1689 2026
This is an AI modernization of Two Treatises of Government into contemporary English. The original is available from Standard Ebooks.
Book I: Of Government
Book II: Of Civil Government
Preface
Reader,
What you have here is the beginning and the end of a work about government. The middle section -- which was actually longer than everything else combined -- has been lost, and it's not worth boring you with the story of how. What remains, I hope, is enough to accomplish three things: to secure the throne of our great restorer, our current King William; to prove that his right to rule is grounded in the consent of the people, which is the only basis for any lawful government -- and which he possesses more fully and clearly than any ruler in all of Christendom; and to justify to the world the people of England, whose love of their just and natural rights, and their determination to defend those rights, saved the nation when it was teetering on the very edge of slavery and ruin.
If these pages carry the force of evidence that I believe they do, then the missing sections won't be much missed, and my reader can rest easy without them. I certainly have no time or desire to redo all that work -- tracing Sir Robert Filmer's arguments through every twist and dead end in the various branches of his remarkable system. Besides, the king and the nation as a whole have since so thoroughly demolished Filmer's theory that I doubt anyone in the future will have the nerve to argue against our common liberty and play the advocate for slavery, or be gullible enough to fall for contradictions dressed up in a popular style and polished prose.
But if anyone wants to put in the effort -- in those parts of Filmer's work that I haven't addressed here -- just strip his writing of its flourish of vague expressions and try to boil his words down to clear, direct, understandable claims. Then compare those claims with one another. You'll quickly discover that there was never so much glib nonsense put together in well-sounding English.
If that sounds like too much work, try just one experiment: look at the section where he discusses usurpation, and see if you can, with all your skill, make Sir Robert either intelligible or consistent -- with himself or with basic common sense.
I wouldn't speak this bluntly about a gentleman who died long ago and can't answer back, except that in recent years the pulpit has publicly embraced his doctrine and turned it into the fashionable theology of the day. The men who have set themselves up as teachers and dangerously misled others with this stuff need to be shown plainly what kind of authority their patriarch really is -- this writer they've followed so blindly. Let them either take back what they've promoted on such shaky grounds and can't defend, or else step up and justify the principles they've been preaching as gospel, even though their source was nothing grander than an English courtier.
After all, I wouldn't have bothered writing against Sir Robert, or taken the trouble to expose his mistakes, his contradictions, and his complete lack of the scriptural proof he claims to build everything on, if there weren't people among us who -- by promoting his books and championing his doctrine -- save me from the charge of attacking a dead man. They've been so zealous on his behalf that if I've done him any injustice, I certainly can't expect them to go easy on me. I only wish that where they've done injustice to truth and to the public, they'd be just as quick to set things right, and give proper weight to this thought: namely, that no greater harm can be done to a ruler and a people than spreading false ideas about government. Perhaps then we'd stop having reason, in every age, to complain about the "drum ecclesiastic."
If anyone who genuinely cares about truth undertakes to refute my arguments, I promise either to admit my mistakes if fairly convinced, or to answer his objections. But he must keep two things in mind.
First, picking at a phrase here and there, or nitpicking some minor point in my argument, does not count as answering my book.
Second, I will not treat insults as arguments, and I won't consider either one worth responding to. That said, I will always feel obligated to give a fair answer to anyone who raises honest, well-grounded concerns in good faith.
One last thing: throughout this work, "A." stands for our author (Filmer), and "O." stands for his Observations on Hobbes, Milton, etc. And whenever I cite page numbers without further explanation, I'm referring to his Patriarcha, 1680 edition.
Chapter 1
1. Slavery is so vile and miserable an estate of man, and so completely opposed to the bold spirit and courage of our nation, that it's hard to imagine any Englishman -- let alone a gentleman -- would actually argue in its favor. And honestly, I would have taken Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha the same way I'd take any other book trying to convince everyone that they're slaves and ought to be -- as a clever intellectual joke, like the writer who once penned a mock tribute to the emperor Nero. I wouldn't have treated it as a serious argument meant to be taken at face value, except that the gravity of its title and dedication, the author's portrait at the front, and the applause it received all forced me to accept that both the author and the publisher actually meant it.
So I picked up the book with every expectation it deserved, and read it through with all the attention owed to a treatise that made such a splash when it first appeared. And I have to confess: I was absolutely stunned to find that in a book designed to forge chains for all of humanity, there was nothing but a rope of sand. Useful, maybe, to people whose skill and profession is kicking up dust to blind the public and lead them astray -- but in truth, completely powerless to drag anyone into bondage who has their eyes open and enough sense to realize that chains are a bad look, no matter how carefully they've been filed and polished.
2. If anyone thinks I'm being too harsh in speaking so freely about a man who is the great champion of absolute power and the idol of everyone who worships it, I ask for this small allowance: that even after reading Sir Robert's book, I still can't help thinking of myself as a free man, just as the law says I am. And I don't know what's wrong with that -- unless someone with better insight into destiny than I have has received a revelation that this long-dormant treatise was destined, upon its appearance in the world, to use the sheer force of its arguments to sweep all liberty off the face of the earth, and that from now on our author's neat little system was to be the ultimate gold standard of political theory for all time. His entire system can be boiled down to a very small space. It amounts to nothing more than this:
"All government is absolute monarchy."
And the foundation he builds it on is this:
"No one is born free."
3. In recent times, a class of people has sprung up among us who would flatter rulers with the idea that they have a divine right to absolute power -- regardless of the laws under which those rulers were appointed, regardless of the conditions they agreed to when they took office, and regardless of how solemnly they swore oaths and made promises to uphold those conditions. To pave the way for this doctrine, these people have denied humankind any right to natural freedom. In doing so, they've not only exposed every citizen to the worst possible tyranny and oppression (as far as it was in their power to do so), but they've also destabilized the very titles and shaken the very thrones of the rulers they claim to support. After all, by their own system, every ruler except one is also born a slave, and by divine right is a subject of Adam's rightful heir. It's as if these theorists had set out to wage war on all government and tear up the very foundations of human society, just to serve their own purposes in the moment.
4. But we're supposed to take them at their bare word when they tell us, "We are all born slaves, and we must stay that way." There's no escape from it, they say -- life and servitude came as a package deal, and you can't get rid of one without giving up the other. Scripture and reason, I'm quite sure, say nothing of the sort, no matter how much noise these people make about "divine right," as though God himself had subjected us to the unlimited will of another person. What a wonderful vision of humanity -- and one they weren't clever enough to come up with until just recently!
For however much Sir Robert Filmer tries to paint the opposing view as a dangerous novelty (Patriarcha, p. 3), I think he'd have a hard time finding any other era or country besides this one that has claimed monarchy exists by divine right. And he himself admits (Patriarcha, p. 4) "that Heyward, Blackwood, Barclay, and others who have bravely defended the rights of kings on most points never thought of this, but unanimously accepted the natural liberty and equality of mankind."
5. I'll leave it to historians to tell the story of who first introduced this doctrine and made it fashionable among us, and what terrible consequences it led to -- or to the memory of those who lived through the era of Sibthorp and Manwaring to recall. My job right now is only to examine what Sir Robert Filmer -- who is acknowledged to have pushed this argument the furthest and is supposed to have perfected it -- has said on the matter. Because from him, everyone who wanted to be as trendy as speaking French was at court picked up and ran with this tidy little political system, namely: "People are not born free, and therefore could never have had the liberty to choose either their rulers or the form of their government." Rulers have their power absolutely and by divine right, because slaves could never have a right to make agreements or give consent. Adam was an absolute monarch, and so has every ruler been ever since.
Sir Robert Filmer's big claim is this: "People are not naturally free." That is the foundation his entire theory of absolute monarchy stands on, and from that foundation he builds it up to dizzying heights -- a power so far above every other earthly thing that you can barely wrap your mind around it. It is a power so supreme that even promises and oaths, which bind the infinite God himself, supposedly cannot restrain it. But if this foundation crumbles, his whole structure comes crashing down, and we are left with the old-fashioned idea that governments are made by human design and the consent of the people, using their reason to join together in society.
To prove this grand claim of his, Filmer tells us (page 12) that "people are born subject to their parents" and therefore cannot be free. He calls this parental authority "royal authority" (pages 12 and 14), "fatherly authority," and "right of fatherhood" (pages 12 and 20). You would think that at the beginning of a work like this -- one on which the authority of princes and the obedience of subjects supposedly depends -- he would have told us clearly what this fatherly authority actually is. You would think he would have defined it, even if he did not limit it (because in his other writings, he tells us it is unlimited and cannot be limited). At the very least, he should have given us a clear enough account that we could have a complete picture of this "fatherhood" or "fatherly authority" whenever it came up in his work.
I expected to find this in the first chapter of his Patriarcha. But instead of that, what does he do? First, he makes a passing bow to the "mysteries of government" (page 5). Second, he pays a polite compliment to the "rights and liberties of this and any other nation" (page 6) -- rights he is about to wipe out entirely. Third, he tips his hat to those learned men who simply did not see as far into the matter as he did (page 7). And then he goes after Bellarmine (page 8), and by defeating him, considers his fatherly authority to be established beyond all doubt. With Bellarmine routed by his own admission (page 11), the battle is supposedly won and no further reinforcements are needed.
After that, I notice that Filmer does not actually frame the question or line up any real arguments to support his position. Instead, he just tells us a story -- the story he finds most convenient -- about this strange, domineering phantom he calls "the fatherhood." Whoever managed to grab hold of it instantly got empire and unlimited, absolute power. He tells us how this fatherhood started with Adam, continued on its merry way, and kept the whole world in order all through the time of the biblical patriarchs up until the Flood. Then it climbed out of the ark with Noah and his sons, created and sustained every king on earth until the Israelites were taken captive in Egypt -- at which point the poor fatherhood was stuck below deck until "God, by giving the Israelites kings, reestablished the ancient and original right of hereditary succession in paternal government." This is his business from page 12 to 19. Then, after brushing aside an objection and clearing up a difficulty or two with half a reason (page 23), "to confirm the natural right of royal power," he wraps up the first chapter.
I hope no one minds if I call a half-quotation a half-reason. After all, God says "Honor your father and mother," but our author is perfectly happy to use only half the commandment. He leaves out "your mother" entirely, since she is not very useful to his argument. But more on that in another place.
I do not think our author is so bad at writing this kind of argument, or so careless about the matter at hand, that he made this mistake by accident. After all, he himself, in his Anarchy of a Mixed Monarchy (page 239), criticizes Mr. Hunton in these words: "Where first I charge the author that he has not given us any definition or description of monarchy in general; for by the rules of method, he should have first defined." By exactly the same rule of method, Sir Robert should have told us what his fatherhood or fatherly authority actually is before telling us where it is to be found and going on at such length about it.
But perhaps Sir Robert realized that this fatherly authority -- this power of fathers and kings (for he treats them as the same thing, page 24) -- would look very strange and frightening, and would clash badly with what children actually think about their parents or subjects about their kings, if he had given us the whole picture at once, painted in the gigantic proportions he had imagined for it. So, like a careful doctor who wants his patient to swallow some harsh or bitter medicine, he mixes it with a large amount of something milder, so that the offensive ingredients spread out and go down more easily, causing less gagging.
So let us try to piece together what account he gives of this fatherly authority, as it lies scattered across his various writings. First, as it was held by Adam, he says:
"Not only Adam, but the succeeding patriarchs, had, by right of fatherhood, royal authority over their children" (page 12). "This lordship, which Adam by God's command had over the whole world, and which by right descended from him to the patriarchs, was as large and ample as the absolute dominion of any monarch that has existed since creation" (page 13). This included "dominion of life and death, making war, and concluding peace" (page 13). "Adam and the patriarchs had absolute power of life and death" (page 35). "Kings, in the right of parents, succeed to the exercise of supreme authority" (page 19). "As kingly power is established by the law of God, so it has no lesser law to limit it; Adam was lord of all" (page 40). "The father of a family governs by no other law than his own will" (page 78). "The superiority of princes is above laws" (page 79). "The unlimited jurisdiction of kings is amply described by Samuel" (page 80). "Kings are above the laws" (page 93).
And for this same purpose, see a great deal more of what our author delivers in the words of Jean Bodin, the political theorist: "It is certain that all laws, privileges, and grants of princes have no force beyond their lifetime, unless they are ratified by the express consent or by the tolerance of the following prince -- especially privileges" (Observations, page 279). "The reason why laws were made by kings was this: when kings were either busy with wars or overwhelmed with public duties, so that ordinary people could not get access to them to learn their wishes, then laws were necessarily invented so that every individual subject could find his prince's will spelled out for him in the text of those laws" (page 92). "In a monarchy, the king must by necessity be above the laws" (page 100). "A perfect kingdom is one in which the king rules all things according to his own will" (page 100). "Neither the common law nor statutes are, or can be, any reduction of the general power that kings have over their people by right of fatherhood" (page 115). "Adam was the father, king, and lord over his family; a son, a subject, and a servant or slave were one and the same thing at first. The father had the power to dispose of or sell his children or servants -- which is why we find that in the first inventory of possessions in scripture, the manservant and maidservant are counted among the owner's property, just like any other goods" (Observations, preface). "God also gave the father a right or liberty to transfer his power over his children to anyone else -- which is why we find the sale and gift of children was widely practiced in the early world, when people had their servants as possessions and inheritance just like other goods. And for this same reason, we find that the practice of castrating and making eunuchs was very common in ancient times" (Observations, page 155). "Law is nothing other than the will of him who holds the power of the supreme father" (Observations, page 223). "It was God's decree that this supreme power should be unlimited in Adam, and as broad as every act of his will; and as in him, so in all others who hold supreme power" (Observations, page 245).
I have been forced to burden my reader with all these quotations in our author's own words so that you can see his own description of this fatherly authority, pieced together from across his various writings. This is the authority he claims was first held by Adam and rightfully belongs to every prince who has come since. So here is what fatherly authority -- the right of fatherhood -- amounts to in our author's view: it is a divine, unalterable right of sovereignty by which a father or prince has absolute, arbitrary, unlimited, and unlimitable power over the lives, liberties, and possessions of his children and subjects. He can seize or give away their property, sell them, castrate them, or use them however he pleases. They are all his slaves, and he is the lord and owner of everything, and his unchecked will is their law.
Now, since our author has placed such enormous power in Adam and built all government and all authority of princes on that foundation, you would reasonably expect him to have proved it with arguments that are clear and compelling -- arguments worthy of so weighty a claim. After all, since people supposedly have nothing left for themselves, they ought at least to have undeniable proof that their slavery is necessary -- proof strong enough to convince their consciences and make them submit peacefully to the absolute rule that their governors supposedly have the right to impose.
Without such proof, what good could our author do, or even claim to do, by setting up such unlimited power? All he would accomplish is flattering the natural vanity and ambition of people -- who are already too inclined to let power go to their heads. He would be telling those who, by the consent of their fellow citizens, have been elevated to great but limited positions of authority that because they have been given some power, they have the right to all of it. He would tempt them to do whatever they want just because they have authority to do more than ordinary people, and so encourage them to act in ways that serve neither their own good nor the good of those in their care. The result could only be great harm.
Since Adam's sovereignty is the supposedly secure foundation on which our author builds his mighty absolute monarchy, I expected that in his Patriarcha he would have proved and established this central assumption with all the strength of argument that such a fundamental principle demands. I expected that this point, on which everything else depends, would have been demonstrated with reasons sufficient to justify the confidence with which it was asserted. But in that entire treatise, I could find very little to that effect. The thing is simply taken for granted, without proof, to such an extent that I could scarcely believe it. When I read the Patriarcha carefully, I was amazed to find such a massive structure built on the bare assertion of this foundation. It is hard to believe that in a work where he claims to refute the so-called "erroneous principle of human natural freedom," he would try to do it with nothing more than a bare assertion of Adam's authority, without offering any proof of that authority.
True, he confidently says that Adam had "royal authority" (pages 12 and 13), "absolute lordship and dominion of life and death" (page 13), "a universal monarchy" (page 33), and "absolute power of life and death" (page 35). He says things like this constantly. But here is what is strange: in his entire Patriarcha, I cannot find a single real argument to establish this great foundation of government -- nothing that even looks like an argument -- except these words: "To confirm this natural right of royal power, we find in the Ten Commandments that the law which commands obedience to kings is given in the words 'Honor your father,' as if all power were originally in the father."
But wait -- why can I not just as easily add that in the Ten Commandments, the law commanding obedience to queens is given in the words "Honor your mother," as if all power were originally in the mother? Filmer's argument, as he states it, works just as well for one as for the other. But more on that in the proper place.
All I want to point out here is that this is everything our author says in this first chapter -- or in any of the following chapters -- to prove Adam's absolute power, which is his grand principle. And yet, as if he had established it with rock-solid proof, he begins his second chapter with these words: "By comparing these proofs and reasons, drawn from the authority of scripture." Where those proofs and reasons for Adam's sovereignty are, apart from the "Honor your father" argument I just mentioned, I honestly cannot find. Unless we are supposed to count what he says on page 11 -- "In these words we have a clear confession" (namely, from Bellarmine) "that creation made man prince of his offspring" -- as proofs and reasons drawn from scripture, or as any kind of proof at all. Yet from that, by a creative new style of reasoning, he immediately goes on to conclude that Adam's royal authority is sufficiently established.
If Filmer has given any other proofs of Adam's royal authority in that chapter or anywhere in his entire treatise -- other than simply repeating his claim over and over, which some people apparently count as an argument -- I would ask anyone to show me the page and passage so I can admit my mistake and acknowledge that I overlooked it. But if no such arguments exist, then I urge those who have praised this book so highly to consider whether they are giving the world reason to suspect that it is not the strength of reason and argument that makes them support absolute monarchy, but some other personal interest -- and that they are determined to applaud any author who writes in favor of this doctrine, whether he supports it with reason or not. Still, I hope they do not expect that rational and fair-minded people will be won over to their position just because their great champion of it, in a work written specifically to establish the absolute monarchical power of Adam against the natural freedom of humanity, has said so little to actually prove it. If anything, this naturally leads us to conclude that there is very little to be said.
But to make sure I did not miss anything in our author's full argument, I also consulted his Observations on Aristotle, Hobbes, etc., to see whether, in debating others, he used any arguments for his favorite doctrine of Adam's sovereignty -- since in his treatise on the "natural power of kings," he had been so stingy with them. In his Observations on Mr. Hobbes's Leviathan, I think he has collected, in summary form, all the arguments he uses anywhere in his writings. His words are these:
"If God created only Adam, and from a piece of him made the woman, and if through reproduction from these two, as parts of them, all humanity has descended; if also God gave to Adam not only dominion over the woman and the children that would come from them, but also over all the earth to subdue it, and over all the creatures on it, so that as long as Adam lived, no one could claim or enjoy anything except by donation, assignment, or permission from him -- I wonder..." etc. (Observations, page 165).
Here we have the sum total of all his arguments for Adam's sovereignty and against natural freedom, which I find scattered throughout his other writings. They are the following: God's creation of Adam; the dominion God gave him over Eve; and the dominion he had as a father over his children. I will examine each of these in detail.
In the preface to his Observations on Aristotle's Politics, Sir Robert tells us that "you can't assume mankind is naturally free without denying that Adam was created." But how does the fact that Adam was created — which simply means he received his existence directly from the hand of God's almighty power — give Adam sovereignty over anything? I can't see it. And therefore I can't understand how assuming natural freedom amounts to denying Adam's creation. I'd be grateful if someone else could explain it for him, since our author didn't bother to do us that favor. Because I personally find no difficulty in assuming mankind is free, even though I've always believed in the creation of Adam. He was created — brought into existence by God's direct power, without parents and without any prior member of his species to father him — whenever it pleased God. But the same is true of the lion, the king of beasts, who was created before Adam by the same creative power of God. And if bare existence by that power, created in that way, automatically grants dominion without anything further, then by our author's own argument the lion has just as good a claim to it as Adam does — and an older one at that. No, says our author in another place, Adam had his title "by the appointment of God." Well then, bare creation didn't give him dominion after all, and a person could perfectly well assume mankind is free without denying Adam's creation — since it was God's appointment, not the act of creation itself, that supposedly made Adam a monarch.
But let's see how Filmer tries to put creation and this appointment together. "By the appointment of God," says Sir Robert, "as soon as Adam was created, he was monarch of the world, though he had no subjects. For though there could not be actual government until there were subjects, yet by the right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity. Though not in act, yet at least in habit, Adam was a king from his creation." I wish he had told us here what he meant by "God's appointment." After all, whatever providence brings about, or the law of nature directs, or explicit revelation declares — any of these could be called something done by God's appointment. But I don't think he can mean it in the first sense, namely by providence, because that would amount to saying nothing more than: as soon as Adam was created, he was in fact a monarch, because by right of nature it was due to him to govern his posterity. But he couldn't have actually been established by providence as governor of the world at a time when there was no government and no subjects to govern — which our author himself admits here. "Monarch of the world" is also used by our author in different ways, because sometimes he means by it that Adam was the owner of the entire world, to the exclusion of everyone else. He uses it this way on the very same page of the preface I just cited: "Adam," he says, "being commanded to multiply and populate the earth, and subdue it, and having been given dominion over all creatures, was thereby the monarch of the whole world. None of his posterity had any right to possess anything except by his grant or permission, or by inheriting from him."
So let's take "monarch" to mean owner of the world, and "appointment" to mean God's actual gift — the specific, revealed grant made to Adam in Gen. 1:28 — just as we can see Sir Robert himself does in this parallel passage. Then his argument runs like this: "By the positive grant of God, as soon as Adam was created, he was owner of the world, because by the right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity." Argued this way, there are two obvious falsehoods.
First, it's false that God made that grant to Adam as soon as he was created. True, the grant appears in the text immediately after the account of his creation. But it's clear the grant couldn't have been spoken to Adam until after Eve was made and brought to him. So how could he have been monarch by appointment "as soon as he was created"? This is especially problematic since Filmer also calls (if I'm not mistaken) what God says to Eve in Gen. 3:16 "the original grant of government" — and that didn't happen until after the Fall, when Adam was quite distant from his creation in time and vastly different in condition. I really can't see how our author can say, in this sense, that "by God's appointment, as soon as Adam was created, he was monarch of the world."
Second, even if it were true that God's actual grant "appointed Adam monarch of the world as soon as he was created," the reason Filmer gives still wouldn't prove it. It would always be a bad inference to conclude that God, by a direct grant, "appointed Adam monarch of the world because by right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity." Because if God had already given him the right of government by nature, there was no need for a special direct grant on top of it. At the very least, natural right can never serve as proof that such a grant was made.
On the other hand, things don't get much better if we take "God's appointment" to mean the law of nature (though that's a pretty strained way to put it) and "monarch of the world" to mean sovereign ruler of mankind. Because then the sentence in question has to read like this: "By the law of nature, as soon as Adam was created, he was governor of mankind, for by right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity." Which amounts to this: he was governor by right of nature because he was governor by right of nature. A perfect circle.
But even if we granted that a man is by nature the governor of his children, this still wouldn't make Adam a monarch as soon as he was created. This supposed right of nature is founded on his being their father. So how could Adam have a natural right to govern before he was a father, when it's only by being a father that he would have that right? That's hard to wrap your head around — unless you want him to be a father before he was a father, and to hold a title before he actually had it.
Our author has an answer ready for this foreseeable objection, and it's a real gem of logic: "He was governor in habit, and not in act." What a wonderful way of being a governor without any government, a father without any children, and a king without any subjects. By this reasoning, Sir Robert was an author before he ever wrote his book — not in act, it's true, but in habit. Because once he published it, it was due to him by the right of nature to be an author, just as much as it was due to Adam to be governor of his children once he had fathered them. And if being this kind of monarch of the world — an absolute monarch in habit but not in act — is good enough to do the job, then I wouldn't begrudge any of Sir Robert's friends that he saw fit to generously bestow this title on. Though even this distinction between act and habit, if it means anything beyond showing off our author's cleverness with categories, doesn't actually serve his purpose here. Because the question isn't about whether Adam was actually exercising government, but about whether he actually had a title to govern. Government, says our author, was "due to Adam by the right of nature." And what is this right of nature? It's a right that fathers have over their children by fathering them. As our author quotes from Grotius: "Parents acquire a right over their children by the act of generation" (De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Book 2, Chapter 5, Section 1). So the right follows from the act of fathering — it arises from it. Therefore, according to our author's own way of reasoning, Adam, as soon as he was created, had a title only in habit and not in act. Which in plain English means: he had no title at all.
To put it less like a philosophy lecture and more like common sense: you could say that Adam was potentially able to become a governor, since it was possible he might father children and thereby acquire whatever right of nature comes from that — the right to govern them. But what does this have to do with Adam's creation? How does it justify saying that "as soon as he was created, he was monarch of the world"? You could just as well say that Noah, the moment he was born, was monarch of the world, since he was potentially able (which by our author's logic is enough to make someone a monarch — "a monarch in habit") to outlive all of humanity except his own descendants. What necessary connection there is between Adam's creation and his right to govern — such that "the natural freedom of mankind cannot be assumed without denying the creation of Adam" — I confess I just don't see. Nor can I see how those words, "by the appointment, etc." (Observations, p. 254), however you try to explain them, can be put together to make any reasonable sense, at least not in a way that establishes the position they're supposed to prove, namely that "Adam was a king from his creation." A king, says our author, "not in act, but in habit" — that is, in reality, no king at all.
I'm afraid I may have exhausted my reader's patience by spending so long on this passage — longer, perhaps, than the strength of any argument in it seems to deserve. But I've been unavoidably drawn into it by our author's way of writing. He huddles together multiple assumptions in vague and general terms, creating such a jumble and confusion that it's impossible to point out his mistakes without examining the different senses his words could carry, and without checking whether any of these various meanings actually fit together and contain any truth. Take this passage we've been looking at: how can anyone argue against his claim that "Adam was a king from his creation" without first examining whether the phrase "from his creation" is meant to indicate the timing of when his government began (as the preceding words suggest — "as soon as he was created he was monarch") or the cause of it (as he says elsewhere: "creation made man prince of his posterity")? And how can you judge whether it's true that he was king until you've examined whether "king" is meant in the sense of private ownership of the world — which was supposedly by God's direct grant ("monarch of the world by appointment") — or in the sense of fatherly power over his offspring, which was supposedly by nature ("due by the right of nature")? Or whether "king" is to be taken in both of these senses, or in only one, or in neither — perhaps in some third sense where creation simply made him prince in a way different from either?
Now, even though the assertion that "Adam was king from his creation" is true in none of these senses, it stands here looking like an obvious conclusion drawn from the preceding words. But in reality, it's just one bare assertion stacked on top of other bare assertions. Strung together confidently in vague and slippery language, they take on the appearance of real argument when there is in fact neither proof nor logical connection. This is a style very familiar to our author. Having given the reader a taste of it here, I'll avoid picking it apart this closely in the future, as much as the argument allows. And I wouldn't have done it here, except to show the world how muddled thinking and unsupported assumptions, dressed up nicely in good words and a polished style, can easily pass for strong reasoning and good sense — until someone actually takes a careful look.
Now that we've finally made it through that last passage -- where we were held up not by any force of argument or real opposition, but by tangled wording and murky meaning -- let's move on to Filmer's next argument for Adam's sovereignty. Our author tells us, using the words of Mr. Selden, that "Adam, by donation from God, Gen. 1:28, was made the general lord of all things, not without such a private dominion to himself, as without his grant did exclude his children." This conclusion of Mr. Selden's, says our author, "is consistent with the Bible and with natural reason" (Observations, p. 210). And in his preface to the Observations on Aristotle, he puts it this way: "The first government in the world was monarchical, in the father of all flesh. Adam, being commanded to multiply and populate the earth, and to subdue it, and having dominion given him over all creatures, was thereby the monarch of the whole world. None of his descendants had any right to possess anything except by his grant or permission, or by succession from him. 'The earth,' says the Psalmist, 'has he given to the children of men,' which shows that the title comes from fatherhood."
