hoped to prove the correctness of his political faith. And this method of political reasoning was employed, not only when the government or the opposition to the government sought to prove its case by reference to natural or divine laws, but also when they sought to base their respective claims upon the law of the particular state. History was wilfully misread by all parties in order to prove a particular interpretation of the law. In England, where the main weight of the constitutional controversy turned upon the interpretation of the common law and Parliamentary history, this misuse of history by both sides is especially marked. Coke and Prynne are as flagrant offenders as Finch or Berkeley or Herbert; and the House of Commons as any Stuart king.

It is obvious that this method of political reasoning is directly inherited from the mediæval view that the supremacy of law, divine or human, must be maintained. It borrows both the language and the concepts of its mediæval past. But political theory necessarily follows very closely the facts of contemporary political life. It is made with a view to contemporary problems, and is therefore cast in the mould of contemporary ideas. Hence, in spite of the use of mediæval language and mediæval concepts, we can see in this century a change in the nature of the problems which political theorists were trying to solve, and a consequent change in the character of their speculations. The coming of the territorial state had made the problem of sovereignty the political problem of the century. That tended to make the medieval ideal-the securing of the supremacy of law divine or human-sink into the background. The maintenance of that supremacy was not regarded, as in the Middle Ages, as an end in itself; but rather men argued for the supremacy of this or that version of divine or human law, in order to prove a thesis as to the balance of power, or the whereabouts of the sovereign power in the state. Obviously, theories of the divine. right of kings or of a social compact, used to prove theses of this kind, are very different in their orientation from similar theories used, as they were used in the Middle Ages, to justify particular expedients for securing the supremacy of law.

This change in the character of political speculation, which we can see in the seventeenth century, will pave the way to yet further changes. The analysis of sovereignty will tend to separate morals from law, and to draw a hard and fast line between moral right and legal right; and the insistence on the legal supremacy of the sovereign will tend to banish ethical ideals from political reasoning. It will tend to substitute for these ethical ideals considerations of utility or expediency, and to make the dominant aim of politics the securing of the greatest material advantage

for the strongest party in the state. Necessarily this change will react on methods of political reasoning. Both in the Middle Ages and in the seventeenth century political theories were deduced logically from fixed postulates. But in modern times, when no such fixed postulates are recognized, they have tended to become merely a series of generalizations arrived at inductively from the teachings of history and considerations of expediency. But the conclusions of a science, which proceeds on these lines, are far more indefinite and far less authoritative than they were in the days when its conclusions were assumed to be logical deductions from great moral or religious principles. In fact, under the influence of the indeterminate and conflicting ideals of various groups of modern politicians, they tend to become merely a repertoire of arguments for the particular thesis which the writer happens to favour. Political reasoning tends more and more to turn upon considerations of expediency; and its conclusions can only be justified or condemned by their results. Thus somewhat the same set of principles which have long been applied to settle the international relations of states, tend more and more to be applied to settle political questions arising within the state.

3

In

We see the beginnings of this change at the close of this period. We have seen that Filmer's new argument for the divine right of kings was assailable by arguments as to its improbability based on grounds of utility. We have seen that Locke's conception of the original contract, and of the contents of the natural rights of the subject, were also based on obvious grounds of utility. Halifax, like Selden, was wholly sceptical as to the existence of these divine or natural or fundamental rights. his writings the law of nature is reduced to a preference for virtue or an instinct of self-preservation. The only fundamental principle in politics which he admits is the principle of sovereignty." Fundamental principles designed to keep a constitution unchanged he will have none of-constitutions must be changed "as often as the good of the people requireth it ";" and the sovereign power will certainly make these changes whenever it sees fit to do so." Fundamental laws of nature cannot be settled by men, for all

1 Above 278-279.

2 Above 284-287.

3 Above 289; for Selden's views see vol. v 409-410.

4"All laws flow from that of Nature, and when that is not the foundation they may be legally imposed, but they will be lamely obeyed. By this Nature is not meant that which fools, libertines, and madmen would misquote to justify their excesses; it is innocent and uncorrupted Nature—that which disposeth men to choose virtue without its being prescribed, and which is so far from inspiring ill thoughts into us that we take pains to suppress the good ones it infuseth," Character of a Trimmer, Foxcroft ii 283-284.

