianism.”? When Labour took
over the Fabian program, the raison d’étre for the society’s role as an
activist group came to an end. The organization still remains in existence
but it now functions largely as a home for intellectual discussion, not
electoral action.

Guild Socialism
By 1910 some of the Fabians had become dissatisfied with the society’s
stand on state centralization. Fearing the creation of an industrial bureauc-
5 Ibid., p. 115. The present treatment of Fabian thought draws heavily on Mr.
Cole’s many writings.
6 Op. cit., p. vii.
7 Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan Co., 1931), Vol.
VI, p. 49.
 DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM 435

tracy, they advocated a form of socialism that emphasized economic man-

agement through worker-controlled guilds or associations. In formalizing
their position they stressed the importance of two factors: industrial self-
government and functional democracy. Agreeing with other socialists that
the means of production should be communally owned, they favored
worker control as opposed to state management. The chief theoretician
of the new group was G. D. H. Cole. When his efforts to channel Fabian
policy in the direction of guild socialism proved unsuccessful, he and
his supporters withdrew from the society to form the National Guilds
League.
Guild socialism views society as an aggregation of associations repre-
senting the various interests of the individual. Not only is man “a citizen
or subject of his State and of the various local governing authorities
within it; he is also related to the social order through many other volun-
tary or involuntary associations and institutions.’® Social conflict is
inevitable so long as these groups are organized as conflicting units,
each concerned with securing as many benefits as possible for its mem-
bers. To avoid this difficulty, society must be structured on the basis
of self-governing organizations of mutually dependent people organized
to discharge a particular function. Each guild will include in its mem-
bership all those employed in a specific industry or profession — from the
directors and general manager to the porters and office boys, from the
scientists and technicians to the white collar workers and the unskilled
laborers.
In the guild plan of social reconstruction, each association will be
completely self-governed by democratic means. Co-ordination among
groups will be accomplished not by the state but by a joint council
or congress of representatives from each major functional organization.
For real democracy is to be found “not in a single omnipotent assembly
but in a system of co-ordinated functional representative bodies.” ‘The
co-ordinating body will be essentially a court of appeals. It will not
normally initiate but only decide. “It is not so much a legislature as
a constitutional judiciary or democratic supreme court of functional
equity.”®
Guild socialism rejects the commonly accepted dogma of state sover-
eignty and substitutes for it a doctrine of political pluralism based on

8G. D. H. Cole, Social Theory (London: Methuen & Co., 1921), p. 4.

9 Tbid., p. 137.
436 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

the concept of function or occupation. Under this doctrine ultimate

authority in the community is divided among a number of functional
bodies. Although this approach involves a challenge to the prevalent
theory of representative government, it recognizes that no man can
truly represent other men. All that he can do is to act as the repre-
sentative of common purposes which he shares with others. “Accordingly,
all true representation must be functional; and there can be no single
authority representing all the people in all their purposes.’’°
Man as an individual is never represented; only certain purposes com-
mon to groups of men can be achieved by lawmaking agencies. Any
theory of representation which is based upon the idea that individuals
can be represented as wholes is false. One of the major theoretical attrac-
tions of functional representation is that it makes no such claim. “It
does not profess to be able to substitute the will of one man for the
will of many. It merely provides a basis whereby, when the individual
has made up his mind that a certain object is desirable, he can co-
operate with his fellows in taking the course of action necessary for
its attainment.”
According to guild socialism, true democracy is not found in a single
omnicompetent representative assembly, such as the legislative organ of a
state, but in a system of co-ordinated functional bodies. Since an in-
dividual has a variety of interests in addition to his means of livelihood,
he may belong to several different groups: social, cultural, consumer,
and the like. In a functional democracy he will have the opportunity of
becoming a member of every association with which his personality or
circumstances cause him to be concerned. It is the essence of a genuine
democratic system that “a man should count as many times over as
there are functions in which he is interested. To count once is to count
about nothing in particular; what men want is to count on the particular
issues in which they are interested. Instead of one man, one vote, we
must say: one man as many votes as interests, but only one vote in
relation to each interest.”??
How does the state fit into the theory of the guild socialists? On this
point there is no general agreement among members of the group. Some
believe that the state can be reformed to serve as the co-ordinating instru-

10 G. D. H. Cole, A History of Socialist Thought, op. cit., p. 247.

11 G, D. H. Cole, Social Theory, op. cit., pp. 106-107.
12 [bid., p. 115.
 DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM 437

ment in society. Others maintain that political government should be

abolished and its place taken by a co-ordinating body of functional organi-
zations. G. D. H. Cole at first took the latter position. He indicated that
a joint council of representative groups should replace the state. This
agency would have the power of coercion and control over the whole
law enforcement apparatus. Cole later abandoned his belief that political
authority could be dispensed with completely. He then became willing
to grant policy control to the state in matters that pertain to the entire
community.
The general tendency of guild socialism is to view the state as one of
many functional organizations standing on a par with but not superior
to any of the other associations. Yet supporters of this doctrine find it
extremely difficult to get away from the need for centralized political
control. When they set forth their abstract theory, they deny state
sovereignty; but when they attempt to devise specific institutional ar-
rangements for the operation of the community, they find it necessary
to assign final and supreme power to some agency. They are in definite
agreement, however, that under no circumstances should representation
on this governing body be based on population and geography, as is the
common practice in the modern democratic state. Only function — voca-
tion, occupation, interest
— should constitute the basis for selecting
representatives.
Guild socialism did not enjoy the same popularity as Fabianism, prob-
ably because it remained in high intellectual altitudes with little refer-
ence to the everyday course of events. At the peak of its influence it
had a membership of no more than 500. There were, moreover, differ-
ences of emphasis and doctrine among the members of the group that
weakened its internal unity. The protagonists of the various points of
view finally came to blows in the period following World War I, and
shortly thereafter the whole movement broke up. Some of the guild
socialists, including Cole, subsequently rejoined the Fabian society.

British Labour Party

The British Labour party grew out of a number of separate movements
that came together at the close of the nineteenth century. In 1900
delegates representing trade unions and socialist organizations met in
London for the purpose of establishing “a distinct labour group in Par-
liament.” The conference elected a Labour Representative Committee
438 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

(L.R.C.) consisting of representatives from the various participating

organizations. Although not a political party in the strict sense of the
term, the committee constituted a meeting ground for delegates from
autonomous groups that were willing to co-operate in promoting labor
legislation. The alliance scored its first notable success in 1906 when
twenty-nine of its candidates won seats in Parliament. In that same year
the L.R.C. became officially known as the Labour party.
The motivating force of the new party was not so much socialist
ideas as a desire for independent working class representation. For some
time after its formation the party remained uncommitted to socialism,
despite the efforts of its socialist members. The influential trade unions
were too permeated with liberalist principles to succumb easily to a
new doctrine. They were also suspicious of what seemed to them a
theory of economic determinism. However, when the hopes of the Liberal
party were shattered by the war, Labour’s adoption of socialism became
inevitable. Fabian efforts to spread their teachings within the party had
been highly successful. Among other things, they paved the way for
Webb to gain inclusion of the principle of common ownership in the
party’s new constitution of 1918. The acceptance of socialism was dictated
more by circumstances than by any doctrinaire beliefs. Even though the
party committed itself to public ownership of the means of production,
it remained permeated with working class theories and assumptions.
Lord Lindsay, a prominent British political philosopher, in explaining
the development of labor as a political and social force, observes that
“what has produced the Labour government is the gradual conversion
of the working-class movement to the view that its ideals could not be
attained without labour being in office, and without something which,
without making very clear to itself what socialism meant, it called
socialism.”18
The goal of the Labour party is defined by its constitution in these
terms: “to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of
their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be
possible, upon the basis of common ownership of the means of pro-
duction, distribution, and exchange, and the best obtainable system of
popular administration and control of each industry or service.”** The
Roe: Northrop, ed. Ideological Differences and World Order (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1949), p. 252.
14 Quoted in R. T. McKenzie, British Political Parties (London: Heinemann,
HOS ios GID
 DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM 439

party recognizes that wide disparities of wealth must be abolished and

each individual assured of a reasonable standard of living. It emphasizes
that these objectives do not mean equal incomes for everyone. What is
important is that those who receive the lowest salaries should have enough
to enjoy with the others “the ordinary forms of social life.”
Clement Attlee, British prime minister from 1945 until Labour’s
defeat by the Conservatives in the general elections of 1951, is repre-
sentative of the large center or moderate faction of the party. His writings
are of interest to those who desire an understanding both of the theoreti-
cal and activist-oriented aspects of English socialism. Coming from a
well-to-do family and educated at Oxford, Attlee typifies the intellectual
leadership (or the union between “egghead” and worker) that has
characterized the labor movement. In his book The Labour Party in
Perspective, written before Labour had succeeded in gaining political
control, he points out that the party is an expression of the socialist
movement adapted to British conditions. ‘The dominant issue of the
nineteenth century was political liberty; that of the twentieth is eco-
nomic freedom and social equality. Political liberty without economic
liberty has little meaning. The Liberals failed to see that the
industrial revolution made it impossible for the individual to achieve
the latter under a capitalistic system. Only by the collective control of
the great forces released by modern science can economic freedom be
assured to the individual.
Distinguishing the socialist movement in Great Britain from that
on the Continent, Attlee points out that the number of English socialists
who accept Marxism as a creed has always been small. He acknowledges
that British socialism has recognized the conflict between classes as an
historical fact, but he denies that it has adopted the theory of class
warfare. It is neither Marxian nor revolutionary; it accepts neither his-
torical materialism nor economic determinism. Unlike communism or
orthodox socialism, Labour party doctrine has never been narrow and
dogmatic. ‘The movement has always comprised people of various out-
looks, and the natural British tendency to heresy and discontent has
prevented the formation of a code of rigid socialist orthodoxy. Similarly,
the movement has always been practical. It has never consisted of a body
of theorists or of revolutionaries who were so absorbed in utopian dreams
that they were unwilling to deal with the actualities of everyday life.
British socialists from the first have participated whenever possible
440 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

in the responsibilities of government. They have co-operated with other

groups and other parties in the attainment of good government and
social goals. The Labour party, Attlee reiterates, has deliberately adopted
the method of constitutional action and has rejected the tactics of rev-
olution. If it cannot obtain a majority, it must as a minority accept the
will of the majority. It may seek to influence that majority and those
to whom it has entrusted power by every lawful means, but to try to
enforce its will on a majority by violence is contrary to its democratic
faith. If socialism is to be introduced into society, this introduction must
be by peaceful and constitutional methods. In Lord Lindsay’s words,
“the faith of the Labour party shows itself in certain quite simple ways:
in its insistence on constitutional methods, its refutation of totalitarianism,
its dislike of Communism and the Communist party just because of Com-
munist disregard of constitutional and democratic procedure and of hu-
man good faith.”*
There are strong religious overtones to British socialism. Commenting
on the factors that have inspired many to enter the socialist ranks in
England, Attlee maintains that first place must be given to religion. He
claims that in no other socialist movement has Christian thought had
such a powerful leavening effect. The same emphasis on the religious
foundations of socialism is given by Sir Stafford Cripps, who served as
Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1947 to 1950. Cripps declares that
there are two tasks which confront us as human beings: “First, so to
conduct ourselves as individual Christians that, in spite of the difficulties
of our surroundings, we may work towards the establishment of God’s
Kingdom here on earth; and second, so to influence and change our
social, economic and political environment as to encourage both our-
selves and others to take the Christian way of life.’2¢
Prior to World War II the Labour party had gained control of the
government twice, in 1924 and 1929, but each time it had to rely on
the support of the Liberals to give it a majority. In the general elec-
tions of 1945 it secured an undisputed majority (393 out of the 640
seats in the House of Commons) and hence for the first time was in
a position to put its program into effect. It immediately began to bring
under public ownership or direct public control about twenty per cent
of the economy. The coal mines, telephones, Bank of England, electric

15 Ideological Differences and World Order, op. cit., p. 250.

16 Towards Christian Democracy (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946), p. 16.
 DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM 441

power, gas, railroads and other transportation facilities, and some parts
of the steel industry were nationalized in rapid order. Operation of these
businesses was entrusted to public corporations standing outside the
regular ministerial structure. Each corporation was made responsible to
a supervisory board of governors appointed by the appropriate ministry.
Nationalization of the basic industries and services has been accom-
panied by a broad program of social security for everyone “from the
cradle to the grave.” ‘The program is designed to guarantee a national
minimum standard of living for every individual in Great Britain. The
system provides comprehensive protection against sickness, unemploy-
ment, and old age. Approximately one half the cost of this coverage is
met through direct contributions, similar to the Old Age and Survivors
Insurance (social security) that American workers pay, and the other
half is financed through general taxation.
The Labour party today feels that the objective of social services, to
provide an essential cushion of security against hardship due to unavoid-
able ill-fortune, has now been reached. It also feels that the redistribution
of taxable income has gone so far that any large-scale increase of social
services would have to be paid for not by the rich but by the broad
mass of the population.’’ There is also evidence of a growing awareness
in England that the desired social order will not automatically result
from nationalization and the planned manipulation of the economy.
Many observers feel that socialism has cured the worst abuses of capi-
talistic society, but that it has not given the worker a new status or a
sense of participation in a joint endeavor. While nationalization makes
the management of industry responsible to the community as a whole
rather than to a group of stockholders, it does not necessarily solve the
problem of internal administration. A sharp distinction between the
managers and the workers still remains under public ownership. The fact
that strikes continue to occur in the nationalized industries of Great
Britain indicates that the problem of industrial democracy has not been
completely solved nor has the basic distinction between management and
worker been obliterated.

AMERICAN SOCIALISM
Organized socialism has made little headway in the United States,
17 See in this connection New Fabian Essays, op. cit., p. 63 ff.
442 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

perhaps far less than in any other western democracy. The reasons for
this lack of enthusiasm are many. The American economic system under
capitalism has been able to provide an exceptionally high standard of
living. It has given rise to a strong middle class and to wide shareholding
of the nation’s wealth. The rapid expansion of the country and its seem-
ingly unlimited opportunities created a kind of Horatio Alger complex
among the masses during the nineteenth century. From rags to riches
became a cherished dream of the struggling worker. The chance to mse
out of class caused each one to look upon himself as a future capitalist
or captain of industry. Even when disillusionment came in the latter
part of the century, relatively few American thinkers, reformers, or work-
ers called for the abolishment of capitalism. Instead, they demonstrated
a remarkable loyalty to the traditional economic system.
The critics who have made the most impression on the American
voters are those who have advocated partial reforms directed against
particular abuses in the existing system. Although socialism has been
rejected, great progress has been made in achieving social, economic, and
political reforms. The United States of today is not a nation of unmiti-
gated laissez-faire, unbridled competition, robber barons, and social in-
sensitivity — traits that it demonstrated at times during the past.
Socialism of all types — utopian, Marxist, and democratic — has played
a part in shaping the critical tradition in the United States. Its influence
cannot be measured in terms of the sparse popular support that it has
been able to win. By focusing attention on the ills and abuses of modern
capitalism, the American socialists have helped to stimulate and fashion
many of the reforms that have been incorporated into the nation’s eco-
nomic, social, and political system.