Before I examine this argument and the biblical text it's based on, I need the reader to notice something. Our author, following his usual method, starts out arguing one thing and ends up concluding something entirely different. He begins here with Adam's property -- his private ownership by divine donation -- and his conclusion is, "which shows the title comes from fatherhood." Those are two completely different claims.
But let's look at the argument. The words of the text are these: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth" (Gen. 1:28). From this, our author concludes that "Adam, having here dominion given him over all creatures, was thereby the monarch of the whole world." This must mean one of two things: either this grant from God gave Adam property -- or as our author calls it, "private dominion" -- over the earth and all the lower, non-rational creatures, and so he was therefore a monarch; or else it gave him rule and dominion over all earthly creatures whatsoever, including his own children, and so he was a monarch in that sense. As Mr. Selden put it -- quite properly -- "Adam was made general lord of all things." You can clearly tell that Selden means nothing more was granted to Adam here than property over things, which is why Selden says not one word about Adam being a monarch over people. But our author says "Adam was hereby monarch of the world," which, properly speaking, means the supreme ruler of all the people in the world. So according to Filmer, this grant must have made Adam that kind of ruler. If our author meant something else, he could have said much more clearly that "Adam was hereby the owner of the whole world." But you'll have to forgive him on that point: clear, precise language doesn't always serve his purposes, so you shouldn't expect it from him as you would from Mr. Selden or other careful writers.
Against our author's doctrine, then -- that "Adam was monarch of the whole world," based on this passage -- I'm going to show two things:
First, that by this grant, Gen. 1:28, God gave no immediate power to Adam over other people, over his children, over those of his own species. So Adam was not made a ruler or monarch by this charter.
Second, that by this grant God did not give Adam private ownership over the lower creatures, but rather a right held in common with all of humanity. So he wasn't a monarch on account of property either.
1. That this donation, Gen. 1:28, gave Adam no power over other people will become clear if we look carefully at the actual words. Since all specific grants convey no more than their express words can carry, let's see which words here could possibly include human beings -- that is, Adam's descendants. The phrase that might, if any could, would be "every living thing that moves." The Hebrew words are chayyah haromeshet -- in Latin, bestiam reptantem ("creeping beast"). And the best interpreter of these words is scripture itself.
God created the fish and birds on the fifth day. At the beginning of the sixth day, he creates the non-rational land animals, which are described in verse 24: "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind; cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, after its kind." And verse 25: "And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the earth after its kind." Here, in the creation of the non-human inhabitants of the earth, God first speaks of them all under one general name -- "living creatures" -- and then divides them into three categories:
First, cattle -- meaning domesticated creatures that were or might be tamed, and so could become the private possession of individual people.
Second, chayyah -- which in verses 24-25 our Bible translates as "beasts," and which the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures) renders as theria, meaning "wild beasts." This is the same word that in our text, verse 28, where we have this great charter to Adam, is translated as "living thing." It's also the same word used in Gen. 9:2, where this grant is renewed to Noah, and there it's likewise translated as "beast."
Third, the creeping animals, which in verses 24-25 are covered by the word haromeshet -- the same word used here in verse 28, translated as "moving." But in the earlier verses it's translated as "creeping," and the Septuagint consistently renders it in all these places as herpeta, meaning "reptiles."
So it's clear that the words we translate in God's donation, verse 28, as "living creatures moving" are the same words that in the creation account, verses 24-25, refer to two categories of land animals -- namely, wild beasts and reptiles -- and are understood that way by the Septuagint.
When God had made the non-rational animals of the world, divided into three groups by where they live -- fish of the sea, birds of the air, and living creatures of the earth -- and the land animals further divided into cattle, wild beasts, and reptiles, he then considers making humanity and what dominion people should have over the terrestrial world. In verse 26, he lists the inhabitants of all three kingdoms, but for the land animals he leaves out the second category, chayyah (wild beasts). Then in verse 28, where he actually carries out this plan and gives Adam this dominion, the text mentions the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the land creatures using the words that mean wild beasts and reptiles -- though translated as "living thing that moves" -- while leaving out cattle.
In both places, then, one word is left out in one verse and a different word is left out in the other. But since God certainly carried out in one place what he declared he planned in the other, we have to understand the same thing in both passages. What we have here is simply an account of how all the non-rational land animals -- which had already been created and listed at their creation in three distinct categories of cattle, wild beasts, and reptiles -- were in verse 28 actually placed under human dominion, just as God had planned in verse 26. There is not the slightest hint in these words of anything that could be twisted to mean God giving one person dominion over another -- Adam over his descendants.
This becomes even clearer from Gen. 9:2, where God renews this charter to Noah and his sons. He gives them dominion over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and the land creatures, expressed by the words chayyah and romesh -- wild beasts and reptiles -- the same words that in Gen. 1:28 are translated "every moving thing that moves on the earth." These words cannot possibly include human beings, since the grant was made to Noah and his sons -- that is, to all the people then alive -- and not to one group of people over another. This is made even more obvious by the very next words, verse 3, where God gives them every romesh -- "every moving thing" -- the exact same words used in 1:28 -- as food. By all of this, it's clear that God's donation to Adam in 1:28, and his stated plan in verse 26, and his renewed grant to Noah and his sons, all refer to and contain neither more nor less than the creatures made on the fifth day and the beginning of the sixth, as described in Gen. 1:20-26. They cover all the species of non-rational animals on the whole globe, even though the various words used to describe them at their creation are never all repeated in any of the later grants -- some are left out in one place, some in another.
From all of this, I think it's beyond any doubt that human beings are not included in this grant, and no dominion over people of his own species was given to Adam. All the non-rational land creatures are listed at their creation, verse 25, under the names "beasts of the earth, cattle, and creeping things." But humanity, not yet created at that point, was not included under any of those names. So whether or not we get the Hebrew words exactly right, they cannot be taken to include human beings in the very same story, just a few verses later. This is especially true since the Hebrew word romesh -- which, if any word in this donation to Adam in 1:28 could include humans, would have to be it -- is plainly used to contrast with humans elsewhere: Gen. 6:20; 7:14, 21, 23; 8:17, 19.
And if God made all of humanity slaves to Adam and his heirs by giving Adam dominion over "every living thing that moves on the earth" (1:28), as our author claims, then it seems to me Sir Robert should have taken his monarchical power one step further and satisfied the world that kings may eat their subjects too. After all, God gave just as full a power to Noah and his heirs (9:2) to eat "every living thing that moves" as he gave to Adam to have dominion over them -- the Hebrew word in both places being identical.
King David, who might be expected to understand God's donation in this text and the rights of kings at least as well as our author, finds no such charter of monarchical power here. In his commentary on this passage -- what the learned and careful scholar Ainsworth calls his "comment on this place," in Psalm 8 -- David's words are: "You have made him -- that is, man, the son of man -- a little lower than the angels; you made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, and the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths of the sea."
If anyone can find in those words any hint of one person's monarchical power over another -- rather than the dominion of the entire human species over the lower species of creatures -- well, he may deserve to be one of Sir Robert's monarchs "in habit," just for the sheer novelty of the discovery. And by now, I hope it's clear that the God who gave "dominion over every living thing that moves on the earth" gave Adam no monarchical power over his own species. This will become even more obvious in what I'm about to show next.
2. Whatever God gave by the words of this grant, Gen. 1:28, it was not to Adam in particular, to the exclusion of all other people. Whatever dominion he received was not private dominion but dominion held in common with the rest of humanity.
That this donation was not made specifically to Adam alone is plain from the words of the text itself: it was made to more than one person. It was spoken in the plural: "God blessed them, and said unto them, have dominion." God says to Adam and Eve, "have dominion" -- and from this, our author concludes that "Adam was monarch of the world." But the grant was made to "them" -- that is, it was spoken to Eve as well. Many interpreters think, with good reason, that these words weren't spoken until Adam had his wife. So mustn't she be the lady of the world, just as he was lord of it? If someone objects that Eve was subordinate to Adam, it seems she wasn't so subordinate as to be denied dominion over the creatures or a share of property in them. Are we really to say that God made a joint grant to two people, but only one of them got the benefit?
But perhaps someone will say Eve hadn't been made yet at this point. Fine, grant that. What advantage does our author gain? The text would actually argue even more directly against him, showing that God, in this donation, gave the world to humanity in common, not to Adam in particular. The word "them" in the text must refer to the human species as a whole, because "them" absolutely cannot mean Adam alone.
In verse 26, where God announces his intention to grant this dominion, it's clear he meant to create a species of creatures that would have dominion over the other species of this terrestrial globe. The words are: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish," and so on. "They" were to have dominion. Who? The ones who would bear the image of God -- the individual members of that species of humanity he was about to create. For "them" to mean Adam alone, excluding everyone else who would live in the world with him, contradicts both scripture and all reason. It can't possibly make sense if "man" in the first part of the verse doesn't refer to the same thing as "them" in the latter. "Man" there, as is typical, refers to the species, and "them" to the individuals of that species.
And we have a reason stated right there in the text. God makes humanity "in his own image, after his own likeness -- makes them intellectual creatures, and so capable of dominion." For wherever else the image of God may consist, the intellectual nature was certainly part of it. It belonged to the entire species and enabled them to have dominion over the lower creatures. This is why David says in the Psalm 8 passage cited above: "You have made him a little lower than the angels; you have made him to have dominion." David isn't speaking of Adam specifically here -- verse 4 makes clear it's about "man" and "the son of man," meaning the human species as a whole.
And that this grant spoken to Adam was made to him and the whole human species is clear from our author's own proof from the Psalms. "The earth," says the Psalmist, "has he given to the children of men, which shows the title comes from fatherhood." Those are Sir Robert's words from the preface I quoted earlier, and what a strange inference he draws: God has "given the earth to the children of men, therefore the title comes from fatherhood." It's a shame the Hebrew language didn't use "fathers of men" instead of "children of men" to mean humanity -- then our author might at least have had the sound of the words on his side to justify placing the title in fatherhood. But to conclude that fatherhood had the right to the earth because God gave it to the "children of men" is a style of reasoning unique to our author. You'd have to be really determined to go against both the sound and the sense of the words to come up with that one.
But the sense of it is even worse and further from our author's purpose. As it stands in his preface, the argument is supposed to prove Adam was a monarch, and the reasoning goes like this: "God gave the earth to the children of men, therefore Adam was monarch of the world." I defy anyone to come up with a more delightful conclusion than that. It can't be saved from obvious absurdity unless someone can show that "children of men" -- a phrase referring to a man who had no father -- somehow means Adam alone. But whatever our author may do, the scripture doesn't speak nonsense.
To defend the idea that Adam had private, exclusive ownership, our author works hard in the following page to destroy the community granted to Noah and his sons in the parallel passage, Gen. 9:1-3. He tries to do this in two ways.
First, Sir Robert would have us believe, against the express words of scripture, that what was granted to Noah was not granted to his sons in common with him. His words are: "As for the general community between Noah and his sons, which Mr. Selden claims was granted to them, Gen. 9:2, the text does not warrant it." What kind of warrant our author needs when the plain, express words of scripture -- words that can't possibly mean anything else -- aren't enough for him, is hard to imagine. This is a man who claims to build his entire argument on scripture. The text says: "God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them" -- which our author would read as "unto him." For, he says, "although the sons are mentioned alongside Noah in the blessing, yet it may best be understood with a subordination or as a blessing passed down in succession" (Observations, p. 211).
Sure, the reading that's "best" for our author is whichever one best serves his purposes. But the reading that's truly best for anyone else is the one that fits the plain construction of the words and the obvious meaning of the passage. And "with subordination" or "in succession" is certainly not the best reading of a grant from God where God himself includes no such limitation and mentions nothing of the sort.
But our author has reasons why it "may best be understood" this way. "The blessing," he says in the following words, "might truly be fulfilled if the sons, either under or after their father, enjoyed a private dominion" (Observations, p. 211). Which is to say: a grant whose express words give a joint title in the present tense -- for the text says, "into your hands they are delivered" -- may best be understood as subordination or succession, because it's possible to enjoy it that way. That's like saying a deed that gives you something right now is best understood as a promise for later, because hey, you might still be alive to enjoy it eventually. If a grant is made jointly to a father and his sons, and the father is generous enough to let his children enjoy it alongside him, then sure, in terms of the outcome, it works out the same either way. But it can never be true that words expressly granting present, shared possession are "best understood" as a deferred inheritance.
The sum of all his reasoning comes down to this: God did not give Noah's sons the world in common with their father, because it was possible they might enjoy it under him or after him. That's a fine sort of argument to use against the explicit text of scripture. But apparently God must not be believed -- even when he speaks for himself -- whenever what he says doesn't fit with Sir Robert's theory.
Because here's the thing: however hard Filmer tries to exclude them, part of this blessing clearly must have been meant for the sons, not for Noah himself at all. "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth," God says in this blessing. As the sequel shows, this part didn't concern Noah personally: we never read of any children he had after the flood. In the following chapter, where his descendants are listed, there's no mention of any. So this blessing "in succession" wouldn't take effect for another 350 years. And to preserve our author's imaginary monarchy, the populating of the world would have to be put on hold for 350 years. This part of the blessing can't be understood "with subordination" either -- unless our author wants to say that Noah's sons had to ask their father's permission to sleep with their wives.
But on this one point, our author is remarkably consistent across all his writings: he takes great care to ensure there are monarchs in the world, but very little care that there should be people in it. And indeed, his style of government is not the way to fill the world with people. As for how much absolute monarchy helps fulfill God's great and primary blessing, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth" -- a blessing that also encompasses the advancement of arts, sciences, and the comforts of life -- you can see the evidence in those vast and once-rich countries that enjoy Turkish government, where today you won't find one-third, and in many if not most parts of them, not one-thirtieth, perhaps not even one-hundredth of the people who lived there before. Anyone who compares present-day accounts with ancient history will see this easily enough. But that's a side point.
The other parts of this blessing, or grant, are worded in a way that clearly means they belong equally to everyone: as much to Noah's sons as to Noah himself, and not to his sons in a subordinate role or only by succession. "The fear of you, and the dread of you," says God, "shall be on every beast," and so on. Will anyone besides our author claim that the creatures feared and stood in awe of Noah alone, and not of his sons unless Noah gave permission, or only after his death? And the following words, "into your hands they are delivered" -- are they to be understood, as our author suggests, "if your father agrees," or "they'll be delivered to you later"? If this is what arguing from scripture looks like, I don't know what can't be proved from it. And I can hardly see how this differs from the kind of fiction and fantasy, or how it's a more solid foundation than "the opinions of philosophers and poets," which our author so grandly condemns in his preface.
But our author presses on, arguing that "it may best be understood with a subordination, or a blessing in succession; for," he says, "it is not probable that the private dominion which God gave to Adam, and by his donation, assignment, or transfer to his children, was taken away, and a community of all things established between Noah and his sons -- Noah was left the sole heir of the world; why should it be thought that God would disinherit him of his birthright and make him, of all the people in the world, the only tenant in common with his children?" (Observations, p. 211).
The biases of our own poorly founded opinions -- however much we call them "probable" -- don't give us license to read scripture against the direct and plain meaning of the words. I'll grant that it's not probable that Adam's private dominion was taken away here -- because it's more than improbable (it will never be proved) that Adam had any such private dominion in the first place. And since parallel passages of scripture are the best guide for understanding how a text should be read, all you have to do is compare this blessing given to Noah and his sons after the flood with the one given to Adam after creation, Gen. 1:28, to be assured that God gave Adam no such private dominion.
I'll concede that it's likely Noah should have had the same title, the same property, and the same dominion after the flood that Adam had before it. But since private, exclusive dominion can't coexist with the blessing and grant God gave to Noah and his sons in common, that's reason enough to conclude Adam never had it either -- especially since in the donation made to Adam, there are no words that express it or even slightly favor it. So let my reader judge which reading is "best": in one passage there's not a single word supporting private dominion, and indeed (as I've already shown) the text itself proves the opposite; and in the other, the words and meaning directly contradict it.
But our author says, "Noah was the sole heir of the world; why should it be thought that God would disinherit him of his birthright?" "Heir," in England, means the eldest son, who by English law gets all his father's lands. But where God ever appointed any such heir of the world, our author would have done well to show us. And how exactly was God "disinheriting" Noah of his birthright if he gave Noah's sons a right to use part of the earth to support themselves and their families? The whole earth was not just more than Noah could use himself -- it was infinitely more than all of them together could use. One person's possessions couldn't possibly disadvantage or in any practical way reduce what was available to the others.
Our author, probably foreseeing that he might not have much luck talking people out of their common sense, and that no matter what he said, people would tend to believe the plain words of scripture and see -- as they clearly do -- that the grant was spoken to Noah and his sons jointly, tries a different approach. He insinuates that this grant to Noah didn't convey any real property or dominion, because "subduing the earth and dominion over the creatures are not mentioned in it, nor is the earth even named." And therefore, he says, "there is a considerable difference between these two texts: the first blessing gave Adam dominion over the earth and all creatures; the latter merely allows Noah the liberty to use the living creatures for food. Here is no reduction or diminishing of his title to ownership of all things, but only an enlargement of his commons" (Observations, p. 211).
So in our author's reading, everything said here to Noah and his sons gave them no dominion, no property -- it merely "enlarged the commons." Their commons, I should say, since God says "to you are they given" -- though our author says "his." As for Noah's sons, they apparently, by Sir Robert's decree, were supposed to be fasting during their father's lifetime.
Anyone but our author would be highly suspected of bias if, in all this blessing to Noah and his sons, they could see nothing but an "enlargement of commons." As for dominion, which our author thinks was left out: "The fear of you, and the dread of you," says God, "shall be upon every beast." I'd say that expresses the dominion and superiority over living creatures that was intended for humanity as fully as anything could. That fear and dread seems to be the essence of what was given to Adam over the lower animals. Adam, absolute monarch though he supposedly was, couldn't even help himself to a lark or a rabbit to satisfy his hunger. He had the plants in common with the beasts, as Gen. 1:29-30 makes plain.
Furthermore, it's obvious that in this blessing to Noah and his sons, property is not only given in clear words but in a broader scope than it was to Adam. "Into your hands they are given," God says to Noah and his sons. If those words don't convey property -- indeed, property in actual possession -- it would be hard to find words that do. There's no more natural or certain way to express that someone owns something than to say it's been "delivered into his hands." And verse 3, to show they were then given the most complete property a person can have -- namely, the right to use up and destroy something -- says: "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you." That was not allowed to Adam in his charter.
Our author calls this "a liberty of using them for food, and also an enlargement of commons, but no change of property" (Observations, p. 211). What other property a person can have in the creatures besides the "liberty of using them" is hard to understand. So if the first blessing, as our author says, gave Adam "dominion over the creatures," and the blessing to Noah and his sons gave them "such a liberty to use them" as Adam did not have, then it must have given them something Adam lacked despite all his supposed sovereignty -- something that looks a lot like a greater property right. Because you certainly don't have absolute dominion over even the animal world, and your property in creatures is very narrow and meager, if you can't use them in ways that someone else is allowed to.
Imagine someone who is the absolute lord of a country had told our author to "subdue the earth" and given him "dominion over the creatures in it" -- but hadn't permitted him to take a kid or a lamb from the flock to satisfy his hunger. I suspect he would hardly have considered himself the lord or owner of that land or the livestock on it. He would have noticed the difference between "having dominion" -- which even a shepherd may have -- and having full property as an owner. So if it had been his own situation, Sir Robert, I believe, would have recognized this as a change -- indeed, an expansion -- of property. Noah and his children had by this grant not only property, but a kind of property in the creatures that Adam didn't have.
However much people may have the right, with respect to each other, to own their individual portions of the creatures, in relation to God -- the maker of heaven and earth, the sole lord and owner of the whole world -- human property in the creatures is nothing but the "liberty to use them" that God has permitted. And so human property can be changed and expanded, as we see it was here, after the flood, when uses of the creatures that weren't previously allowed became permitted.
From all of this, I think it's clear that neither Adam nor Noah had any "private dominion," any property in the creatures that excluded their descendants as those descendants grew up and came to need and be able to use those creatures.
So we've now examined our author's argument for Adam's monarchy based on the blessing in Gen. 1:28. I think it's impossible for any fair-minded reader to find anything here other than the placing of humanity above the other kinds of creatures on this habitable earth of ours. It's simply a grant to the human species as a whole -- as the chief inhabitant, made in the image of its Maker -- of dominion over the other creatures. This is so obviously the plain meaning that anyone but our author would have thought it necessary to show how words that seem to say the exact opposite could somehow give "Adam monarchical absolute power" over other people, or sole property in all the creatures.
You'd think that in a matter of this importance -- the very foundation on which he builds everything that follows -- Filmer would have done something more than just cite words that obviously argue against him. I confess I can see nothing in them pointing to Adam's monarchy or private dominion -- quite the opposite. And I'm somewhat comforted in my supposed dullness here by the fact that the Apostle Paul seems to have had just as little notion of any such "private dominion of Adam" as I do, when he says: "God gives us all things richly to enjoy" (1 Tim. 6:17). He couldn't have said that if everything had already been given away to monarch Adam and the monarchs who were his heirs and successors.
To wrap up: this text is so far from proving Adam was the sole owner that, on the contrary, it confirms the original community of all things among the whole human race. Since this shared ownership is clear both from this donation of God and from other passages of scripture, the sovereignty of Adam built on his "private dominion" must collapse, having no foundation to support it.
But even if, after all of that, someone still insists that by this donation from God Adam was made sole owner of the whole earth -- what would that do for his sovereignty? How does owning land give a person power over someone else's life? How does possessing even the entire earth give anyone sovereign, arbitrary authority over other people?
The most plausible version of the argument goes like this: the person who owns the whole world could deny everyone else food, and so starve them at his pleasure if they refuse to acknowledge his sovereignty and obey his will. But if this were true, it would actually be a good argument for proving that no such property ever existed -- that God never gave any such private dominion. Because it's far more reasonable to think that God, who commanded humanity to increase and multiply, would himself give everyone a right to use the food, clothing, and other necessities of life -- the raw materials for which he had so plentifully provided -- rather than make them depend on the will of one man for their very survival. A man who would have the power to destroy them all whenever he pleased. A man who, being no better than anyone else, would be more likely, as power passed down through the generations along with shrinking fortunes, to bind people to hard labor than to generously provide the necessities of life and thereby promote God's great design: "increase and multiply." Anyone who doubts this should look at the absolute monarchies of the world and see what happens to the comforts of life and the size of the population.
But we know God has not left any person so completely at the mercy of another that one may starve the other at will. God, the Lord and Father of all, has not given any of his children such an extreme property right in their particular share of the world's goods that he hasn't also given their needy brother a right to whatever surplus they have. That surplus cannot justly be denied when pressing need demands it. Therefore, no one could ever have a just power over another person's life based on property rights in land or possessions. It would always be a sin for anyone with wealth to let their brother die for lack of sharing from their abundance. Just as justice gives every person a right to the product of their honest work and the fair inheritances passed down from their ancestors, so charity gives every person a right to enough from another's surplus to keep them from extreme deprivation, when they have no other means of survival. And a person can no more justly exploit another's desperation to force them into servitude -- withholding the relief that God requires them to give -- than a stronger person can seize a weaker one, overpower them, and with a knife at their throat offer them the choice of death or slavery.
Even if someone were to make such a perverse use of God's blessings, poured out on them with a generous hand -- even if someone were cruel and heartless to that extreme degree -- all this still would not prove that property in land gave any authority over other people. Only an agreement could do that. The authority of the rich landowner and the submission of the desperate beggar wouldn't begin from the owner's possession, but from the consent of the poor person, who preferred subjection to starvation. And the person he submits to can claim no more power over him than what was agreed to in their compact.
On this logic, a person's having full storehouses during a famine, having money in their pocket, being on a ship at sea, being able to swim -- any of these could just as well be the foundation of rule and dominion as owning all the land in the world. Any of these is enough to enable me to save someone's life when they would die without my help. And anything, by this reasoning, that might give me leverage over another person's desperation -- the opportunity to save their life or anything they hold dear, at the price of their freedom -- could be made the foundation of sovereignty just as much as property could.
From all of which it's clear: even if God had given Adam private dominion, that private dominion could not have given him sovereignty over other people. But we've already sufficiently proved that God gave him no "private dominion" in the first place.
The next passage of scripture where our author tries to build Adam's monarchy is Genesis 3:16: "And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." "Here we have," Filmer says, "the original grant of government," from which he concludes on the following page (O. 244) "that the supreme power is settled in the fatherhood, and limited to one kind of government, that is, to monarchy." Because no matter what his premises are, this is always his conclusion. Just let the word "rule" appear once in any biblical text, and -- presto -- absolute monarchy is established by divine right.
If anyone will carefully read our author's own reasoning from these words (O. 244), and consider, among other things, "the line and posterity of Adam" as he brings them in there, they'll find it pretty hard to make sense of what he's saying. But we'll chalk that up to his peculiar style of writing for now, and focus on what the text itself actually says.
These words are God's curse on the woman for being the first and most eager participant in the act of disobedience. And if we consider the context of what God is saying here to our first parents -- that he was pronouncing judgment and declaring his anger at both of them for their disobedience -- we can't possibly suppose that this was the moment God chose to hand out privileges and perks to Adam, investing him with dignity and authority, elevating him to dominion and monarchy. Yes, because Eve was the instigator in the temptation, she was placed beneath Adam, giving him an incidental superiority over her as part of her greater punishment. But Adam had his share of the fall too, as well as the sin, and was brought low himself, as you can see in the very next verses. It would be hard to imagine that God, in the same breath, would make Adam universal monarch over all of humanity and a day laborer for the rest of his life -- kick him out of paradise to till the ground (verse 23) while simultaneously promoting him to a throne with all the privileges and comfort of absolute power.
This was not a time when Adam could expect any favors or grants of privilege from his offended Creator. If this is "the original grant of government," as our author tells us, and Adam was now made a monarch -- whatever Sir Robert wants to make of him -- it's plain that God made him a very poor monarch indeed, the kind that even our author himself wouldn't have considered much of a privilege to be. God puts Adam to work for a living, and seems more likely to be handing him a shovel to work the earth than a scepter to rule over its inhabitants. "In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy bread," God tells him in verse 19. This was unavoidable, someone might answer, because Adam didn't have any subjects yet and had nobody to work for him. But later on, living as he did for over 900 years, he might have had plenty of people he could command to work for him. No, says God -- not just while you have no help besides your wife, but for as long as you live, you will live by your labor: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (verse 19). It will perhaps be answered again, in defense of our author, that these words aren't spoken to Adam personally, but through him, as a representative, to all of humanity -- this being a curse on mankind because of the fall.
I believe God speaks differently from human beings, because he speaks with more truth and certainty. But when he chooses to speak to people, I don't think he speaks differently from them by violating the normal rules of language they use. That wouldn't be condescending to their understanding when he humbles himself to address them -- it would be defeating his own purpose by saying things that, spoken that way, they couldn't understand. And yet that's exactly how we'd have to think of God if we accept the interpretations of scripture needed to support our author's doctrine. Because by the ordinary rules of language, it's very hard to understand what God means if what he says here in the singular to Adam is supposed to apply to all of humanity, while what he says in the plural in Genesis 1:26 and 28 is supposed to apply to Adam alone (excluding everyone else), and what he says to Noah and his sons jointly is supposed to apply to Noah alone (Genesis 9).