5 Above 280 n. I.

Political Thoughts, Foxcroft ii 494.

7 Anatomy of an Equivalent, ibid 439-442.

such laws "must vary for the good of the whole." 1 But as yet the change is only beginning. Locke is still at pains to show that there is some historical basis for his conception of the original contract, from which the rights and liberties of the people flow.2 The original contract has not yet been reduced, as Blackstone reduced it, to a mere method of expressing the truth that all government is founded on the consent of the governed. Locke, therefore, cannot frankly base his political theories upon the principle of utility. Leslie Stephen found it "strange to see a man of such vast intellectual vigour, and, above all, with so firm a grasps of facts, allowing himself to be trammelled with this vexatious figment." 5 But two sufficient reasons compelled him to use the machinery of natural rights and original contract to justify the practical conclusions which flow more naturally from the principle of utility. In the first place, it was the accepted method of political reasoning; and, long after the original contract was recognized to be a fiction, reverence for church and king, and for custom and tradition, helped to counteract the view that state machinery and political programmes were matters depending solely upon logic and utility. In the second place, it was necessary for Locke to adopt this method of reasoning from the purely forensic point of view. So long as a Stuart restoration was a possible thing, the maintenance of the theory of the divine or natural rights of the people was needed as a counterpoise to the theory of the divine right of the king." We shall now see

1"Some would define a fundamental to be the settling the laws of Nature and common equity in such a sort as that they may be well administered: even in this case there can be nothing fixed but it must vary for the good of the whole," Political Thoughts, Foxcroft ii 494.

2 Two Treatises of Government, Bk. ii §§ 10I-III.

3. Though society had not its formal beginning from any convention of individuals, actuated by their wants and their fears; yet it is the sense of their weakness and imperfection that keeps mankind together; that demonstrates the necessity of this union; and that, therefore, is the solid and natural foundation, as well as the cement of society. And this is what we mean by the original contract of society; which, though perhaps in no instance it has ever been formally expressed at the first institution of a state, yet in nature and reason must always be understood and implied, in the very act of associating together," Bl. Comm. i 47-48; the death-blow to the theory of original contract and the supposed natural rights which flowed from it was given by Hume and Burke, below 299 nn. 2 and 3.

4" Vigorously as Locke can put the utilitarian argument, we become sensible that it somehow fails to give him complete satisfaction. He wants some binding element to supplement the mere shifting considerations of expediency. We constantly meet with rights of an indefeasible nature, which have somehow obtained an authority independent of the source from which they are derived. He is forced to alternate between simple utilitarianism and an odd system of legal fictions," Leslie Stephen, English Thought in the Eighteenth Century ii 138; the best concrete illustration of the effects of this attitude of mind is his denial to the legislature of the power to change its constitution, and get rid of the anomalies which disfigured the representative system, and his assertion that these anomalies could only be remedied, if at all, by the prerogative, Locke, op. cit. Bk. ii §§ 157, 158.

"Ibid ii 140.

6 Above 283; cp. Figgis, Divine Right of Kings, 175-176.

that it was largely because Hobbes attempted, in the middle of this century, to construct a political theory on the sole bases of logic and expediency, that his influence over his own generation was so small; and that it was for exactly the same reason that his merits came to be fully appreciated at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

(4) Hobbes, and his Influence on Political Theory.

Hobbes was perhaps the greatest, and certainly the most original and stimulating political philosopher, that England has ever produced. Like Bentham, he claimed to be much more than a political philosopher. His political philosophy, as expounded in the Leviathan and his other works, is a deduction from, and an application of, the general principles by which he sought to explain the genesis of human knowledge, and the evolution of human life.