Early Socialist Movements

During its first phases, American socialism was a humanitarian or
ethical rather than a political movement. It made no attempt to analyze
the processes of production and exchange but devoted itself to formulat-
ing schemes of social organization. This type of socialism, utopian in
character, deeply influenced many of the New England transcendentalists
and led to such experiments as Brook Farm. Stressing the inherent good-
ness of human nature and the need to abolish unjust social institutions,
it urged the establishment of small co-operative communities as a sub-
stitute for competitive capitalism. Utopian literature appeared sporadically
 DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM 443

in the United States throughout the nineteenth century, culminating

in Edward Bellamy’s literary fantasy, Looking Backward, published in
1887.
The hero of the story, Julian West of Boston, falls asleep on Decora-
tion Day 1887 and awakens in the year 2000 to discover that his native
city has been completely transformed into the millennium. Instead of
poverty, crime, and selfish competition, West finds beauty, peace, and
harmony existing in a co-operative system of production that ensures
equality for every man. The state directs all activities of production
and distribution, and each individual receives an income generous enough
to provide all the needs of life. Coming as it did during a period of
social unrest, Looking Backward attracted immediate attention. Over a
million copies were sold and its author was hailed as the prophet of
the new century. As a popular movement, however, Bellamyism was a
failure; it never achieved political importance and was swallowed up
by the populist crusade of the 1890's.
The first signs of scientific socialism in the United States appeared
shortly after the Civil War. In 1877 the Socialist Labor party, based
on Marxian principles, was organized. Daniel De Leon (1852-1914), a
lecturer on international relations at Columbia University, became the
party’s most important leader and theoretician. An orthodox Marxist,
De Leon argued that attempts to remedy the defects of capitalism are
futile. He urged that the political state be replaced by an industrial
commonwealth administered by worker representatives. Under his lead-
ership, the Socialist Labor party sought to win the support of the unions
and to convince them that socialist principles should be a condition of
membership. For De Leon the road to power demands the organiza-
tion of a single federation of unions. Once the workers are properly
organized, they can compel the capitalist class to surrender power by
mere threat of a general strike. The Socialist Labor party, however, had
little appeal for the worker; at no time was it able to attract more than
several thousand members.
While De Leon was trying unsuccessfully to woo the unions, a new
socialist movement developed under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs
(1855-1926) who began his career as a locomotive fireman. Influenced
by his reading of Laurence Gronlund,’* Debs was instrumental in giving

18In his The Cooperative Commonwealth published in 1884, Gronlund undertook

to explain German revisionist socialism to an American audience.
4at CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

a Fabian cast to American socialism. He took a leading part in forming

the Socialist party in 1901, and was its presidential candidate five times.
In the election of 1912 he polled almost 900,000 votes, the largest num-
ber that has ever been received by a socialist candidate in the United
States. Under his leadership the party favored social legislation, the right
of labor to organize, and the protection of civil liberties. While Debs
accepted the need for replacing the capitalistic system, he called upon
the party to support fully all efforts to better the condition of the
working class. And as an evolutionary socialist, he urged the election of
party members to political office in order to facilitate the transition to
a socialist society.

Norman Thomas
When Debs died, the leadership of the Socialist party fell to Norman
Thomas, a former Presbyterian minister and a brilliant journalist. Thomas
rejects the dialectic as an interpretation of history and denies the doc-
trine of class struggle although he recognizes that men act to a large
extent on lines determined by the economic group to which they belong.
He believes that there is more hope of achieving democratic control of
the state than there is for supplanting or outgrowing it. He is convinced
that the free enterprise system is fatally defective and that adequate con-
trol of the economy without social ownership or a philosophy of co-
operation is not possible.
In A Socialist’s Faith, published in 1951, ‘Thomas outlines his position
on nationalization or public ownership.
Sound democratic socialism will seek public ownership under demo-
cratic control of the commanding heights of the modern economic
order, It is neither necessary nor desirable, so long as there is unity
of purpose in the main direction of our economy, that there should
be a monolithic type of ownership and control. There is a wholesome
stimulus in competition, or emulation, and in diversity of functional
apparatus. There is large room for private ownership when the owners
are serving a useful function, provided that their ownership does not
give them undue control over our social life. Public ownership need
not be of one type. Generally speaking, the state should be the agency
of ownership, and public corporations or authorities of somewhat
various types its administrators. But there will be a large place for
cooperatives, especially consumers’ cooperatives, in the good society.’
19 A Socialist’s Faith (New York: Norton & Co., 1951), p. 186.
 DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM 445

Defining what he means by the “commanding heights” of the eco-

nomic order, ‘Thomas lists three categories: natural resources, the banking
system, and great monopolies. Family farming and ownership of land
should be transformed into agricultural collectives. Title to all mineral
wealth and to large stands of forest should be vested in the government
as the agent of society. The government should exercise much greater
control over banks, credit, and investments. Finally, there should be
direct public ownership and operation of public utilities and the basic
industries such as coal and steel. The owners should be compensated
for any industry or property taken over by the government. The national-
ized industries would be administered by public agencies similar to the
Tennessee Valley Authority.
Thomas has no illusions about the Marxian desideratum, “from each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” He cannot
imagine, he states, a fully productive economy in which men may be
induced to work without a definite material reward that is subject to
variation in order to stimulate good work. He knows of no desirable
substitute presently available for the wage system. All that is required
is the imposition of certain reasonable restrictions by the state. “While
men do not work solely for material gain, least of all unrestricted gain
or profit, so long as there is a floor under wages, a deliberate assurance
that no wages will be so low as to make a decent life impossible, and
a ceiling on fantastic salaries, variations in wages even if they do not
perfectly conform to some abstract standard of justice will be a legitimate
and valuable element in getting the world’s work done.””°
Like Clement Attlee, Norman Thomas is representative of modern
democratic socialism. He stands for a moderate program of gradually
changing the existing society into a more co-operative commonwealth
by legal and political means. In contrast to Marxism, his socialism is
experimental rather than rigidly doctrinaire; it makes no pretense of
presenting a complete philosophy of the universe. It is not an end
but a tool designed to achieve the common good. Exhibiting strong
ethical overtones, it demonstrates a positive regard for the individual
by seeking social and economic arrangements which emphasize the para-
mount position of human dignity. Calling for planning but not regi-
mentation, Thomas would permit a wide private sector of the economy
to exist side by side with public ownership. His remarks in this con-
20 Ibid., p. 205.
446 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

nection are significant: “I have changed somewhat my opinion of the

amount of social ownership that is desirable. I have to recognize that
of itself it does not mechanically answer our economic problems and
that democratic controls will not come automatically but must be
thought out. Yet substantial social ownership in the socialist tradition
is basic to a happy solution of problems of production and distribution.”**

SUMMARY
Democratic socialism plays an important role in the national political life
of many western states including Great Britain, Scandinavia, and the Low
countries. The socialism that has prevailed in the West has generally been
the moderate, non-Marxist, nondoctrinaire type. It has succeeded as a move-
ment for economic and social reform rather than as a political-ideological
weltanschauung. In several respects modern democratic socialism resembles a
reformed capitalism. The need for economic planning and public control of
some sort is universally recognized today as vast industrial and technological
developments continue to generate changes in the social order. The basic
dispute between democratic socialists and nonsocialists is not so much over
the issue of control as it is over the extent and kind of regulation that should
be exercised. ;
Modern democratic socialism calls for a greater degree of social planning,
control over the economy, and communal ownership than traditional prac-
tices. Yet the basic principle that it employs in making its decisions in each
case is analogous to that of subsidiarity. Democratic socialists support the
growth and development of lesser associations. They feel that the political
community will be healthier when individuals are not lost in one vast society
but operate through groups to which they belong as producers and consumers.
The state should not be all-inclusive; government should assume only those
functions that are necessary to promote the well-being of the community and
to secure an equitable and just social order. Clement Attlee warns that in
the organization of the socialist state, the danger of overcentralization must
be avoided. A socialist government should plan for the whole country but
should leave considerable room for local application within this over-all
blueprint. A healthy socialist state must have wide regional decentralization
and must make a deliberate effort to allow each area to express the individuality
of its people.
Socialist theory has no unified doctrine as to the nature of the civil
society. While orthodox socialists hold that the state is merely a tool in the
hands of the dominant class, many democratic socialists subscribe to the
traditional organic view. Norman Thomas, for example, writes that the state
developed “in answer to certain obvious needs of men who felt themselves
bound by some consciousness of kind.” The supreme necessity for successful
21 Ibid., pp. 3-4.
 DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM 447
democracy must be loyalty to a society “which seeks consciously to function
as a fellowship of free men.’”22 The major elements of the classic conception
of the state’s nature are here present: the sociability of man, the natural
character of political society, and the community of mind and will that unites
individuals in a common purpose.
Some socialists regard democracy as the form of government most suitable
to man’s nature; others consider it the most expedient device for assuring
the attainment of the general welfare. All of them maintain that socialism
is the logical extension of democracy because of its insistence on the pre-
dominant status of man. As Norman Thomas asserts, for those who are con-
cerned with the dignity of the individual, “there is only one standard by
which to judge a given society and that is the degree to which it approaches
the ideal of a fellowship of free men. Unless one can believe in the prac-
ticability of some sort of anarchy, or find evidence that there exists a superior
and recognizable governing caste to which men should by nature cheerfully
submit, there is no approach to a good society save by democracy. The
alternative is tyranny.”2%
Has modern socialism lost ‘its relevancy as a political philosophy? Democratic
socialists everywhere are pondering this question as the New Fabian Essays
clearly reveal. The situation that confronts socialism today is radically different
from that at the turn of the century when the traditional Christian ethic
had been virtually sabotaged by modern industrialism. Socialism had then
sought to redeem that ethic in the practical order by championing the cause
of the exploited and suppressed. While the movement has been successful in
its programmatic efforts during the last several decades, its underlying theo-
retical premise — the incompatibility of capitalism with the general good—
has become more and more suspect. Twentieth-century capitalism has demon-
strated an amazing facility for reform, while socialism in practice has evidenced
signs of weakness. Not only has the lot of the worker in a competitive
economy steadily improved but large scale collectivism has failed to solve
the management-worker problem. There is also empirical evidence that con-
trolled capitalism can be more fruitful under certain circumstances than pure
socialism. Even the socialists now speak in terms of a mixed economy, a
private and public sector, rather than in terms of complete nationalization.
There are many, including some of its followers, who feel that socialism
has outlived its usefulness. Whether this is true or not, democratic socialism
has played an important and crucial role in modern western history. It has
helped to provide the conscience, the program, and the impetus that have
changed the character of contemporary industrialism. It has rendered major
assistance in holding the line against communism in many of the western
European countries; and it has been a strong defender of human rights. If
socialist criticism of the social and economic order no longer seems to fit well,
it is perhaps because many of its criticisms have resulted in ameliorative action.

22 [bid., p. 154. 23 Ibid., p. 146.

448 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blum, Leon, For All Mankind (New York: Viking Press, 1946).
Buber, Martin, Paths in Utopia (New York: Macmillan, 1950).
Clarkson, Jesse D., “The Background of Fabian Theory,” Journal of Economic
History, Fall, 1953.
Cole, G. D. H., Socialism in Evolution (London: Penguin Books, 1938).
Cole, Margaret, “The Fabian Society,” Political Quarterly, July-September,
1944,
Davies, Ernest, National Enterprise: The Development of the Public Corpora-
tion (London: V. Gollancz, 1946).
Durbin, Evan F. M., The Politics of Democratic Socialism (London: G.
Routledge, 1940).
Epstein, Leon, “Socialism and the British Labor Party,” Political Science
Quarterly, December, 1951.
Gay, P., “Dilemma of Democratic Socialism,” Journal of Modern History,
June, 1954.
Gray, Alexander, The Socialist Tradition, Moses to Lenin (New York: Long-
mans, Green, 1946).
Greaves, H. R. G., “Public Boards and Corporations,” Political Quarterly,
January—March, 1945.
Hacker, Andrew, “Original Sin v. Utopia in British Socialism,” Review of
Politics, April, 1956.
Hayek, F. A. (ed.), Collectivist Economic Planning (London: G. Routledge,
1935):
aes Eduard, Communism, Fascism, or Democracy? (New York: Norton,
1933)
Henderson, L. O., “Parasites: Perversion of the True Meaning of Socialism,”
Hibbert Journal, vale 1948.
Herberg, W., “The Christian Mythology of Socialism,’ Antioch Review,
March, 1943.
Kelsen, H., “Foundations of Democracy, Alleged Incompatibility of Democracy
with Socialism (Planned Economy),” Ethics, October, 1955.
Knight, F. H., “Socialism; the Nature of the Problem,” Ethics, April, 1940.
Lewis, G. K., “Fabian Socialism; Some Aspects of Theory and Practice,”
Journal of Politics, August, 1952.
Lewis, William Arthur, The Principles of Economic Planning: A Study for
the Fabian Society (London: D. Dobson, 1949).
Mack, Mary P., “The Fabians and Utilitarianism, ” Journal of the History of
Ideas, January, 1955.
Rosenberg, Arthur, Democracy and Socialism: A Contribution to the Political
History of the Past 150 Years (New York: Knopf, 1939).
autres Norman, “Rethinking Socialism,” Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter,
]
Ulam, Adam B., Philosophical Foundations of English Socialism (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1951).
Underhill, Frank H., “Fabians and Fabianism,” Canadian Forum, March—
April, 1946,
 Chapter XXIl

FASCISM

“We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, a passion. It

is not necessary that it shall be a reality... . Our myth is
the nation, our myth is the greatness of the Nation. And to
this myth, to this grandeur, that we wish to translate into a
complete reality, we subordinate all the rest” (Mussolini,
Fascism).

Tue first half of the current century saw the establishment of totalitarian
governments over a substantial portion of the globe. The second half
is witnessing a massive struggle between totalitarianism and the free
way of life. The conflict is not presently being waged on the battlefield;
it is in a stage known as the “cold war,” a stage in which the participants
are contending for advantage in the fields of armaments, science, and
economics. In the 1920’s and ’30’s the chief threat to liberty was
fascism; today it is communism. The theoretical foundations of the
two systems are different, but the virulent character of their totalitarianism
is the same. From the standpoint of political practice, there is little
difference between them. Both involve total state control, personal dic-
tatorship, complete submersion of the individual in the community, loss
of individual rights, and the repudiation of constitutional government.
World War II marked the destruction of ruthlessly dictatorial govern-
ments in Italy and Germany. Non-communist dictatorships still exist
in certain countries such as Spain and Portugal but their character is
not totalitarian. They resemble more the traditional type of autocratic
tule in which little attempt is made to interfere with the social, cultural,
and intellectual life of the individual. The fact, however, that fascism
has been destroyed for all intents and purposes as an active and major
1The term “fascism” is used in the broad sense to include both Italian fascism
and German national socialism (nazism).
449
450 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

political force does not lessen its importance to the political theorist.
It may have been a passing episode in history in the form that it as-
sumed prior to the war. Yet it was an expression, even though extreme
and grossly crude, of certain strains and tendencies that had previously
been manifested in social thought. It reflected attitudes toward man,
the state, and politics that had appeared at various stages of human
existence.
Fascist traits such as elitism, charismatic leadership, anti-intellectualism,
racialism, and exaggerated nationalism were not unknown prior to the
twentieth century; nor have they been entirely eradicated in contem-
porary democratic society. Fascism of the Italian and German type may
have been a caricature, but it provides a graphic example of the con-
sequences that follow when certain tendencies in social and political life
are pushed to their extreme. There is no assurance that a repetition of
the same problems and conditions which gave rise to fascism in the
past will not produce its analogue in the future.
Communism is based on a political philosophy that was carefully
developed before action took place. In contrast, Italian fascism and
German national socialism were established without any coherent polit-
ical theory. Even at the height of their success they had no single
authoritative statement of principles. There was no fascist manifesto that
was universally accepted by the followers of the movement. Only after
its founders came into, or were actively seeking, power by sheer oppor-
tunistic means and without any carefully defined goals did they en-
deavor to formulate a philosophical basis or framework for their actions.
In view of these facts, it is tempting to say that fascism has no philosophy.
What doctrine it has is opportunistic, intellectually dishonest, and lack-
ing in coherence. It is largely a synthetic product put together in reac-
tion to a real state of affairs. Yet it was assembled out of elements that
had long been familiar in the West, and in this sense it belongs to the
evolution of European political ideas and practices.
Fascism is known as a “rightist,” communism as a “leftist” doctrine.
The terms “right” and “left” are now stock words in the vocabulary
of politics. They originate from the seating arrangements in continental
European parliaments where the ultraconservative or reactionary parties
sit to the far right of the speaker and the radicals to the left. The
closer one approaches to the center from either side, the more moderate
the parties or groups become. Fascism is a radical doctrine; but because
 FASCISM 451
it poses as the archenemy of communism and because some of its major
tenets resemble (although in exaggerated and vulgarized form) those of
the ultraconservatives, it is placed at the extreme right of the spectrum
while communism is at the extreme left.