Furthermore, note that these words from Genesis 3:16, which our author calls "the original grant of government," were not even spoken to Adam. There was no grant in them made to Adam at all -- it was a punishment imposed on Eve. And if we take these words as directed specifically to her, or through her as a representative to all other women, they would at most concern the female sex only, and mean nothing more than the ordinary obedience wives owe their husbands. But even then, there's no more of an absolute law requiring a woman to submit to this, if her circumstances or her agreement with her husband should exempt her from it, than there is a law that she must bring forth children in sorrow and pain if a remedy could be found -- since that's also part of the same curse on her. The full verse reads: "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
I think it would have been hard for anyone except our author to find a grant of "monarchical government to Adam" in these words, which were neither spoken to him nor about him. Nor will anyone, I imagine, take these words to mean that the weaker sex is so bound by the curse they contain that it's their duty not to try to avoid it. Would anyone say that Eve or any other woman sinned if she gave birth without the multiplied pains God threatens her with here? Or that either of our queens, Mary or Elizabeth, had they married one of their subjects, would have been placed in political subjection to him by this text? Or that he would have had monarchical rule over her? As I read this text, God doesn't give Adam any authority over Eve, or men over their wives. He merely predicts what the woman's situation will be -- how by his providence he would arrange things so that she would be subject to her husband, as we see that the laws and customs of nations have generally ordered it. And I'll grant that there is a natural basis for this.
Consider the parallel: when God says of Jacob and Esau that "the elder should serve the younger" (Gen. 25:23), nobody supposes that God was thereby making Jacob into Esau's sovereign. He was simply predicting what would in fact come to pass.
But if these words spoken to Eve absolutely must be understood as a binding law subjecting her and all other women, it can only be the kind of obedience every wife owes her husband. And then if this is supposed to be the "original grant of government and the foundation of monarchical power," there would be as many monarchs as there are husbands. So if these words give any power to Adam, it can only be a conjugal power, not a political one -- the power every husband has to manage the private affairs of his family, as the owner of the household goods and land, and to have his decision take priority over his wife's in matters of shared concern. But not a political power of life and death over her, and much less over anyone else.
This much I'm sure of: if our author wants this text to be a "grant -- the original grant of government," meaning political government, he should have proved it with better arguments than by simply asserting that "thy desire shall be unto thy husband" was a law by which Eve, and "all that should come of her," were subjected to Adam's absolute monarchical power and that of his heirs. "Thy desire shall be to thy husband" is too ambiguous an expression -- one whose meaning interpreters don't even agree on -- to build so confidently upon, especially in a matter of such importance and such broad consequences. But our author, in his typical fashion, having once cited the text, immediately draws his conclusion without any further effort. Just let the words "rule" and "subject" appear in the text or the margin, and he takes them to mean the duty of a subject to his prince. The relationship is transformed: even though God says "husband," Sir Robert reads "king." Adam suddenly has absolute monarchical power over Eve, and not only over Eve but over "all that should come of her" -- though scripture doesn't say a word about it, and our author doesn't offer a word to prove it. But Adam must be an absolute monarch regardless, and so on through the end of the chapter.
And here I'll leave my reader to consider this: is my simply saying, without offering reasons to prove it, that this text did not give Adam the absolute monarchical power our author supposes -- is that not just as effective at destroying that power as his bare assertion is at establishing it? After all, the text mentions neither prince nor people, says nothing about absolute or monarchical power, but only discusses the subjection of Eve to Adam, a wife to her husband.
Anyone who followed our author's method throughout would find that a short and sufficient answer to the greatest part of his arguments would be to simply deny them. An assertion made without proof deserves nothing more than a denial without reasons. So even if I had said nothing except to flatly deny that, by this text, "the supreme power was settled and founded by God himself in the fatherhood, limited to monarchy, and that to Adam's person and heirs" -- all of which our author boldly concludes from these words, as you can see on the same page (O. 244) -- that would have been a sufficient answer. If I had simply asked any reasonable person to read the text and consider to whom, and on what occasion, it was spoken, they would no doubt have wondered how our author managed to find monarchical absolute power in it -- unless they recognized that he has an extraordinary talent for finding things in texts that he can't show to anyone else.
And so we have now examined the two passages of scripture -- all that I can recall our author bringing forward to prove Adam's sovereignty, that supremacy which Filmer says "it was God's ordinance should be unlimited in Adam, and as large as all the acts of his will" (O. 254) -- namely, Genesis 1:28 and Genesis 3:16. One of these means only the dominion of humanity over the lower creatures, and the other means only the obedience a wife owes her husband. Both are far, far from the kind of subjection that citizens owe the rulers of political societies.
There's one more argument to deal with, and then I think I'll have covered everything our author brings forward as proof of Adam's sovereignty. This last one is the claim that Adam had a natural right to rule over his children simply because he was their father. And Filmer is so fond of this "fatherhood" idea that you'll find it popping up on practically every page. He says, for instance, "not only Adam, but the succeeding patriarchs had, by right of fatherhood, royal authority over their children" (p. 12). And on the same page: "this subjection of children being the foundation of all regal authority," and so on. Since this appears to be -- judging by how often he brings it up -- the main pillar of his entire framework, you'd expect him to provide clear and solid reasoning for it. After all, he lays it down as a fundamental principle that "every man that is born is so far from being free, that by his very birth he becomes a subject of him that begets him" (O. 156). So since Adam was the only man directly created by God, and everyone since has been born through reproduction, nobody has ever been born free. If we ask how Adam gets this power over his children, Filmer tells us right here: by fathering them. And he says the same thing at O. 223: "This natural dominion of Adam may be proved out of Grotius himself, who teaches that by the act of generation, parents acquire rights over their children." And indeed, since the act of fathering a child is what makes a man a father, his rights as a father can't logically come from anything else.
Now, Grotius doesn't actually tell us here how far this parental power extends. But our author, who is always perfectly clear on these matters, assures us it amounts to supreme power -- the same kind of absolute power that monarchs hold over their slaves, including the power of life and death. If you were to ask him how or why fathering a child gives a man such absolute power, you'd find he has no answer. We're just supposed to take his word for it -- on this point as on so many others -- and the laws of nature and the foundations of government are supposed to stand or fall on that basis. If he'd been an absolute monarch himself, this style of argument might have been fitting enough: "my will is my reason" carries some weight when a king says it. But as a method of proof or argument, it's pretty unimpressive, and it won't do much to advance his case for absolute monarchy. Sir Robert has diminished the authority of ordinary subjects too much to leave himself any hope of establishing anything just by saying it. One slave's unsupported opinion isn't weighty enough to decide the liberty and fortunes of all humankind. If all people aren't naturally equal -- though I believe they are -- then at the very least, all slaves certainly are. And in that case, I can, without being presumptuous, set my individual opinion against his, and be just as confident that my saying "fathering children doesn't make them slaves to their fathers" sets all of humanity free, as his saying the opposite makes them all slaves. But so that this claim -- which is the foundation of the entire doctrine of those who want monarchy to be established by divine right -- gets a fair hearing, let's see what reasons others offer for it, since our author offers none.
The argument I've heard others use to prove that fathers acquire absolute power over their children by fathering them goes like this: "Fathers have power over the lives of their children because they give them life and existence." This is the only proof the claim is even capable of receiving, since there can be no reason why one person should naturally have any right or claim over something in another person that was never his to begin with -- something he didn't bestow, but that was received from someone else's generosity.
First, I'd point out that not everyone who gives something to someone else automatically has the right to take it back.
But second -- and more importantly -- those who say the father "gives life" to his children are so dazzled by their obsession with monarchy that they forget, as they really shouldn't, about God, who is "the author and giver of life: it is in him alone we live, move, and have our being." How can someone be said to give life to another when he doesn't even understand what his own life consists of? Philosophers are at a loss about it even after their most careful investigations. Anatomists, after spending their entire lives and careers dissecting and meticulously examining human bodies, openly admit their ignorance about the structure and function of many parts, and about the processes that make life work in the body as a whole. So does the common farmer, or the even more clueless pleasure-seeker, somehow design and construct such an astonishing machine as a human being, and then install life and consciousness in it? Can any man honestly say he formed the parts necessary for his child's life? Or can he really suppose he gives the life when he doesn't even know what kind of vessel is needed to receive it, or what actions or organs are required for its reception and preservation?
To truly give life to something that doesn't yet exist would mean designing and creating a living creature -- shaping the parts, molding them, fitting them to their purposes, assembling them all together, and then breathing a living soul into the result. Someone who could actually do that might have some legitimate claim to destroy what he'd made. But is anyone really bold enough to claim for himself the incomprehensible works of the Almighty? God alone created, and continues to create, the living soul. He alone can breathe in the breath of life. If anyone thinks he's such a skilled craftsman, let him count up the parts of his child's body that he supposedly made. Let him explain their uses and how they work. Let him tell me when the living, rational soul began to inhabit this intricate structure -- when sensation first began, and how this machine he claims to have built thinks and reasons. If he made it, then when it breaks down, let him fix it -- or at least tell us where the problems are. "Shall he that made the eye not see?" says the Psalmist (Psalm 94:9). Consider how vain these men are: the structure of that one single part -- the eye -- is enough to convince us of an all-wise Designer, and God has so obvious a claim to us as his handiwork that one of the standard titles for God in scripture is "God our maker" and "the Lord our maker." So even though our author, in his eagerness to inflate the importance of fatherhood, is pleased to say (O. 159) "that even the power which God himself exercises over mankind is by right of fatherhood," this kind of fatherhood completely rules out any claim of title by earthly parents. God is king because he is truly the maker of us all -- and no human parent can claim to be that of their children.
But even if people had the skill and power to make their children, it's not such a trivial piece of work that we could imagine them doing it without intending to. What father out of a thousand, when he fathers a child, thinks about anything beyond satisfying his immediate desire? God in his infinite wisdom has placed powerful sexual urges in human nature as the means to continue the human race, and reproduction usually happens without any conscious plan, and often against the wishes and intentions of the man involved. And even those who do want and plan for children are really just the occasion of their coming into being. When they plan and wish to have children, they contribute little more to making them than Deucalion and his wife did to making the human race in the old myth -- by tossing pebbles over their shoulders.
But let's grant, just for the sake of argument, that parents did make their children, gave them life and being, and that this gave them absolute power over them. Even then, this would give the father only a shared authority with the mother. Nobody can deny that the woman has an equal share -- if not the greater one -- since she nourishes the child for a long time in her own body and from her own substance. It's inside her that the child is shaped, and from her that it receives the materials and the basic blueprint of its physical makeup. It's pretty hard to imagine that the rational soul immediately takes up residence in the still-unformed embryo the moment the father has done his part in conception. So if we're going to suppose the child owes anything to its parents, it must certainly owe the most to the mother. But however you settle that question, the mother can't be denied an equal share in producing the child, and so the father's supposed absolute authority can't be grounded here.
Our author, of course, sees it differently. He says: "We know that God at the creation gave the sovereignty to the man over the woman, as being the nobler and principal agent in generation" (O. 172). I don't remember that passage in my Bible. When someone can show me the place where God at the creation gave sovereignty to the man over the woman, and specifically for this reason -- because "he is the nobler and principal agent in generation" -- then it will be time enough to consider and answer it. But it's nothing new for our author to present his own fantasies as established divine truths, even though there's often a vast gap between his claims and actual divine revelation. After all, God in scripture says, "his father and his mother that begot him."
Those who point to the historical practice of people exposing or selling their children as proof of parental power over them are, like Sir Robert, truly impressive arguers -- and they can only recommend their position by grounding it on the most shameful action and most unnatural murder that human beings are capable of. The dens of lions and the nurseries of wolves know no such cruelty. These so-called savage creatures of the wilderness obey God and nature by being tender and protective of their young. They will hunt, keep watch, fight, and nearly starve themselves for the preservation of their offspring. They never abandon them, never forsake them, until they're able to survive on their own. Is it really the special privilege of human beings alone to act more contrary to nature than the wildest and most untamed creatures? Does God forbid us, under the most severe penalty -- death -- from taking the life of any person, even a stranger who has provoked us, and yet permit us to destroy those he has placed in our care? Those whom the principles of nature and reason, as well as his explicit commands, require us to protect? God has taken special care throughout all of creation to propagate and continue every species, and he makes individual creatures act so strongly toward this end that they sometimes neglect their own well-being for it. They seem to forget that basic rule nature teaches all living things: self-preservation. The drive to protect their young is such a powerful principle in them that it overrides their individual nature. And so we see the timid become brave, the fierce become gentle, and the predatory become tender and generous -- all when their young need them.
But if what has been done is supposed to be the standard for what should be done, then history could have supplied our author with examples of this absolute fatherly power at its peak -- and he could have shown us the people in Peru who bred children specifically to fatten and eat them. This story is so remarkable that I can't resist quoting the author's own words: "In some provinces," he says, "they were so greedy for human flesh that they wouldn't even wait until the victim was dead, but would suck the blood as it ran from the wounds of the dying person. They had public butcher shops for human flesh, and their madness reached such a point that they didn't even spare their own children, whom they had fathered on captive women taken in war. They carefully nourished the children they had by these women until the children were about thirteen years old, at which point they slaughtered and ate them. And they did the same to the mothers when they grew too old to bear children and stopped providing them with any more little roasts." (Garcilaso de la Vega, History of the Incas of Peru, Book I, Chapter 12.)
This is how far the restless human mind can carry a person -- down to a level of brutality below that of animals -- when people abandon the reason that places them almost on the level of angels. And it can't be otherwise with a creature whose thoughts are more numerous than grains of sand and wider than the ocean. When imagination and passion take the lead, they inevitably drive people into bizarre behavior -- if reason, which is their only guiding star and compass, isn't what they steer by. The imagination is always restless, constantly suggesting new ideas, and the will, once reason has been set aside, is ready for any wild scheme. In this state, whoever goes the furthest off course is considered the best leader and is sure to attract the most followers. And once fashion has established what folly or cunning first introduced, custom makes it sacred, and it will be considered rude or insane to question or challenge it. Anyone who takes an impartial look at the nations of the world will find that so much of their religions, governments, and customs have been introduced and maintained by exactly these means that they'll have very little respect left for the practices that are popular and respectable among people. They'll have good reason to think that the forests, where the supposedly irrational, untaught animal inhabitants stay on the right path by following nature, are better guides for us than the cities and palaces, where those who call themselves civilized and rational go astray under the influence of precedent and example.
If precedents are enough to establish a rule in this matter, our author could have found in the Bible itself cases of children sacrificed by their parents -- and this among God's own chosen people. The Psalmist tells us (Psalm 106:38): "They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan." But God didn't judge this situation by our author's rule, nor did he accept the authority of common practice against his righteous law. As the passage continues: "the land was polluted with blood; therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance." The killing of their children, even though it was fashionable, was still charged against them as innocent blood. In God's reckoning it carried the guilt of murder, just as offering children to idols carried the guilt of idolatry.
So let it be, as Sir Robert claims, that in ancient times people commonly "sold and castrated their children" (O. 155). Let it be that they exposed them. And if you like, add to that -- since this represents an even greater exercise of power -- that they bred them for the dinner table, to fatten and eat them. If any of this proves a right to do such things, then we could use the same argument to justify adultery, incest, and sodomy, because there are examples of those too, both ancient and modern. These are sins whose main horror, I'd argue, comes precisely from the fact that they undermine nature's central purpose: the increase of the human race, the continuation of the species in the best possible condition, the distinction of families, and the security of the marriage bond -- all of which are necessary for that purpose.
Now, to back up this supposed natural authority of the father, our author brings forward a weak proof from the explicit commands of God in scripture. His words are: "To confirm the natural right of regal power, we find in the Decalogue that the law which enjoins obedience to kings is delivered in the terms, 'Honour thy father,' p. 23. Whereas many confess that government only in the abstract is the ordinance of God, they are not able to prove any such ordinance in the scripture but only in the fatherly power. And therefore we find the commandment that enjoins obedience to superiors given in the terms, 'Honour thy father'; so that not only the power and right of government, but the form of the power governing, and the person having the power, are all the ordinances of God. The first father had not only simply power, but power monarchical, as he was father immediately from God" (O. 254).
Our author cites the same law in several other places, always in exactly the same way: that is, the words "and mother" are always left out, treated as if they were apocryphal. This is a wonderful display of our author's cleverness, and of the strength of his cause -- which apparently required in its defender a level of zeal hot enough to warp the sacred text of God's word to make it fit his argument. This is a method not uncommon among those who don't embrace truths because reason and revelation offer them, but instead adopt positions and take sides for purposes that have nothing to do with truth, and then resolve to defend them at any cost. They treat the words and meaning of the authors they cite the way Procrustes treated his guests: they chop or stretch them until they fit the size of their theories. And the results always turn out like Procrustes's victims -- deformed, crippled, and useless.
If our author had quoted this commandment without the butchering -- as God actually gave it -- and included "mother" alongside "father," every reader would have instantly seen that it directly contradicted his argument. Far from establishing the "monarchical power of the father," it places the mother on equal footing with him and commands nothing that isn't owed equally to both father and mother. Because that is the consistent message of scripture throughout:
"Honour thy father and thy mother" (Exodus 20). "He that smiteth his father or mother shall surely be put to death" (Exodus 21:15). "He that curseth his father or mother shall surely be put to death" (Exodus 21:17, repeated in Leviticus 20:9 and by our Savior in Matthew 15:4). "Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father" (Leviticus 19:3). "If any man have a rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and say, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice" (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). "Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother" (Deuteronomy 27:16). "My son, hear the instructions of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother" -- these are the words of Solomon, a king who was not ignorant of what belonged to him as either a father or a king, and yet he joins father and mother together in every instruction he gives to children throughout the entire book of Proverbs.
"Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou, or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?" (Isaiah 45:10). "In thee have they set light by father and mother" (Ezekiel 22:7). "And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live, and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth" (Zechariah 13:3). Here it's not the father only, but the father and mother jointly, who had the power of life and death.
This is how the law ran in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament they're likewise joined in the obedience owed by their children (Ephesians 6:1). The rule is: "Children, obey your parents." I don't recall ever reading anywhere, "Children, obey your father" -- and nothing more. Scripture includes the mother in the honor that's due from children. And if there were any text where the honor or obedience of children was directed to the father alone, it's not likely that our author, who claims to build everything on scripture, would have failed to mention it. In fact, scripture treats the authority of father and mother over their children as so equal that in some places it even reverses the usual order of priority thought to be due to the father, and puts the mother first, as in Leviticus 19:3.
From this consistent pairing of father and mother found throughout scripture, we can conclude that the honor they're entitled to from their children is a single shared right belonging equally to both, so that neither can claim it entirely and neither can be excluded.
You'd think, then, that it would be pretty hard to figure out how our author concludes from the Fifth Commandment that all "power was originally in the father" -- or how he finds "monarchical power of government settled and fixed by the commandment, 'Honour thy father and thy mother.'" If all the honor required by the commandment, whatever it amounts to, belongs exclusively to the father because, as our author says, he "has the sovereignty over the woman as being the nobler and principal agent in generation" -- then why did God consistently join the mother with the father throughout scripture to share in this honor? Can the father, by this supposed sovereignty of his, release the child from paying honor to his mother? Scripture gave the Jews no such permission, and there were often rifts wide enough between husband and wife -- even to the point of divorce and separation. And I think nobody would say a child may refuse to honor his mother, or, as scripture puts it, "set light by her," even if his father ordered him to do so. Nor could the mother excuse a child from honoring his father. This makes it plain that this commandment of God gives the father no sovereignty, no supremacy.
I agree with our author that the right to this honor is rooted in nature and belongs to parents by virtue of having brought their children into the world, and that God has confirmed it through many explicit declarations. I also accept our author's rule that "in grants and gifts that have their origin from God and nature, as the power of the father" -- let me add, "and mother," for whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder -- "no inferior power of men can limit, nor make any law of prescription against them" (O. 158). So since the mother has, by this law of God, a right to honor from her children that is not subject to her husband's will, we can see that this "absolute monarchical power of the father" can neither be founded on the Fifth Commandment nor be consistent with it. A man has a power very far from monarchical -- very far from the absoluteness our author argues for -- when another person holds the same power over his subjects, by the same title. And so he can't help saying himself that "he cannot see how any man's children can be free from subjection to their parents" (p. 12) -- which, in ordinary language, I believe means mother as well as father. If "parents" here means only "father," it's the first time I've ever known it to mean that, and with that kind of wordplay you could prove anything.
According to our author's doctrine, the father, having absolute authority over his children, also has the same authority over their children -- that is, his grandchildren. And the logic would hold, if it were true that the father had such power. But I'd like to ask our author this: could the grandfather, by his sovereignty, release the grandchild from paying the honor due to his own father under the Fifth Commandment? If the grandfather has, "by right of fatherhood," sole sovereign power, and if the obedience due to the supreme ruler is what's commanded in the words "Honour thy father," then certainly the grandfather could excuse the grandchild from honoring his father. But since it's obvious to common sense that he can't do that, it follows that "honour thy father and mother" cannot mean absolute subjection to a sovereign power. It must mean something else. The right that parents have by nature, confirmed by the Fifth Commandment, therefore cannot be the political authority our author wants to derive from it. Political authority, being supreme somewhere in every civil society, can release any subject from political obedience to any fellow subject. But what law of any government official can give a child permission not to "honour his father and mother"? It's an eternal law tied purely to the relationship between parents and children, and so it contains nothing of the government's power in it, nor is it subject to that power.
Our author says, "God has given to a father a right or liberty to transfer his power over his children to any other" (O. 155). I doubt whether he can fully transfer the right to honor that's owed to him. But be that as it may, this much I'm sure of: he can't transfer a power and keep it at the same time. So if the government's sovereignty is, as our author would have it, "nothing but the authority of a supreme father" (p. 23), then it's unavoidable that if the government holds all this parental right -- as it must if fatherhood is the source of all authority -- then ordinary subjects, even though they're fathers themselves, can have no power over their children and no right to honor from them. The full authority can't be in someone else's hands while a portion of it remains with the parents.
So according to our author's own doctrine, "Honour thy father and mother" can't possibly be understood as referring to political subjection and obedience. The laws in both the Old and New Testaments that commanded children to "honour and obey their parents" were given to people whose fathers were living under civil government and were fellow subjects with them in political societies. To have told them to "honour and obey their parents" in our author's sense would have been telling them to submit to people who had no legitimate claim to their obedience -- since the right to obedience from subjects was supposedly all vested in someone else. Instead of teaching obedience, it would have been encouraging rebellion by setting up competing authorities that didn't actually exist.
So if the command "Honour thy father and mother" does refer to political authority, it directly demolishes our author's monarchy -- since it must be obeyed by every child toward his own father, even within political society. That would mean every father necessarily has political authority, and there would be as many sovereigns as there are fathers. And on top of that, the mother has her claim too, which destroys the idea of one supreme monarch. But if "Honour thy father and mother" means something different from political power -- as it necessarily must -- then it's beside our author's point and does nothing for his argument.
"The law that enjoins obedience to kings is delivered," says our author, "in the terms, 'Honour thy father,' as if all power were originally in the father" (O. 254). And that law is also delivered, say I, in the terms, "Honour thy mother," as if all power were originally in the mother. I'd like to know whether the argument isn't just as good on the one side as on the other, since father and mother are joined throughout the Old and New Testaments wherever honor or obedience is required of children.
Again, our author tells us (O. 254) "that this command, 'Honour thy father,' gives the right to govern, and makes the form of government monarchical." To which I answer: if "Honour thy father" means obedience to the political power of the ruler, then it has nothing to do with any duty we owe to our natural fathers who are themselves ordinary subjects. Because by our author's own doctrine, they've been stripped of all political power, since it's been placed entirely in the hands of the prince. Being equally subjects -- and, in his framework, slaves -- alongside their children, they can have no right, on that basis, to any honor or obedience that involves political subjection.
On the other hand, if "Honour thy father and mother" refers to the duty we owe our natural parents -- as it clearly does, based on our Savior's interpretation (Matthew 15:4) and all the other passages I've mentioned -- then it can't be about political obedience. It's a duty owed to people who have no claim to sovereignty and no political authority as government officials over subjects. The person of a private father and the title to obedience owed to the supreme ruler are incompatible things. Therefore this commandment, which necessarily applies to the persons of natural fathers, must refer to a duty we owe them that is distinct from our obedience to the government -- a duty that even the most absolute power of princes cannot release us from. What exactly this duty is, we'll examine in its proper place.
And so we've finally made it through everything in our author that even resembles an argument for the absolute, unlimited sovereignty he describes in section 8 -- the sovereignty he supposes Adam possessed, which would mean that all of humanity has ever since been born into slavery, with no claim to freedom.
But if creation, which gave nothing but mere existence, didn't make Adam prince of his descendants -- if Adam, at Genesis 1:28, was not established as lord of humanity, nor given a private dominion to the exclusion of his children, but only a right and power over the earth and lower creatures shared in common with all people -- if God, at Genesis 3:16, gave Adam no political power over his wife and children, but only subjected Eve to Adam as a punishment, or predicted the subordination of the weaker sex in managing the common affairs of their families, without giving Adam as husband the power of life and death that necessarily belongs to government -- if fathers, by fathering their children, acquire no such power over them -- and if the commandment "Honour thy father and mother" doesn't grant it either, but merely requires a duty owed equally to parents whether they're rulers or subjects, and to the mother as much as the father -- if all this is so, as I think what's been said makes very clear, then people have a natural freedom, despite everything our author so confidently asserts to the contrary.
Since all who share the same common nature, abilities, and powers are naturally equal and ought to share the same common rights and privileges, until someone can produce the clear appointment of God -- who is "Lord over all, blessed forever" -- to show any particular person's supremacy, or until a person's own consent places them under a superior. This is so obvious that our author himself admits that Sir John Hayward, Blackwood, and Barclay -- "the great champions of the right of kings" -- couldn't deny it, "but admit with one consent the natural liberty and equality of mankind" as an unquestionable truth.
And our author has been so far from producing anything that might support his grand claim -- "that Adam was absolute monarch" and therefore "men are not naturally free" -- that even his own evidence works against him. So, to use his own style of reasoning: "the first erroneous principle failing, the whole fabric of this vast engine of absolute power and tyranny drops down of itself," and there's no need to say anything more in response to everything he builds on such a false and fragile foundation.
But to save others the trouble -- if there were any need -- Filmer doesn't spare himself the effort of demonstrating, through his own contradictions, the weakness of his own theory. Adam's absolute and sole dominion is what he's constantly talking about and building on. And yet he tells us (p. 12) "that as Adam was lord of his children, so his children under him had a command and power over their own children." So the unlimited, undivided sovereignty of Adam's fatherhood, by our author's own account, lasted only a little while -- just through the first generation. As soon as Adam had grandchildren, Sir Robert could give only a very poor explanation of how this was supposed to work.
"Adam, as father of his children," he says, "has an absolute, unlimited royal power over them, and by virtue of that, over those that they fathered, and so on to all generations." And yet his children -- namely, Cain and Seth -- have paternal power over their own children at the same time. So they're simultaneously absolute lords and also subjects and slaves. Adam has all the authority as "grandfather of the people," and yet they have part of it as fathers of some of them. He is absolute over them and their descendants by having fathered them, and yet they are absolute over their own children by the same title.
"No," says our author, "Adam's children under him had power over their own children, but still with subordination to the first parent." A nice-sounding distinction, and it's a shame it means nothing and can't be reconciled with our author's own words.