2

He was a thorough-going materialist,1 and a worshipper of logical reasoning. Matter and motion were for him the two ultimate facts of the universe; and all human activities, intellectual or otherwise, he considered to be forms of motion. Man differed from the beasts in that his intellectual motions were somewhat different. Firstly, he is curious.* Firstly, he is curious. "The beast flies from or approaches a new object, only considering whether it will serve his turn.'” The man endeavours to discover the cause. Hence arises all philosophy, "which is . . . the theory of consequence in general." Secondly, he has the gift of speech, which enables him to gratify his curiosity, and thus to acquire knowledge by which he can ameliorate his condition. Without it, "there had been amongst men neither Commonwealth, nor Society, nor contract, nor peace, no more than amongst Lyons, Bears and Wolves."6 Speech enables men to give names to things; and this power in its turn enables them to reason.

1 Leslie Stephen, Hobbes 82.

8

2 Ibid 70-71-"He was a born logician. He loved reasoning for its own sake. His great aim was to be absolutely clear, orderly, and systematic. . . . Euclid fascinated him as constituting a complete chain of demonstrable propositions, each indissolubly linked to its predecessor, and everyone confirming and confirmed by the others. A complete theory of things in general should, he thought, be a philosophical Euclid; and he hoped to lay down its fundamental principles and its main outlines."

4 Ibid (1st ed.) 26. 6 Leviathan 12.

7 Ibid.

3 Ibid 82-84; Leviathan, Introd. Leslie Stephen, Hobbes 133. 8" The manner how Speech serveth to the remembrance of the consequence of causes and effects, consisteth in the imposing of Names, and the Connection of them," Leviathan 13; "By this imposition of names, some of larger, some of stricter signification, we turn the reckoning of the consequences of things imagined in the mind, into a reckoning of the consequences of appellations," ibid 14; "The Greeks have but one word λóyos, for both Speech and Reason; not that they thought there was no Speech without Reason; but no Reasoning without Speech: and the

Indeed the power to reason rightly, and thus to ascertain truth, depends upon our capacity to "rightly order names in our affirmations." In other words, the power to frame correct definitions is a condition precedent to the attainment of all exact knowledge.1

3

2

In nature each name stands for a particular thing. But the faculties of speech and reason have enabled men, firstly, to invent universal names for all things of the same kind; secondly, to deduce consequences from the thoughts and conceptions which are expressed in words; and thirdly, to construct general rules called "theorems or Aphorismes." These powers are not, like sense or memory, born with us. They are "attayned by industry; first in apt imposing of names; and secondly by getting a good and orderly method in proceeding from the elements, which are names, to assertions made by connection of one of them to another; and so to syllogismes, which are the connections of one assertion to another, till we come to a knowledge of all the consequences of names appertaining to the subject in hand; and that is it, men call Science." Speech, reason, science-all ultimately depend upon names; and, that being so, no science can give us absolute knowledge. It can never be anything but conditional. But, it will be asked, are such things as Truth, Justice, and Virtue merely names? The answer is, Yes. Truth or falsehood are merely names which result from the use of language. Justice or virtue are merely

act of reasoning they call Syllogisme; which signifieth summing up of the consequences of one saying to another," ibid 16.

1" Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth, had need to remember what every name he useth stands for; and to place it accordingly; or else he will find himself entangled in words. . . And therefore in Geometry (which is the onely science that it has pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind) men begin at settling the significations of their words; which settling of significations they call Definitions; and place them in the beginning of their reckoning," Leviathan 15.

2 Ibid 13, 14.

3 Ibid 14, 16, cited above 294 n. 8.

4" He [man] can by words reduce the consequences he findes to generall rules, called Theoremes, or Aphorismes; that is, he can Reason, or reckon, not onely in number; but in all other things, whereof one may be added unto, or subtracted from another," ibid 20.

Ibid 21.

6" And therefore, when the Discourse is put into Speech, and begins with the Definitions of Words, and proceeds by Connexion, of the same into generall Affirmations, and of these again into Syllogismes; the End or last summe is called the Conclusion; and the thought of the mind by it signified, is that conditionall Knowledge, or Knowledge of the consequence of words, which is commonly called SCIENCE," ibid 31-32.

"No man can know by Discourse, that this, or that, is, has been, or will be ; which is to know absolutely; but onely, that if This be, That is; if This has been, That has been; if This shall be, That shall be: which is to know conditionally; and that not the consequence of one thing to another; but of one name of a thing, to another name of the same thing," ibid 31.

• Ibid 15.