ITALIAN FASCISM

Fascism had its immediate origins in Italy during the period of eco-
nomic distress and political instability that followed in the wake of
World War I. Italy emerged from the struggle on the winning side but
with few spoils. When the peace treaty failed to satisfy her nationalist
aspirations for territorial accretion, disillusionment and resentment set in.
As a relatively poor country, Italy had felt the strains of war more
severely than either France or England. Her army had suffered great
losses and her economy had been virtually crippled. After the war the
whole situation was aggravated by a widespread belief among the Italians
that their country had been cheated at the peace table. The old ruling
class, already discredited by its failure to win more concessions at Ver-
sailles, sank lower in public estimation as it proved unable to cope
with the explosive economic situation. Political instability, sporadic out-
breaks of violence, large unemployment among ex-soldiers and others,
widescale poverty, monetary inflation, growing social unrest, and a sense
of national frustration, set the stage for “the man on horseback.” That
role was filled by Benito Mussolini, son of a blacksmith, ex-school teacher,
journalist, police-baiter, admirer of Machiavelli and Sorel.
Mussolini (1883-1945) was born in central Italy of lower middle
class parents. Prior to World War I, he was a left-wing revolutionary
socialist and editor of one of the party’s newspapers. During the war
he parted company with his socialist colleagues by urging an end to
Italian neutrality and intervention on the side of the allies. He argued
that participation in the war afforded Italy a rich opportunity for achiev-
ing greatness. At the close of the conflict, Mussolini organized a small
group consisting mostly of ex-soldiers into the Fascio di combatimento or
fighting band (fascism receives its name from fasces, a bundle of sticks
tied around an ax, the symbol of authority in ancient Rome). The new
organization had no carefully formulated program. Its leader clearly
stated that he relied on intuitive comprehension of situations as they
arose and on ad hoc remedies to meet them. The accent was on inspired
450 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

leadership rather than on program. This approach made it possible to

appeal to a wide range of interests in the state.
The fascists had little initial success. Not a single candidate bearing
their label was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1919. Up to this
point, Mussolini and his followers had been directing their appeals
largely to the workers, but labor for the most part continued its allegiance
to the socialist party. After the defeat in the 1919 election, the fascists
turned for support to the upper and middle classes. Posing as the de-
fenders of the country against bolshevism and as protectors of the rights
of private property, fascist bands began to break up communist meetings
and assist in putting down strikes. This change in policy gained many
new recruits. Fear of the “red menace” brought aid from industrialists,
landlords, and owners of small properties. As a result, thirty-five Fascists,
including Mussolini, were elected to Parliament in 1921. By this time,
the original movement had been transformed into a full-blown political
party. By this time also, appeals to national honor and national glory
had begun to wean many workers from adherence to orthodox socialism.
The lower middle class was convinced that Mussolini was conservative
enough to protect them from being completely dominated by big business.
The bankers and industrialists, on the other hand, saw in him a bulwark
for their vested interests and a remedy for political instability.
Knowing that he had at least the tacit support of strong interests in
the country, Mussolini prepared to strike. Addressing a grand congress
of the Fascist party in 1922, he declared that the moment had arrived
when the arrow must leave the bow, or the cord, too far stretched, will
break. When his demands for a new election or the inclusion of fascists
in the cabinet were ignored, he ordered the famous march of the Black-
shirts on Rome.” In the face of this threat the king hastily summoned
Mussolini and appointed him prime minister. As the fascist grip tightened,
the new head of government was able to secure from a subdued parlia-
ment a vote of unlimited power for one year. Next he forced through a
law which provided that the party receiving the largest number of votes
in a general election should receive two thirds of the representation.
This measure proved its worth in the 1924 elections when the fascists
obtained a bare majority of the popular vote but with it two thirds
of the parliamentary seats. Thereafter open opposition to Mussolini’s

2The fascists adopted the black shirt as part of their uniform to symbolize the
life and death struggle that the wearer had engaged to undertake,
 FASCISM 453

tule withered away. Law after law was passed to make his position more
secure. Elections became a farce since only the Fascist party was legally
recognized and the voter was given no choice of candidates. Only the
semblance of parliamentary government remained; its substance had given
way to complete dictatorship.

The Political Philosophy of Fascism

During the period when the fascists were struggling for power, Musso-
lini declared that their basic need was discipline and not dogma, action
and not talk. He insisted that the movement could not be tied down
by abstract or formal principles but had to remain free to change its
position as the needs of the moment demanded. Once, however, he
attained full and undisputed control over the organs of government, he
felt it necessary to establish a philosophical basis for his actions. “If
Fascism does not wish to die, or worse still commit suicide, it must
now provide itself with a doctrine.”* In seeking to explain the need for
a fascist philosophy, an apologist of the system points out that fascism
must demonstrate its unchallenged primacy in the world of thought as
well as it has shown its pre-eminence in the world of action. Only a
philosophy can justify such a claim, for unless fascism “is the material
expression of a system of thought, the transformation into reality of a
body of ideas and a set of beliefs . . . it cannot advance any claim to a
complete primacy in the world of man.”* Man universally seeks to ra-
tionalize his actions even when they are irrationally motivated. He does
so either to satisfy his own conscience or vanity, or because he considers
it essential to convince others of the validity of his behavior. Mussolini
realized that people who believe in a cause which transcends their im-
mediate interests are more willing to make sacrifices. He also knew that
dictatorial rule is made much easier if there is common acceptance of
a body of dogma that explains and justifies its actions. Even for a dictator,
fear and terror are extremely costly devices to secure popular compliance.
Whatever Mussolini’s motives may have been, he instituted, encouraged,
and actively participated in the efforts to fashion a coherent theoretical
doctrine of fascism.
The attempt to give doctrinal content to the fascist movement was

3 B. Mussolini, Fascism (Rome: Ardita, 1935), p. 33.

4Mario Palmieri, The Philosophy of Fascism (Chicago: ‘The Dante Alighieri
Society, 1936), pp. xiv—xv.
454 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

made principally by three men: Alfredo Rocco, a jurist and professor

of law who served as minister of justice under Mussolini, Giovanni
Gentile, an internationally known neo-Hegelian philosopher who startled
the intellectual world by joining the Fascist party, and Mussolini himself.
Rocco paved the way for a fuller development of fascist doctrine by
endeavoring to show that modern Italy was the spiritual heir of the
Roman Empire. Gentile provided a philosophical foundation in terms
of idealism for the totalitarian character of state control. Building upon
these premises, Mussolini defined the major tenets of fascism in an
article which appeared in the Enciclopedia Italiana in 1932. As revealed
by these three apologists and by other sympathizers, Italian fascism may
be characterized as nationalistic, totalitarian, anti-intellectual, elitist, anti-
democratic, illiberal, and militaristic.
Nature of the State: “The key-stone of the fascist doctrine,” in the
words of Mussolini, “is its conception of the State, of its essence, its
functions, and its aims.”° Fascism conceives of the state as an organism
“which has an aim, a life, and means of action superior both in element
of power and element of time to the aims, the life and the means of
action of the individuals or groups of individuals who compose it.” It
is invested with the attributes of an ethical personality with an inde-
pendent will that is dominant over all human activities: “everything in
the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state.”® Gentile
describes it as an ethical being, which manifests its personality and
achieves its historical growth in human society. It is gifted with an
organic life of its own which transcends in meaning the life of the
individual; its “development, growth and progress follow laws which
man cannot ignore or modify but only discover and obey.’””
This idealistic approach to civil society regards the state as a meta-
physical entity with a mind and will of its own separate from the minds
and wills of its members. The state is not the land, the people, or the
government, nor a combination of these; it is an “idea” which transcends
all particular expressions in time, or any contingent and materialisticaily
defined form. The fascist state, to put it simply, is a product of political
idealism in its most extreme form. It is the embodiment of an “ethical
idea,” the divine reason of Hegel working out its “becoming” in time and
space. ‘The Hegelian overtones are evident in the following passage written
by Mussolini in 1923:
5 Fascism, op. cit., p. 27. S Ibid, p. 40. 7 Palmieri, op. cit., p. 122.
 FASCISM ADS
The work of fifty years of history and, above all, the war have made
finally a nation out of the Italians. The historic task that awaits us
is to make this nation into a national State. This is a MORAL IDEA
which finds embodiment in a system of responsible hierarchies, whose
members from the highest to the lowest feel the pride and the privilege
of doing this particular duty. . . . Our one aim must be the erection of
this single unified being: the Nation-State, the sole bearer of the whole
history, the whole future and the whole power of the Italian people.’
State Sovereignty: The fascists contend that democracy turns the
government of the state over to a mass of people who use it to further
their own selfish interests. This practice is gravely in error, they say,
since government should be entrusted to men capable of rising above
their private needs and desires and of working for the social collectivity
in relation to the future as well as the present. Rocco notes that the
great mass of citizens “is not a suitable advocate of social interests for
the reason that the capacity to ignore individual private interests in favor
of the higher demands of society and of history is a very rare gift and
the privilege of the chosen few.’® Fascism must therefore reject the
dogma of popular sovereignty and substitute for it that of state supremacy.
According to fascist doctrine, the sovereignty of the state is both
absolute and totalitarian in character. As the embodiment of the uni-
versal ethical will, the state is actually the creator of all rights; hence
it has full control over the conduct of the people. And as a total philos-
ophy of life, it cannot overlook any aspect of human living. Mussolini
describes the state as all-embracing. “Outside of it no human or spiritual
values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is
totalitarian, and the Fascist state —a synthesis and a unit inclusive of
all values — interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a
people.”*°
Fascism denies that the good life can be realized without the com-
plete supremacy of the state over the individual. A true and great spiritual
life cannot take place until the state has risen to a position of pre-
eminence in the eyes of man, and until the struggle between it and the
individual has finally been resolved in its favor. The state “is absolute,
individuals and groups relative.”** They have meaning only insofar as
8 Quoted in Palmieri, op. cit., p. 101.
9“The Political Doctrine of Fascism,” International Conciliation Pamphlet, No.
(ie al YASS
10 Fascism, Op. cit., p. 11.
11 [bid., p. 27.
456 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

they are part of the body politic and subject to its guidance and direction.
The individual must make himself completely available to the state
and be ready to sacrifice his own personal interests, even his life.
Men find their freedom in full submission to the state’s will. If an
individual was fully conscious of his great mission in the world and
the meaning of human life, he would not need an agency external to
his own conscience to dictate his course of action. But man is not so
constituted; actually he knows how to use his freedom only for the
satisfaction of his own instincts and desires. It is thus high time that
he “be brought back to the vision of his true place in the universe; it
is high time that he learns how to curb and master his self; it is high
time that his freedom be taken away from him if he is to realize the
greatest aim of life: the furtherance of the Spirit.”
Mussolini insists that the total supremacy of the state over the in-
dividual does not mean tyranny. “A state based on millions of individuals
who recognize its authority, feel its action, and are ready to serve its
ends is not the tyrannical state of a medieval lordling. It has nothing in
common with the despotic states existing prior to or subsequent to 1789.
Far from crushing the individual, the Fascist State multiplies his ener-
gies, just as in a regiment a soldier is not diminished but multiplied
by the number of his fellow soldiers.”** Personal liberty, moreover, is
not an end in itself; it is simply a means to the realization of a much
greater end: the liberty of the spirit. To be free, in the fascist concep-
tion, means to be no longer “a slave to one’s own passions, ambitions
and desires” but to have full liberty to will “what is true and good and
just.” It is not the individual, however, but the state that determines
truth and justice; hence the individual is free only so long as he conforms
to this determination. Man finds his true freedom by obeying the dictates
of the state.

Nationalism

In contrast to the internationalism of the Communists, fascism is

distinctly nationalistic in outlook. Its nationalism includes an indorse-
ment of imperialism and a moral glorification of war. Some years before

12 Palmieri, op. cit., p. 96.

13 Fascism, op. cit., pp. 29-30.
 FASCISM 454
fascism became a reality, Georges Sorel, a French syndicalist!* and a
violent critic of democracy, wrote that all great social movements have
come about by the pursuit of a myth —an image that can incite human
emotion and supply the drive for determined action. Mussolini, who
had carefully read Sorel’s works, declared in 1922 that the Italians had
created their myth —the nation and its greatness. Modern Italy is the
spiritual heir of the Roman empire.
The myth of national greatness demanded that Italy again become a
great world power — an empire. To do so she had to secure colonies and
build up a mighty army. The goal, Mussolini exclaims, “is always empire.
To build a city, to found a colony, to establish an empire, these are
the prodigies of the human spirit.” Imperialism is nothing more than
a means by which the spirit strives for expression in the world of man.
It is the eternal and immutable law of life. At bottom, “it is but the
need, the desire and the will for expansion which every living, healthy
individual or people has in itself.” Fascism sees in this imperialistic spirit
or tendency on the part of nations to expand “a manifestation of their
vitality.” Conversely, it sees a symptom of decadence “in the opposite
tendency which would limit their interests to the home country.”’®
A state that is contemplating imperialistic expansion in modern times
must be prepared for forceful opposition. Fascist doctrine recognizes this
need by exalting war. Pacifism is a cloak for cowardice, Mussolini de-
clares. “War alone keys up all human energies to their maximum ten-
sion and sets the seal of nobility on those people who have the courage
to face it. All other tests are substitutes which never place a man face
to face with himself before the alternative of life or death.”*® The word
man and the word fighter are in fact synonymous. When we speak of
war, remarked one Italian fascist, it is the better part of our blood that
speaks in us. Nations have the right to exist only if they can successfully
compete with other states in the struggle for existence. Only the fit
have the right to survive; and in the process they have the right to
14 Syndicalism (from the French word for trade union, syndicat) originated in
France during the nineteenth century. It regards the state as an instrument of
oppression and calls for its abolition. It proposes that the means of production be
owned directly by the workers organized in syndicates or trade unions. Sorel and his
followers hold that the objectives of syndicalism can be obtained only through
violence and the use of the general strike.
15 Fascism, op. cit., pp. 30-31.
16 Tbid., p. 19.
458 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

conquer and control the less fit if they are physically able to do so.
Social Darwinism is here given expression in the field of international
relations.

The Corporate State

As a political system, Italian fascism is characterized by a one-party
system, dictatorship, and a set of governmentally controlled institutions
known as corporations. Mussolini’s socialist background makes him well
aware of the close connection between politics and economics. He re-
jects the class struggle as the great historical force or moving power
of human society, but he still believes that a conflict of interests exists
between capital and labor. Contrary to Marx’s teaching, he holds that
this conflict is not irremediable; it is the duty of the state to see that a
solution is effected.
Mussolini recognizes that economic relations, like all other aspects
of society, cannot be left completely to the free interplay of a com-
petitive system. His social Darwinism is limited largely to the relations
among states; it does not extend to internal affairs. When Mussolini
assumed power in 1922, he established the policy that the state must-
exercise a guardianship over the economic life of the people and that
in the interests of production no conflicts between employers and workers
were to be tolerated. This aspect of the fascist program is based on three
assumptions: (1) the state must possess the ultimate authority to regulate
every phase of economic activity, (2) the means of production should
remain under private ownership, and (3) instead of attempting to sup-
press class consciousness in the interest of a classless society, the separate
identity of both employer and worker groups should be preserved.
As a system that aimed at the complete subordination of the individ-
ual to the will of the state, fascism necessarily had to control all eco-
nomic as well as social and political activity. Mussolini was not an eco-
nomic determinist, but he realized that the productive forces of the
nation must be brought under the supreme discipline of the government
if he and his followers were to retain power. Since the fascists had
gained control of the state as the defenders of private property against
the threat of communism, they made no effort to socialize industry. The
Labor Charter adopted by the Fascist Grand Council in 1927 specifically
lays down the principle that “private enterprise in the sphere of pro-
duction is the most effective and useful instrument in the interest of
 FASCISM 459

the nation.”*7 Government intervention in economic production becomes

necessary only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when
the political interests of the state are involved. The vagueness of this
latter condition leaves the door open wide to public regulation or direct
management of business and industry at any time the state sees fit.
To establish effective control over the economic life of the nation,
the fascists devised a hierarchical system of syndicates, federations, con-
federations, and corporations. Through these institutions they sought to
give concrete form to the general idea of corporatism. The fascist version
of the corporate state provides for two parallel sets of institutions, one
for employers and the other for employees. At the base of the organiza-
tional pyramid are the local syndicates (unions) of workers and of em-
ployers for each major occupational category. These district syndicates
are grouped into national federations for each major industry, and the
federations in turn are organized into national confederations representing
several closely related industries. At the apex of the structure are the
corporations (twenty-two in number) which include representatives of
both employers and employees. Appointment to membership in a cor-
poration is made by the government from among nominees selected by
the various national confederations.
The principal functions of those groups below the corporation are
the settlement of labor disputes and the conclusion of collective bargain-
ing agreements. The corporations have the power to regulate production,
establish standards of fair practice, and co-ordinate economic relations
among the various industrial groups. The basic objective of the corporate
state in theory is the establishment of a system of industrial and commer-
cial self-regulation by employers and employees. However, as the system
actually operated under fascist control, the corporations were little more
than administrative agencies of the state. In fact, the government and
the fascist party were so closely associated with the corporations and
played such an important part in their decisions, that it became difficult
to tell which policies were the result of official dictation and which were
due to self-discipline.
Mussolini maintains that corporatism supersedes socialism and liberal-
ism. It inherits from both that which is vital in each. It is opposed to
17 The full text of the Charter is set out in Fascism, op. cit., pp. 133-142. Its
major provisions are also quoted in Michael Oakeshott, The Social and Political Doc-
trines of Contemporary Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939),
pp. 184-185.
460 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

individualism on the one hand and to government ownership of the

means of production on the other. Three conditions are required to
carry out the corporate system successfully. First, only a single political
party must be permitted “so that rising above contrasting interests all
may be bound together by a common faith.” Second, there must be a
totalitarian state “which absorbs all the energies, all the interests, all
the hopes of a people in order to transform and potentiate them.” And
finally, the nation must “live a period of high ideal tension.” Arms must
be “crowned with victory; institutions renewed; the land redeemed; new
cities founded.”1s
A further step in the development of the corporate state was taken
in 1938 when the Italian parliament passed a bill to replace the chamber
of deputies with a new body known as the fascist and corporative chamber.
The old house had consisted of representatives elected on a geographical
basis. The new chamber was composed of ex officio representatives of
economic groups, principally members of the twenty-two corporation
councils. Theoretically, the new arrangement placed political representa-
tion in the legislative branch of the government on a functional basis.
The lawmakers were to represent occupations and economic interests
rather than districts or localities. Since Mussolini and the party exercised
rigid control over all the associations, the Italian experiment affords
no basis for an appraisal of a genuinely corporate system. Yet because of
the great emphasis that fascist writers placed upon the corporative idea,
fascism and corporatism are frequently equated. Such an impression is
erroneous since the principle of corporatism or functional representation
could conceivably be employed in a genuinely democratic system. How
feasible it would be to use this device is quite another question.