I'll readily grant that if we assume Adam had absolute power over his descendants, any of his children might have received from him a delegated, and therefore subordinate, power over some or all of the rest. But that can't be the kind of power our author is talking about here. It's not a power by grant and commission -- it's the natural paternal power he supposes a father has over his children.
Here's why:
First, he says: "As Adam was lord of his children, so his children under him had a power over their own children." So they were lords over their own children in the same way, and by the same title, as Adam was -- that is, by right of reproduction, by right of fatherhood.
Second, it's clear he means the natural power of fathers because he limits it to being only "over their own children." A delegated power wouldn't have that restriction -- it could extend over other people's children as easily as one's own.
Third, if it were a delegated power, it would need to show up somewhere in scripture. But there's no scriptural basis for claiming that Adam's children had any other power over their own children than what they naturally had as fathers.
That he means paternal power here, and nothing else, is beyond doubt from the conclusion he draws in the words immediately following: "I see not then how the children of Adam, or of any man else, can be free from subjection to their parents." This makes clear that the power on one side and the subjection on the other that our author is talking about is the natural power and subjection between parents and children. It couldn't be anything else, because it's a duty that every person's children owe. And our author always insists this power is absolute and unlimited.
So here's the situation: this natural power of parents over their children, Adam had over his descendants, says our author. And this same power of parents over their children, his children had over theirs during Adam's lifetime, says our author. So Adam, by a natural right of fatherhood, had absolute, unlimited power over all his descendants. And at the same time, his children had, by the same right, absolute, unlimited power over theirs.
Here, then, are two absolute, unlimited powers existing at the same time, and I'd love for anyone to try reconciling them with each other -- or with common sense. The "subordination" escape hatch he's thrown in actually makes it worse: to have one absolute, unlimited -- no, unlimitable -- power subordinated to another is such an obvious contradiction that nothing could be more so.
"Adam is absolute prince with the unlimited authority of fatherhood over all his posterity." All his descendants are then absolutely his subjects and, as our author says, his slaves -- children and grandchildren equally in this state of subjection and slavery. And yet, says our author, "the children of Adam have paternal -- that is, absolute, unlimited -- power over their own children." In plain English, they're slaves and absolute princes at the same time, under the same government. One group of subjects has absolute, unlimited power over another group, by the natural right of parentage.
Now, if someone wants to charitably interpret our author as meaning only that parents who are themselves under the absolute authority of their father still have some power over their own children, I'll admit that's closer to the truth. But it won't help our author at all. Since he never talks about paternal power as anything other than absolute and unlimited authority, he can't be taken to mean anything less here -- not unless he'd explicitly set limits and shown how far it reaches. And that he does mean paternal authority in its fullest extent is clear from the words that come right after: "This subjection of children being the foundation of all regal authority" (p. 12). The subjection that, in the previous line, he says "every man is in to his parents" -- and consequently what Adam's grandchildren owed to their parents -- was, according to him, the very foundation of all regal authority. That means, in our author's system, absolute, unlimited authority. And so Adam's children had regal authority over their own children while they themselves were subjects of their father and fellow subjects with their children.
But let him mean whatever he pleases. It's clear that he allows "Adam's children to have paternal power" (p. 12), and he also allows all other fathers to have "paternal power over their children" (O. 156). From this, one of two things necessarily follows. Either Adam's children, even during his lifetime, had -- and therefore all other fathers also have, as he puts it (p. 12) -- "by right of fatherhood, royal authority over their children." Or else Adam himself, "by right of fatherhood, had not royal authority." Because paternal power either does or doesn't confer royal authority on those who possess it. If it doesn't, then Adam couldn't be sovereign by this title, and neither could anyone else -- and that's the end of all our author's political theory at once. If it does confer royal authority, then everyone who has paternal power has royal authority. And in that case, under our author's patriarchal system of government, there will be as many kings as there are fathers.
And so -- what a monarchy he's set up! Princes will certainly have great reason to thank him for this new political science, which creates as many absolute kings in every country as there are fathers of children. And yet who can blame our author for it? It follows unavoidably from his own principles. Having placed "absolute power in fathers by right of begetting," he couldn't easily work out how much of this power belonged to a son over the children he had fathered. And so it proved very difficult to give all the power to Adam, as he does, while also allowing a share of it during Adam's lifetime to his children when they became parents -- which he couldn't quite bring himself to deny them.
This is what makes him so vague in his language and so uncertain about where to locate this absolute natural power he calls fatherhood. Sometimes Adam alone has it all (pp. 13; O. 244, 245; and Preface).
Sometimes parents have it -- and that word hardly means the father alone (pp. 12, 19).
Sometimes children have it during their father's lifetime (p. 12).
Sometimes fathers of families have it (pp. 78, 79).
Sometimes fathers in general have it (O. 155).
Sometimes the heir to Adam has it (O. 253).
Sometimes the posterity of Adam have it (O. 244, 246).
Sometimes the prime fathers -- all sons or grandchildren of Noah -- have it (O. 244).
Sometimes the eldest parents have it (p. 12).
Sometimes all kings have it (p. 19).
Sometimes all who have supreme power have it (O. 245).
Sometimes heirs to those first ancestors "who were at first the natural parents of the whole people" have it (p. 19).
Sometimes an elected king has it (p. 23).
Sometimes those -- whether a few or many -- who govern the commonwealth have it (p. 23).
Sometimes whoever can grab it -- a usurper -- has it (p. 23; O. 155).
And so this brand-new nothing -- this concept that's supposed to carry with it all power, authority, and government; this "fatherhood" that's supposed to identify the rightful person and establish the throne of monarchs whom the people must obey -- may, according to Sir Robert, end up in anyone's hands, by any means whatsoever. His political theory would give royal authority to a democracy, and make a usurper a lawful prince. And if this magical fatherhood can perform all these marvelous tricks, then I wish our author and all his followers much joy of their omnipotent fatherhood -- which in practice can serve no purpose except to destabilize and destroy all the legitimate governments in the world, and to establish in their place disorder, tyranny, and usurpation.
In the previous chapters, we've seen what Adam's monarchy looked like in our author's version, and what titles he based it on. The two foundations Filmer leans on hardest -- the ones he thinks give him the best shot at justifying monarchical power for future rulers -- are "fatherhood and property." And so his proposed method for "removing the absurdities and inconveniences of the doctrine of natural freedom is to maintain the natural and private dominion of Adam" (O. 222). In keeping with this, he tells us that the "grounds and principles of government necessarily depend upon the original of property" (O. 108), that "the subjection of children to their parents is the fountain of all regal authority" (p. 12), and that "all power on earth is either derived or usurped from the fatherly power, there being no other original to be found of any power whatsoever" (O. 158).
Now, I won't pause here to examine how you can say, without contradicting yourself, that the "first grounds and principles of government necessarily depend upon the original of property" and also that "there is no other original but that of the father." It's hard to understand how there can be "no other source but fatherhood" while simultaneously the "grounds and principles of government depend upon the origin of property." After all, property and fatherhood are as different from each other as being a landlord is from being a father. And neither of these sits well with what our author says elsewhere (O. 244) about God's sentence against Eve in Genesis 3:16 -- that it is "the original grant of government." So if that was the true origin of government, then by our author's own admission, government didn't originate from either property or fatherhood. And this text, which he brings forward as proof of Adam's power over Eve, necessarily contradicts his claim that fatherhood is "the sole fountain of all power." Because if Adam had any kind of royal authority over Eve, as our author insists, it had to come from some title other than the fact that he fathered children.
But I'll leave Filmer to sort out these contradictions on his own -- as well as the many others that anyone will find scattered throughout his work if they read him with even a little attention. Let's move on to the main question: how these two supposed origins of government, "Adam's natural and private dominion," can work together to establish the claims of later monarchs, who, as our author requires, must all trace their power back to these two sources.
So let's suppose Adam was made, "by God's donation," lord and sole owner of the entire earth -- in every way that Sir Robert could wish. Let's also suppose him to be, "by right of fatherhood," the absolute ruler over his children with unlimited authority. Here's my question: when Adam dies, what happens to both his natural dominion and his private dominion? No doubt the answer will be that they descended to his next heir, as our author tells us in several places.
But here's the problem: this approach clearly cannot pass both his natural dominion and his private dominion to the same person. Even if we grant that all the property -- the entire estate of the father -- should go to the eldest son (which itself would need some proof to establish), then yes, by that title the eldest son gets all of the father's private dominion. But the father's natural dominion -- his paternal power -- cannot be passed down by inheritance. Why not? Because paternal power is a right that belongs to a person only because he fathered children. No one can have natural dominion over someone he didn't father. Unless, of course, we're supposed to believe that a person can have a right to something without ever doing the thing that creates that right.
Think about it: if a father has natural dominion over his children specifically because he fathered them, and by no other title, then someone who didn't father them can't have natural dominion over them. So whether or not it's true, as our author claims (O. 156), that "every man that is born, by his very birth, becomes a subject to him that begets him," this much necessarily follows: a person cannot, by birth, become subject to his brother -- who didn't father him. Unless we're supposed to accept that a person can, by one and the same title, end up under the "natural and absolute dominion" of two different men at the same time. Or that it makes sense to say a person is under the natural dominion of his father because his father fathered him, and is also under the natural dominion of his eldest brother -- even though his brother didn't father him at all.
So if Adam's private dominion -- that is, his ownership of the natural world -- all descended at his death entirely to his eldest son and heir (because if it didn't, Sir Robert's whole theory of monarchy is immediately dead in the water), and if his natural dominion -- the authority a father has over his children by fathering them -- belonged, immediately upon Adam's death, equally to all his sons who had children (since they had it by the same title their father did), then the sovereignty based on property and the sovereignty based on fatherhood end up split between different people. Cain, as heir, would have the property-based sovereignty alone, while Seth and the other sons would share the fatherhood-based sovereignty equally with him.
This is the best case you can make from our author's theory, and it's not good. His two titles to sovereignty either cancel each other out, or, if both must stand, they can only confuse the rights of rulers and throw government into disorder among Adam's descendants. Because by building on two titles that can't descend together -- and which he himself admits can be separated (since he concedes that "Adam's children had their distinct territories by right of private dominion," O. 210, p. 40) -- Filmer makes it permanently unclear, on his own principles, where sovereignty actually lies or to whom we owe our obedience. Fatherhood and property are distinct titles, and they immediately began, upon Adam's death, to belong to different people. So which one was supposed to give way to the other?
Let's look at the account as Filmer himself gives it. He tells us, drawing on Grotius, that "Adam's children, by donation, assignation, or some kind of transfer before he died, had their distinct territories by right of private dominion: Abel had his flocks and pastures for them; Cain had his fields for grain, and the land of Nod, where he built himself a city" (O. 210). Here the obvious question is: which of these two, after Adam's death, was the sovereign? Cain, says our author (p. 29). By what title? "As heir; for heirs to ancestors who were the natural parents of their people are not only lords of their own children, but also of their brothers," says our author (p. 19).
But what exactly was Cain heir to? Not the entire estate -- not everything Adam had private dominion over. Our author himself admits that Abel, by a title derived from his father, "had his distinct territory for pasture by right of private dominion." So whatever Abel had by private dominion was exempt from Cain's control -- because Cain couldn't have private dominion over what was already under someone else's private dominion. And once that's gone, his sovereignty over his brother goes with it, and so there are immediately two sovereigns. Filmer's imaginary title of fatherhood has been shown the door, and Cain is no prince over his brother.
Or else, if Cain kept his sovereignty over Abel despite Abel's private dominion, then it follows that the "first grounds and principles of government" have nothing to do with property -- whatever our author says to the contrary. True, Abel didn't outlive his father Adam, but that doesn't matter to the argument. The same logic holds just as well for Abel's descendants, or for Seth, or for any of Adam's posterity not descended from Cain.
Filmer runs into the same problem with the three sons of Noah, who, as he says (p. 13), "had the whole world divided among them by their father." So I ask: in which of the three do we find "the establishment of regal power" after Noah's death?
If the answer is all three, as our author seems to suggest there, then it follows that regal power is founded on ownership of land and follows private dominion -- not paternal power or natural dominion. And that's the end of paternal power as the supposed fountain of royal authority. The much-celebrated fatherhood simply vanishes.
But if regal power descended to Shem as the eldest son and heir to his father, then "Noah's division of the world by lot to his sons, or his ten years sailing around the Mediterranean to assign each son his portion" -- which our author tells us about (p. 15) -- was all wasted effort. His division of the world to them was pointless, because his grants to Ham and Japheth were worthless if Shem, regardless of those grants, was going to be lord over them the moment Noah died.
Or, if those grants of private dominion over their assigned territories were valid, then we've now set up two different kinds of power that aren't subordinate to each other -- with all the problems our author himself raises against the "power of the people" (O. 158). Let me quote his own words, just swapping in "property" where he wrote "people": "All power on earth is either derived or usurped from the fatherly power, there being no other original to be found of any power whatsoever. For if there should be granted two sorts of power, without any subordination of one to the other, they would be in perpetual strife over which should be supreme, for two supremes cannot agree. If the fatherly power is supreme, then the power grounded on private dominion must be subordinate and depend on it. And if the power grounded on property is supreme, then the fatherly power must submit to it, and cannot be exercised without the permission of the property owners -- which must completely destroy the frame and course of nature."
That's his own argument against two distinct, independent powers, set down in his own words -- I've only substituted "power rising from property" for "power of the people." And when he's answered what he himself has argued here against two distinct powers, we'll be better able to see how he can, with any tolerable sense, derive all royal authority "from the natural and private dominion of Adam" -- from fatherhood and property together -- when these are different titles that don't always belong to the same person. And it's clear, by his own admission, that they separated immediately as soon as both Adam's and Noah's deaths made way for succession. Though our author frequently jumbles them together in his writings, and never hesitates to use whichever one he thinks will sound best for his purposes.
But the absurdities of this will become even clearer in the next chapter, where we'll examine the ways sovereignty was supposedly passed down from Adam to the rulers who came after him.
Sir Robert, having not had much luck proving that Adam had sovereign authority in the first place, does no better at explaining how that authority got passed along to future rulers. Because if his political theory is correct, every prince in history must trace his title back to that first monarch. The various methods he's suggested for this transfer are scattered throughout his writings, so I'll set them down in his own words.
In his preface, he tells us that "Adam being monarch of the whole world, none of his posterity had any right to possess anything, but by his grant or permission, or by succession from him." So here he names two ways that anything Adam possessed could be transferred: grants or succession. Then again he says, "All kings either are, or are to be reputed, the next heirs to those first progenitors, who were at first the natural parents of the whole people" (p. 19). And, "There cannot be any multitude of men whatsoever, but that in it, considered by itself, there is one man amongst them, that in nature hath a right to be the king of all the rest, as being the next heir to Adam" (O. 253). In these passages, inheritance is the only method he allows for conveying monarchical power to princes.
But in other passages he tells us something different. "All power on earth is either derived or usurped from the fatherly power" (O. 155). "All kings that now are, or ever were, are or were either fathers of their people, or heirs of such fathers, or usurpers of the right of such fathers" (O. 158, 253). Now inheritance or usurpation are the only two ways kings come by this original power. But wait -- he also tells us that "this fatherly empire, as it was of itself hereditary, so it was alienable by patent, and seizable by an usurper" (O. 190). So now it's inheritance, grant, or usurpation that can transfer it.
And finally -- and this is the most remarkable one -- he tells us (p. 100): "It skills not which way kings come by their power, whether by election, donation, succession, or by any other means; for it is still the manner of the government by supreme power, that makes them properly kings, and not the means of obtaining their crowns."
Now that, I think, is a complete answer to his entire theory and everything he's ever said about Adam's royal authority as the fountain from which all princes are supposed to derive theirs. He could have saved himself the trouble of going on and on about heirs and inheritance, if all it takes to make someone "properly a king" is governing by supreme power -- regardless of how he came by it.
By this remarkable principle, our author could make Oliver Cromwell just as properly a king as anyone else he might care to name. And if Filmer had been lucky enough to live under the government of Masaniello -- the Neapolitan fisherman who briefly seized power -- he couldn't, by his own rule, have refused to kneel before him and cry "O king, live forever!" After all, the manner of his government by supreme power made him properly a king, even though just the day before he was properly a fisherman. And if Don Quixote had taught his squire to govern with supreme authority, our author surely would have made a most loyal subject on Sancho Panza's island. Filmer certainly deserves some position of honor in such governments, since I believe he is the first political thinker who, while claiming to establish government on its true foundation and secure the thrones of lawful princes, ever told the world that someone was "properly a king whose manner of government was by supreme power, by whatever means he obtained it." Which in plain English means: supreme and royal power properly and truly belongs to whoever can seize it by any means necessary. And if this is what it means to be "properly a king," I have to wonder how Filmer ever managed to think of -- or where he'll ever find -- a usurper.
This doctrine is so astonishing that its sheer strangeness made me fly past, without giving them proper attention, all the contradictions Filmer trips over. Sometimes he says inheritance alone is the method. Sometimes only grant or inheritance. Sometimes only inheritance or usurpation. Sometimes all three of those together. And finally, election or "any other means" gets thrown in on top. These are supposedly the different ways that Adam's royal authority -- that is, his right to supreme rule -- could be conveyed down to future kings and governors, giving them a claim on the obedience and submission of their people.
But these contradictions are so glaring that simply reading our author's own words will reveal them to anyone of ordinary intelligence. And although the passages I've already quoted from him -- along with plenty more of the same quality and consistency that could be found in his works -- would be enough to excuse me from going any further with this argument, I've set out to examine the main parts of his doctrine. So I'm going to look more closely at how inheritance, grant, usurpation, or election could possibly establish legitimate government on Filmer's principles, or how any of these could give someone a right to rule based on Adam's royal authority -- even if it had been perfectly proved that Adam was an absolute monarch and lord of the whole world.
Even if it were perfectly clear that there ought to be government in the world -- and even if everyone agreed with our author that God himself had ordained it to be monarchical -- we'd still face a basic problem: people can't obey something that can't command. A beautiful idea of government, no matter how perfect or correct, can't make laws or tell people what to do. So it would do absolutely nothing to establish order and put government into actual practice among real people, unless there were also a way to identify the specific person who has the right to this power -- the one who gets to exercise this authority over everyone else. It's pointless to talk about subjection and obedience without telling us who we're supposed to obey.
Here's why: even if I were completely convinced that there ought to be authority and government in the world, I'm still a free agent until it becomes clear who actually has the right to my obedience. After all, if there are no marks by which to recognize the rightful ruler and distinguish him from everyone else, then it might just as easily be me as anyone. So while submitting to government is certainly everyone's duty, that duty means submitting to the direction and laws of people who have actual authority to command. It's not enough to simply convince someone that royal power exists somewhere in the world. You have to show the specific person to whom this royal power rightfully belongs. Nobody can be bound in conscience to submit to any power until they can be satisfied about who has the right to exercise it over them.
If this weren't the case, there would be no difference between pirates and legitimate princes. Whoever has the most muscle would automatically be obeyed, and crowns and scepters would belong to whoever was most violent and ruthless. People would change their rulers as casually and innocently as they change their doctors -- because if you can't identify who has the right to direct you, why stick with one over another? So to truly bind people's consciences to obedience, they need to know not only that power exists somewhere in the world, but who the specific person is that rightfully holds this power over them.
How successful our author has been in his attempt to establish monarchical absolute power in Adam, the reader can judge from everything that's been said so far. But even if that absolute monarchy were as clear as our author would like it to be -- and I believe it's quite the opposite -- it still couldn't be of any use in governing the world today unless he can also prove two more things.
First, that this power of Adam's didn't end when he died, but was passed on in its entirety to some other person, and then on to future generations.
Second, that the princes and rulers on earth today actually possess this power of Adam's, handed down to them through a legitimate chain of succession.
If the first point fails, then Adam's power -- no matter how great or certain it was -- is completely irrelevant to the governments and societies that exist in the world today. We'd have to look for some other source of governmental power, or else there's no legitimate government at all. If the second point fails, it destroys the authority of every current ruler and frees the people from any obligation to obey them -- since these rulers, having no better claim than anyone else to this power (which is supposedly the sole fountain of all authority), would have no title to rule.
Our author, having invented this absolute sovereignty in Adam, mentions several ways it could have been passed on to later princes. But the one he mainly relies on is inheritance, which comes up again and again throughout his various writings. I've already quoted several of his relevant passages in the previous chapter, so I won't repeat them here. This sovereignty, as I've discussed, is built on a double foundation: property and fatherhood. One was the right Adam supposedly had over all creatures -- a right to possess the earth with its animals and everything else on it for his private use, excluding everyone else. The other was the right he supposedly had to rule and govern all other human beings.
Since both of these rights supposedly exclude everyone else, they must both be based on some reason unique to Adam.
The property claim, our author supposes, comes from God's direct donation in Genesis 1:28. The fatherhood claim comes from the act of begetting children. Now, here's the key principle about inheritance: if the heir doesn't inherit the reason on which his father's right was based, he can't inherit the right that follows from it.
For example: Adam had a right of property in the creatures based on a gift and grant from God Almighty, who was lord and owner of them all. Let's grant this, as our author tells us. Even so, when Adam dies, his heir can have no claim to them -- no property right in them -- unless that same reason, namely God's donation, also vests a right in the heir. Because if Adam could have no property in or use of the creatures without this explicit gift from God, and this gift was made only to Adam personally, then his heir could have no right under it. Upon Adam's death, it would all revert back to God, the lord and owner. Explicit grants don't convey title any further than the specific words express, and that's the only basis on which the right is held. So if, as our author himself argues, the donation in Genesis 1:28 was made only to Adam personally, his heir couldn't inherit his property in the creatures. And if the donation was made to someone besides Adam alone, then let it be shown that it was specifically to "his heir" in our author's sense -- that is, to one of his children to the exclusion of all the rest.
But let's not follow our author too far off track. The plain truth of the matter is this: God made humanity, and planted in us -- as in all other animals -- a powerful desire for self-preservation. He furnished the world with things fit for food and clothing and the other necessities of life, all in service of his design that people should live and continue for some time on this earth. God didn't want so remarkable and wonderful a piece of craftsmanship to perish through negligence or lack of necessities after just a few brief moments of existence.
So God, having made humanity and the world this way, spoke to us -- that is, directed us through our senses and reason, just as he directed the lower animals through their senses and instincts -- toward the things that would sustain life and serve as the means of our preservation. And so I have no doubt that even before the words of Genesis 1:28-29 were spoken (if they're to be understood as having been literally spoken), and without any such verbal donation, humanity already had a right to use the creatures, by the will and grant of God. Because the powerful desire to preserve life and being had been planted in us as a principle of action by God himself. Reason -- "which was the voice of God in him" -- couldn't help but teach and assure each person that in following this natural drive for self-preservation, they were following the will of their Maker, and therefore had a right to make use of whatever creatures reason or the senses could identify as useful for that purpose. And so humanity's property in the creatures was founded on the right to use whatever was necessary or useful for our survival and well-being.
This being the reason and foundation of Adam's property, it gave the same title, on the same ground, to all his children -- not only after his death, but during his lifetime. So there was no special privilege of his heir that could exclude the other children from an equal right to use the lower creatures for the comfortable preservation of their lives. That's all the "property" anyone has in them. And so Adam's sovereignty built on property -- or, as our author calls it, "private dominion" -- comes to nothing. Every person had a right to the creatures by the same title Adam had: namely, the right everyone has to take care of and provide for their own survival. People had a right in common, and Adam's children shared that right equally with him. However, if anyone had started to make a particular thing their own property (how they or anyone else could do that, I'll explain elsewhere), that possession -- if the owner didn't dispose of it otherwise by an explicit grant -- would naturally pass to their children, who would have a right to succeed to it and possess it.
It might reasonably be asked here: how do children come to have this right of possessing their parents' property when the parents die, taking priority over everyone else? After all, the property belonged personally to the parents. When they die without actually transferring their right to someone else, why doesn't it just return to the common stock of humanity? Maybe someone will answer that common consent has assigned it to the children. Common practice certainly does hand it down this way. But we can't really say it's the common consent of all humanity, because that consent was never asked for or actually given. And if some kind of tacit common consent established it, that would only make children's inheritance a positive right, not a natural one. But where a practice is universal, it's reasonable to think the cause is natural.
So here's what I think the real basis is. The first and strongest desire God planted in people, woven into the very fabric of our nature, is self-preservation. That's the foundation of a right to the creatures for each individual person's particular support and use. But alongside this, God also planted in people a powerful desire to propagate their kind and continue themselves through their children. And this gives children a claim to share in their parents' property and a right to inherit their possessions. People aren't owners of what they have just for themselves alone. Their children have a claim to part of it, and hold a kind of joint right with their parents in their possessions. This right becomes wholly theirs when death puts an end to their parents' use of it and takes the parents away from their possessions. And this is what we call inheritance. People being bound by a similar obligation to preserve what they've brought into the world as they are to preserve themselves, their offspring come to have a right in the goods their parents possessed. That children have such a right is plain from the laws of God. And that people are convinced children have such a right is evident from the laws of the land. Both require parents to provide for their children.
For children, being born by the course of nature weak and unable to provide for themselves, have -- by the appointment of God himself, who ordered nature this way -- a right to be nourished and maintained by their parents. And not just a right to bare subsistence, but to the comforts and conveniences of life, as far as their parents' means can afford. So when parents leave the world and the care they owed their children ceases, the effects of that care are meant to extend as far as they possibly can. The provisions parents made during their lifetimes are understood to be intended -- as nature requires they should be -- for their children, who after the parents themselves are the ones most entitled to provision. Even if the dying parents say nothing explicit about them, nature directs the descent of their property to their children, who thus come to have a title and natural right of inheritance to their father's goods -- a right the rest of humanity can't claim.
Were it not for this right of children to be nourished and maintained by their parents -- a right God and nature have given to children and imposed on parents as a duty -- it would actually be more reasonable for the father to inherit his son's estate, and to be preferred in the inheritance over his grandchild. After all, the grandfather has a long list of expenses laid out in raising and educating his son, which in simple justice you'd think ought to be repaid. But that investment was made in obedience to the same law by which the grandfather himself received nourishment and education from his own parents. The debt of education you received from your father is repaid by taking care of and providing for your own children. It's paid, I say, to the extent that any alteration of property requires -- unless the parents' present necessity calls for a return of goods for their necessary support and survival. (I'm not talking about the reverence, gratitude, respect, and honor that children always owe their parents -- but about possessions and the material comforts of life that have monetary value.)
Still, while parents are duty-bound to raise and provide for their children, this debt to their children doesn't completely cancel the debt owed to their parents. It only takes natural priority over it. The debt a person owes to their father kicks in and gives the father a right to inherit the son's goods wherever the rights of the son's own children don't override that claim. So a person having a right to be maintained by their children when they need it -- and to enjoy the comforts of life from them, when there's enough left after providing for their children and grandchildren -- if their son dies without children, the father has a natural right to possess his goods and inherit his estate (whatever the local laws of some countries may absurdly direct otherwise). And from the father, it goes again to his children and their descendants, or, lacking those, to his own father and that line. But where no such relatives can be found -- that is, no kindred at all -- then we see that a private person's possessions revert to the community: in political societies, they go to the public authorities; in the state of nature, they become perfectly common again, with nobody having a right to inherit them. Nor can anyone claim property in them except in the way anyone claims common things in nature -- a topic I'll address in its proper place.