NATIONAL SOCIALISM

The rise of national socialism in Germany closely parallels the rise

of fascism in Italy. Like the latter, nazism is a product of the demoraliza-
tion that followed World War I. The loss of German territory, occupa-
tion by foreign troops, the burden of reparations, depression, fear of
communism, and political instability, all combined to prepare the ground
for the rise of dictatorship. The model had already been constructed,
the course marked out, and the necessary lessons supplied. The new
18 Fascism, op. cit., pp. 60-61.
 FASCISM 461
“savior” of Germany had only to follow the example of his Italian
counterpart.
Adolph Hitler, the founder of national socialism, was born in Braunau,
Austria, in 1889. His father was a minor customs official, his mother was
of peasant stock. Orphaned at the age of thirteen, Hitler’s formal educa-
tion ended with his failure to graduate from high school. Convinced
that he had artistic talent, he moved to Vienna, where he sought un-
successfully to be admitted to an art academy. Living from hand to mouth
among the beggars, vagrants, and criminals of the city he developed a
bitter hatred toward everyone around him, particularly Jews. In 1914 he
enlisted in the German army, became a corporal, was gassed, and received
the Iron Cross, presumably for bravery. After the war, he and a few
malcontents formed the National Socialist German Workers’ party.
Hitler soon discovered that his greatest asset was his remarkable gift
of oratory. In speech after speech he drove home the theme: Germany
did not lose the war; the nation was betrayed, stabbed in the back by
Jews and Marxists. The Versailles treaty, he shouted, was illegitimately
forced on Germany to enslave the fatherland; the German people are
not bound by it. Encouraged by his success with the masses and inspired
by Mussolini’s march on Rome, Hitler overplayed his hand in 1923 by
launching a coup d’état, the so-called “beer hall putsch,” to seize control
of the government. The plot was suppressed by the army on whose
support Hitler had counted. He was arrested and sentenced to five years’
imprisonment for high treason. During his incarceration (he was released
after serving only a small portion of his term), he wrote Mein Kampf,
the bible of the nazi faith.
From the time of his release until 1930, Hitler devoted his efforts to
building up the framework of a strong organization on lines similar to
those developed by Mussolini. The swastika or hooked cross was adopted
as the party emblem and the brown shirt as the party uniform. As late as
1928 the Nazis had made little headway in their quest for power. In
the election of that year they captured only twelve seats in the Reichstag.
The party, nevertheless, continued to grow in numbers, appealing to the
lower middle class particularly, and supported by the large industrialists,
who contributed more or less impartially to all anti-Marxist factions. The
world economic crisis which occurred in 1930 proved to be the breaking
point of the Weimar republic. Assailed from both right and left, as it
had been since its inception, the republic was no longer able to weather
462 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

the storm. In the election of 1930 the nazis became the second largest
party in the Reichstag. During the next three hectic years, utmost con-
fusion reigned. Finally, in January, 1933, President Hindenburg appointed
Hitler chancellor. From then on the story is a familiar one.
Unlike the Italian version, German fascism developed its political and
social dogma during the years that it was struggling for power. The
doctrine of national socialism, however, is not based on any rational
considerations or supported by any systematic political philosophy. It is
less a doctrine than a faith: mystical, emotional, irrational. Beliefs and
prejudices that had long been in existence were combined to make a
philosophical stew with strong emotional appeal. Condemned by its
enemies as a “revolt against reason,” national socialism not only accepted
but emphasized this description. “We think with our blood.” One ener-
getic man is “worth more than a thousand intellectual babblers who are
useless waste products of the nation.”
The most important statements of Nazi doctrine are contained in two
works, Hitler’s Mein Kamf and Alfred Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth
Century. Rosenberg, an intimate associate of Hitler from the early days
of the party in Munich, was editor of the leading Nazi newspaper,
Volkischer Beobachter, and later civilian administrator of the occupied
parts of Russia. With Hitler’s support he became the acknowledged
intellectual leader of the party, supplying it with a spurious philosophical
basis for its racist doctrine.1? When nazi theory is pieced together, the
finished product is similar to that of Italian fascism with two major
exceptions: its emphasis on racism and the idea of the Volk as the basic
political unit.

The Master Race

The racialist character of national socialism has its roots in the writings
of such men as Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-96), the great apostle of
German nationalism, Joseph Gobineau (1816-82), the French nobleman
who first presented the Aryan myth with its corollary of ‘Teutonic superior-
ity, and Houston Chamberlain (1855-1927), an English writer who
adopted the racial ideas of Gobineau. Chamberlain’s Foundations, pub-
19 Albert Chandler’s study of Rosenberg notes that he belonged to that group of
Baltic Germans who constituted the upper stratum in a Slavic community (Rosenberg
was born in the Russian province of Estonia) and who consequently developed a
strong sense of their superiority as Germans, Rosenberg’s Nazi Myth (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1945), p. 4.
 FASCISM 463

lished in 1899, is a long and ponderous work that seeks to establish a

basis for Nordic supremacy. Hitler and Rosenberg built on these founda-
tions to devise a political philosophy suitable to the new order. Their
works and utterances set forth the basic postulates of the race doctrine,
a doctrine that constitutes the core of nazi political philosophy.
According to Hitler and Rosenberg, the true foundation of progress is
found in the law of nature which decrees that all crossing of species,
stocks, or races results in weakness. Just as there is no equality among
men, neither is there any among races. Since the strength of a race lies
in its purity (it is the will of nature to preserve the distinction among
races), the intermixture of two races necessarily results in the degeneration
of the superior. All history must be interpreted in terms of the struggle
between races rather than classes.
If civilization is to be prevented from sinking into the grave, the
Aryan race must be preserved from contamination by inferior stock. All
of the state’s efforts in education and training “must be to burn the racial
sense and racial feeling into the instinct and the intellect, and the heart
and brain of the youth entrusted to it. No boy and no girl must leave
school without having been led to an ultimate realization of the necessity
and essence of blood purity.””° But what proof is there that the Aryan
race is superior to all others? Hitler contends that the evidence is con-
clusive; that the achievements of the world in art, science, and culture
are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryans. Although he
does not give a precise definition as to what he means by the Arvan race,
he indicates that it spread out from some northwestern homeland to
create the great civilizations of Egypt, Persia, India, Greece, and Rome.
He further notes that among Aryan peoples the purest stock, and hence
the superior group, is to be found in Germany.
The Nazi Primer, the official handbook for German youth during the
days of Hitler, avoids the use of the ambiguous term Aryan (which
properly speaking does not apply to races but to a group of language
families) and substitutes for it Nordic. The Primer maintains that this
race “is uncommonly gifted mentally. It is outstanding for truthfulness
and energy. Nordic men for the most part possess, even in regard to
themselves, a great power of judgment. . . . They are persistent and stick
to a purpose when once they have set themselves to it. . . . They are
20 Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. by R. Manheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
19435) ep ateie
464 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

predisposed to leadership by nature.”?! While racial mixture has ad-

mittedly been going on for a long period of time, the Nordic race is most
predominant in Germany and constitutes the principal ingredient of
the German nation. This fact “justifies us in taking a Nordic standpoint
when evaluating character and spirit, bodily structure and physical beauty.
It also gives us the right to shape our legislation and to fashion our state
according to the outlook on life of the Nordic man.” Tell us to what
race a man belongs, and we will tell you what kind of man he is.
The development of the Nordic myth was accompanied by the growth
of political anti-Semitism. Even in his early speeches in the beer halls
of Munich, Hitler had preached that the Jews were the source of all
man’s evils. Later, in developing his theoretical attack against the Jews,
he condemns them as parasites that feed on the creative forces of other
races. The Jew has always been “a parasite in the body of other peoples.
That he sometimes left his previous living space has nothing to do with
his own purpose, but results from the fact that from time to time he
was thrown out by the host nations he had misused. His spreading is a
typical phenomenon for all parasites; he always seeks a new feeding
ground for his race.”?? Hitler also charges the Jews with trying to under-
mine the strength of the German nation by intermarriage and con-
spiratorial action, the latter working through plutocratic capitalism and
international communism.
Anti-Semitism, by making the Jew the common enemy of the German
people, served a practical purpose for the nazis. It was an effective psycho-
logical device to unify the German people by channeling all their antago-
nism toward a single enemy that was weak enough to be attacked with
impunity. It made it possible to transmute a variety of hatreds and fears
into the fear of a single tangible foe. Fear of communism became fear
of Jewish marxism; resentment against employers became hatred of Jewish
capitalism; national insecurity became fear of a Jewish conspiracy to
dominate the world; and economic instability was translated into hatred
for Jewish control of big business. The patent falsehood of these allega-
tions was immaterial. They were effective in creating the myth of an
internal enemy that was threatening the safety and well-being of the
21 Translated by H. L. Childs (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938), p. 20.
22 Thid., pp. 34-35.
23 Mein Kampf, op. cit., pp. 304-305.
24 Sabine, A History of Political Theory, op. cit., pp. 890-891.
 FASCISM 465

German nation. Hitler always proceeded on the premise that people fall
victim more easily to a big than a small lie.

The German Volk

The idea of the Volk is one of the central themes of nazi doctrine.
Hitler in Mein Kampf repeatedly refers to national socialism as the theory
of the “folkish” state. The term is not readily translated into English
so as to express its full German connotations. The Volk might best be
described as a group of men and women united by racial and cultural ties.
It is analogous to a nation in that it does not necessarily correspond to
the state organization. The German speaking Austrians, for example,
were considered part of the German Volk even though they were under
the political jurisdiction of the Hapsburg monarchy and later the Austrian
state. The German Reich “must embrace all Germans and has the task,
not only of assembling and preserving the most valuable stocks of basic
racial elements in this people, but slowly and surely of raising them to
a dominant position.”?®
Mussolini looks upon the state as more significant than the nation,
since “it is the state which creates the nation, conferring volition and
therefore real life on a people made aware of their moral unity.” To the
nazis, the Volk is the more important of the two. Hitler remarks that he
is concerned with the state “only as the living organism of a nationality.”?"
He sees the betrayal of a nation as a more serious crime than treason
against the state. Volk and race are the source and support of the indi-
vidual and they prescribe organic limits within which he may fruitfully
develop his creative powers. The state serves merely as agent of the Volk;
it is the means or instrumentality for accomplishing the will of the nation.
Despite the apparent theoretical differences between the fascist and
nazi concept of the state, these dissimilarities vanish in practice. The
downgrading of the state by the nazis occurred during the period when
they were struggling for power. Once they gained control of the govern-
ment, they began to identify the Volk with the state and to eulogize the
latter with almost as much fervor as the Italian fascists. They claimed
that their attacks had been directed against the false or legalistic state
which stood in opposition to the Volk. The pretender has now been
25 Mein Kampf, op. cit., p. 398.
26 Fascism, op. cit., p. 12.
27 Mein Kampf, op. cit., p. 394.
466 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

replaced by the Volksstaat or “folkish” state, which combines nation and

state in an organic union. The highest purpose of the new creation is
“concern for the preservation of those original racial elements which
bestow culture and create the beauty and dignity of a higher mankind.”
Within the folkish state, the individual qua individual counts for little.
He must always be subordinated to the community and if necessary be
sacrificed for it. His position vis-a-vis the Nazi state is made clear in the
following statement issued by the government in 1937 to explain certain
constitutional changes:
Since the state consists here of the totality of citizens, united in a
common destiny by common blood and common philosophy of life
and comprised in a single organization, it is neither necessary nor
possible to define a sphere of freedom for the individual citizen as
against the State. Hence also it is neither necessary nor possible to
protect “subjective rights” derived from such a sphere of freedom by
means of constitutional law.’

The Cult of the Leader

Just as there are differences among races, so also are there differences
among the individuals who comprise the Volk. And just as the best race
should dominate the world, so should the best individuals within this
race tule the others. The Volk consists of men of different values. Those
who are superior in talent and ability must be placed in positions of
importance in the community. How is this ruling elite to be chosen?
The selection, Hitler says, is a natural process which takes place through
the struggle for power, a struggle in which only the fittest survive. Those
who are the best jungle fighters will emerge as leaders of the people.
The nazi state is based entirely on personal government. “From the
smallest community cell to the highest leadership of the entire Reich, the
state must have the personality principle anchored in its organization.”*°
In nazi thought, the great body of men are capable neither of intelligence
nor heroism; they are simply mediocre. Their highest desire is to find a
leader. Der Fuehrer (leader) epitomizes the achievement of this desire.
Standing at the head of the national socialist elite and ruling over the
28 Ibid., p. 394.
29 Quoted in Michael Oakeshott, The Social and Political Doctrines of Contemporary
Europe, op. cit., p. 227.
30 Mein Kampf, op. cit., p. 449.
 FASCISM 467

masses, he represents the “true people,” the people as they would be and
act if they knew their own true duty and destiny.
The relation of the Fuehrer to the masses is essentially mystical and
irrational. He is what Max Weber refers to as a charismatic leader, one
who functions as a glorified symbol of a movement and can command
the unquestioned obedience and devotion of his followers.1 He can
induce in them an identification with his particular ideology as a cause
worth fighting and dying for. Herman Goering, one of the Nazi war lords,
describes the deified position of the leader in the following words:
Just as the Roman Catholic considers the Pope infallible in all
matters concerning religion and morals, so do we National Socialists
believe, with the same inner conviction, that for us the Leader is, in
all political and other matters concerning the national and _ social
interests of the people, simply infallible. Wherein lies the secret of this
enormous influence which he has on his followers? . . . It is something
mystical, inexpressible, almost incomprehensible, which this unique
man possesses, and he who cannot feel it instinctively will not be able
to grasp it at all. For we love Adolf Hitler because we believe deeply
and unswervingly that God has sent him to us to save Germany.*
The leader is no organ of the state in the sense of a mere executive
agent but rather the bearer of the collective will of the nation. It is in
him that the will of the people is realized. At times it may even be
necessary for him to act contrary to the subjective opinions and convic-
tions of the citizens if these are not in accord with their objective destiny.
The people must be brought to a realization that the leader is always
right (Hitler hat immer recht); he can do no wrong. The people need
only trust and have faith in him. Constitutional checks and_ balances
are wholly superfluous; they only hinder the leader in working out the
destiny of the nation. The nazis employed every conceivable means of
propaganda to build up this myth and to indoctrinate the entire popula-
tion with the new political faith.