I've gone into so much detail about the grounds on which children have a right to inherit their parents' property for an important reason. By laying this out, it becomes clear that even if Adam had a property -- a hollow, meaningless, useless property at that, since he was obligated to nourish and maintain his children and future generations out of it -- even so, all his children came to have, by the law of nature and right of inheritance, a joint title and shared property right in it after his death. This could convey no right of sovereignty to any one of his descendants over the rest. Since every one of them had a right of inheritance to their share, they could enjoy their inheritance -- or any part of it -- in common, or divide it up however they liked. But no one could claim the whole inheritance, or any sovereignty supposedly attached to it, since the right of inheritance gave every one of the others just as much of a claim to share in their father's goods as anyone else.
And that's not the only reason I've been so thorough in examining why children inherit their parents' property. It will also shed light on the inheritance of rule and power. In countries where local laws give the entire landed estate to the firstborn son, and where the descent of power has followed the same pattern by custom, some people have been misled into thinking there was a natural or divine right of the eldest son to inherit both the estate and political power -- and that the inheritance of both rule over people and ownership of property sprang from the same source and should follow the same rules.
But property and government are fundamentally different things. Property, whose origin is in the right a person has to use the lower creatures for their survival and comfort, exists for the benefit and sole advantage of the owner. The owner may even destroy the thing they own through using it, if need requires. But government, which exists to preserve every person's rights and property by protecting them from violence and injury, is for the good of the governed. The magistrate's sword is meant to be a "terror to evildoers," and through that deterrent to enforce the positive laws of society -- laws made in conformity with the laws of nature, for the public good. That is, the good of every particular member of that society, as far as common rules can provide for it. The sword is not given to the magistrate for his benefit alone.
Children, therefore -- as I've shown -- have a right to inherit their father's property because of the dependence they have on their parents for survival. It belongs to them for their own proper good and benefit. That's why such possessions are fittingly called "goods." And the firstborn has no sole or special right to them by any law of God or nature. The younger children have an equal claim, founded on the same right they all share to maintenance, support, and comfort from their parents -- and on nothing else.
But government, being for the benefit of the governed and not the sole advantage of the governors (who benefit only insofar as they are themselves part of the body politic, each of whose members is cared for and directed in their particular roles for the good of the whole, by the laws of society) -- government cannot be inherited by the same title that children have to their father's goods. A son's right to be maintained and provided with the necessities and comforts of life from his father's resources gives him a right to succeed to his father's property for his own good. But this can give him no right to also succeed to the rule his father had over other people. Everything a child has a right to claim from his father is nourishment, education, and the things nature provides for the support of life. But the child has no right to demand rule or dominion from him. A child can receive their share of goods and the advantages of education that are naturally due to them without any empire or authority being involved. That authority -- if the father had any -- was entrusted to him for the good and benefit of others. And so the son cannot claim or inherit it on the basis of a title that's founded entirely on his own private good and advantage.
We have to know how the first ruler -- the one from whom anyone claims authority -- originally came by his power. We need to know on what grounds anyone holds authority and what their title to it is before we can determine who has the right to succeed and inherit it. If it was the agreement and consent of the people that first put a scepter in someone's hand or a crown on his head, then that same agreement must also govern how power is passed on. Because the same authority that made the first ruler legitimate must make the second one legitimate too, thereby granting the right of succession. In this case, inheritance or birth order can have no right or claim of its own, beyond whatever the original consent that established the form of government arranged for the succession. And this is why we see the succession of crowns in different countries placing the crown on different heads -- someone who inherits the throne by right of succession in one country would be an ordinary subject in another.
If God, through a direct grant and revealed declaration, first gave rule and authority to any person, then whoever wants to claim that title must have the same kind of direct grant from God for their succession. If God hasn't specified the line of descent and how it's to be passed on, nobody can succeed to this title of the first ruler. Children have no right of inheritance to it, and birth order can make no claim to it, unless God -- the author of this arrangement -- has ordained it so. Consider the example of Saul's family: Saul received his crown from the direct appointment of God, and his family's claim to the throne ended with his reign. David succeeded to the throne by the same kind of title Saul had held -- namely, God's appointment -- which excluded Jonathan and every claim based on hereditary succession. And if Solomon had a right to succeed his father, it must have been by some title other than being the eldest son. A younger son, or a nephew, must take priority in the succession if he has the same type of title that the first legitimate prince had. And in a dominion founded solely on the direct appointment of God himself, Benjamin the youngest could inherit the crown, if God so directs, just as readily as a member of that tribe held the first possession.
If paternal right -- the act of begetting children -- gives a man rule and authority, then inheritance or birth order can provide no title. Because someone who can't succeed to his father's title (which was the act of begetting) can't succeed to the power over his brothers that his father had by paternal right over them. But I'll have occasion to say more about this elsewhere.
For now, this much is clear: any government -- whether originally founded on paternal right, the consent of the people, or the direct appointment of God himself (which can override either of the other two and thereby create a new government on a new foundation) -- any government begun on any of these bases can rightfully pass by succession only to those who hold the same kind of title as the one they're succeeding. Power founded on agreement can pass only to someone who has a right under that agreement. Power founded on begetting can belong only to someone who begets. And power founded on a direct grant or donation from God can rightfully pass only to whoever that grant specifies.
From all I've said, I think this is clear: the right to use the creatures, being originally founded on the right people have to survive and enjoy the comforts of life -- and the natural right of children to inherit their parents' goods being founded on their right to the same survival and comforts from the resources of their parents, who are naturally moved by love and tenderness to provide for them as part of themselves -- and all of this being only for the good of the owner or heir -- none of it can be a reason for children to inherit rule and authority, which has a different origin and a different purpose. Nor can being the firstborn give anyone a special claim to exclusively inherit either property or power, as I'll show more fully in the proper place.
It's enough to have shown here that Adam's property, or private dominion, could not convey any sovereignty or rule to his heir. Since the heir didn't have a right to inherit all of his father's possessions, he couldn't thereby come to have sovereignty over his brothers. And therefore, if any sovereignty on account of property had been vested in Adam -- which in truth there was not -- it would have died with him.
Even if Adam's sovereignty, by virtue of being owner of the world, gave him any authority over people, it could not have been inherited by any of his children to the exclusion of the rest, because they all had the same right to divide the inheritance, and every one of them had a right to a portion of their father's possessions. And likewise, Adam's sovereignty by right of fatherhood -- if he had any such thing -- could not descend to any one of his children. Because according to our author's own account, this right was acquired by the act of begetting, giving the father rule over those he had begotten. That makes it a power that's impossible to inherit. The right was a consequence of, and built upon, an act that was completely personal, which made the power personal too -- and therefore impossible to pass on. Paternal power, being a natural right that arises only from the relationship between father and child, is as impossible to inherit as the relationship itself. You might as well claim to inherit the conjugal power that a husband had over his wife as to inherit the paternal power a father had over his children. The husband's power was founded on a contract, the father's on begetting -- and someone could just as easily inherit the power obtained through the marriage contract, which was purely personal, as they could inherit the power obtained through begetting, which could extend no further than the person of the one who did the begetting. Unless, that is, begetting can somehow give authority to someone who didn't actually do the begetting.
Which raises a perfectly reasonable question: if Adam had died before Eve, would his heir -- say, Cain or Seth -- have had sovereign power over Eve, his own mother, by inheriting Adam's fatherhood? Because Adam's fatherhood was nothing more than a right to govern his children because he begot them. So whoever inherits Adam's fatherhood inherits nothing, even on our author's own terms, except the right Adam had to govern his children because he begot them. The heir's supposed monarchy wouldn't have extended to Eve. And if it did, then since it's supposedly nothing more than Adam's fatherhood passed down by inheritance, the heir would have to have the right to govern Eve because Adam begot her -- since fatherhood means nothing else.
Perhaps someone will respond, along with our author, that a man can transfer his power over his child to someone else, and that whatever can be transferred by agreement can also be passed on by inheritance. My answer is this: a father cannot transfer the power he has over his child. He may perhaps forfeit it to some extent, but he cannot hand it off. And if someone else acquires it, it's not through the father's grant but through their own actions.
For example: suppose a father, unnaturally neglectful of his child, sells or gives the child away to another man. That man in turn abandons the child. A third man finds the child, raises him, cares for him, and provides for him as his own. I think nobody would doubt that the greatest part of the child's duty and devotion was owed to this foster father. And if anything could be demanded from the child by either of the other two men, it could only be owed to the biological father -- who may have forfeited his right to much of the duty covered by the commandment "Honor your parents," but who couldn't transfer any of it to someone else. The man who purchased and then neglected the child got no claim to the child's duty or respect through his purchase or the father's grant. Only the man who, by his own initiative, performed the role and care of a father to the abandoned and helpless child earned himself a proportional degree of paternal authority through that paternal care. This will be more easily accepted once you consider the nature of paternal power, for which I refer the reader to the second book.
To return to the argument at hand: this much is clear -- paternal power, arising only from the act of begetting (since that's where our author places its sole foundation), can neither be transferred nor inherited. Someone who does not beget can no more have paternal power, which arises from begetting, than someone can have a right to anything when they haven't fulfilled the condition to which that right is exclusively attached.
If someone asked, "By what law does a father have power over his children?" the answer would undoubtedly be: by the law of nature, which gives such power to the one who begets them. And if someone asked, "By what law does our author's heir come to have a right to inherit?" I think the answer would again be: by the law of nature -- because I can't find a single word of scripture that our author cites to prove the right of the kind of heir he's talking about.
So consider the contradiction: the law of nature gives fathers paternal power over their children because they begot them. And the same law of nature supposedly gives paternal power to the heir over his brothers, whom he did not beget. It follows that either the father doesn't actually get his paternal power from begetting, or the heir doesn't have it at all. Because it's very hard to understand how the law of nature -- which is the law of reason -- can give paternal power to the father over his children for the sole reason of begetting, and then give it to the firstborn over his brothers without that sole reason, which is to say for no reason at all. And if the eldest can inherit this paternal power by the law of nature without the only reason that creates a title to it, then the youngest could inherit it just as well, and a complete stranger could too. Because where there's no qualifying reason for anyone except the one who actually begets, everyone has an equal claim. I'm sure our author offers no reason for this, and when someone does, we'll see whether it holds up.
In the meantime, it makes just as much sense to say: "By the law of nature, a man has the right to inherit another's property because he's related to him and known to be of his blood -- and therefore, by the same law of nature, a complete stranger to his blood has a right to inherit his estate." That's exactly as logical as saying: "By the law of nature, the one who begets has paternal power over his children -- and therefore, by the law of nature, the heir who does not beget them has this paternal power over them." Or suppose a law of the land gave absolute power over children only to those who personally nursed them and fed them. Could anyone claim that this law gave absolute power to someone who did no such thing, over children who weren't even his?
So when it can be shown that conjugal power can belong to someone who isn't a husband, then I believe it will also be proved that our author's paternal power, acquired by begetting, can be inherited by a son -- and that a brother, as heir to his father's power, can have paternal power over his siblings, and by the same logic, conjugal power too. But until then, I think we can rest assured that the paternal power of Adam -- this supposed sovereign authority of fatherhood, if any such thing existed -- could not descend to or be inherited by his next heir.
Fatherly power, I'll readily grant our author (if it helps him any), can never be lost -- because it will exist as long as there are fathers in the world. But none of them will have Adam's paternal power, or derive theirs from him. Everyone will have their own, by the same title Adam had his -- namely, by begetting -- but not by inheritance or succession. No more than husbands get their conjugal power by inheritance from Adam.
And so we see: Adam had no property or paternal power of the kind that gave him sovereign jurisdiction over humanity. And likewise, his sovereignty -- built on either of those titles, if he had any -- could not have descended to his heir but must have ended with him. Adam therefore, as has been proved, being neither a monarch nor his imaginary monarchy inheritable, the power that now exists in the world is not the power that was Adam's. Everything Adam could have had, on our author's grounds -- whether based on property or fatherhood -- necessarily died with him and could not be passed on to future generations by inheritance.
In the next chapter, we will consider whether Adam had any such heir to inherit his power as our author talks of.
Our author tells us (O. 253) "That it is an undeniable truth that there cannot be any group of people whatsoever, either large or small, gathered together from the farthest corners and most remote regions of the world, in which there is not one man among them who has a natural right to be king of all the rest, as being the next heir to Adam, with all the others as his subjects. Every person by nature is either a king or a subject." And again, on page 20: "If Adam himself were still living and now ready to die, it is certain that there is one man, and only one in the world, who is next heir."
Let's take this group of people to be, if our author likes, all the princes on earth. By our author's own rule, there would then be "one among them who has a natural right to be king of all the rest, as being the rightful heir to Adam." What an excellent way to secure the thrones of princes and guarantee the obedience of their subjects -- by setting up a hundred, or maybe a thousand rival claims (if there are that many princes in the world) against whichever king currently wears the crown! Each of those claims would be just as valid, by our author's reasoning, as the reigning king's own title. If this right of heirship carries any real weight -- if it truly is God's ordinance, as our author seems to suggest (O. 244) -- then doesn't everyone, from the highest to the lowest, have to submit to it? Can those who carry the title of prince without actually being heirs to Adam demand obedience from their subjects on these grounds, while not being bound to pay that same obedience themselves under the same law?
Here's the choice: either governments in this world are not to be claimed and held by the title of being Adam's heir -- in which case the whole thing is pointless, and whether or not you're Adam's heir means nothing when it comes to who has the right to rule -- or else this really is, as our author says, the true basis of government and sovereignty, and the first order of business is to find this true heir of Adam and put him on the throne. At that point, all the kings and princes of the world should come and hand over their crowns and scepters to him, since those things belong to them no more than they do to any of their subjects.
Because one of these two things must be true. Either this supposed natural right of Adam's heir to be king over all of humanity (since everyone together makes one group) is not actually necessary for making a legitimate king -- meaning there can be legitimate kings without it, and royal titles and powers don't depend on it -- or else every king in the world except one is illegitimate, and none of them has any right to demand obedience. It's one or the other. Either this title of "heir to Adam" is what gives kings their crowns and their right to demand submission, in which case only one person can hold it, and all the rest are really just subjects with no authority to command obedience from their fellow subjects. Or else it is not the basis on which kings rule and claim the right to obedience, and kings are kings without it -- making this whole dream of Adam's heir having natural sovereignty completely useless for establishing political authority. Because if kings who are not and cannot possibly be heirs to Adam still have a right to rule and to their subjects' obedience, what's the point of this special title when we're already obligated to obey without it?
On the other hand, if kings who are not heirs to Adam have no right to sovereignty, then we're all free -- free until our author, or someone on his behalf, can show us who Adam's rightful heir actually is.
If there is only one heir of Adam, then there can only be one lawful king in the whole world, and nobody can honestly be required to obey any ruler until it's determined who that one heir is. After all, it could be anyone who isn't known to come from a younger line of descent, and everyone else has an equal claim.
But if there are multiple heirs of Adam, then everyone is his heir, and so everyone has royal authority. Because if two sons can both be heirs, then all sons are equally heirs. And since we are all sons, or sons of sons of Adam, that means we're all heirs.
Between these two possibilities, the right of heirship simply can't stand. Under this theory, either only one person in the world is a king, or everyone is. Take whichever option you prefer -- either one dissolves the bonds of government and obedience. If everyone is an heir, then no one owes obedience to anyone. And if only one person is the heir, nobody can be required to obey him until we find out who he is and his claim is verified.
Who Is the Heir?
The great question that has troubled humanity throughout the ages -- the one that has brought about most of the disasters that have ruined cities, emptied countries, and shattered the peace of the world -- has not been whether power exists, or where it comes from, but who should have it. Getting this point right matters just as much as the security of rulers and the peace and well-being of their nations and kingdoms. You'd think, then, that anyone trying to reform politics would make absolutely sure they got this nailed down, and would be crystal clear about it. Because if this question remains up for debate, everything else is pointless. All the effort spent dressing up power with the glamour and allure that absolutism can add to it, without showing who actually has a right to wield it, will only sharpen the edge of human ambition -- which is already plenty sharp on its own. What can that do but drive people to scramble for power all the more desperately, laying a sure and lasting foundation for endless conflict and disorder, instead of the peace and stability that government is supposed to provide and that human society exists to achieve?
Our author is especially obligated to settle this question of who the rightful person is, because by insisting that "the assignment of civil power is by divine institution," he has made the transfer of power just as sacred as the power itself. That means no consideration, no human action or cleverness, can redirect power away from the person to whom it has been divinely assigned. No emergency, no scheme can put someone else in that person's place. For if "the assignment of civil power is by divine institution," and Adam's heir is the one to whom it's assigned, as our author told us in the previous chapter, then it would be just as much a sacrilege for anyone other than Adam's heir to be king as it would have been among the Jews for anyone who wasn't a descendant of Aaron to serve as priest. Not only was the priesthood in general established by divine institution, but the assignment of it to the sole line and descendants of Aaron made it impossible for anyone else to hold or exercise that office. That's why Aaron's line of succession was carefully tracked, and through it the rightful priests were reliably identified.
So let's see what care our author has taken to let us know who "this heir is, who by divine institution has a right to be king over all men." The first description of this heir we find is on page 12, in these words: "This subjection of children being the fountain of all regal authority, by the ordination of God himself; it follows that civil power, not only in general, is by divine institution, but even the assignment of it, specifically to the eldest parents." Now, matters of this much consequence should be stated in plain words, as free from doubt or ambiguity as possible. And I'd say that if language is capable of expressing anything distinctly and clearly, the language of kinship and the various degrees of family relation is one area where it can. So it really would have been nice if our author had used somewhat more intelligible expressions here, so we could better understand who exactly civil power is being assigned to by divine institution -- or at least had told us what he meant by "eldest parents." I believe that if land had been assigned or granted to him and the "eldest parents" of his family, he would have thought the term needed an interpreter, and it would have been nearly impossible to figure out who was next in line.
Properly speaking -- and proper language is surely necessary in a discussion of this kind -- "eldest parents" means either the oldest men and women who have had children, or those who have been parents the longest. If that's what it means, then our author's claim is that whatever fathers and mothers have been alive the longest, or have been having children the longest, have a right to civil power by divine institution. If there's anything absurd about this, our author has to answer for it. And if his meaning is different from what his words actually say, he's the one to blame for not speaking plainly. This much I'm sure of: "parents" can't mean male heirs, and "eldest parents" can't mean an infant child -- who may nevertheless sometimes be the true heir, if there can be only one. And so we're still just as much in the dark about who civil power belongs to, despite this "assignment by divine institution," as if there had been no such assignment at all, or our author had said nothing about it. This phrase "eldest parents" actually leaves us more confused about who has a right to civil power by divine institution than people who had never heard anything at all about heirs or descent -- topics our author is so full of. And though the whole point of his writing is to teach obedience to those who have a right to command it, which he tells us is passed down by descent, who exactly those people are he leaves, like the philosopher's stone of politics, completely out of anyone's reach to discover from his writings.
This vagueness can't be chalked up to a lack of verbal skill on the part of so great a stylist as Sir Robert is, when he's made up his mind what he wants to say. And so I'm afraid that, finding how hard it would be to establish clear rules of descent by divine institution -- and how little it would serve his purpose, or help to clarify and establish the titles of princes, if such rules were established -- he chose to content himself with vague and general terms that would sound fine to people willing to be pleased by them, rather than offer any clear rules for the descent of Adam's fatherhood by which people could actually determine who it descended to and know who had a right to royal power and their obedience.
How else is it possible that, making such a big deal as he does about descent, and about Adam's heir, the next heir, the true heir, he never once tells us what "heir" means, or how to identify who the next or true heir is? As far as I can remember, he never directly addresses this anywhere. Where it comes up in passing, he handles it very cautiously and vaguely -- even though it's so essential that without it, all his arguments about government and obedience are completely useless, and fatherly power, no matter how well established, will be of no practical value to anyone. Here's what he tells us in O. 244: "Not only the constitution of power in general, but the limitation of it to one kind -- namely, monarchy -- and the determination of it to the individual person and line of Adam, are all three ordinances of God. Neither Eve nor her children could either limit Adam's power or share it with others; and what was given to Adam was given in his person to his posterity." So here again our author informs us that divine ordinance has limited the descent of Adam's monarchical power. Limited it to whom? "To Adam's line and posterity," says our author. What a remarkable limitation! A limitation to all of humanity! For if our author can find anyone in the human race who is not part of Adam's line and posterity, he might be able to tell us who Adam's next heir is. But as for the rest of us, I can't see how limiting Adam's empire to his line and posterity helps us identify a single heir. This "limitation" of our author's will save anyone the trouble of looking for the heir among animals, if there were any such need. But it will do very little to help discover the one true heir among human beings, even though it settles the question of who gets Adam's royal power quickly and easily: Adam's line and posterity gets it. Which is to say, in plain English, anyone can have it, since there isn't a person alive who can't claim to be part of Adam's line and posterity. And as long as you keep it at that level, everything stays within our author's supposed limitation by God's ordinance.
On page 19, indeed, he tells us that "such heirs are not only lords of their own children, but of their brethren." By this, and by the words that follow, which we'll consider shortly, he seems to hint that the eldest son is the heir. But he nowhere, as far as I know, says this in so many words. From the examples of Cain and Jacob that follow, we may take it as roughly his opinion that where there are multiple children, the eldest son has the right to be heir. But we've already shown that being firstborn can't give anyone a title to paternal power. It's easily granted that a father may have a natural right to some kind of authority over his children. But the idea that an older brother has such authority over his younger brothers remains to be proved. Neither God nor nature has, as far as I know, placed any such jurisdiction in the firstborn, and reason can find no natural superiority among siblings. The law of Moses gave the eldest son a double portion of goods and possessions. But nowhere do we find that naturally, or by God's institution, superiority or dominion belonged to him. The examples our author brings are flimsy evidence for a right to civil power and dominion in the firstborn, and actually point to the opposite conclusion.
His words, in the passage already cited, are: "And therefore we find God told Cain of his brother Abel: his desire shall be subject unto thee, and thou shalt rule over him." To which I answer:
First, these words of God to Cain are understood by many interpreters, with good reason, in a completely different sense than our author uses them.
Second, whatever was meant by them, they couldn't mean that Cain, as the elder brother, had a natural dominion over Abel. The words are conditional: "If thou dost well" -- and so they're personal to Cain. Whatever they signified depended on Cain's conduct, not on his birthright. Therefore they could not possibly establish dominion in the firstborn as a general rule. After all, before this, Abel already had his "distinct territories by right of private dominion," as our author himself admits (O. 210). Abel couldn't have had those if, by divine institution, Cain as heir was supposed to inherit all of his father's dominion.
Third, if this were meant by God as the charter of firstborn rights, and a grant of dominion to elder brothers in general by right of inheritance, we'd expect it to have included all of Cain's brothers. We can safely assume that Adam, from whom the world was to be populated, had more sons than just these two by the time they were grown men. Yet Abel isn't even named in the passage, and the words in the original Hebrew can hardly be applied to him with any reasonable interpretation.
Fourth, it's too much to build a doctrine of such enormous consequence on so doubtful and obscure a passage of scripture -- one that can be, and more plausibly is, understood in an entirely different sense. It makes for poor proof when the evidence is as questionable as the thing it's supposed to prove, especially when there's nothing else in scripture or reason to support it.
On page 19, it follows: "Accordingly, when Jacob bought his brother's birthright, Isaac blessed him thus: Be lord over thy brethren, and let the sons of thy mother bow before thee." Another example, I take it, brought by our author to prove that dominion comes with birthright -- and an admirable example it is! It takes a truly unusual style of reasoning in someone who's arguing for the natural power of kings and against all agreements and contracts, to bring as his proof an example where, by his own account, the entire right is based on a contract and ends up placing authority in the younger brother. Unless buying and selling doesn't count as a contract -- for he tells us "when Jacob bought his birthright." But setting that aside, let's look at the actual biblical story and see what our author makes of it. We'll find the following problems.
First, our author tells the story as if Isaac blessed Jacob immediately after Jacob purchased the birthright, since he says "when Jacob bought, Isaac blessed him." But that's plainly not what scripture says. There was obviously a gap of time between the two events, and if we follow the story as it's presented, it must have been a considerable gap. All of Isaac's time living in Gerar and his dealings with Abimelech (Gen. 26) come between the two events. Rebecca was beautiful then, and therefore young. But Isaac, when he blessed Jacob, was old and feeble. Esau himself complains in Gen. 27:36 that Jacob had tricked him twice: "He took away my birthright," he says, "and look, now he has taken away my blessing" -- words that clearly indicate a gap in time and two separate events.
Second, our author mistakenly assumes that Isaac gave Jacob the blessing and told him to "be lord over his brethren" because Jacob had the birthright. Our author brings this example to prove that whoever has the birthright thereby has a right to be lord over his brothers. But the text makes it obvious that Isaac had no thought of Jacob's having purchased the birthright. When he blessed Jacob, he didn't think he was blessing Jacob at all -- he thought he was blessing Esau. Esau himself didn't understand any connection between birthright and blessing either. He says, "He has tricked me twice: he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing." But if the blessing of being "lord over his brethren" had been attached to the birthright, Esau couldn't have complained about the second as a separate act of deception. Jacob would have gotten nothing more than what Esau had already sold him when he sold the birthright. So it's clear: dominion, if that's what these words mean, was not understood to be part of the birthright.
And that in the days of the patriarchs, dominion was not understood to be the right of the heir -- only a larger share of property -- is clear from Gen. 21:10. Sarah, considering Isaac to be the heir, says, "Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son." All she could have meant was that Ishmael shouldn't have a claim to an equal share of Abraham's estate after his death, but should receive his portion now and leave. And accordingly, we read in Gen. 25:5-6: "Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac. But to the sons of the concubines which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he was still alive." In other words, Abraham gave portions to all his other sons and sent them away. What he had kept back, being the largest share of his wealth, Isaac possessed as heir after Abraham's death. But being heir gave Isaac no right to be "lord over his brothers." If it had, why would Sarah have tried to remove one of his would-be subjects, or reduce the number of his supposed slaves, by asking to have Ishmael sent away?
So just as under the law of Moses, the privilege of birthright was nothing more than a double portion of the estate, we can see that before Moses, in the time of the patriarchs -- the very era from which our author claims to draw his model -- there was no knowledge, no thought, that birthright conferred rule or authority, paternal or royal, over one's brothers. If this isn't plain enough from the story of Isaac and Ishmael, anyone can look at 1 Chronicles 5:1 and read these words: "Reuben was the firstborn; but because he defiled his father's bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel. And the genealogy is not to be reckoned according to the birthright; for Judah prevailed above his brothers, and from him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph's." What this birthright actually was, Jacob tells us when blessing Joseph in Gen. 48:22: "Moreover I have given you one portion above your brothers, which I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow." So it's not only clear that the birthright was nothing but a double portion, but the passage in Chronicles is explicitly against our author's doctrine, showing that dominion was no part of the birthright. It tells us that Joseph had the birthright, but Judah had the dominion. You'd think our author was just fond of the word "birthright" itself, given that he brings up the story of Jacob and Esau to prove that dominion over one's brothers belongs to the heir.
There are two reasons this example of Jacob and Esau is particularly bad for our author's case:
1. It's a terrible example to prove that dominion by God's decree belongs to the eldest son, because here it's Jacob, the youngest, who gets it. However he came by it, if this example proves anything, it can only prove -- against our author -- that "the assignment of dominion to the eldest is not by divine institution," since if it were, it would be unalterable. If by the law of God or nature, absolute power and authority belongs to the eldest son and his heirs, making them supreme monarchs and all their brothers slaves, then our author gives us reason to wonder whether the eldest son even has the right to give it away, to the detriment of his descendants. After all, our author tells us in O. 158 that "in grants and gifts that have their origin from God or nature, no lesser human power can limit them, or make any rule of limitation against them."