The Economic System

Hitler and his supporters adopted the name “national socialism” to
indicate that their brand of socialism (a term that had long been synony-
mous in Germany with social progress) is purely national, as opposed

31 See post, p. 476.

32 Germany Reborn (London: Mathews and Marrot, 1934), pp. 79-80.
468 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

to the internationalism of Marx. Actually, however, national socialism is

not a compound of nationalism and socialism; it is a complete subjection
of society to nationalism. This subjection includes full control over every
phase of economic activity. In contrast to socialism, the economic order
continues to be based on private property, the profit system, and inequal-
ity of wealth and income. The owner becomes the leader of the enterprise,
the workers his followers. The latter have no right to organize into labor
unions or to strike. In turn, the government dictates to the owner what
wages he must pay, the number of hours his employees must work, what
he must produce or sell and at what price.
No corporative system was attempted in Germany as it was in Italy.
To facilitate their control over the economic life of the nation, the nazis
established a number of so-called “estates” to apply and carry out govern-
mental policy in this field. These agencies bear some resemblance to the
Italian syndicates although their membership consisted of both employers
and employees. The largest and most comprehensive of the estates was
the Labor Front, to which practically all workers and employers in trade
and industry were obliged to belong. The organization made no pretense
of representing specific labor interests; it was simply a front to conceal
actual nazi control.

SUMMARY
The twentieth century gave birth to totalitarian fascism; it also witnessed
its demise. In less than three decades the movement had come into being,
flourished, and then expired. An embodiment of naked power, it had repudi-
ated reason, justice, mercy, and peace. It had sinned against humanity,
horrified mankind by its brutality, and plunged the world into a catastrophic
war. It had employed authority in all kinds of social and private relations and
had sought to direct all phases of human life. ““We are a state,’ Mussolini
boasts, “which controls all forces acting in nature. We control political forces,
we control moral forces, we control economic forces.”
Fascism is the antithesis of democracy. Insisting that faith should be put
in quality, not quantity, it denies that ‘numbers as such can be the determin-
ing factor in human society . . . it asserts the irremediable and fertile and
beneficent inequality of man, who cannot be levelled by any such mechanical
and extrinsic device as universal suffrage.’ Expressing his distrust of the
masses, Hitler asks, “must not the task of the leading statesman be seen, not
in the birth of a creative idea or plan as such, but rather in the art of making
the brilliance of his projects intelligible to a herd of sheep and blockheads,
33 Fascism, op. cit., p. 21.
 FASCISM 469
and subsequently begging for their kind approval. By rejecting the authority
of the individual and replacing it by some momentary mob, the parliamentary
principle of majority rule sins against the basic aristocratic principle of
Nature.”’34
Totalitarianism of both the right and left denies the existence of any objec-
tive moral law. ‘To Mussolini the only absolute good is the success of the state
while all talk of moral virtue is merely an effective way to sway men to serve
your purposes. In a similar vein, the nazis view a moral code as nothing
more than a self-disciplining weapon in the community’s struggle for power.
The authority to determine the contents of this code rests with the state,
or to be more exact, with the leader. As one of the official maxims of the
nazis reads, “right is whatever profits the German nation, wrong is whatever
harms it.”
Although fascism is dead, it has not been entirely exhumed. Fascism of
the Hitler and Mussolini variety may be a passing episode in history, but in
a less violent and more subtle form it still remains a potent factor in con-
temporary life. The irresponsible politician realizes that in a tension packed
society the appeal to national, racial, or popular emotions may carry him
farther than the appeal to reason, sanity, and ethics. The demagogue, the
anti-intellectualist, the white supremacy advocate, the militarist, the exagger-
ated patriot, and the book burner, all demonstrate fascist tendencies in one
degree or another. These individuals seek to exploit the fears and prejudices
that find their way into society during periods of crisis.

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Ashton, E. B., The Fascist: His State and His Mind (New York: Morrow,
Evan
Barth, ee “Reality and Ideology of the ‘Totalitarian State,’ Review of
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Bernard, J., “Power of Science and the Science of Power,’’ American Sociologi-
cal Review, June, 1950.
Borgese, G. A., “The Intellectual Origins of Fascism,” Social Research, Novem-
Der, 134:
Bowen, Ralph H., German Theories of the Corporate State (New York:
Whittlesey House, 1947).
Brady, Robert A., The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism (New York:
Viking Press, 1937).
Chagnon, Louis, “Marxism and Materialist Philosophy,” The Modern School-
man, May, 1939.
Collingwood, R. G., The New Leviathan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942).
De Gré, G., “Fascist: An Operational Definition,” Social Forces, December,
1945.
Dutt, R. Palme, Fascism and Social Revolution (New York: International
Publishers, 1935).
34 Mein Kampf, op. cit., pp. 79-80.
470 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Ebenstein, William, Fascist Italy (New York: American Book Co., 1939).
Edwards, A. L., “Sigus of Incipient Fascism,” Journal of Abnormal Psy-
chology, July, 1944. ;
Elbow, M. H., French Corporative Theory, 1789-1949 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1953).
Elliott, William Y., The Pragmatic Revolt in Politics (New York: Macmillan,
1928).
Field, é L., “Comparative Aspects of Fascism,” Southwestern Social Science
Quarterly, March, 1940.
Finer, Herman, Mussolini’s Italy (London: V. Gollancz, 1935).
Florinsky, M. J., Fascism and National Socialism (New York: Macmillan,
1936).
foe, Erich, Escape from Freedom (New York: Farrar and Reinhart, 1941).
Gerth, H. H., “The Nazi Party,” American Journal of Sociology, January,
1940.
Gooch, G. P., Dictatorship in Theory and Practice (London: Watts, 1935).
Greef, Etienne de, “Psychology of the Totalitarian Movement,” Review of
Politics, March, 1939.
Heberle, Rudolph, From Democracy to Nazism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press, 1945).
Kaufmann, F. W., ‘“Fichte and National Socialism,” American Political
Science Review, June, 1942.
Murphy, E. F., “Philosophy of the Fascist State,” Proceedings of the Amerti-
can Catholic Philosophical Association, 1933.
Nathan, Peter, The Psychology of Fascism (London: Faber, 1943).
Neumann, Franz, The Democratic and the Authoritarian State (Glencoe:
Free Press, 1957).
Parsons, Talcott, “Some Sociological Aspects of the Fascist Movements,”
Social Forces, December, 1942.
Ranulf, S., “Scholarly Forerunners of Fascism,” Ethics, October, 1939.
San Severino, B. (ed.), Mussolini as Revealed in His Political Speeches (New
York: EP. Dutton, 1923).
Sillani, Tomaso (ed.), What is Fascism and Why (London: Ernest Benn,
Ltd, 1931);
ee T. V., “Ethics of Fascism,” International Journal of Ethics, January,

Sturzo, Luigi, “The Totalitarian State,” Social Research, May, 1936.

Vignaux, Paul, “Corporativism in Europe,” Review of Politics, April and
July, 1942.
Voegelin Eric, “The Growth of the Race Idea,” Review of Politics, July, 1940.
sea A. P., “Classical Background for Fascism,” Classical Journal, June,

West, Rebecca, The Meaning of Treason (New York: Viking Press, 1947)
Williamson, R., “Fascist Concept of Representation,” Journal of Politics
February, 1941.
Le ae “Hitler’s Psychology,” Political Quarterly, October-Decem-
er, .
Yarrow, Clarence H., “The Forging of Fascist Doctrine,” Journal of the History
of Ideas, April, 1942.
 Chapter XXIII

THE POLITICAL SOCIOLOGISTS

“It is possible in the field of social action to observe certain

empirical uniformities” (Max Weber, The Theory of Social
and Economic Organization).

Durinc the past century increasing emphasis has been placed on empirical
research and the formulation of causal theory in the social sciences. This
shift in emphasis does not mean that the empirical investigation of social
reality is a modern phenomenon. Political thinkers have long taken the
view that social institutions cannot be understood merely by examining
the formal and legal structures of society and government or by making
chronological surveys of their development. The twentieth century reader
need only turn to Aristotle for a concrete demonstration of this attitude.
Many propositions are found in his works which could easily be restated
in terms of present-day political science or sociology. Yet there are differ-
ences between the old and the new approaches to politics that involve
objectives, orientation, and method. These differences were alluded to
in the introductory chapter. Their importance to contemporary political
theory warrants their further consideration in the concluding chapter.
Prior to the nineteenth century, the problems of social and political
life were considered largely in terms of social philosophy. While traditional
thinkers dealt with questions of practical politics and organized social life,
they were concerned primarily with the moral implications of social
institutions and behavior. The accent was always on ultimate ends, and
the means were examined and evaluated in relation to these ends. How-
ever, as early as Machiavelli a change in emphasis from ends to means
became noticeable. Social thinkers began to define the state in terms of
its peculiar specific means. Its legitimacy was no longer measured by its
goals and its conformity to ethical norms. These aspects were gradually
471
ee CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

removed from the province of the political theorist. His primary responsi-
bility became the empirical investigation of political institutions and the
formulation of general laws or principles to explain their operation.
Accompanying the emphasis on empirical research has been a strong
tendency to base the study of society and politics exclusively on the
observation of sensory data. This tendency was noticeable during the
Renaissance period, but it was not until after Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
that social empiricism attracted widespread attention. The movement
emphasizing the empirical approach to politics has been led by the
“political sociologists,” or those who attempt to apply sociological cate-
gories to political phenomena. Trained in systematic sociology, they have
focused their analytical sights on the structural and dynamic elements
of society which affect governmental institutions. Their influence on
political science has been great, particularly in the United States, where
numerous studies of voting behavior, public opinion, political leadership,
and power structures have been undertaken in recent years.
The present chapter deals with the work of three sociologists who
devoted considerable attention to the study of political theory. These
three
— Max Weber, a German, Emile Durkheim, a Frenchman, and
Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian — are among the forerunners of the contempo-
rary empirical movement in the field of politics. No attempt is made
here to give a complete analysis or summary of their thought and work.
They were chosen from among many possible candidates to illustrate
generally how empirically oriented social scientists have approached and
influenced the study of political society. Particular attention is given to
the methodology and major objectives of each writer in so far as they
are relevant to political theory.

MAX WEBER
Max Weber (1864-1920) was born and raised in Berlin. He came
from an upper class family, his father serving for many years as a member
of the German Reichstag. Trained in the law, young Weber soon aban-
doned the legal field to accept an appointment to teach economics at
the University of Freiburg. Although he spent practically his whole
career in academic circles, he was deeply interested in politics. After
World War I he served as a member of the commission which wrote the
first draft of the Weimar constitution. His sudden and untimely death
 THE POLITICAL SOCIOLOGISTS Ale
in 1920 brought an end to what might have been a prominent role in
German postwar politics.
Weber’s best known work is The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism in which he attempts to show that the attitude of Protestant-
ism, especially Calvinism, toward commercial activity acted as the driving
force behind the development of mature capitalism. That portion of his
writing of particular interest to the political theorist is contained in The
Theory of Social and Economic Organization. In this volume he discusses
the analytical methods of sociology, and sets forth a number of broad
generalizations concerning types of political activity and authority and
their social consequences.

Methodology
Weber defines sociology as the science “which attempts the interpre-
tive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive as a causal
explanation of its course and effects.” He assumes at the outset that
scientific investigation, whether in the physical or social fields, cannot
attain a complete picture of reality. The most that the researcher can
hope to accomplish is to bring order into the world of reality through
the power of reasoned thought. This order can be achieved only by means
of subjective categories or principles of classification imposed upon the
objective world by the scientist himself. Weber’s method of investigation
and analysis — his research strategy —is based upon this concept of the
limits of human knowledge.
The so-called “ideal types” constitute the core of Weber’s subjective
categories. These types are mental constructs formed on the assumption
that if we have an ideal model which represents strictly rational conduct
in a given situation, we can then measure the deviations from it. In
Weber’s words,
The construction of a purely rational course of action . . . serves the
sociologist as a type (“ideal type”) which has the merit of clear
understandability and lack of ambiguity. By comparison with this it
is possible to understand the ways in which actual action is influenced
by irrational factors of all sorts, such as affects and errors, in that
they account for the deviation from the line of conduct which would
be expected on the hypothesis that the action were purely rational.’
1The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 2nd ed., trans. by A. M.
Henderson and Talcott Parsons (Glencoe: Free Press, 1947), p. 88.
2 Tbid., p. 92.
ae CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Thus a panic on the stock exchange could be conveniently analyzed by

first determining what would have been a rational course of action for
the participants to follow. Having made this determination, it is then
possible to isolate the irrational factors as deviations from the ideal type,
and to study the ways in which human behavior is influenced by non-
rational elements.
The ideal types are not intended as proper patterns of behavior or as
actual copies of the real world. Weber proposes that they be used simply
as working hypotheses or instruments for the analysis of concrete his-
torical problems. As such they supply fixed points of reference for measur-
ing the extent to which individual actions diverge from a given standard.
Weber vigorously denies that science can offer any guidance in respect
to ethical conduct. He maintains that it is capable only of providing
information about the appropriateness of means in relation to given ends
and the probable consequences of pursuing alternative courses of action.
It, moreover, has nothing to say about objective metaphysical meaning.
It understands meaning only in a subjective sense as being imposed on
reality by man. :

Political Sociology
The state, as defined by Weber, is “an imperatively co-ordinated
corporate group” in which “the enforcement of its orders is carried out
continuously within a given territorial area by the application and threat
of physical force on the part of the administrative staff.” Its distinguishing
element is its claim to “the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical
force in the enforcement of its orders.”* Weber does not contend that
force is either the only or the normal means used by the state, but
rather the means peculiar to it and indispensable to its character. Like
all other political institutions, the state is a relational association of men
dominating men, while politics is the “striving to influence the distribu-
tion of power either among states or among groups within a state.”
Weber’s study of political authority is of particular interest to the
student of government. Unlike the classical social philosophers, he is
concerned solely with the manner in which power functions in a society
and not with its moral legitimacy. His approach to the topic is based
on the “ideal type” methodology. He opens his analysis by dividing
legitimate authority into three fundamental types: rational, traditional,
3 Ibid., p. 154.
 THE POLITICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 475

and charismatic. His purpose in introducing this classification is to formu-

late a conceptual scheme within which political power can be meaning-
fully examined. The classification is based on the claim to legitimacy
that is made by each type of authority. The nature of this claim de-
termines the kind of obedience that is rendered to a particular system
of authority, the kind of administrative staff that is developed to guarantee
its continued existence, and the mode in which it is exercised.
The three types are abstract constructs; none of them exists in pure
form in concrete cases. But the fact that they are not so found, Weber
points out, is “not a valid objection to attempting their conceptual
formulation in the sharpest possible form. . . . Analysis in terms of
sociological types has, after all, as compared with purely empirical his-
torical investigation, certain advantages which should not be minimized.
That is, it can in the particular case of a concrete form of authority
determine what conforms to or approximates such types.”*
Rational or legal authority rests on a belief in impersonal rules or
norms and in the right of those who gain power under such rules to issue
commands. This type is approximated in western society. Obedience is
owed to those exercising authority only by virtue of the office they occupy,
and only within the scope of authority of that office. Both the office and
its powers are established and defined by law. The person who obeys such
authority does so in his capacity as a member of the corporate group;
what he obeys is the law —an impersonal order. How this or the other
kinds of authority come into existence is not important. “What is
important is the fact that in a given case the particular claim to legitimacy
is to a significant degree and according to its type treated as valid; that
this fact confirms the position of the persons claiming authority and that
it helps to determine the choice of means of its exercise.”®
In contrast to the first type, traditional authority is based on belief
in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimate status of those
exercising power under them. The object of obedience is not enacted
laws but the person who occupies a position of authority by tradition,
such as an hereditary monarch. His commands are legitimized partly in
terms of traditions which determine the object and limits of his power.
When resistance by the subjects occurs, the opposition is not directed
against the system as such but against the person of the ruler on the
grounds that he has failed to observe the traditional limits of his authority.
ATbId (pi 529. 5 [bid., p. 327.
476 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Similarly, so long as the holder of power does not act contrary to the
traditional order, loyalty is due to him personally and not to the system.
Weber defines charisma (a term previously referred to in connection
with dictatorship)* as “a certain quality of an individual personality by
virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed
with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers
or qualities.”’ When an individual who possesses these attributes is
recognized and treated as a leader by the people, charismatic authority
arises. This recognition, which entails complete personal devotion to the
leader, may be motivated by enthusiasm or by despair and hope. Gandhi,
Mussolini, and Hitler are recent examples of charismatic leaders.
Charisma originates as a revolutionary force setting up the authority
of an individual against the established order. Since the social and
political relationships which it creates are strictly personal and based on
devotion to an individual, this type of authority cannot become stabilized
without becoming radically changed. The problem of succession inevitably
arises when the original leader dies, and unless the method of choosing
his successor is institutionalized, a struggle for power is certain to ensue
within the movement. But once the method is institutionalized either
by law or custom, charismatic authority begins to take on some of the
aspects of rational or traditional authority.

EMILE DURKHEIM

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was born of Jewish parents in Epinal,

Lorraine, on the northeastern frontier of France. In 1879, he entered the
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris, where he studied under the noted
historian Fustel de Coulanges. After traveling in Germany, he taught
social science and pedagogy in the Faculté de Lettres at Bordeaux.
Later he accepted the first chair in sociology and education at the
Sorbonne. In 1896, he founded and became editor of L’année sociologique,
which served for many years as the leading French sociological journal.
His major works include The Division of Labor in Society (1893), The
Rules of Sociological Method (1897), and Suicide (1897).
Durkheim is interested primarily in problems of social structure and
social control. He concentrates his attention on the general relations of
the individual to the social group. His intellectual mentor is Comte,
6 See ante, p. 467.
7 The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, op. cit., p. 358.
 THE POLITICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 41

from whom he inherits the two central tendencies which dominate his
thinking: positivism, and the emphasis on the group in the determination
of human conduct. So strong is this latter tendency that he constantly
endeavors to develop the theme that society exists outside of and above
individuals.

Methodology
The methodology employed by Durkheim has three distinct character-
istics. It is completely independent of philosophy; it is dominated entirely
by the idea that social facts are things and must be treated as such; and
it is exclusively sociological.
Consistent with his positivistic orientation, Durkheim begins his study
of society by denying the assumption that sociology must rest on philo-
sophic premises. However, he is not content to reject the main philo-
sophical traditions as unscientific, but he attempts to substitute a new
philosophy based on the results of the new science of society. This science
will not only advise us as to the best means of achieving social objectives
but will also, through scientific observations of empirical data, select the
ends which ought to be pursued. For this purpose Durkheim adopts
the criterion of “normality,” which he identifies with the average type.
Deviations from what is general in society are, therefore, pathological.
Durkheim vigorously insists that social facts must be treated as observ-
able objects of the external world. To study these facts the social scientist
must put himself in the same state of mind as the physicist, chemist,
or physiologist when he probes into a still unexplored region of the
scientific domain. Because we have failed to follow this procedure “we
really do not even know what are the principal social institutions, such
as the state or the family; what is the right of property or contract, of
punishment and responsibility. We are almost completely ignorant of
the factors on which they depend, the functions they fulfill, the laws
of their development.”®
According to Durkheim, the substance of social life cannot be ex-
plained by psychological factors. He decries what he considers the
unwarranted intrusions of psychology into the domain of sociology. If
sociology is to merit the title of science, three prerequisites must be met.
Social facts must be viewed as “things”; they must be considered me-
8 The Rules of Sociological Method, ed. by G. Catlin (Glencoe: Free Press, 1938),
pp. xlv—xlvi.
478 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

chanically determined; and they must be explained in terms of other

social facts, and not in terms of biology or psychology. In short, human
institutions and human behavior must be examined as the products of
mechanical social causes.
Introducing an organic concept of society, Durkheim distinguishes the
collective from the individual mind. The mentality of the group is not
the same as that of its members. “The group thinks, feels and acts quite
differently from the way in which its members would were they isolated.’”®
The study of society, therefore, should begin with the examination of
group phenomena, and not with the individual as Aristotle had done.
For if we begin with the individual, “we shall be able to understand
nothing of what takes place in the group.” Psychology is of little use in
understanding social behavior since it deals with individual consciousness.
Sociology, on the other hand, is involved with collective consciousness
which has a reality of its own.
Durkheim holds that the comparative method is the only one suited
to social science. Only by comparing cases in which certain phenomena
are simultaneously present or absent is it possible to demonstrate that one
is the cause of the other. The proper mode of discovering causal relations
is by a process of correlation. When two phenomena constantly ac-
company each other, the investigator can assume a relationship between
them. He can then seek to determine by the aid of deduction how one
of the two terms has produced or caused the other. Next, he can try
to verify the result of this deduction, with the aid of new comparisons.
As soon as he has proved in a certain number of cases that two phe-
nomena vary with one another (for example, the more education a
person has, the more likely he is to vote), he has established a tentative
causal relationship which can be subjected to further testing. History is
central to this process since it provides much of the data for comparative
analysis.
Durkheim’s study of suicide provides an excellent example of. sys-
tematic empirical research in the social sciences. The work starts out
by refuting previous attempts to explain variations in the rate of suicide
in terms of climatic, geographic, racial, or psychological factors. This
refutation is undertaken through an extensive statistical analysis of suicide
rates in various segments of European populations. Durkheim then shows
that different rates of suicide are the results of social factors. He identifies
° Ibid., p. 104,
 THE POLITICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 479

three principal types of suicide — egoistic, altruistic, and anomique — and

shows that each is due to differences in the degree of social cohesion that
exists in a society. Thus there is a higher rate of suicide among single
and divorced than married people, since family life creates stronger
bonds of cohesion. Also, in time of war there are fewer suicides, since a
society generally draws closer together in response to an external threat.

Political Sociology
Durkheim’s concern with institutions as they relate to the problem
of social control leads him into the field of political theory. Here he
seeks to demonstrate the importance of the group to political life and
to lay the theoretical basis for functional representation. His major thesis
is that the social mind exerts a strong constraining force on the indi-
vidual. Its efficacy, however, depends largely on the degree of solidarity
or cohesion that exists in the group. If the ties that bind the members
together are weak, the group’s control over individual behavior will be
correspondingly ineffectual.
Durkheim distinguishes two principal types of social solidarity: me-
chanical and organic. The first is characteristic of primitive societies,
where people are relatively homogeneous and where individual mentality
and initiative are almost completely blanketed out by the common life
of the group, with its rigid customs, taboos, and traditions. The second
is found in civilized societies, where the division of labor has led to
dissimilarities among the members by introducing different functions,
specialities, and experiences. In this type of community the differences
among individuals become as important as similarities were in the old
society. Law remains as an instrument of control but its function now
is to blend people into a differentiated but well-integrated nexus, whereas
its former function was to impose similarities upon the group. Presum-
ably, the binding force in the new society is rooted in the need which
the people have for each other.
The transfer from mechanical to organic solidarity has given rise to
difficulties in social control. The relationships of modern life are ex-
tremely complicated. Accustomed from time immemorial to authoritative
control by the family, tribe, church, or government, the individual finds
it difficult to adjust to the new conditions which give him a larger area
of freedom and discretion, but yet make his security more precarious.
As the influence of the old institutions has declined and the state has
480 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

grown more impersonal with its increase in size, no closely knit group
has remained to impose a moral discipline on the individual. Homo-
geneity has been lost, while organic solidarity has not developed sufh-
ciently to furnish the individual with guidance. This lack of cohesion is
reflected in growing crime rates, suicides, class struggles, and general
social maladjustment.
In his Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim maintains that the
most disturbing feature of modern society is the virtually anarchical
conditions which exist in economic affairs. Although economic activities
constitute an important aspect of an individual’s life, there are no regu-
lations or fixed customs to guide his behavior. Disputes between employer
and employee are resolved according to the relative strength of the
parties. One possible remedy for this condition is state regulation, but
governmental machinery is poorly adapted to handle the highly special-
ized and intricate matters involved in economic activities and relations.
Durkheim believes that the solution to the problem of social control
in modern society lies in enlarging the role of functional or occupational
groups. He points to the effective constraint that professional organiza-
tions, such as legal and medical associations, exert over their members.
Such groupings are well adapted to enforce social control. They are more
agreeable to the individual than governmental regulation; they are closer
to him and less impersonal; and they permit him to associate more easily
and directly his own interests with those of the group. Durkheim
argues for the creation of a nonpolitical regulatory body with legal power
to deal with the problems of modern industrial life. This agency would
be separate from the state although subject to its general supervision.
It would be selected by separate syndicates of workers and employers
in each industrial category and would have broad authority to regulate
economic affairs. The individual syndicate would also be endowed with
sufficient authority to enter actively into the regulation and direction
of the personal life of its members.
The proposal to give occupational groups a major role in government
is not original with Durkheim: the idea had long existed in various forms
among political thinkers. The modern political scientist is not interested
in Durkheim’s recommendations for governmental reorganization but in
the general approach or methodology which he employs in formulating
them. By first devising a general theory of social control on the basis
of empirical research, he establishes a conceptual framework for analyzing
 THE POLITICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 48]

concrete political structures. This framework provides him with a means

of discovering the strength and weakness of existing political systems
from the viewpoint of social cohesion. With this knowledge, he is then
able to make proposals for improving institutional arrangements in order
to achieve greater social stability.

VILFREDO PARETO

Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was born in Paris. His father was an

Italian nobleman who had been exiled from Genoa as a supporter of
Mazzini. When Pareto was eleven, his family returned to Italy and
settled in Turin. He studied engineering there and followed this profes-
sion for some time after his graduation from a polytechnical institute.
When he was in his early thirties, he received an inheritance which
enabled him to devote his time to study and research. In 1893 he was
appointed to a professorship in economics at the University of Lausanne,
Switzerland, where Mussolini was one of his students. During his early
years at Lausanne he did outstanding work in mathematical economics.
Later he turned to sociology, feeling the need for a broader science to
supplement his economics. His major work is A General Treatise on
Sociology.?°

Methodology
From mathematical economics, Pareto had but a short step to take
to a social science in which social and political relationships are described
in quantitative terms. His approach, as might be anticipated, is purely
empirical. Only observation and experimentation can be taken as guides
to the study of social phenomena. Anything beyond this cannot become
the object of science. No speculation or moralizing, no a priori element
or principle, can be permitted to influence the study. Progress in the
social sciences calls for precision in terminology and the quantitative
expression of social facts. Although Pareto admits that mechanical con-
ceptualizations are not entirely adequate when applied to social reality,
he loses sight of these limitations as he proceeds with his work.
The inductive method employed by Pareto involves the comparison of
large numbers of similar data, to separate the constant from the variable
10 An English translation of this work is available under the title Mind and Society,
edited by A. Livingston, 4 vols. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935).
482 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

elements. He begins by distinguishing between logical and nonlogical

actions. An action is logical if its end is objectively attainable, not only
from the point of view of the actor but also for those who have a more
extended knowledge. All other actions are nonlogical, and it is these
which predominate in social life. ““There are certain principles of non-
logical conduct from which human beings deduce their laws. Such
principles of nonlogical conduct are correlated with the conditions under
which human beings live, and change with those conditions.”
The import of this argument is that men usually act first and then
find reasons for their actions. The nonlogical elements in human behavior
are the constant while the logical are the variable factors. There is in
human conduct “on the one hand an instructive, nonlogical element
that is constant; on the other, a deductive element that is designed to
explain, justify, demonstrate, the constant element.’”?”
The greater part of Pareto’s treatise on sociology is devoted to a
classification of the nonlogical factors that motivate men. Since these
factors or drives are constant, they are the same in every society. Pareto
refers to them as residues and to the logical or variable elements as
derivations. The residues are “the manifestation of instinct and senti-’
ments as the elevation of mercury on a thermometer is the manifestation
of a rise in the temperature.”?* Although he discusses some fifty different
residues and divides them into six principal classes, only two classes are
relevant for our purposes: combination and group persistences. These
provide the two poles of his theory of social dynamics. The first results
from combining certain things in our thinking, usually with no logical
justification, such as always associating good with democracy or progress.
The second implies that by a sort of inertia established customs or beliefs
are clung to with great stubbornness and tenacity.
Derivations are the surface manifestations of residues or the under-
lying forces in human life. They are ideologies, as it were, by which men
seek to rationalize their conduct and beliefs; and as such they constitute
the variable factors in human behavior. One of the residues, for example,
involves the drive in individuals to impose their own standards of conduct
and beliefs on others. This drive is the same whether in the religious or
political fanatic; yet in each case, the residue is cloaked in a different
11 Mind and Society, op. cit., I, 407.
12 [bid., II, p. 845.
13 Tbid., Il, p. 875.
 THE POLITICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 483

form or derivation. The rationale of the religious zealot is quite different

from that of the political ideologist.

Political Sociology
Pareto’s analysis of residues and derivation forms the basis for his
substantive theories of social and political life. Residues of combination
and persistence are distributed unequally among individuals and social
groups. ‘here are those with strong residues of the first class and others
with numerous residues of the second type. The character of the pre-
dominant residue greatly influences the personality and behavior of the
individual group. Associated with the residue of combinations are quali-
ties of innovation and scheming. The tendency of those in whom this
residue is strong is to seek attainment of their ends by cleverness and
resourcefulness, and to circumvent rather than boldly face obstacles.
These individuals, whom Pareto refers to as speculators, are the entre-
preneurs who are always contemplating some new combination, whether
in business or politics. Persons strong in the residue of persistence, who
are called rentiers, are conservative, strong-willed, and decisive in action.
Suspicious of innovation, they try to preserve and maintain that which
already exists.
Based on the distinction between the two types of residues, Pareto
formulates his famous theory of the circulation of elites. He first divides
society into two classes, elite and non-elite. The elite are those who greatly
excel the masses in any particular field. They are determined by a system
of measurement in which each individual is ranked on a scale of one to
ten according to his capacity as a statesman, lawyer, author, businessman,
and so on —each person being compared with others in the same field.
The elite, in turn, are divided into the governing class, comprising those
who directly or indirectly play important roles in the manipulation of
political power; and the nongoverning elite, consisting of capable men
who are not involved to any major degree in the political process.
The character of government in a state will be determined largely
by which residue prevails among the ruling elite. If those with strong
combinations are in power, social and economic innovations can be ex-
pected. This group retains the support of the masses through various
humanitarian schemes and democratic machinations. When the rentiers
are in control, little change takes place, opposition is suppressed by force,
and government assumes dictatorial characteristics.
484 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Having formulated his theory of residues and derivations, Pareto

proceeds to analyze the dynamic structure of society which he calls
social equilibrium. He concludes that an aristocracy of leadership is
essential to an ordered society, and that change is ultimately effected in
social equilibrium by changes in leaders. When new leaders with different
type residues infiltrate the ruling class, modifications in the social system
are inevitable. Usually the transformation takes place over a period of
time, but on occasions it can be abrupt and violent.
In virtue of class-circulation, the governing elite is always in a state
of slow and continuous transformation. It flows on like a river, never
being what it was yesterday. From time to time sudden violent dis-
turbances occur. There is a flood — the river overflows its banks. After-
wards the new governing elite again resumes its slow transformation."*
When the rentiers hold the reins of government, their willingness
to use force enables them to remain in power. However, this situation
does not prevail indefinitely, since there is a natural and continual process
of circulation of the elite. A governing class that is strong in persistence
residues finds that the continued use of force to maintain power has_
serious disadvantages. It is costly in terms of maintaining order, and
it lowers economic production by destroying the loyalty of the masses.
Consequently, the tendency is for the rulers to turn more and more to
combinations or ruse as a means of governing. This reorientation leads
to the incorporation into the ruling class of those skilled in the art of
manipulation. In this way, power gradually becomes transferred from
the rentiers to the speculators. The cycle then continues since the un-
willingness of the new rulers to use force permits those strong in per-
sistence residues to organize and eventually to challenge the governing
elite. On the basis of this analysis, society might be characterized as a
system in imperfect equilibrium.