2. The passage in Gen. 27:29, which our author cites, has nothing to do with one brother's dominion over another, or with Esau's subjection to Jacob. The historical record is clear: Esau was never subject to Jacob. He lived separately on Mount Seir, where he established a distinct people and government and was a ruler over them every bit as much as Jacob was in his own family. The text, properly considered, can never be understood as referring to Esau personally or to Jacob's personal dominion over him. The words "brethren" and "sons of thy mother" couldn't have been meant literally by Isaac, who knew Jacob had only one brother. And these words are so far from being literally true, or from establishing any dominion of Jacob over Esau, that the story shows exactly the opposite. In Gen. 32, Jacob repeatedly calls Esau "lord" and himself "his servant." In Gen. 33, "he bowed himself seven times to the ground before Esau." Was Esau, then, a subject and vassal -- a slave, even, as our author says all subjects are -- while Jacob was his sovereign prince by birthright? I leave the reader to judge, and to believe if they can, that Isaac's words "be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee" established Jacob's sovereignty over Esau on the basis of the birthright he'd gotten from him.
Anyone who reads the story of Jacob and Esau will find that neither of them ever had any jurisdiction or authority over the other after their father's death. They lived as friends and equals, neither one lord nor slave to the other. They were independent of each other, both heads of their own separate families, receiving no laws from one another, living apart, and becoming the founders of two distinct peoples under two distinct governments. Isaac's blessing, on which our author wants to build the dominion of the elder brother, signifies nothing more than what Rebecca had already been told by God in Gen. 25:23: "Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated from thy body; the one people shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger." And just as Jacob blessed Judah (Gen. 49) and gave him the scepter and dominion, our author could have argued just as well from that passage that jurisdiction and dominion belong to the third son over his brothers, as from Isaac's blessing that they belonged to Jacob. Both passages contain only predictions of what would happen long afterward to their descendants, not any declaration of a right of inheritance to dominion in either case. And so we have our author's two great and only arguments to prove that "heirs are lords over their brethren."
To summarize both arguments: The first, about Cain, fails because God told Cain in Gen. 4 that sin might set upon him but he ought to, or might, be master of it. The most learned interpreters understand these words as referring to sin, not to Abel, and they give such strong reasons for this interpretation that nothing can be convincingly drawn from such a doubtful text to serve our author's purpose.
The second, about Jacob, fails because in Gen. 27, Isaac predicted that the Israelites, Jacob's descendants, would have dominion over the Edomites, Esau's descendants. Therefore, says our author, "heirs are lords of their brethren." I leave anyone to judge that conclusion.
And now we can see what our author has arranged for the descent and transfer of Adam's monarchical power, or paternal dominion, down to future generations: the heir inherits all of his father's authority, and upon the father's death becomes just as much a lord as his father was, "not only over his own children, but over his brethren" and everyone descended from his father, and so on to infinity. But who this heir is, he never once tells us. All the light we get from him on this fundamental point is that, in his example of Jacob, by using the word "birthright" as the thing that passed from Esau to Jacob, he leaves us to guess that by "heir" he means the eldest son -- though as far as I can tell, he never expressly mentions the title of the firstborn anywhere, but consistently takes shelter behind the vague term "heir."
But let's take it as his meaning that the eldest son is heir -- because if it's not the eldest, there's no reason all the sons shouldn't be heirs equally -- and that by right of primogeniture, the eldest has dominion over his brothers. This is only one step toward settling the question of succession, and the difficulties remain just as great as ever until he can show us who the "right heir" is in all the cases that may come up when the current ruler has no son. This he quietly skips over -- and perhaps wisely too. For what could be wiser, after declaring that "the person having that power, as well as the power and form of government, is the ordinance of God and by divine institution" (see O. 254, p. 12), than to be very careful not to raise any question about the person, since answering it would inevitably force him to admit that God and nature have settled nothing about it? And if our author can't show who, by natural right or a clear divine law, has the next right to inherit the dominion of this "natural monarch" he's gone to such trouble over, when that monarch dies without a son, then he could have saved himself all the effort with the rest of it. It's more necessary, for settling people's consciences and determining their obedience and allegiance, to show them who has a title to this paternal jurisdiction by an original right that's superior to and prior to any human will or action, than it is to show that such a jurisdiction exists by nature. It's no use for me to know that there's a paternal power I ought to obey and am willing to obey, unless -- when there are many people claiming that power -- I also know which person is rightfully invested with it.
For the real question at issue is about the duty of my obedience, and the obligation of conscience I'm under to pay it to whoever is rightfully my lord and ruler. I need to know the person in whom this right of paternal power actually resides, the person it empowers to claim obedience from me. Let it be true, as he says on page 12, "that civil power not only in general is by divine institution, but even the assignment of it specifically to the eldest parents." And let it be true, as he says in O. 254, "that not only the power or right of government, but the form of the power of governing, and the person having that power, are all the ordinance of God." Still, unless he shows us in every case who this person is, ordained by God -- who this "eldest parent" is -- all his abstract theories about monarchical power will mean absolutely nothing when it comes time to put them into practice and people need to conscientiously pay their obedience. Paternal jurisdiction is not itself the thing to be obeyed, because it can't issue commands. It's only the thing that gives one person a right that others don't have -- and if it comes by inheritance, a right no other person can have -- to command and be obeyed. So it's ridiculous to say "I pay obedience to paternal power" when I'm obeying someone who has no more claim to paternal power than I do. A person can have no divine right to my obedience unless he can demonstrate his divine right to the power of ruling over me, as well as demonstrating that such a power exists in the world by divine right.
And this is why, being unable to establish any prince's title to government as heir to Adam -- which is therefore useless and would have been better left alone -- our author is forced to fall back on mere present possession, making civil obedience as much owed to a usurper as to a lawful king, and thereby making the usurper's title just as good. His words, at O. 253, deserve to be remembered: "If a usurper dispossesses the true heir, the subjects' obedience to the fatherly power must go along, and wait upon God's providence." But I'll leave his justification of usurpers to be examined in its proper place, and ask my thoughtful reader to consider what thanks princes owe to a political theory like this one -- one that can place paternal power, that is, a right to govern, in the hands of a Jack Cade or an Oliver Cromwell. Since all obedience is owed to paternal power, the obedience of subjects would be owed to them by exactly the same right and on exactly the same grounds as it is to lawful princes. And yet this dangerously absurd doctrine necessarily follows from making all political power nothing more than Adam's paternal power descending by divine right and institution, while being unable to show who it descended to or who is heir to it.
To establish government in the world and place obligations of obedience on anyone's conscience, it's just as necessary -- assuming with our author that all power is nothing but possession of Adam's fatherhood -- to determine who has a right to this power when the possessor dies without sons to succeed him immediately, as it was to say that upon the father's death, the eldest son has a right to it. For we must keep in mind that the great question is -- and the one our author would have us think he's arguing for, if he didn't sometimes forget it -- what persons have a right to be obeyed, not whether there's a power in the world called "paternal" without knowing who holds it. As long as it's a power -- that is, a right to govern -- it doesn't matter whether you call it paternal or royal, natural or acquired. Whether you call it supreme fatherhood or supreme brotherhood makes no difference, as long as we know who has it.
So I'll go ahead and ask: In inheriting this paternal power, this supreme fatherhood, does a grandson through a daughter have a right before a nephew through a brother? Does the grandson of the eldest son, if he's an infant, come before the younger son, who's a grown capable man? Does the daughter come before the uncle, or any other man descended through the male line? Does a grandson by a younger daughter come before a granddaughter by an elder daughter? Does the elder son by a concubine come before the younger son by a wife? This last question raises many additional issues about legitimacy, and about what the natural difference is between a wife and a concubine -- because the laws made by human societies are irrelevant here.
We might further ask: Should the eldest son, if he's a fool, inherit this paternal power over his younger brother, a wise man? And what degree of foolishness would disqualify him? And who gets to judge? Does the son of a fool who was excluded for his foolishness come before the son of his wise brother who actually reigned? Who holds the paternal power while the widowed queen is pregnant by the deceased king and nobody knows whether it will be a son or a daughter? Which of two male twins is the heir, when they were delivered by cutting open the mother? Does a half-sister come before a niece who shares both parents' bloodlines?
These and many more such questions could be raised about the rules of succession and the right of inheritance -- and these aren't idle thought experiments. History shows that they have actually mattered in the inheritance of real crowns and kingdoms. If our own kingdom lacks such examples, we need look no farther than the other kingdom on this very island -- all of which has been fully described by the ingenious and learned author of Patriarcha non Monarcha, so I need say no more about it. Until our author has resolved all these doubts that may arise about the next heir, and shown that they are plainly settled by the law of nature or the revealed law of God, all his theories about a monarchical, absolute, supreme, paternal power in Adam, and the descent of that power to his heirs, would be of no use whatsoever in establishing the authority or making out the title of any prince now on earth. They would, rather, unsettle everything and throw it all into question.
For let our author say as long as he likes, and let everyone believe it too, that Adam had a paternal and therefore a monarchical power; that this power (the only power in the world) descended to his heirs; and that there is no other power in the world but this. Let all this be as clear a demonstration as it is a manifest error. Still, if it isn't beyond doubt to whom this paternal power descends and whose it is now, nobody can be under any obligation of obedience -- unless someone wants to say that I'm bound to obey the paternal power in a man who has no more paternal power than I do myself. Which is the same as saying: I obey this man because he has a right to govern. And if I'm asked how I know he has a right to govern, I'd have to answer: it can't be known that he has any right at all. For something I don't know to be true can't be the reason for my obedience. Still less can something that nobody at all can know to be true serve as a reason for my obedience.
And therefore all this fuss about Adam's fatherhood, the greatness of its power, and the supposed necessity of accepting it, does nothing to establish the power of those who govern or to determine the obedience of those who are to obey -- not if they can't tell whom they're supposed to obey, or if it can't be known who should govern and who should obey. In the current state of the world, it is permanently and irrecoverably unknown who Adam's heir is. This fatherhood, this monarchical power of Adam descending to his heirs, would be of no more use for governing humanity than it would be for easing people's consciences or curing their diseases, if our author had assured them that Adam had a power to forgive sins or heal illnesses, which descended by divine institution to his heir -- while this heir is impossible to identify. Wouldn't someone be acting just as rationally if, on our author's assurance, they went and confessed their sins and expected a good absolution, or took medicine expecting to be cured, from anyone who had assumed the title of priest or doctor or simply pushed their way into the profession, saying, "I trust in the power of absolution descending from Adam," or "I'll be cured by the medicinal power descending from Adam" -- as much as a person who says "I submit to and obey the paternal power descending from Adam," when everyone admits that all these powers descend only to Adam's single heir, and that heir is unknown?
It's true that civil lawyers have tried to settle some of these questions about the succession of princes. But by our author's principles, they've meddled in a matter that doesn't belong to them. For if all political power comes only from Adam and is meant to descend only to his successive heirs by the ordinance of God and divine institution, then this right is prior to and overrides all government. Therefore the laws that human beings make can't determine something that is itself the foundation of all law and government, and that can only be governed by the law of God and nature. And since God's law and nature's law are both silent on this point, I'm inclined to think no such right exists to be passed down this way. I'm sure that even if it did exist, it would be useless, and people would be more confused about government and who to obey than if no such right existed at all. Through human laws and agreements -- which divine institution (if there is any) shuts out -- all these endless, insoluble questions can be safely resolved. But it can never be understood how a divine natural right, one as important as all the order and peace in the world, could be handed down through the generations without any clear natural or divine rule governing it. And there would be an end to all civil government if the assignment of civil power were by divine institution to the heir, and yet by that same divine institution the identity of the heir could not be known. If this paternal royal power belongs by divine right only to one person, it leaves no room for human wisdom or consent to place it anywhere else. If only one man has a divine right to the obedience of all humanity, nobody can claim that obedience unless he can demonstrate that right, and people's consciences can't be bound to it on any other basis. And so this doctrine rips up all government by the roots.
So we see how our author, laying it down as a firm foundation that the very person who is to rule is ordained by God and established by divine institution, tells us at length only that this person is the heir -- but who this heir is, he leaves us to guess. And so this divine institution, which assigns power to a person we have no way of identifying, is exactly as good as an assignment to nobody at all. But whatever our author may do, divine institution makes no such absurd assignments. God can't be supposed to make it a sacred law that one particular person should have a right to something, without also giving us rules to identify that person. Nor would God give an heir a divine right to power without pointing out who that heir is. It makes far more sense to conclude that no heir ever had such a right by divine institution, than to think that God would give such a right to the heir and yet leave it doubtful and impossible to determine who that heir is.
If God had given the land of Canaan to Abraham and, in vague terms, to "somebody" after him, without naming his descendants so that "somebody" could be identified, that assignment would have been just as useful for determining the right to the land of Canaan as it would be to give authority over the world to Adam and his successive heirs without telling us who his heir is. For the word "heir," without a rule for identifying who it is, means nothing more than "somebody -- I don't know who." When God made it a divine institution that people should not marry close relatives, he didn't think it was enough to say, "None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness." He also gave specific rules to identify who those close relatives are that are forbidden by divine institution. Otherwise that law would have been useless, since there's no point in placing restrictions or granting privileges in such vague terms that the specific person involved can't be identified.
But God has never anywhere said that the next heir shall inherit all of his father's property or dominion. So we shouldn't be surprised that he's never specified who that heir should be. Since he never intended any such thing, never designed any "heir" in that sense, we can't expect him to have nominated or appointed anyone to it -- as we could if things had been otherwise. And therefore, although the word "heir" does appear in scripture, there's no such thing as an heir in our author's sense -- someone who, by right of nature, was to inherit everything his father had to the exclusion of his brothers. That's why Sarah assumed that if Ishmael stayed in the house to share in Abraham's estate after his death, this son of a slave woman might be "heir with Isaac." And so she said, "Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son." But this can't excuse our author, who, telling us that among any group of people there is always one who is the rightful next heir to Adam, ought to have told us what the laws of descent actually are. But since he's been so reluctant to give us rules for identifying the heir, let's look next at what his scriptural history, on which he claims to build his entire theory of government, gives us on this essential and fundamental point.
Our author, to justify the title of his book, begins his history of the descent of Adam's royal power on page 13 with these words: "This lordship which Adam by command had over the whole world, and by right descending from him, the patriarchs did enjoy, was as large," etc. How does he prove that the patriarchs enjoyed this lordship by descent? He offers this: "We find that Judah, the father, pronounced sentence of death against Tamar, his daughter-in-law, for playing the harlot" (p. 13). How does this prove Judah had absolute and sovereign authority? "He pronounced sentence of death." But pronouncing a death sentence isn't a certain sign of sovereignty -- it's usually the job of lower-level judges. The power to make laws about life and death is indeed a mark of sovereignty. But pronouncing the sentence under those laws can be done by others. So this is a poor proof of sovereign authority. It would be like saying: Judge Jefferies pronounced death sentences in recent times, therefore Judge Jefferies had sovereign authority. But someone will say, Judah didn't do it under commission from anyone else, and therefore did it in his own right. Who knows whether he had any right at all? The heat of passion might have carried him to do something he had no authority to do. "Judah had dominion of life and death" -- how does that follow? He exercised it; he "pronounced sentence of death against Tamar." Our author thinks it's perfectly good reasoning that because he did something, he had a right to do it. Well, Judah also slept with her. By the same logic, he had a right to do that too. If doing something is proof of the right to do it, then Absalom should also be counted among our author's sovereigns, since he pronounced a death sentence on his brother Amnon, on a very similar occasion, and had it carried out too -- if that's enough to prove a right of life and death.
But even granting all of this as clear proof of sovereign power -- who was it that had this "lordship descending by right from Adam, as great and sweeping as the most absolute dominion of any monarch"? Judah, says our author. Judah -- a younger son of Jacob, while his father and older brothers were still alive. So if we take our author's own evidence at face value, a younger brother may, during the lifetime of his father and elder brothers, "enjoy Adam's monarchical power by right of descent." And if someone in that position can be a monarch by descent, why not anyone? If Judah, while his father and elder brothers were alive, was one of Adam's heirs, I don't see who can be excluded from this inheritance. By this logic, everyone is equally a monarch by inheritance.
"Concerning war, we see that Abraham commanded an army of 318 soldiers of his own household, and Esau met his brother Jacob with 400 armed men. Concerning peace, Abraham made a treaty with Abimelech," etc. (p. 13). Is it not possible for a person to have 318 men in their household without being heir to Adam? A planter in the West Indies has more than that, and could, if he wanted to -- who doubts it? -- muster them up and lead them out against the indigenous people to seek compensation for some injury. And he could do all of this without "the absolute dominion of a monarch, descending to him from Adam." Wouldn't it be a wonderful argument to prove that all power descends from Adam by God's institution and by inheritance, and that the very person and power of this planter is the ordinance of God, just because he has power in his household over servants born in his house and bought with his money?
For this was exactly Abraham's situation. Those who were wealthy in the time of the patriarchs, just like in the West Indies today, bought servants, and through their growth in numbers as well as additional purchases, came to have large households. Though they made use of these people in war and peace, can anyone really think the power they had over them was an inheritance descended from Adam, when it was bought with their money? A person riding out on a military expedition against an enemy, mounted on a horse bought at a fair, would be just as good a proof that the rider "enjoyed the lordship which Adam by command had over the whole world, by right descending to him," as Abraham's leading out the servants of his household is proof that the patriarchs enjoyed this lordship by descent from Adam. In both cases -- whether over servants or horses -- the master's title to power came from purchase. And getting dominion over something through bargaining and money is a pretty novel way of proving you had it by descent and inheritance.
"But making war and peace are marks of sovereignty." Fine -- let that be so in organized political societies. But can't a man in the West Indies, who has with him his own sons, friends, companions, paid soldiers, or slaves bought with money, or perhaps a group made up of all of these, make war and peace if the occasion calls for it, and "ratify the terms with an oath" too, without being a sovereign, an absolute king over everyone who came with him? Anyone who says he can't must then accept that many ship captains and many private planters are absolute monarchs, because they've done just as much. War and peace can only be made for organized political societies by the supreme power of those societies, because war and peace redirect the force of the whole political body, and only the supreme power can direct the force of the whole. But in voluntary associations organized for a specific purpose, whoever has that power by consent can make war and peace. And so can a single individual on his own behalf, since the state of war doesn't depend on the number of people involved, but on the hostility between parties who have no higher authority to appeal to.
The actual making of war or peace is no proof of any power beyond the ability to direct others to begin or cease hostile actions. This power, in many cases, can belong to someone without any political supremacy at all. Therefore, the making of war or peace won't prove that everyone who does it is a political ruler, much less a king -- because then commonwealths would have to be kings too, since they make war and peace just as certainly as monarchical governments do.
But even granting this as a "mark of sovereignty in Abraham," does it prove that Adam's sovereignty over the whole world descended to him? If so, it would prove Adam's lordship descended to others too. Then commonwealths, as well as Abraham, would be heirs of Adam, since they make war and peace just as he did. If you say that "Adam's lordship" doesn't descend by right to commonwealths, even though they make war and peace, I say the same about Abraham -- and that's the end of your argument. If you stick to your argument and say that everyone who makes war and peace, as commonwealths undoubtedly do, "inherits Adam's lordship," then that's the end of your monarchy -- unless you want to say that commonwealths, "by descent enjoying Adam's lordship," are monarchies. And that truly would be a creative new way of making every government in the world monarchical.
To give our author the credit for this novel invention -- for I admit it isn't something I first came up with by tracing his principles and then pinned on him -- my readers should know that, absurd as it may seem, he teaches it himself. On page 23 he honestly says: "In all kingdoms and commonwealths in the world, whether the prince is the supreme father of the people, or merely the true heir to such a father, or came to the crown by usurpation or election, or whether a few or a multitude govern the commonwealth, still the authority that is in any one of them, or in many, or in all of them, is the only right and natural authority of a supreme father." This right of fatherhood, he tells us repeatedly, is "regal and royal authority" -- particularly on page 12, the page immediately before this example of Abraham. This regal authority, he says, is what those who govern commonwealths possess. And if it's true that regal and royal authority belongs to those who govern commonwealths, then it's equally true that commonwealths are governed by kings. For if regal authority resides in whoever governs, then whoever governs must be a king, and so all commonwealths are nothing but straight-up monarchies. And if that's the case, why bother with the whole debate? All the governments in the world are exactly as they should be -- there's nothing but monarchy anywhere. This was certainly the most efficient method our author could have found to eliminate every form of government except monarchy from the world.
But none of this comes close to proving that Abraham was a king as heir to Adam. If Abraham had been king by inheritance, Lot, who was from the same family, would have been his subject by that title -- before even the servants in his household. But we see they lived as friends and equals. When their herdsmen couldn't get along, there was no claim of jurisdiction or superiority between them. They simply parted ways by mutual agreement (Gen. 13). Lot is called both by Abraham and by the text itself Abraham's "brother" -- a word expressing friendship and equality, not jurisdiction and authority, even though he was actually Abraham's nephew.
And if our author knows that Abraham was Adam's heir and a king, he apparently knew more about it than Abraham himself -- or Abraham's servant, whom he sent to find a wife for Isaac. When the servant lays out Abraham's advantages in Gen. 24:35, trying to win over the young woman and her family, he says: "I am Abraham's servant, and the Lord has blessed my master greatly; he has become wealthy. He has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female servants, camels and donkeys. And Sarah, my master's wife, bore a son to my master when she was old, and to that son he has given everything he has." Can anyone believe that a shrewd servant, being this thorough in listing his master's greatness, would have left out the crown Isaac was going to inherit, if he'd known about one? Can anyone imagine he would have failed to mention, on an occasion like this, that Abraham was a king -- a title well known at the time, since Abraham had nine of them as neighbors? If either the servant or his master had thought any such thing, surely that would have been the most persuasive point of all to make his errand successful.
But apparently this discovery was left for our author to make two or three thousand years later, and he's welcome to take the credit. Only he should have been more careful to show that some of Adam's land had descended to this heir as well as all of Adam's lordship. Because although Abraham's lordship, if we believe our author, "was as great and sweeping as the most absolute dominion of any monarch since the creation," his actual estate, his territories, his domain -- these were extremely narrow and small. He didn't own so much as a single foot of land until he bought a field and a cave from the sons of Heth to bury Sarah in.
The example of Esau, placed alongside Abraham to prove that "the lordship which Adam had over the whole world, by right descending from him, the patriarchs did enjoy," is even more delightful than the one about Abraham. "Esau met his brother Jacob with 400 armed men." Therefore he was a king by right of inheritance from Adam. So 400 armed men, however they were assembled, are enough to prove that whoever leads them is a king and Adam's heir. There have been bandits in Ireland (whatever may be the case elsewhere) who would have thanked our author for so flattering an opinion of them -- especially if nobody with a better claim had come along with 500 armed men to challenge their "royal authority" of 400. It's embarrassing -- to put it mildly -- for people to play around like this in so serious an argument.
Here Esau is brought as proof that "Adam's lordship -- Adam's absolute dominion, as great as that of any monarch -- descended by right to the patriarchs." And in this very chapter, on page 19, Jacob is brought as an example of someone who by "birthright was lord over his brethren." So now we have two brothers who are both absolute monarchs by the same title and at the same time heirs to Adam: the eldest is heir to Adam because he showed up with 400 men, and the youngest is heir to Adam by birthright. "Esau enjoyed the lordship which Adam had over the whole world by right descending to him, in as great and sweeping a manner as the most absolute dominion of any monarch. And at the same time, Jacob was lord over him, by the right heirs have to be lords over their brethren." Can you keep a straight face? I have never, I confess, encountered a man of such talent for this kind of reasoning as Sir Robert. But it was his misfortune to land on a theory that simply couldn't be fitted to the way things actually work in the world. His principles couldn't be made to agree with the order and arrangement God established in reality, and so they inevitably clash with common sense and experience at every turn.
In the next section, he tells us: "This patriarchal power continued not only until the flood, but after it, as the name patriarch does in part prove." Well, the word "patriarch" more than "in part" proves that patriarchal power continued as long as there were patriarchs. Patriarchal power necessarily exists as long as there are patriarchs, just as paternal or marital power necessarily exists as long as there are fathers or husbands. But this is just playing with words. What he's trying to insinuate -- and it's the very thing in question that needs to be proved -- is that "the lordship Adam had over the world, this supposed absolute universal dominion of Adam, descended by right to the patriarchs." If he's claiming that some sort of absolute monarchy continued up to the flood, I'd be glad to know what records he's getting that from, because I certainly can't find a word of it in my Bible. If by "patriarchal power" he means something other than absolute monarchy, then it's irrelevant to the point under discussion. And how the name "patriarch" even partly proves that those who bore it had absolute monarchical power, I confess I don't see, so it hardly needs a response until the argument is made a bit clearer.
"The three sons of Noah had the world divided among them by their father, for from them the whole world was populated" (p. 14). The world might have been populated by the descendants of Noah's sons without Noah ever dividing it among them. The earth could be filled without being parceled out. So our author's argument here doesn't prove any such division. But let me grant it to him anyway, and then ask: the world being divided among them, which of the three was Adam's heir? If Adam's lordship, Adam's monarchy, descended by right only to the eldest, then the other two could only be his subjects -- his slaves. If by right it descended to all three brothers equally, then by the same right it descends to all of humanity, and it will be impossible for what he says on page 19 to be true -- that "heirs are lords of their brethren." Instead, all brothers, and consequently all people, will be equal and independent, all heirs to Adam's monarchy, and therefore all monarchs too, one as much as another.
But it will be said that Noah their father divided the world among them. So our author is willing to grant Noah more authority than he'd grant to God Almighty. For in O. 211, he thought it was unfair that God himself should give the world to Noah and his sons, to the detriment of Noah's birthright. His words are: "Noah was left sole heir to the world. Why should it be thought that God would disinherit him of his birthright, and make him, of all men in the world, the only tenant in common with his children?" And yet here he thinks it perfectly fine that Noah should disinherit Shem of his birthright and divide the world among his brothers. So birthright, when our author finds it convenient, must be sacred and inviolable, and when he finds it inconvenient, need not be.
If Noah did divide the world among his sons, and his assignment of territories to them was valid, then that's the end of divine institution. All our author's talk about Adam's heir, and everything he builds on it, is completely irrelevant. The natural power of kings collapses, and "the form of the power of governing, and the person having that power" -- which he says in O. 254 are "the ordinance of God" -- will instead be ordinances of human beings. For if the right of the heir is the ordinance of God -- a divine right -- then no one, father or not, can change it. If it's not a divine right, it's merely human, depending on human will. And wherever human institution doesn't grant it, the firstborn has no special right over his brothers at all, and people may put government in whatever hands and under whatever form they please.
He continues: "Most of the most civilized nations on earth try to trace their origins to some of the sons or grandsons of Noah" (p. 14). How many nations do "most of the most civilized nations" add up to? And which ones are they? I suspect the Chinese, a very great and civilized people, as well as many other peoples of East, West, North, and South, don't much trouble themselves with this question. Everyone who believes the Bible -- who, I suppose, are our author's "most civilized nations" -- must necessarily trace their descent from Noah. But the rest of the world gives little thought to his sons or grandsons. But even if the historians and genealogists of all nations, or all the nations themselves, were to "trace their origins to some of the sons or grandsons of Noah," what would that prove about "the lordship which Adam had over the whole world descending by right to the patriarchs"? Whatever figure a nation or people "tries to trace their origin from" may be assumed to have been someone of great reputation, famous for their greatness and achievements. But the genealogists trace back only to the famous person, not to whoever that person was heir to. They see them as people who raised themselves up by their own abilities, not as inheritors of someone else's authority.