SUMMARY
Weber, Durkheim, and Pareto are representative of the contemporary at-
tempt to raise the study of society to the scientific level of the other disciplines.
In their thinking, social and political theory implies some conceptual scheme of
relationships which can serve as a basis for interpreting social behavior and
institutions. The modern theorists who attempt to explain political phe-
nomena solely in terms of power exemplify this general approach. Today,
14 Tbid., Il, p. 2056.
 THE POLITICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 485

however, most of those working in the field of social science no longer

attempt to present an all-inclusive systemization of political theory by con-
structing it around some basic or cosmic force in the total social process.
Instead there are more intensive studies of various aspects of society and the
formulation of a series of lesser theories— “theories of the middle range’”’ —
with the hope that these will ultimately grow into an all embracing theory."
The methodology employed by modern theorists emphasizes the distinction
between the scientific and the moral approach to the social sciences, insisting
that these two considerations be kept separate in studying social and political
relations. ‘There is wide recognition that empirical research, with its focus on
causal theory formulation, holds a rightful place in political science. As
several writers pointed out in a recent symposium on the practical uses of
political theory, there is no reason to object to the employment of quantita-
tive methods or to deny the validity and significance of their results. It is
only when the character of man as free moral agent is equated to the realm
of physical things, and the quantitative approach to politics held out as the
only scientific and promising one, that doubts begin to rise. For how can a
purely descriptive theory of political behavior fulfill the normative function of
setting the goals of political society?1®
To ignore the contemporary work in political science would be shortsighted;
to shun traditional political philosophy extremely foolish. Man lives in an
increasingly complex political world. At no other time in human history has he
held within his grasp the weapons of total annihilation. The need for sound
political theory in such a milieu is great and compelling. The accumulated
wisdom of the past must be joined with modern findings and techniques in
efforts to adapt political theory to the demands of a global and nuclear age.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ascoli, Max, “‘Pareto’s Sociology,”’ Social Research, February, 1936.
Barnes, Harry E., An Introduction to the History of Sociology (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1948).
Becker, Howard, and Barnes, H. E., Social Thought from Lore to Science
(Washington, D. C.: Harren Press, 1952), 2 vols.
Bendix, Reinhard, “Social Stratification and Political Power,” American
Political Science Review, June, 1952.
Bongiorno, Andrew, “A Study of Pareto’s Treatise on General Sociology,”
American Journal of Sociology, November, 1930.
Cox, Oliver, ““Max Weber on Social Stratification,” American Sociological
Review, April, 1950.
Gouldner, A. W., “Theoretical Requirements of the Applied Social Sciences,”
American Sociological Review, February, 1957.
15 For a discussion of this question see N. S. Timascheff, “Sociological Theory
Today,” American Catholic Sociological Review, Mar., 1950.
16 See Hans Jonas, “The Practical Uses of Theory,’ Social Research, Summer,
1959; and the accompanying comments by S. E. Asch, Erich Hula, and Adolph Lowe.
486 CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Heberle, Rudolph, Social Movements (New York: Appleton Century Crofts,

1950).
Hemtewon, L. J., Pareto’s General Sociology (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1935).
Hunter, Floyd, Community Power Structure (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1953).
Hyneman, Charles S., The Study of Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1959);
Laswell, Harold, and Kaplan, A., Power and Society (New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1950).
Maclver, Robert, The Web of Government (New York: Macmillan, 1947).
Merton, Robert K., “Sociological Theory,’’ American Journal of Sociology,
May, 1945.
Michels, Roberto, First Lectures in Political Sociology, trans. by Alfred de
Grazia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949).
Parsons, Talcott, The Structure of Social Action (Glencoe: Free Press, 1949).
Seligman, Lester, “The Study of Political Leadership,” American Political
Science Review, December, 1950.
Schumpeter, Joseph, “Vilfredo Pareto,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics,
May, 1949.
Sorokin, Pitirim, Contemporary Sociological Theories (New York: Harper,
1928).
Timasheff, N. S., “Law in Pareto’s Sociology,’’ American Journal of Sociology,
September, 1940.
“Sociological Theory Today,” American Catholic Sociological Re-
view, March, 1950.
 Appendix

SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS
Tue following list of selections from the original works of the major
political theorists offers suggestions for supplementary reading to accom-
pany the text. Paperbacks and other inexpensive editions are cited when-
ever available. The list of editions is representative but not complete.

Chapter |
Since the first chapter is introductory in character, no specific selections
are suggested. The journal articles listed in the selected bibliography for the
chapter deal with various aspects of the material covered therein. A more
extended bibliography of pertinent articles is found in Charles S$. Hyneman,
The Study of Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1959), pp. 211-
225.

Chapter Il
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Book II, Ch. VI, 33-47; Book IV,
Ch. XVII.
Modern Library Edition (New York: Random House).

Chapter Ill
Plato, The Republic, Books II; III (412-418); IV; V; VI (500-504); VII
(514-512, 535-542); VIII; IX (571-584).
Modern Library Edition (New York: Random House).
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton).
Mentor Book (New York: New American Library), paperback.
Oxford University Press (New York), paperback.
OrHEeR RELEVANT Works:
Plato, The Statesman (New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback,
published by Liberal Arts Press.
Excerpts from Plato’s Seventh Letter are contained in Hafner Library
of Classics edition, Aristotle: The Constitution of Athens and Related
Texts (New York: Hafner).
Xenophon, Memorabilia, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press).

Chapter IV
Aristotle, Politics, Books I; II (Ch. 1-8, 10); III; IV; V (Ch. 9, 11); VI
(Ch. 2-6).
Modern Library Edition (New York: Random House).
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton).
487
488 APPENDIX

OTHER RELEVANT Works:

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Gateway Edition (Chicago: Regnery),
paperback.
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton).
Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
Aristotle, Metaphysics.
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton).
Chapter V
Cicero, De Republica, Books I (i-viii, xix—xlvii); If (ix—xvi, xxx—xxxiil).
De Legibus, Book I (v—xxviii).
Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
OTHER RELEVANT Works:
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura (a poetic account of Epicurus’ doctrine).
Mentor Book (New York: New American Library), paperback.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.
Gateway Edition (Chicago: Regnery), paperback.
Epictetus, Discourses.
Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
Mentor Book (New York: New American Library), paperback.

Chapter VI
St. Augustine, City of God. Book XIX.
Modern Library Edition (New York: Random House).
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton).
Hafner Library of Classics (New York: Hafner).
OTHER RELEVANT Works:
Seneca, Epistulae Morales.
Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 3 vols.

Chapter VII
No English translation of any of the works relevant to this chapter are
readily available. Numerous excerpts from John of Paris’ De potestate regia
et papali are contained in John Courtney Murray’s article “(Contemporary
Orientation of Catholic Thought on Church and State in the Light of
History,” Cross Currents, Fall, 1951.

Chapter VIII
St. Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Law (Summa Theologica, I, I, Q. 90-97).
Gateway edition (Chicago: Regnery), paperback.
St. Thomas Aquinas, On Kingship, Book I.
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies).

Chapter IX
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV, Ch. 20.
Contained in John Calvin: On God and Political Duty (New York:
Library of Liberal Arts), paperback. ;
 SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 489

Chapter X
Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapters XIV—XVIII, XXV—XXVI.
Gateway edition (Chicago: Regnery), paperback.
Crofts Classics (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), paperback.
Machiavelli, The Discourses, Book I (Ch. 1-9, 20-35, 55-59).
Modern Library Edition, The Prince and the Discourses (New York:
Random House).
Chapter XI
Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, Book I (Ch. 1-10).
(Oxford: Blackwell).
Grotius, Prolegomena.
(New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.
Chapter Xil
Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapters VI; XI; XIII-XV; XVII-XXVI.
Gateway edition (Chicago: Regnery), paperback.
(Oxford: Blackwell).
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton).
OTHER RELEVANT Works:
Descartes, A Discourse on Method.
(New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton).

Chapter XIill
Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapters I-V; VII-XV; XIX.
(New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.
(Oxford: Blackwell).
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton).
OrHER RELEVANT Works:
Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana.
Important sections are contained in The Political Writings of James
Harrington (New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.
Filmer, Patriarcha.
(Oxford: Blackwell).
Chapter XIV
Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Preface; Books I-III; XI; XII; XIV.
Hafner Library of Classics (New York: Hafner).
Hume, Political Essays (New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.
OTHER RELEVANT WoOrKS:
Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.
Gateway Edition (Chicago: Regnery), paperback.
(New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.
Hume, Essays, Moral and Political.
Selections are contained in Hume’s Moral and Political Philosophy
Hafner Library of Classics (New York: Hafner), paperback.
490 APPENDIX

Chapter XV
Rosseau, Social Contract, Books I to III.
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton).
Hafner Library of Classics (New York: Hafner), paperback.

Chapter XVI
Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, approximately first 50 pages.
Gateway edition (Chicago: Regnery), paperback.
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton).

Chapter XVII
Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Chap-
ters I-VI; X; XI; XIV.
(Oxford: Blackwell).
Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, Chapter II.
Hafner Library of Classics (New York: Hafner), paperback.
Mill, On Liberty, Chapters I; II; IV.
Gateway edition (Chicago: Regnery), paperback.
Crofts Classics (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), paperback.
(New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.
(Oxford: Blackwell), includes Considerations on Representative Gov-
ernment.
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton), includes Considerations on
Representative Government, and Utilitarianism.
OrHerR RELEVANT WoOrKS:
Bentham, A Fragment on Government.
(Oxford: Blackwell), included in same edition as An Introduction to
the Principles of Morals and Legislation.
James Mill, An Essay on Government.
(New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.

Chapter XVIII
Kant, Perpetual Peace.
(New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.
Hegel, Philosophy of History, Introduction.
(New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.
Orner RELEVANT Works:
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason.
Everyman’s Library (New York: Dutton).
Kant, Critique of Practical Reason.
(New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.
Kant, Fundamental Principles of Metaphysics of Morals.
(New York: Library of Liberal Arts), paperback.
 SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS 491

Chapter XIX
Marx and Engel, Communist Manifesto.
Crofts Classics (New York: Appleton Century Crofts), paperback.
Gateway edition (Chicago: Regnery), paperback.
OTHER RELEVANT Works:
Marx, Das Kapital.
Modern Library Edition (New York: Random House).

Chapter XX
Lenin, State and Revolution, Chapters I; V.
(New York: International Publishers), paperback.
Stalin, Problems of Leninism, Chapters I to VII.
(New York: International Publishers), paperback.

Chapter XXI
Norman Thomas, Democratic Socialism, A New Appraisal.
(New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1953), pamphlet.

Chapter XXII
Alfredo Rocco, “The Political Doctrine of Fascism,” International Conciliation
Pamphlet No. 233, 1926.

Chapter XXiIll
Max Weber, Chapters IV; VIII; IX in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology,
trans. by H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills.
Galaxy Book (New York: Oxford University Press), paperback.
 INDEX

Acton, Lord John, 156 forms of government, 322 f; on natural

Age of Enlightenment, description of, 266 law, 320 ff; on nature of state, 315 f;
Alexander the Great, 63, 85, 86n political theory of, 311] ff; on role of
Antinomies, of Kant, 363 f representative, 323 f; significance of,
Anti-Semitism, of Hitler, 464 325; views on man, 313 ff
Aquinas, see St. Thomas Aquinas
Aristotle, background, 63; on best state, Calculus of pleasure, 333f
76 ff; empirical studies, 77; on ends Calvin, John, background of, 180; on
and means, 195 f; Ethics, 68; on forms Church-state relation, 182 f; on pur-
of government, 75 f; influence of Plato pose of civil government, 181; on re-
on, 4; on kinds of rule, 72; on natu- sistance to secular rule, 180f
ral slavery, 81 f; on nature of state, 69; Capitalism, Marx on, 391 ff
philosophical premises of, 68; political Cassirer, Ernst, on Hegel, 366; on Plato,
theory of, 63 ff; on practical science, 65
67; on purpose of state, 71; on size of Categorical imperative, 362f
state, 79; on state as community, 70 Catholic Center Party, 410
Athens, as city-state, 27 ff; fall of, 36; Causal theory, meaning of, 5; in modern
foreign policy, 36 f; political organiza- writings, 471 ff
tion of, 30 ff; social classes in, 28 Chamberlain, Houston, on Nordic su-
Attlee, Clement, on British socialism, premacy, 462f
439 f Charismatic leadership, definition of, 476,
Augsburg, Religious Peace of, 175f and fascism, 467
Authority, Aristotle on, 72 Charles I, 247
Ayran race, and national socialism, 463 Charles II, 247
Charles V, 179
Babeuf, Francois, 383 Christianity, early social thought of, 110 f;
Barclay, William, on divine rights, 208 origin of, 107; and political authority,
Becker, Carl, on philosophes, 268 J
Bellamy, Edward, 443 Church-state, in Calvinism, 182 f; Luth-
Bentham, Jeremy, background of, 331; er’s views of, 178; in Marsilius, 137;
on common good, 336 f; on nature of relationships of, 128 ff
state, 338: political theory of, 331 ff; Cicero, background of, 92; on ideal state,
on utilitarian test, 334 95 f; methodology of, 93; on natural
Bernstein, Edward, as revisionist, 406f law, 97 f; on nature of state, 94 f
Bill of Rights of 1689, 248 Circulation of elites, Pareto’s theory of,
Blanc, Louis, 384 483
Bodin, Jean, background of, 209; on Citizen, Aristotle on, 74
limiting sovereignty, 214; on origin of Citizenship, Athenian, 28; Spartan, 34
state, 212; significance of, 215f; on City of God, basic concept of, 117; pur-
sovereign state, 209ff pose of, 116
Bolsheviks. program of, 410 City-state, Athens, 27 ff; importance of,
Bonald, Vicomte de, 327 27; religion in, 72 n; Rome, 91; sover-
Bonaparte, Napoleon, on Machiavelli, 188 eign entity, 27; Sparta, 34 ff
Boniface VIII, Church-state relations, Classical tradition, elements of, 8 ff
133 f Classless society, Lenin on, 418ff
Borgia, Cesare, 189, 198 Class struggle, in Marxian thought, 390 ff
Bosanquet, Bernard, 357 Clear and present danger, doctrine of,
Burke, Edmund, background, 312; on 346
493
494 INDEX

Clericis Laicos, 133 ment, 480; methodology of, 476 f; polit-

“Cold War,” 450 ical theory of, 476 ff; on suicide, 478f
Cole, G. D. H., on Fabian socialism, 434
Collins, James, on Hegel’s philosophy, Economics, classical school of, 352;
3738 Marx’s views of, 393 f; Mill’s ideas of,
Common good, Aristotle’s conception of, 347; relation of, to politics, 76
71; Bentham on, 336 f; Machiavelli on, Edict of toleration, 107f
198; traditional concept of, 198 Education, Platonic system of, 52 f
Communism, 404 ff; final stage of, 398 ff; Egidius Colonna, on Church-state rela-
last stage of, 419 f; meaning of, 395 ff; tions, 134f
Platonic, 55 f; as religion, 401; revolu- Empiricism, meaning of, 19
tionary, 410 ff; revolutionary character Engels, Friedrich, on historical material-
of, 413 f; views on state, 422 ff; see also ism, 388; and Marx, 385
Communist party; Marx, Karl Enlightenment, the, description of, 286
Communist Manifesto, formulation of, Environment, effect of, on politics, 276f
386; objectives listed in, 396 Epicureanism, meaning of, 87; political
Communist party, role of, 413, 416 implications of, 87f
Condorcet, on progress, 272ff Epicurus, 87 f
Conservatism, characteristics of, 328; in Epistemology, empirical theory of, 361;
France, 326 ff; in Great Britain, 311- of Hume, 283; of Kant, 359 ff; of
312; of Hume, 285 Locke, John, 261; and political theory,
Constitutional government, definition of, 18 f
14 Equality, Cicero’s concept of, 99
Constitutionalism, Locke’s contribution to, Eternal law, definition of, 158
255 f; meaning of, 14; and natural law, Ethics of Aristotle, on happiness, 68;
14 nature of man, 73
Corporate state, in fascist doctrine, 458 ff
Corporations, in fascist Italy, 459 Fabian socialism, 431 ff
Cripps, Sir Stafford, on Christian social- Fascism, 449 ff; German, 460 ff; Italian,
ism, 440 451ff; philosophy of, 453ff
Critique of Pure Reason, 358 Fascist and corporative chamber, 460
Cromwell, Oliver, 247 Felicific calculus, meaning of, 333 f; use
of, 339
Dawson, Christopher, on Church-state re- Feuerbach, Ludwig, 387
lations, 142; on communism, 401 Filmer, Sir Robert, on divine right of
Debs, Eugene V., 443 f kings, 246
Defensor Pacis, see Marsilius of Padua First International, 386
De Jure Belli ac Pacis, 219 Fortune, Machiavelli on, 202
De Leon, Daniel, 443 Fourier, Charles, 384
De Maistre, Joseph, 326 f Freedom, in Hegelian thought, 373 ff;
Democracy, basic premises of, 18, 31; Mill on, 343ff
Aristotle on, 78 f; Rousseau, 300 ff
Descartes, René, epistemology of, 228, Gaius, on law, 101
266; philosophic dualism of, 228, 229 n Gelasian doctrine, interpretation of, by
Dialectic, of Hegel, 368 f; Marxian, 387 f; lawyers, 136; John of Paris on, 140;
of Socrates, 41 meaning of, 129
Dictatorship of Proletariat, Lenin’s view Gelasius I, on Church-state relations, 129;
of, 415f; in Marxian thought, 395f see also Two Swords
Diggers, views on property, 249 n General will, definition of, 296ff
Discourse on Method, 228 Geneva, Church-state relations in, 182
Disraeli, on conservatism, 317 Gentile, Giovanni, contribution of, to
Divine law, necessity for, 161 Fascism, 454
Divine right, doctrine of, 208 George III, 312
Diilas. Milovan. on communism, 427 Gewirth, Alan, on Marsilius, 173
Durkheim, Emile, ideas of, on govern- Glorious revolution, 317
 INDEX 499
Goering, Herman, on Hitler, 467 Ideal state, 57f
Government, role of, 16 “Ideal type,” in Max Weber’s theory,
Greatest happiness, principle of, 336f aS
Green lei. 357 Individualism, Hobbes as forerunner of,
Gregory I, see St. Gregory the Great 244; Locke’s contribution to, 264; of
Gregory VII, see St. Gregory VII Mill, 346
Gregory the Great, see St. Gregory the Industrial Revolution, characteristics of
Great 381; effects of, 382f
Gronlund, Laurence, 443 n International law, Grotius’ concept of,
Grotius, Hugo, on international law, 219; 219
on natural law, 219 f; significance of, Investiture controversy, significance of,
220 ff 130ff
Guild socialism, description of, 434ff Iron Law of Wages, 382