And if the origin stories of various peoples, ancient and modern, traced back to Ogyges, Hercules, Brama, Tamerlane, or Pharamond -- or even if Jupiter and Saturn were the names from which various lineages claimed descent -- would that prove these men "enjoyed the lordship of Adam by right descending to them"? If not, this is just a rhetorical flourish by our author, designed to mislead the reader, that means nothing in itself.
Equally pointless is what he tells us on page 15 about this division of the world: "Some say it was done by lot, and others that Noah sailed around the Mediterranean in ten years and divided the world into Asia, Africa, and Europe as portions for his three sons." So America, it seems, was left for whoever could grab it first. Why our author takes such trouble to prove that Noah divided the world among his sons, refusing to leave out even fantasies no better than dreams if they support his case, is hard to guess. After all, such a division, if it proves anything, must necessarily eliminate the claim of Adam's heir -- unless three brothers can all be heirs of Adam at the same time.
Therefore the words that follow -- "However the manner of this division may be uncertain, it is most certain that the division was by families descended from Noah and his children, over which the parents were heads and princes" (p. 15) -- even if granted as true, and as having any force in proving that all power in the world is nothing but Adam's lordship descending by right, would only prove that the fathers of the children are all heirs to Adam's lordship. For if in those days Ham and Japheth and other parents besides the eldest son were "heads and princes" over their families, and had a right to divide the earth by families, what stops younger brothers, being fathers of families themselves, from having the same right? If Ham and Japheth were princes by right descending to them, despite any claim of heir by their eldest brother, then younger brothers are princes now by the same descending right. And so all our author's talk of the "natural power of kings" will extend no farther than each father's authority over his own children, and no kingdom based on this natural right can be bigger than a single family.
For either Adam's lordship over the whole world descends by right only to the eldest son -- in which case there can be only one heir, as our author says on page 19 -- or else it descends by right to all the sons equally, in which case every father of a family will have it, just as the three sons of Noah did. Take whichever option you like -- both destroy the governments and kingdoms that actually exist in the world today. Whoever has this natural power of a king descending by right must have it either as our author says Cain had it -- as lord over his brothers and thus sole king of the whole world -- or as he says Shem, Ham, and Japheth had it -- three brothers, each merely the prince of his own family, with all families independent of each other. The whole world must be either one single empire belonging to the next heir, or else every family must be its own separate government based on "Adam's lordship descending to parents of families." And this is what all his supposed proofs of Adam's lordship descending actually point to, because, continuing his story of this descent, he says:
"In the dispersion at Babel, we must certainly find the establishment of royal power throughout the kingdoms of the world" (p. 14). If you must find it, please do -- you'll be giving us a new piece of history. But you have to show it to us before we're required to believe that royal power was established in the world on your principles. Nobody disputes that royal power was established "in the kingdoms of the world." But that there should be kingdoms whose kings each enjoyed their crowns "by right descending to them from Adam" -- we think that's not only unsupported but utterly impossible. If our author has no better foundation for his monarchy than speculation about what happened at the dispersion of Babel, the monarchy he builds on it -- whose tower is supposed to reach to heaven and unite all of humanity -- will only divide and scatter them, just as that tower did. And instead of establishing civil government and order in the world, it will produce nothing but confusion.
For he tells us that the nations they were divided into "were distinct families, which had fathers for rulers over them; by which it appears that even in the confusion, God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority, by distributing the diversity of languages according to the diversity of families" (p. 14). It would take someone with our author's special talents to find so clearly in the text he cites here that all the nations at the dispersion were governed by fathers, and that "God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority." The words of the text are: "These are the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands, according to their nations." And the same thing is said of Ham and Japheth, after listing their descendants. In all of this, there isn't a single word about their rulers, or their forms of government, about fathers or fatherly authority. But our author, who has a remarkable eye for spotting fatherhood where nobody else can see the faintest glimmer of it, tells us positively that their "rulers were fathers, and God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority." And why? Because people of the same family spoke the same language, and so naturally, when the division happened, they stayed together.
That's like arguing: Hannibal's army was made up of various nations, and he kept those who spoke the same language together; therefore, fathers were the captains of each unit, and Hannibal was "careful to preserve the fatherly authority." Or: in the colonization of Carolina, the English, French, Scots, and Welsh who settled there planted themselves in groups, and the country is divided "in their lands, according to their languages, according to their families, according to their nations"; therefore, someone was being careful about "the fatherly authority." Or: because in many parts of America, every small tribe was a distinct people with its own language, therefore "God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority," and therefore their rulers "enjoyed Adam's lordship by right descending to them" -- even though we don't know who their leaders were or what form their governments took, only that they were divided into small independent communities speaking different languages.
Scripture says not a word about their rulers or forms of government. It only gives an account of how humanity came to be divided into distinct languages and nations. Therefore it's not arguing from the authority of scripture to tell us positively that fathers were their rulers when scripture says no such thing. It's setting up fancies from one's own imagination, stating them confidently as facts, when the records are completely silent. On equally solid ground -- that is, no ground at all -- he says: "They were not confused crowds without leaders and rulers, free to choose whatever governors or governments they pleased."
For I ask: when all of humanity still spoke one language and was gathered together on the plain of Shinar, were they at that time all under one monarch, "who enjoyed Adam's lordship by right descending to him"? If they weren't, then plainly, no one was thinking about Adam's heir. No right to govern was known on that basis. No care was taken, by God or by anyone, about Adam's fatherly authority. If at a time when humanity was still one people, all living together, speaking one language, and actually in the process of building a city together -- and when it's obvious they must have known who the rightful heir was, since Shem lived all the way down to the time of Isaac, long after the division at Babel -- if even then they weren't under the monarchical government of Adam's fatherhood descending by right to the heir, then clearly no regard was paid to fatherhood. No monarchy was recognized as belonging to Adam's heir. There was no empire of Shem's in Asia. And consequently no such division of the world by Noah as our author has described.
As far as we can tell from scripture about this matter, it seems that if they had any government at the time, it was more like a commonwealth than an absolute monarchy. For scripture tells us (Gen. 11) "they said" -- it wasn't a prince who ordered the building of this city and tower. It wasn't done by the command of one ruler, but by the discussion of many, a free people: "Let us build us a city." They built it for themselves, as free people, not as slaves for their lord and master. "That we be not scattered abroad" -- having a city built and permanent homes to settle their families. This was the deliberation and plan of a people who were free to go their separate ways but wanted to stay together. It couldn't have been either necessary or likely for people tied together under the government of a single monarch. If they had been, as our author tells us, all slaves under the absolute dominion of a ruler, they wouldn't have needed to take such care to keep themselves from wandering beyond the reach of his control. I ask whether this isn't plainer in scripture than anything about Adam's heir or fatherly authority.
But suppose that, being (as God says in Gen. 11:6) one people, they had one ruler, one king by natural right, absolute and supreme over them. What "care had God to preserve the paternal authority of the supreme fatherhood" if he suddenly allowed seventy-two separate nations -- for that's how many our author talks about -- to be carved out of it under separate rulers, all at once withdrawing from the obedience of their sovereign? This is to credit God's "care" with whatever we please. Can it make sense to say God was "careful to preserve the fatherly authority" in people who didn't have it? For if they were subjects under a supreme ruler, what authority did they have? Was it an example of God's care to preserve fatherly authority when he took away the true supreme fatherhood of the natural monarch? Can it be reasonable to say that God, for the sake of preserving fatherly authority, allowed several new governments to spring up with their own rulers, when they couldn't all have fatherly authority? Isn't it equally reasonable to say that God was careful to destroy fatherly authority, when he allowed someone who possessed it to have his government torn apart and shared among his subjects? Would it not be just as good an argument for monarchical government to say, whenever a monarchy was shattered into pieces and divided among its revolting subjects, that "God was careful to preserve monarchical power by tearing a settled empire into a multitude of little governments"?
If someone says that whatever happens by God's providence counts as something God is "careful to preserve" and therefore should be valued by people as necessary or useful, that's a very peculiar way of speaking that not everyone will want to imitate. But this much I'm sure of: it is impossible -- whether as proper or truthful speech -- to say that Shem, for example (since he was alive at the time), had fatherly authority or sovereignty by right of fatherhood over that one people at Babel, and then say that the very next moment, while Shem was still alive, seventy-two others suddenly had fatherly authority or sovereignty by right of fatherhood over the same people, now divided into that many separate governments.
Either these seventy-two fathers were already rulers just before the confusion -- in which case they weren't one people, which contradicts what God himself says they were. Or else they were a commonwealth -- in which case, where was the monarchy? Or else these seventy-two fathers already had fatherly authority but didn't know it. How strange! That fatherly authority should be the sole basis for government among humans, and yet all of humanity didn't know about it. And stranger still: that the confusion of languages should suddenly reveal it to them all, so that in an instant these seventy-two men knew they had fatherly power, everyone else knew they were supposed to obey it, and every person knew the specific fatherly authority they were subject to.
Anyone who can call this arguing from scripture might as well construct whatever utopian fantasy best suits their taste or interest from the same material. And this fatherhood, arranged in this way, will justify both a prince who claims to rule the whole world and his subjects who, being fathers of families, decide to throw off all obedience to him and carve up his empire into smaller governments for themselves. For it will always remain an open question which of these actually held the fatherly authority, until our author tells us whether it was Shem, who was alive at the time, or these seventy-two new princes who were starting new empires within his territory and over his subjects, who had the right to govern. Our author tells us that both the one and the others had fatherly -- that is, supreme -- authority, and he presents them all as examples of those who "enjoyed the lordships of Adam by right descending to them, which was as great and sweeping as the most absolute dominion of any monarch."
This much, at least, is unavoidable: if "God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority in the seventy-two newly established nations," it necessarily follows that he was equally careful to destroy all claims of Adam's heir. For he preserved fatherly authority in at least seventy-one people who could not possibly be Adam's heirs -- at a time when the rightful heir, if God had ever established such an inheritance, couldn't help but be known, since Shem was still alive and they were all one people.
Nimrod is his next example of someone who enjoyed this patriarchal power (p. 16). But I'm not sure why our author seems a bit hard on him, saying he "wrongfully enlarged his empire by violently seizing the rights of other lords of families." These "lords of families" were called "fathers of families" in our author's account of the dispersion at Babel. But it doesn't matter what they're called, so long as we know who they are. For this fatherly authority must belong to them either as heirs to Adam -- in which case there couldn't be seventy-two, or even more than one at a time -- or as natural parents having authority over their own children, in which case every father will have the same paternal authority in the same scope as those seventy-two did, and will be independent rulers over their own children.
Taking his "lords of families" in this latter sense -- and it's hard to read the words any other way in this context -- he gives us a rather amusing account of the origin of monarchy in the following words on page 16: "And in this sense he may be said to be the author and founder of monarchy" -- namely, by wrongfully and violently seizing the rights of fathers over their children. But if fathers have this authority by natural right -- for how else could those seventy-two have gotten it? -- then no one can take it from them without their own consent. And I'd ask our author and his supporters to consider how far this applies to other princes. Won't it, following the conclusion of that very paragraph, resolve all royal power of those whose domains extend beyond their own families into either tyranny and usurpation, or election and consent of fathers of families? And the latter differs very little from consent of the people.
All the examples in the next section on page 17 -- the twelve dukes of Edom, the nine kings in a little corner of Asia in Abraham's day, the thirty-one kings in Canaan destroyed by Joshua, and the trouble our author takes to prove these were all sovereign princes, that every town in those days had a king -- are so many direct proofs against him that it wasn't Adam's lordship descending by right that made kings. For if they held their royalty by that title, either there could only be one sovereign over all of them, or else every father of a family had as good a claim to royalty as these kings did. If all the sons of Esau -- the younger as well as the eldest -- each had the right of fatherhood and were therefore sovereign princes after their father's death, then the same right belonged to their sons after them, and so on through all their descendants. This limits the natural power of fatherhood only to authority over one's own children and their descendants. That fatherly power dies with the head of each family, making way for the same kind of fatherly power to arise in each of his sons over their own descendants. This preserves the power of fatherhood and is perfectly understandable -- but it won't serve our author's purpose at all.
None of the examples he brings proves that these rulers had power as heirs of Adam's paternal authority descending by the title of his fatherhood. Nor does it prove they had power by virtue of their own fatherhood as a basis for dominion beyond their own children. Adam's fatherhood, being over all of humanity, could only descend to one person at a time, and from that person to his rightful heir. So by that title, there could only be one king in the world at any given moment. And fatherly authority not descending from Adam could only extend over one's own children and their descendants.
So if those twelve dukes of Edom; if Abraham and the nine neighboring kings; if Jacob and Esau and the thirty-one kings of Canaan; the seventy kings mutilated by Adonibezek; the thirty-two kings who came to Benhadad; the seventy kings of Greece who made war at Troy -- if all of these were, as our author insists, sovereign princes, then clearly kings derived their power from some source other than fatherhood, since some of these ruled over more than just their own descendants. And it's a demonstration that they couldn't all have been heirs to Adam. For I challenge anyone to make any claim to power by right of fatherhood that is either understandable or possible, except in one of two ways: either as Adam's heir, or as a father naturally having authority over his own descendants. If our author could show that any one of these princes, from the large catalogue he gives us here, had his authority by either of these titles, I'd be willing to grant him the point. But obviously they're all irrelevant and directly contrary to what he brings them to prove -- namely, "that the lordship which Adam had over the world descended by right to the patriarchs."
Having told us on page 16 that "the patriarchal government continued in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, until the Egyptian bondage," he tells us on page 17: "By clear footprints we may trace this paternal government to the Israelites' coming into Egypt, where the exercise of the supreme patriarchal government was interrupted, because they were in subjection to a stronger prince." What these "footprints" are of paternal government in our author's sense -- that is, of absolute monarchical power descending from Adam and exercised by right of fatherhood -- we have already seen. That is: for 2,290 years, no footprints at all. In all that time he cannot produce a single example of any person who claimed or exercised royal authority by right of fatherhood, or show that any king was Adam's heir. All his proofs amount to is this: there were fathers, patriarchs, and kings in that age of the world. But whether the fathers and patriarchs had absolute arbitrary power, and by what titles those kings held theirs, and how far their power extended -- scripture is completely silent. It's clear that by right of fatherhood they neither did, nor could, claim any title to dominion or authority.
To say "that the exercise of supreme patriarchal government was interrupted because they were in subjection to a stronger prince" proves nothing but what I suspected earlier: namely, that "patriarchal jurisdiction or government" is a slippery expression, and in our author's usage doesn't actually mean what he wants to insinuate by it -- paternal and royal power, the kind of absolute sovereignty he claims existed in Adam.
For how can he say patriarchal jurisdiction was interrupted in Egypt, where there was a king exercising royal government over the Israelites, if "patriarchal" means absolute monarchical jurisdiction? And if it means something else, why does he make such a fuss about a kind of power that isn't the one under discussion and is irrelevant to his argument? The exercise of patriarchal jurisdiction, if patriarchal means royal, was not interrupted while the Israelites were in Egypt. It's true that royal power was not in the hands of any of the promised line of Abraham at that time -- nor had it been before that, as far as I know. But what does that have to do with the interruption of royal authority as descending from Adam, unless our author wants to claim that this chosen line of Abraham had the right of inheritance to Adam's lordship?
And if that's his claim, why did he bring the seventy-two rulers as examples of fatherly authority being preserved during the confusion at Babel? Why does he bring up the twelve princes who were Ishmael's sons, and the dukes of Edom, and group them with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as examples of true patriarchal government being exercised, if patriarchal jurisdiction was considered interrupted in the world whenever the heirs of Jacob didn't hold supreme power? I'm afraid supreme patriarchal jurisdiction was not merely interrupted but completely lost in the world from the time of the Egyptian bondage onward, since it would be hard to find, from that time down to the present, anyone who exercised it as an inheritance descending from the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I would have thought monarchical government in the hands of Pharaoh, or anyone else, would have served his purpose. But it's not easy to follow where his argument is heading in all places -- as here, for example, where it's not obvious what he's driving at when he mentions "the exercise of supreme patriarchal jurisdiction in Egypt," or how this helps trace the descent of Adam's lordship to the patriarchs or to anyone else.
For I thought he was giving us scriptural proofs and examples of monarchical government founded on paternal authority descending from Adam -- not writing a history of the Jews. Among whom, we should note, there were no kings until many years after they became a nation. And when they did have kings, there isn't the slightest mention or room for any claim that those kings were heirs to Adam, or kings by paternal authority. I expected that someone who talks so much about scripture would produce from it a continuous line of monarchs whose titles clearly traced back to Adam's fatherhood, and who, as his heirs, acknowledged and exercised paternal jurisdiction over their subjects -- and that this was the true patriarchal government. Instead, he never proves that the patriarchs were kings, or that either kings or patriarchs were heirs to Adam or even claimed to be.
And all these propositions -- that the patriarchs were all absolute monarchs, that the power of both patriarchs and kings was purely paternal, and that this power descended to them from Adam -- could be proved just as well by a jumbled account of petty chiefs in the West Indies from the chronicles of Hernando de Soto, or from any of our recent histories of North America, or by our author's seventy kings of Greece from Homer, as by anything he pulls out of scripture and the multitude of kings he's listed.
And I can't help noting that he should have left Homer and his wars of Troy alone, since his great zeal for truth (or for monarchy) led him to such heights of indignation against philosophers and poets that he tells us in his preface: "There are too many in these days who amuse themselves running after the opinions of philosophers and poets, to find an origin of government that might promise them some title to liberty, to the great scandal of Christianity and the introduction of atheism." And yet these heathens -- the philosopher Aristotle and the poet Homer -- are not rejected by our zealous Christian politician whenever they happen to offer something that seems useful for his argument. Whether this is "to the great scandal of Christianity and the introduction of atheism," I'll let him figure out. This much I can't help but observe in authors who are clearly not writing for truth: how eagerly partisan zeal claims Christianity for its own agenda, and charges atheism against anyone who won't submit without examination to its doctrines and blindly swallow its nonsense.
But to return to his scriptural history. Our author further tells us on page 18 that "after the return of the Israelites from bondage, God, out of a special care for them, chose Moses and Joshua successively to govern as princes in the place and stead of the supreme fathers." If it's true that they returned from bondage, that implies they came back to a state of freedom -- both before the bondage and after it. Unless our author wants to say that switching masters is "returning from bondage," or that a slave "returns from bondage" when he's moved from one galley to another. If, then, they did return from bondage, it's clear that in those days -- whatever our author claims in his preface -- there was a difference between a son, a subject, and a slave. The patriarchs before, and their rulers after this Egyptian bondage, did not count their sons or subjects among their property, to be disposed of with the same absolute authority as their other goods.
This is clear from the case of Jacob, to whom Reuben offered his two sons as pledges, and Judah eventually served as guarantor for Benjamin's safe return from Egypt. All of this would have been meaningless, pointless, and a kind of mockery if Jacob had the same power over every member of his family as he had over his ox or his donkey -- an owner's power over his property. Reuben's or Judah's offers of security for Benjamin's return would have been like someone taking two lambs out of his lord's flock and offering one as security that he'd safely return the other.
When they came out of bondage, what then? "God, out of a special care for them, the Israelites..." Well, it's nice that at least once in his book he allows God to have any care for ordinary people. Because elsewhere he talks about humanity as if God cared about nothing but their monarchs, and the rest of the people -- entire societies -- were made like so many herds of cattle, only for the service, use, and pleasure of their rulers.
God "chose Moses and Joshua successively to govern as princes." A brilliant argument our author has found to prove God's care for fatherly authority and Adam's heirs: that here, as an expression of his care for his own people, God chooses as their rulers those who had not the slightest claim to either. Moses was from the tribe of Levi, and Joshua from the tribe of Ephraim -- neither of them had any title of fatherhood. "But," says our author, "they were in the place and stead of the supreme fathers." If God had anywhere declared his choice of such fathers to be rulers as clearly as he declared his choice of Moses and Joshua, we might believe that Moses and Joshua were standing in for them. But that's the very question under debate. Until it's better proved, the fact that God chose Moses to be ruler of his people will no more prove that government belongs to Adam's heir or to fatherhood than God's choosing Aaron of the tribe of Levi to be priest proves that the priesthood belonged to Adam's heir or to the founding fathers. God would choose Aaron to be priest and Moses to be ruler in Israel even if neither of those offices had anything to do with Adam's heir or with fatherhood.
Our author goes on: "And after them, likewise, for a time he raised up judges to defend his people in time of danger" (p. 18). This proves fatherly authority to be the basis of government, and that it descended from Adam to his heirs, exactly as well as everything that came before it -- which is to say, not at all. Here our author seems to acknowledge that these judges, who were the only rulers the Israelites had at the time, were simply men of courage whom they made their generals to defend them in times of danger. And can't God raise up such men without fatherhood having any title to government?
But our author says: "When God gave the Israelites kings, he reestablished the ancient and original right of lineal succession to paternal government" (p. 18).
How did God reestablish it? By a law, a direct command? We find no such thing. So our author must mean that when God gave them a king, the act of giving them a king itself reestablished the right. But to reestablish in practice the right of lineal succession to paternal government is to put a person in possession of the government that his ancestors enjoyed and that he had a right to by lineal succession. First, if it was a different kind of government than what his ancestors had, it wasn't continuing an old right but starting a new one. If a prince gave someone, in addition to his family's ancient estate from which they'd been dispossessed for generations, a new piece of property that had never belonged to his ancestors, no one would say this "reestablished the right of lineal succession" for anything more than what the family had previously owned. So if the power the kings of Israel had was anything more than what Isaac or Jacob had, it wasn't a reestablishment of the right of succession but the granting of a new power, whatever you want to call it, paternal or otherwise. And whether Isaac and Jacob had the same power as the kings of Israel -- I ask anyone, based on what I've already discussed, to think about that carefully. I don't think they'll find that Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob had any royal power at all.
Second, there can be no "reestablishment of the original and ancient right of lineal succession" to anything unless the person put in possession of it actually has the right to succeed and is the true and next heir to the person he's succeeding. Can it be a "reestablishment" when it starts with a completely new family? Can it be the "reestablishment of an ancient right of lineal succession" when a crown is given to someone who has no right of succession to it, and who, if the lineal succession had continued unbroken, wouldn't have had the remotest chance of claiming it?
Saul, the first king God gave the Israelites, was from the tribe of Benjamin. Was "the ancient and original right of lineal succession reestablished" in him? The next king was David, the youngest son of Jesse, from the line of Judah, Jacob's third son. Was "the ancient and original right of lineal succession to paternal government reestablished" in him? Or in Solomon, his younger son and successor on the throne? Or in Jeroboam, over the ten tribes? Or in Athaliah, a woman who reigned for six years, a complete stranger to the royal blood? If "the ancient and original right of lineal succession to paternal government" was "reestablished" in any of these or their descendants, then this "ancient and original right of lineal succession to paternal government" belongs to younger brothers as well as older ones, and may be "reestablished" in any person alive. Sir Robert has as good a claim as anyone. And so what a marvelous right of lineal succession to paternal or royal government our author has reestablished for us, to secure the rights and inheritance of crowns -- a right that every person on earth may claim. Let the world consider that.
But our author says, on page 19: "Whenever God made choice of any special person to be king, he intended that the issue also should have the benefit of it, being sufficiently included in the person of the father, even though only the father was named in the grant." But this still won't help the case for succession. For if, as our author says, the benefit of the grant is intended for the descendants of the one who receives it, this won't direct the succession. If God gives something to a person and their descendants in general, the claim can't belong to any one descendant in particular -- everyone in that line will have an equal right. If someone says our author meant "heir," I believe he would gladly have used that word if it had worked. But Solomon, who succeeded David on the throne, was no more David's heir than Jeroboam, who took over the ten tribes, was David's descendant. Our author had reason to avoid saying God intended it for the heirs, since that wouldn't hold up in a succession even he couldn't object to. So he's left his theory of succession just as vague as if he'd said nothing about it at all. For if royal power is given by God to a person and their descendants, as the land of Canaan was given to Abraham and his seed, don't they all have a title to it? Don't they all share in it? You might as well say that God's grant to Abraham and his seed meant the land of Canaan was to belong to only one of his descendants, excluding all others, as say that God's grant of dominion to a person and their descendants means that dominion belongs exclusively to one descendant.
But how will our author prove that "whenever God made choice of any special person to be king, he intended that their descendants should also have the benefit of it"? Has he so quickly forgotten Moses and Joshua, whom in this very section he says "God, out of a special care, chose to govern as princes"? And the judges that God raised up? Didn't these rulers, having the same authority of supreme fatherhood, have the same power the kings had? And being specially chosen by God himself, shouldn't their descendants have had the benefit of that choice just as much as David's or Solomon's? If these had paternal authority placed in their hands directly by God, why didn't their descendants enjoy the benefit of this grant through succession to the power? Or if they had it as Adam's heirs, why didn't their heirs enjoy it after them by right descending to them -- since they couldn't all be heirs of one another.
Was the power the same, and from the same source, in Moses, Joshua, and the judges as it was in David and the kings? And was it inheritable in one case but not the other? If it wasn't paternal authority, then God's own people were governed by those who had no paternal authority, and those governors did perfectly well without it. If it was paternal authority, and God chose the persons to exercise it, then our author's rule fails -- that "whenever God makes choice of any person to be supreme ruler" (for I suppose the title "king" doesn't have magical properties; it's not the title but the power that matters) "he intends that the descendants should also have the benefit of it." Because for 400 years, from the exodus from Egypt to the time of David, the descendants were never "so sufficiently included in the person of the father" that any son succeeded his father in government among all those judges who judged Israel.
If, to avoid this problem, someone says God always chose the successor himself and thus, by transferring the fatherly authority to that person, excluded the previous ruler's descendants, that's obviously not what the story shows. Just look at Jephthah, who negotiated terms with the people, and they made him judge over them, as is clear from Judges 11.
It's useless, then, to say that "whenever God chooses any special person to have the exercise of paternal authority" -- for if that isn't what it means to be king, I'd like to know the difference between a king and someone exercising paternal authority -- "he intends the descendants should also have the benefit of it." We find that the authority the judges had ended with them and didn't pass down to their children. And if the judges didn't have paternal authority, I'm afraid it will trouble our author, or any of his allies, to tell us who did have paternal authority -- that is, the government and supreme power -- among the Israelites. I suspect they'd have to admit that God's chosen people went on for several hundred years without any knowledge of or concern for this paternal authority, and without any trace of monarchical government at all.
To be convinced of this, one need only read the story of the Levite and the subsequent war against the Benjaminites in the last three chapters of Judges. When you find that the Levite appeals to the people for justice, that it was the tribes and the whole assembly that debated, decided, and directed everything done on that occasion, you'll have to conclude one of two things. Either God was not "careful to preserve the fatherly authority" among his own chosen people, or else fatherly authority can be preserved where there is no monarchical government. If the latter, then even if fatherly authority is perfectly well established, it won't prove that monarchical government is necessary. If the former, it would seem very strange and unlikely that God should make fatherly authority so sacred among human beings that no power or government could exist without it, and yet that among his own people -- even while he was designing a government for them, and laying down rules for the various roles and relationships of its members -- this great and fundamental principle, this most essential and necessary element of all, should be concealed and neglected for 400 years.