Hallowell, J. H., on Grotius, 222; on Jacksonian Democracy, 349; premises of

idealism, 357; on Renaissance, 168 33
Harrington, James, political theory of, James I, on divine rights, 208
249 £ James II, 247
Hearnshaw, F. J., on Rousseau, 290 James of Viterbo, on Church-state rela-
Hegel, G. W. F., background of, 365 f; tions, 135
on individual rights, 374; on mission John of Paris, on Church-state relations,
of state, 375; philosophy of history, 139 5
369 f; theory of state, 370 ff; use of John of Salisbury, 144 ff; on tyrannicide,
dialectic, 368f 146
Helvetius, 330, 370 Justice, Augustine on, 121; Platonic def-
Henry IV, Emperor, investiture contro- inition of, 51
ves, sar
Heraclitus, philosophy of, 26 Kant, Immanuel, on antinomies, 363 f;
Hincmar of Rheims, 153 background of, 358; on ethics, 361 ff;
Historical materialism, meaning of, 388 ff political philosophy of, 357 ff; political
History, Hegelian philosophy of, 369 f; theory of, 364 f; theory of knowledge,
Marxian concept of, 389-395; and poli- 359
tical philosophy, 7; theories of, 274 Kautsky, Karl, on Marxian doctrine, 407 ff
Hitler, Adolph, background of, 461; on Khrushchev, Nikita, on Stalin, 425f
German Volk, 465; leadership cult, Kingship, Aristotle on, 77; Cicero on,
466 ff; on Machiavelli, 188; on master 95 f; St. Augustine on, 123; St. Thomas
race, 463 on, 155
Hobbes, Thomas, background of, 229 f; Knowledge, Aristotelian theory of, 64 ff;
on methodology, 231] f; on natural law, Platonic theory of, 43 ff; and political
236f: on nature of man, 234; psy- power, 57; a posteriori, 359; a priori,
chology of, 232 ff; on social contract, 359; problem of, 18 f; realistic theory
238 ff; the sovereign Leviathan, 227 ff; of, 19 f; Socratic definition of, 42
sovereignty, 241 ff; on state of nature,
Za ie Labour Party, goals of, 438 f; origin of,
Holbach, Baron d’, 270 in Great Britain, 437 f; program of,
Holmes, Justice Oliver Wendell, “clear 440 f
and present danger” doctrine, 346 Laski, Harold, on political nature of man,
Humanism, in medieval period, 168 69
Hume, David, background of, 281; episte- Law, coercive and directive force of, 154;
mology of. 357; on natural law, 282 f; as defined by St. Thomas, 161; Ger-
political theory of, 281 ff manic concept of, 158; Montesquieu
on, 277 f; St. Thomas’ classification of,
Idealism, of Hegel, 367ff; meaning of, 158 ff: in utilitarian thought, 339; see
357: and political theory, 356 ff; see also Divine law; Eternal law; Natural
also Political idealism law; Positive law
496 INDEX

Legibus solutus, doctrine of, 154 Marx, Karl, background of, 385 f; on class
Lenin, Nicolai, background of, 411 f; on struggle, 390 ff; on economics, 393 f; on
Bolshevist revolution, 417 f; on dictator- historical materialism, 389 f; on revolu-
ship of proletariat, 415f; on revolu- tion, 395; on role of state, 397 f; use of
tion, 413f dialectic, 387 f
Levelers, theories of, 248 ff Materialism, in Epicureanism, 87; histor-
Leviathan, 231 ff; popular reception of, ical, 388 ff; Marx’s view of, 388
246 McCoy, C. N. R., on Machiavelli, 193f
Leviathan, and man’s nature, 243; mean- MclIlwain, Charles, on citizenship, 75
ing of, in Hobbes’ thought, 240 Mechanistic theory, meaning of, 13
Lewis, Ewart, on St. Thomas, 152 Mein Kampf, as Nazi doctrine, 462; and
L’Hopital, Michel de, 209 Volk, 465; written, 461
Liberalism, characteristics of, 351 f; early Mensheviks, program of, 410f
roots of, 272; in Kant, 365; of Spencer, Mercantilism, 381
By ak Mercier, on “Liberalism,” 272
Lindsay, A. D., on British Labour party, Methodology, of Durkheim, 477 f; Ma-
438 chiavelli on, 190 f; of Max Weber,
Locke, John, background of, 251; con- 473 £; of Pareto, 481 f
tributions to American thought, 256; Middle Ages, political theory of, 127
on limited government, 255 f; on prop- Mill, James, 340, 349
erty, 257; on purpose of government, Mill, John Stuart, attitude toward democ-
256 ff; on right of revolution, 263; on racy, 348f; background of, 340f; on
separation of powers, 262; on social freedom, 343 ff; on natural law, 343;
contract, 254; on state of nature, 251 f political theory of, 340 ff; on role of
Looking Backward, 443 government, 347 f; on utilitarianism,
Luther, Martin, break with Rome, 175; 341 f
Church-state relations, 178; on original Mixed government, Cicero on, 95 f; St.”
sin, 179 f; on passive resistance, 179; Thomas on, 156
on purpose of civil government, 181; Monarchomachs, description of, 183
on source of political power, 176; on Montesquieu, background of, 275; on en-
suppression of heresy, 178 vironment, 276; on forms of govern-
ment, 276f; on law, 277 f; political
Machiavelli, background of, 188 f; on theory of, 275 ff; on separation of
common good, 198; on ends and means, powers, 279 ff
195; on forms of government, 199; on Morality, and politics, 6; public and pri-
fortune, 202; methodology of, 190 ff; vate, 196f
on nature of man, 193 f:; political phi- Murray, John Courtney, on Church-state
losophy of, 187 ff; on public morality, relations, 138
196 f Mussolini, Benito, background of, 451; on
Machiavellianism, meaning of, 204 myth, 457; on nature of state, 454; on
Madison, James, on separation of powers, personal freedom, 456
280
Majority rule, danger of, 344, 350; jus- Napoleon, see Bonaparte, Napoleon
tification for, 258; Rousseau on, 298 Nationalism, development of, 206; effect
Malthus, Thomas, 382 of Reformation on, 185; in fascist doc-
Man, nature of, 9 trine, 456 f; in Hobbes’ philosophy, 233
Marcus Aurelius, on stoicism, 89 National Socialism, in Germany, 460 ff
Mariana, on antiabsolutism, 184f Natural law, Burke on, 320 ff; Christian
Maritain, Jacques, on natural law, 11; on concept of, 113 f; Cicero on, 97 f; classi-
St. Thomas, 148; on sovereignty, 217f cal definition of, 11f; and constitu-
Marsilius of Padua, on Church-state re- tionalism, 14; Hobbes’ version of, 236 f:
lation, 137; on faith and reason, 170; Hume’s attack on, 282 f; Locke’s con-
on forms of government, 172; on na- cept of, 260f; “modernization” of,
ture, of state, 170 f; political philosophy 219 f; political philosophy, 10; relation
of, 169 ff; view on law, 174 of, to positive law, 160; St. Thomas’
 INDEX 497
concept of, 159; Stoic conception of, Political sociology, meaning of, 472
98; in utilitarian thought, 335, 343 Political theory, meaning of, 4
Natural slavery, meaning of, 81 f Politiques, views of, 209 £
Nature, see State of nature Polity, meaning of, 77
Nazism, see Fascism; National Socialism Polybius, on checks and balances, 96;
Newton, influence of, on political think- theory of history, 274
ing, 267 Ponet, John, on antiabsolutism, 184
Noumena, meaning of, 360 Popular sovereignty, 171 f; Marsilius’ view
of, 171 f; St. Thomas on, 155
Oceana, 249 f Positive law, as defined by St. Thomas,
Oligarchy, Aristotle on, 75 160
On Liberty, 343 Power politics, Machiavelli’s contribution
Organic theory, meaning of, 13; Plato, to, 204; traditional view of, 204f
48 f Practical science, definition of, 66
Organic theory of state, Marlius of Padua Prescription, definition of, 318f
on, 170 Priestly, Joseph, 332
Original sin, Christian doctrine of, 99; Property, Harrington on, 250; John Locke
effect of, on political authority, 151; on, 257
and political philosophy, 15; Thomas Public morality, Machiavelli on, 196f
Aquinas on, 163 Pufendorf, Samuel, 220
Ostracism, in Athens, 34
Owen, Robert, 384f Quesnay, Francois, 271

Panaetius, stoicism, 89 Rationalism, of Descartes, 228; meaning

Pareto, Vilfredo, background of, 481; of, 19, 227
methodology of, 481 f; political theory Reason, as instrumental agency, 243, 283
of, 481 ff Reformation, background of, 175f
Parmenides, philosophy of, 26 Religion, in city-state, 72 n
Passive obedience, in France, 183; Luther Religious Peace of Augsburg, 175 f
on, 178 f Renaissance, characteristics of, 167f
Patriarcha, 246 Representative, role of, 323f
Peloponnesian War, 37, 40 Residues, in Pareto’s theory, 482
Pericles, funeral oration of, 30 Revelation, effect of, on political philoso-
Philip the Great, 37, 63, 85 phy, 125; relation of, to reason, 162
Philosopher king, Platonic description of, Revisionism, in socialist doctrine, 405 ff
53 Revolution of 1688, 317
Philosophes, 267 ff Ricardo, David, 382
Philosophical Radicals, 330 ff Rocco, Alfredo, contribution of, to fas-
Physiocrats, 271 f cism, 454; on democracy, 455
Plato, background of, 40 f; Cicero on, 94; Roman lawyers, contributions of, 100 ff
class structure, 51; educational system, Romanticism, characteristics of, 288 ff
52 f; on government, 54 f; ideal state, Rome, administration, 91; contributions
50 ff; influence on Aristotle, 64; on of, 90; fall of, 114 f; founding of, 90;
man, 47, 49; political philosophy of, government of, 90 ff; political thought
40 ff; premises of political philosophy, in, 85 ff
46 ff; Statesman and Laws, 58 ff; theory Rosenberg, Alfred, as Nazi theoretician,
of knowledge, 43 ff 462
Policraticus, 145 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, background of,
Political authority, source of, 18, 101, 289; on executive powers, 303f; on
152 ff; traditional view of, 291 forms of government, 304 f; on general
Political idealism, definition of, 357; in- will, 296 ff; idea of legislator, 302 f; in-
compatibility of, to constitutional gov- consistencies of, 290; on nature of state,
ernment, 374 298 f; on political authority, 291 f; po-
Political philosophy, meaning of, 4; and litical theory of, 288 ff; on representa-
political science, 5 tive government, 300 ff; on social con-
498 INDEX

tract, 294 ff; Jean Jacques, on state of 441 ff; utopian, 383 ff; see also Fabian
nature, 292 ff socialism; Guild socialism
Rule, constitutional, 73; despotic, 73; Sociology, Weber’s definition of, 473
royal, 73 Socrates, on knowledge, 42; philosophy of,
Rule of law, meaning of, 80 41 ff
Russell, Bertrand, on Hegel, 366 f; on Sophists, description of 41 .n; on law, 42
Rousseau, 306 Sorel, Georges, on myth, 457
Sovereign state, 206 ff
St. Augustine, background of, 115; con- Sovereignty, Bodin’s definition of, 213; in
cept of two cities, 117 f; on democracy, fascist doctrine, 455 f; Hobbes’ concept
157; on justice, 121 f; political philoso- of 241 ff; Locke on, 255 f; Maritain’s
phy of, 123 ff; on revelation between critique of, 217 f; in middle ages, 206
two cities, 122 f; on role of state, 119; Sparta, contribution of, 36; despotism, 34;
theory of history, 274 government of, 35; social classes, 34
St. Gregory the Great, attitude toward Speculative science, definition of, 66
state, 130 f; on nature of state, 120 Spencer, Herbert, individualism of, 353;
St. Gregory VII, investiture controversy, on social evolution, 352
132 Stalin, Joseph, background of, 420; the
St. James, on obedience to authority, 111 leadership cult, 424 f; on socialism in
St. Paul, on natural law, 114; on obedi- single country, 422; on state, 423 f
ence to authority, 111 ff State, bourgeois view of, 173 ff; Christian
Saint Simon, Henri, 383 concept of, 151; communist view of,
St. Thomas Aquinas, background of, 422 ff; Hegelian theory of, 370 ff; limi-
147 f; on forms of government, 155 ff; tations on, 81; medieval conception of,
influence of Aristotle on, 148; on mixed 206; medieval view of, 145; as natural
government, 156; on nature of state, institution, 48; nature of, 13f, 298 f; .
149 ff; on original sin, 163; on political organic theory of, 147; origin of, 70;
philosophy, 144 ff; on revolution, 146; purpose of, 50, 150; role of, 17; role of,
on tyrannicide, 146 in Marxian thought, 397f
Salic law, 214 State of nature, Hobbes on, 235 f; Locke’s
Second International, 386n view of, 252 f; Rousseau’s concept of,
Secularism, in Renaissance period, 168 292 ff
Seneca, on brotherhood of man, 109 f; on Stoicism, development of, 88 f; meaning
origin of state, 109; philosophical beliefs of, 88
of, 108f Subsidiarity, definition of, 15 ff; Mill on,
Separation of powers, Locke, John, on, 347 f; in socialist thought, 446
262; Madison, James, on, 280; Montes- Surplus value, meaning of, 393
quieu on, 279 ff; Polybius on, 96 Syndicalism, definition of, 457 n
Shaftesbury, First Earl of, 251
Shaw, George Bernard, 432 Theory of Progress, during Enlighten-
Simon, see Saint Simon, Henri ment, 272 ff
Slavery, Aristotle on, 81 f; in Athens, 29; Third International, 386 n
institutional, 82; see also Natural slavery Thomas, Norman, position on national-
Smith, Adam, 382 ization, 444 f; program of, 445
Social Contract, 290 Thomas Aquinas, see St. Thomas Aquinas
Social Contract, Burke’s views on, 315 f; Thucydides, Melian dialogue of, 37
Hegel on, 371; Hobbes’ version of, Totalitarianism, in communist doctrine,
238 ff; Locke’s concept of, 254; medi- 415 ff; in fascist doctrine, 449 ff; in
eval notion of, 153; Rousseau on, 294 ff Hegelian thought, 374
Social Democratic Party, in Germany, 404, Trotsky, Leon, on Communist party, 416;
406, 410; in Russia, 405, 410 on international revolution, 417; strug-
Socialism, democratic, 429 ff; in Great gle with Stalin, 420 f; on world revo-
Britain, 430 ff; relevance of today, 447; lution, 421 f
revision of, 405ff; “scientific,” 385 ff; Two Swords, doctrine of, 129; Reforma-
types of, 383, 429; in United States, tion view of, 182 f
 INDEX 499
Two Treatises of Government, 251 ff Voluntary organizations, importance of, 17
Tyrannicide, doctrine of, 146; Mariand Voting, Mill on, 350
on, 185
Wages, Ricardo on, 382
Unam Sanctam, 134
Webb, Sidney, socialism of, 433 ff
Utilitarianism, definition of, 332; of
Weber, Max, background of, 472 f;
Hume, 285; revision of, by Mill, 341 f;
methodology of, 473 f; political theory
as standard of morality, 335
of, 474 ff
Utilitarians, 330
Weimar Republic, fall of, 461 f; founding
of, 410
Viereck, Peter, on conservatism, 318
William of Orange, 247
Vindiciae contra tyrannos, 183 f
Winstanley, Gerrard, 249 n
Virtue, relation of, to politics, 67
Voltaire, on government, 270; on religion,
269 Zeno, 88
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