Before I leave this point, I have to ask: how does our author know that "whenever God makes choice of any special person to be king, he intends that the descendants should have the benefit of it"? Does God say so by the law of nature, or by revelation? By the same law, he must also specify which of the ruler's descendants should enjoy the crown in succession, and thus point out the heir. Otherwise he's leaving the descendants to either divide the crown or fight over it -- both equally absurd and destructive to the supposed benefit of such a grant. When anyone can produce a declaration of God's intention to this effect, it will be our duty to believe God intends it. But until then, our author needs to show us better evidence before we're obliged to accept him as the authoritative interpreter of God's intentions.
"The issue," our author says, "is sufficiently included in the person of the father, even though only the father was named in the grant." And yet God, when he gave the land of Canaan to Abraham in Gen. 13:15, saw fit to include his seed in the grant too. Likewise, the priesthood was given to Aaron and his descendants. And the crown God gave not only to David but to his descendants as well. So however much our author assures us that "God intends that the descendants should have the benefit of it when he chooses any person to be king," we see that the kingdom he gave to Saul, without mentioning his descendants after him, never passed to any of Saul's line.
And why, when God chose a person to be king, should he be understood to have intended the descendants to benefit from it, more than when he chose someone to be a judge in Israel? I'd love to hear a reason. Why does a grant of fatherly authority to a king include the descendants more than when the same grant is made to a judge? Does paternal authority descend by right to one ruler's descendants but not the other's? Someone will need to show a reason for this difference beyond just the title, when the thing given is the same fatherly authority, and the method of giving it -- God choosing the person -- is the same too. For I'm sure our author, when he says "God raised up judges," doesn't by any means want to admit they were chosen by the people.
But since our author has so confidently assured us of God's care to preserve the fatherhood, and claims to build everything he says on the authority of scripture, we should expect that the people whose law, constitution, and history are primarily recorded in scripture would provide him with the clearest examples of God preserving fatherly authority -- these being, by everyone's agreement, a people God had an especially close relationship with. So let's see what state this paternal authority or government was in among the Jews, from their beginnings as a nation.
It was absent, by our author's own admission, from their arrival in Egypt until their return from bondage -- over 200 years. From that return until God gave the Israelites a king, about 400 more years, our author gives only a very thin account of it. And indeed, throughout that entire period, there are no traces of paternal or royal government among them whatsoever. But then, says our author, "God reestablished the ancient and original right of lineal succession to paternal government."
What kind of "lineal succession to paternal government" was actually established, we've already seen. Now I only want to consider how long it lasted: until the Babylonian captivity, about 500 years. From then until their destruction by the Romans, more than 650 years later, "the ancient and original right of lineal succession to paternal government" was again lost, and they continued as a people in the promised land without it. So out of the 1,750 years that they were God's chosen people, they had hereditary kingly government for less than a third of the time. And of that time, there isn't the slightest trace of even one moment of "paternal government, or the reestablishment of the ancient and original right of lineal succession to it" -- whether we trace it from David, Saul, Abraham, or from its only true source on our author's principles: Adam.
In the previous book, I showed that:
Adam never had any authority over his children or dominion over the world -- not by any natural right of fatherhood, and not by any direct grant from God. That whole claim falls apart.
Even if Adam had possessed such authority, his heirs still would have had no right to it.
Even if his heirs somehow did have a right to it, there is no law of nature and no law of God that tells us which heir gets the crown in every case that might come up. So the right of succession -- and therefore the right to rule -- could never have been determined with any certainty.
And even if that could have been settled, the knowledge of which family line is actually the oldest line of descent from Adam has been utterly lost for so long that no race or family on earth has even the slightest claim to being the eldest house with the right of inheritance.
All of these points having been, I believe, clearly established, it is impossible for any ruler on earth today to gain any benefit or derive even the faintest shadow of authority from what is supposed to be the wellspring of all power: "Adam's private dominion and fatherly jurisdiction."
So anyone who doesn't want to give the impression that all government in the world is nothing but the product of force and violence -- that people live together by no rules other than those of wild animals, where the strongest wins -- and thereby lay the groundwork for permanent chaos, conflict, rebellion, and disorder (the very things that the followers of this theory so loudly complain about) must necessarily find a different origin for government, a different source of political power, and a different way of identifying the people who hold it, than what Sir Robert Filmer taught us.
With that in mind, I think it would be useful to lay out what I understand political power to be. This way, the power of a government official over a citizen can be clearly distinguished from a father's power over his children, a master's over his servants, a husband's over his wife, and a lord's over his slave. All of these different kinds of power sometimes happen to be held by the same person, and if we think of that person in each of these different roles, it can help us tell these powers apart and see the difference between a ruler of a commonwealth, a head of a household, and a captain of a galley ship.
Political power, then, is what I take to be the right to make laws -- backed by the penalty of death, and therefore by all lesser penalties as well -- for the purpose of regulating and protecting property. It includes the right to use the force of the community to enforce those laws and to defend the commonwealth against foreign attack. And all of this is to be done only for the public good.
4. To truly understand political power and trace it back to its source, we need to consider the condition that all people are naturally in. And that is a state of perfect freedom -- freedom to arrange their lives, manage their possessions, and do as they see fit, within the bounds of the law of nature. They don't need anyone's permission. They don't depend on anyone else's will.
It is also a state of equality, where all power and authority is mutual and shared -- no one has more than anyone else. Because nothing could be more obvious than this: creatures of the same species and rank, born without distinction to all the same advantages of nature, sharing the same abilities, should be equal among one another. No subordination. No subjection. Unless, of course, the lord and master of them all were to make his will unmistakably known and clearly appoint one person above the rest, giving that person an undeniable right to rule.
5. This natural equality among people is something that the thoughtful Richard Hooker considered so self-evident, so beyond all question, that he made it the very foundation of our duty to love one another. From it, he derived the great principles of justice and charity. Here are his words:
"This same natural reasoning has led people to understand that their duty to love others is no less than their duty to love themselves. After all, if things are equal, they must all be measured by the same standard. If I can't help wishing to receive good from every person's hands -- as much good as anyone could wish for their own soul -- how could I expect any part of that wish to be fulfilled unless I myself take care to fulfill the same wish that undoubtedly exists in other people, since they share my nature? To have anything offered to them that goes against this wish must grieve them just as much as it would grieve me. So if I do harm, I should expect to suffer harm in return, because there's no reason others should show me more love than I have shown to them. My desire, then, to be loved by my equals in nature as much as possible places on me a natural duty to show them the very same affection. From this relationship of equality between ourselves and those who are just like us, natural reason has drawn various rules and principles for guiding life -- and no one is unaware of them."
6. But even though this is a state of liberty, it is not a state of anything-goes. Yes, in this state a person has unrestricted freedom to do what they want with themselves and their possessions. But they do not have the freedom to destroy themselves, or even to destroy any creature in their possession -- unless some purpose nobler than mere survival calls for it.
The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone. And reason, which is that law, teaches all of humanity -- anyone willing to consult it -- that since we are all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another person in their life, health, liberty, or possessions. Here is why: all people are the work of one all-powerful and infinitely wise Creator. We are all servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his command and on his business. We are his property -- his handiwork -- made to last as long as he pleases, not as long as anyone else does. And since we are furnished with the same abilities and share equally in one community of nature, there is no basis for assuming that any of us is subordinate to another in a way that would authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for each other's use the way lesser creatures were made for ours.
So every person, just as they are bound to preserve themselves and not willfully abandon their post, is also bound -- by the very same reasoning -- to preserve the rest of humanity as much as they can, whenever their own survival is not at stake. No one may take away or damage the life, liberty, health, limbs, or property of another person, unless it is to bring an offender to justice.
7. And so that everyone may be kept from invading others' rights, from hurting one another, and so that the law of nature -- which demands the peace and preservation of all humanity -- may be observed, the enforcement of that law is, in the state of nature, placed in every person's hands. This means everyone has a right to punish anyone who breaks the law of nature, to whatever degree is necessary to prevent further violations.
Here is the logic: the law of nature would be completely pointless -- like any other law -- if nobody in the state of nature had the power to enforce it, to protect the innocent, and to restrain offenders. And if any one person in the state of nature has the right to punish another for wrongdoing, then everyone has that right. In a state of perfect equality where no one naturally has authority or jurisdiction over anyone else, whatever any person may do to enforce the law, every person must have the right to do.
8. And so, in the state of nature, "one person gains power over another." But it is not absolute or arbitrary power. When you have a criminal in your hands, you don't get to do whatever your anger or wild impulses dictate. You may only impose what calm reason and conscience prescribe -- a punishment proportional to the offense. That punishment must serve two purposes, and only two: making things right and preventing future harm. These are the only reasons one person may ever lawfully do harm to another, and together they are what we call punishment.
By breaking the law of nature, an offender has declared that they live by a different rule than the one of reason and fairness that God established for all of humanity's mutual safety. In doing so, they become a danger to everyone. The bond that was supposed to protect us all from injury and violence has been broken by this person. That is a crime against the entire human species, a violation of the peace and safety that the law of nature was meant to secure.
And so, on these grounds -- by the right every person has to preserve humanity as a whole -- anyone may restrain such an offender, or, where necessary, destroy what is dangerous to them. Anyone may bring consequences upon a person who has broken that law, consequences severe enough to make the offender regret what they did, and thereby deter both them and others from committing similar wrongs.
In this case, and on this basis, "every person has a right to punish the offender and act as an enforcer of the law of nature."
9. I have no doubt this will strike some people as a very strange doctrine. But before they rush to condemn it, I'd like them to answer me this: by what right can any ruler or nation put to death, or punish, a foreigner for any crime committed in their country?
Think about it. Their laws, which derive their authority from the declared will of the legislature, don't extend to a stranger. Those laws weren't written for him. And even if they were, he has no obligation to obey them. The legislative authority that gives those laws force over the citizens of that commonwealth has no power over someone from outside it. The people who have the supreme lawmaking power in England, France, or Holland are, to a person from another land, just ordinary people -- people without authority.
So here's the point: if, by the law of nature, every person doesn't have the power to punish offenses against that law -- as they soberly judge the situation requires -- then I don't see how the officials of any government can punish a foreigner from another country. After all, with respect to that foreigner, they can have no more power than what any person naturally has over any other.
10. Beyond the core crime of violating the law and straying from the correct rule of reason -- by which a person becomes, in a sense, degenerate, abandoning the principles of human nature and becoming a dangerous creature -- there is usually also a specific injury done to some particular person. Someone suffers actual damage from the crime.
In that case, the person who suffered the damage has two rights: the general right to punish that belongs to everyone, plus a particular right to seek compensation from the person who wronged them. And any other person who considers it just may join with the injured party and help them recover enough from the offender to make up for the harm suffered.
11. From these two distinct rights -- the right to punish the crime for the purpose of restraint and prevention, which belongs to everybody, and the right to seek compensation, which belongs only to the injured party -- it follows that a government official, who holds the community's shared right of punishment, can often pardon criminal offenses by their own authority when the public good doesn't require the full execution of the law. But they cannot waive the compensation owed to a private individual for the damage they suffered. The injured person has the right to demand that compensation in their own name, and only they can let it go.
The person who suffered the harm has the power to claim the offender's goods or labor for themselves, based on the right of self-preservation. Meanwhile, every person has the power to punish the crime itself, to prevent it from happening again, "by the right they have to preserve all of humanity" -- and to do everything reasonable they can toward that end.
And this is how it works out that in the state of nature, every person has the power to kill a murderer. The purpose is twofold: first, to deter others from committing the same kind of injury -- an injury so severe that no compensation can make up for it -- by making an example of the punishment that awaits from everyone; and second, to protect people from the threat of a criminal who, by rejecting reason -- the common rule and standard God has given to humanity -- and by committing unjust violence and slaughter, has effectively declared war against all of humanity. Such a person may therefore be destroyed like a lion or a tiger -- a wild and dangerous beast with whom no one can have any safe community.
And it is on this principle that the great law of nature is grounded: "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." And Cain was so thoroughly convinced that everyone had the right to destroy such a criminal that, after murdering his brother, he cried out, "Everyone who finds me will kill me" -- so clearly was this law written in the hearts of all people.
12. By the same reasoning, a person in the state of nature may punish lesser violations of that law as well. "With death?" you might ask. My answer: each offense may be punished to whatever degree, and with whatever severity, is enough to make it a bad deal for the offender, give them reason to regret it, and scare others out of doing the same.
Every offense that can be committed in the state of nature can also be punished in the state of nature -- equally, and to the same extent, as it could be in an organized society. Now, it would take me off track to lay out the specific details of the law of nature or its precise standards of punishment here. But I can say this with certainty: such a law exists, and it is just as clear and understandable to any rational person who studies it as the written laws of any country are. In fact, it may be even clearer -- because reason is easier to understand than the elaborate and convoluted inventions of people pursuing conflicting, hidden interests and writing them into statutes. And honestly, that's what a large portion of any country's laws really are -- laws that are only legitimate insofar as they are grounded in the law of nature, by which they must be interpreted and regulated.
13. To this "strange doctrine" -- namely, that "in the state of nature everyone has the executive power" of the law of nature -- I have no doubt people will object: it's unreasonable for people to be judges in their own cases. Self-love will make them biased toward themselves and their friends. On the other hand, hostility, passion, and the desire for revenge will push them too far in punishing others. The result will be nothing but chaos and disorder. And therefore -- the objection goes -- God must have appointed government to restrain the bias and violence of human nature.
I freely grant that civil government is the proper remedy for the problems of the state of nature, which are bound to be serious when people are allowed to judge their own cases. After all, it's easy to see that someone unjust enough to wrong their neighbor will hardly be just enough to condemn themselves for it.
But I'd like the people making this objection to keep something in mind: absolute monarchs are just human beings too. If government is supposed to be the cure for the evils that inevitably follow from people judging their own cases, and if the state of nature is supposedly intolerable for that reason -- then I'd really like to know what kind of government it is, and how much of an improvement it really is over the state of nature, where one person commands everyone else and gets to be judge in their own case, free to do whatever they please to all their subjects, while no one has the slightest freedom to question or challenge the people who carry out their will. And whatever this ruler does -- whether guided by reason, led by honest mistakes, or driven by raw emotion -- everyone else just has to take it?
The state of nature is actually better than that. In it, people are not forced to submit to the unjust will of another person. And if someone who acts as judge makes a bad call -- in their own case or anyone else's -- they are answerable for it to the rest of humanity.
14. People often ask, as if it were some devastating objection: "Where are, or where were there ever, any people in such a state of nature?"
For the moment, this answer will do: since every ruler and head of an independent government throughout the world is in a state of nature with respect to the others, the world plainly never has been, and never will be, without large numbers of people in that state. I'm talking about every leader of an independent community, whether or not they've formed alliances with others. Because it's not just any agreement that ends the state of nature between people -- it's only the specific agreement to join together and form one community, one body politic. People can make all sorts of other promises and contracts with each other and still remain in the state of nature.
Consider the promises and bargains for trade between the two men on a desert island, described by Garcilaso de la Vega in his history of Peru. Or the agreements between a Swiss trader and a Native American in the forests of the Americas. These deals are binding on them, even though the parties are entirely in a state of nature with respect to each other. Because keeping your word and honoring agreements are duties that belong to people as people -- not as members of a political society.
15. To those who insist there never were any people in the state of nature, I won't just cite the authority of the thoughtful Hooker (Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I, Section 10), where he says:
"The laws which have been previously mentioned" -- that is, the laws of nature -- "bind people absolutely, simply because they are human beings, even if they have never formed any settled community or made any formal agreement among themselves about what to do or not to do. But because we are not, on our own, capable of providing ourselves with everything we need for the kind of life our nature desires -- a life worthy of human dignity -- and because of the shortcomings and limitations we face when living alone and entirely by ourselves, we are naturally drawn to seek community and fellowship with others. This is what originally led people to unite in political societies."
But beyond citing Hooker, I will go further and affirm: all people are naturally in the state of nature, and they remain in it until, by their own consent, they make themselves members of some political society. And I have no doubt that in the course of this discussion, I will make that point very clear.
The state of war is a state of hostility and destruction. When someone declares -- not in a moment of passion, but through a calm, deliberate plan -- that they intend to take another person's life, they put themselves into a state of war with that person. By doing so, they've exposed their own life to the power of the person they've threatened, or anyone who joins in that person's defense and takes up their cause. And this is perfectly reasonable and just: I should have the right to destroy whatever threatens to destroy me. Here's why. The fundamental law of nature says that human life should be preserved as much as possible. When not everyone can be preserved, the safety of the innocent takes priority. You may destroy someone who wages war against you, or who has shown themselves to be an enemy to your very existence, for the same reason you may kill a wolf or a lion -- because such people have abandoned the shared law of reason. They operate by no rule except force and violence, and so they may be treated as predators, as dangerous and harmful creatures who will surely destroy you the moment they have the power to do so.
And this is why anyone who tries to get another person under their absolute power has, by that very act, put themselves into a state of war with that person. It amounts to a declaration of intent against their life. Here's my reasoning: if someone wants to bring me under their power without my consent, I have every reason to conclude that they'll use me however they please once they've got me there -- and destroy me too, whenever they feel like it. After all, nobody could want me under their absolute power unless it's to force me into doing things that violate my right to freedom -- in other words, to make me a slave. Being free from that kind of force is the only guarantee of my survival. And reason tells me to treat anyone as an enemy to my survival who would take away the freedom that protects it. So whoever attempts to enslave me has, by that very attempt, put themselves into a state of war with me. In the state of nature, anyone who would take away the freedom that belongs to every person in that state must be assumed to have a plan to take away everything else too, since that freedom is the foundation of all the rest. Likewise, anyone in an organized society who would strip away the freedom belonging to the members of that society or commonwealth must be assumed to intend to strip away everything else from them as well -- and should therefore be regarded as being in a state of war.
This is what makes it lawful to kill a thief, even one who hasn't hurt you in the slightest or openly declared any intent against your life -- other than using force to get you in his power so he can take your money or whatever else he wants from you. Because when someone uses force where they have no right, to bring me under their power, I don't care what their stated excuse is -- I have no reason to assume that someone who would take away my liberty wouldn't also take away everything else once they had me in their power. Therefore, it's lawful for me to treat them as someone who has put themselves into a state of war with me -- that is, to kill them if I can. Because that's exactly the risk that anyone justly exposes themselves to when they start a state of war and act as the aggressor.
And here we have the clear difference between the state of nature and the state of war. Some people have mixed these two up, but they are as far apart as a state of peace, goodwill, mutual help, and preservation is from a state of hostility, malice, violence, and mutual destruction. People living together according to reason, without a common authority on earth to judge between them -- that is properly the state of nature. But force, or a declared intention to use force, against another person, where there is no common authority on earth to appeal to for help -- that is the state of war. And it is the lack of such an appeal that gives a person the right of war even against an aggressor, even if that aggressor is a fellow member of society, a fellow citizen. Consider this: a thief who steals everything I own, I can only pursue through an appeal to the law -- I can't just attack him. But if that same thief comes at me to rob me of even my horse or my coat, I may kill him. Why? Because the law, which was made for my protection, cannot step in fast enough to save my life from an immediate threat of force. And if my life is lost, no court can give it back. So the law permits me to defend myself -- it grants me the right of war, the liberty to kill the aggressor, precisely because the aggressor doesn't allow time for an appeal to our common judge, or for the law to provide a remedy in a case where the harm may be beyond repair. The lack of a common judge with authority puts everyone in a state of nature. Force without right against a person's body creates a state of war, whether or not there is a common judge.
But when the actual use of force is over, the state of war ceases between people who live in a society where both sides are equally subject to the fair judgment of the law. At that point, there's an available remedy: an appeal to the courts for past injuries and protection against future harm. But where no such appeal exists -- as in the state of nature, which lacks established laws and judges with authority to hear appeals -- once a state of war has begun, it continues. The innocent party retains the right to destroy the aggressor whenever they can, until the aggressor offers peace and seeks reconciliation on terms that repair whatever wrongs have already been done and guarantee the innocent party's security going forward. And here's an even more troubling case: even where there is an appeal to law and established judges, but the remedy is denied through an obvious perversion of justice -- through a brazen twisting of the laws to protect or shield the violence or wrongdoing of some person or faction -- it's hard to see that as anything but a state of war. Because wherever violence is used and injury is done, even by the very people appointed to administer justice, it is still violence and injury, no matter how much it's dressed up with the name, claims, or procedures of law. The whole point of law is to protect and provide justice for the innocent through its fair application to everyone under it. Wherever that isn't done in good faith, war is being made upon the victims. And since they have no appeal on earth to set things right, they are left with the only remedy available in such cases: an appeal to heaven.
Avoiding this state of war -- where the only appeal is to heaven, and where even the smallest disagreement can escalate because there's no authority to settle disputes between the parties -- is one of the great reasons why people form societies and leave the state of nature behind. Because where there is an authority, a power on earth from which help can be obtained through appeal, the state of war is kept at bay, and disputes are resolved by that authority. If there had been any such court, any higher authority on earth to settle the matter between Jephthah and the Ammonites, they would never have fallen into a state of war. But as we can see, Jephthah was forced to appeal to heaven. "The Lord the Judge," he says, "be judge this day, between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon" (Judg. 11:27). And then, pressing forward with his appeal and trusting in it, he leads his army into battle. So in such disputes, when the question is raised, "who shall be judge?" it can't mean "who shall settle the argument?" Everyone knows what Jephthah tells us here: "the Lord the Judge" shall judge. Where there is no judge on earth, the appeal lies to God in heaven. So the question can't really be asking who gets to decide whether someone else has put themselves into a state of war with me, or whether I may, as Jephthah did, appeal to heaven about it. On that matter, only I can be the judge, in my own conscience, knowing that I will answer for it, on the great day, to the supreme judge of all.
A person's natural liberty means being free from any superior power on earth -- not subject to the will or legislative authority of anyone else, with only the law of nature as a guide. Liberty within society means being under no legislative power except one established by consent within the commonwealth, and under no restriction of any law except what that legislature enacts in keeping with the trust placed in it.
So freedom is not what Sir Robert Filmer claims it is -- "a liberty for everyone to do whatever they want, to live however they please, and not to be bound by any laws." That's not freedom. Real freedom for people living under government means having a standing set of rules to live by, rules that apply equally to everyone in that society, made by the legislative power established within it. It means the liberty to follow your own will in everything where the law is silent -- and not being subject to the unpredictable, uncertain, unknowable, arbitrary will of another person. In the same way, freedom in the state of nature means being under no restraint except the law of nature.
This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power is so essential to a person's very survival that it cannot be given away -- not without giving up survival and life itself. Here's why: since no one has the power to take their own life, no one can, by agreement or by their own consent, enslave themselves to another person or place themselves under someone else's absolute, arbitrary power to kill them whenever he pleases. Nobody can give away more power than they actually have. And someone who cannot take their own life cannot give another person power over it.
Now, there is one exception. If someone has, through their own wrongdoing, forfeited their life by committing an act that deserves death, the person they've forfeited it to may -- when they have them in their power -- choose to delay taking that life and put them to work instead. This does the captive no injury, because whenever the captive finds the hardship of this servitude worse than the value of their life, they have the power to resist their master's will and bring upon themselves the death they prefer.
This is the true condition of slavery, and it is nothing other than a state of war continued between a lawful conqueror and a captive. If at any point a contract enters the picture -- if they reach an agreement for limited power on one side and obedience on the other -- then the state of war and slavery both end for as long as that agreement holds. Because, as I've already said, no one can hand over to another person a power they don't have themselves -- namely, power over their own life.
I'll grant that we find among the ancient Jews, as well as other nations, that people did sell themselves into service. But clearly, this was selling themselves into drudgery, not into slavery. The distinction matters: the person sold was plainly not under absolute, arbitrary, despotic power. The master could not have had the power to kill someone whom, at a set time, he was legally required to set free. In fact, the master of such a servant was so far from having arbitrary power over the servant's life that he couldn't even maim the servant at will. If the servant lost so much as an eye or a tooth at the master's hand, that was enough to set the servant free (Exodus 21).
Whether we look at natural reason -- which tells us that people, once born, have a right to stay alive, and therefore a right to food, drink, and whatever else nature provides for their survival -- or at revelation, which tells us about the grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah and his sons, the conclusion is perfectly clear. As King David says (Psalm 115:16), God "has given the earth to the children of men" -- given it to all of humanity in common. But if we accept that the earth was given to everyone in common, some people find it very hard to see how anyone could ever come to own any particular piece of it.
Now, I won't simply settle for pointing out that if it's hard to explain private property on the assumption that God gave the world to Adam and his descendants in common, it's downright impossible to explain it on the assumption that God gave the world to Adam and his direct heirs in succession, leaving everyone else out. Under that theory, only a single universal monarch could own anything at all. But I'll try to show how people could come to own distinct parts of what God gave to all of humanity in common -- and that they could do so without needing any formal agreement among everyone.
God, who gave the world to human beings in common, also gave them reason to make the best use of it for life and comfort. The earth and everything in it exists to support and sustain human life. And while all the fruits the earth naturally produces and all the animals it feeds belong to humanity in common -- produced, as they are, by the spontaneous hand of nature, with nobody having any exclusive private claim to any of them in their natural state -- still, since they were given for human use, there has to be some way of making them your own before they can do any individual person any good. The fruit or game that feeds an indigenous hunter who knows no fences and still lives on the common earth must become his -- so much his, so much a part of him -- that no one else has any right to it before it can do him any good for sustaining his life.
Though the earth and all its lesser creatures belong to everyone in common, every person has a property in their own person. This nobody has any right to but themselves. The labor of their body and the work of their hands, we may say, are properly theirs. Whatever they remove from the state that nature has provided and left it in, they have mixed their labor with it and joined to it something that is their own, and thereby made it their property. Since they removed it from the common state that nature placed it in, their labor has attached something to it that excludes the common right of other people. This labor, being the unquestionable property of the laborer, means that no one else can have a right to what that labor has been joined to -- at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.
Think about the person who feeds himself on acorns picked up under an oak tree, or apples gathered from trees in the forest. He has certainly made those his own. Nobody can deny that the nourishment is his. So I ask: when did they become his? When he digested them? When he ate them? When he cooked them? When he brought them home? When he picked them up? Clearly, if the first act of gathering didn't make them his, nothing else could. That labor put a line between those acorns and the commons. It added something to them beyond what nature, the common mother of all, had done -- and so they became his private property.
And is anyone really going to say he had no right to those acorns or apples he gathered, just because he didn't get the consent of all humanity to make them his? Was it robbery to take for himself what belonged to all in common? If that kind of universal consent were required, the human race would have starved to death despite all the plenty God had given them.
We can see this principle at work in commons that remain common by agreement: it's the act of taking some part of what's common and removing it from the state nature left it in that creates property. Without that act, the commons would be useless. And this taking doesn't depend on the express consent of all the other commoners. So the grass my horse has eaten, the turf my servant has cut, the ore I have dug from a spot where I had a right to them in common with others -- all of these become my property, without any assignment or consent from anyone. The labor that was mine, by removing them from the common state they were in, has fixed my property in them.
If you required the explicit consent of every commoner before anyone could take any part of what's given in common, then children and servants couldn't even cut up the food that their father or employer had provided for shared meals without first assigning each person their own specific portion. And though the water flowing in the fountain belongs to everyone, who can doubt that the water in the pitcher belongs only to the person who drew it out? Their labor took it out of the hands of nature, where it was common and belonged equally to all of nature's children, and has thereby made it their own.
By this same law of reason, the deer belongs to the hunter who killed it. We accept that the game belongs to the person who put in the labor, even though before that labor it was every person's common right. And among those we call the civilized part of the world -- people who have created extensive legal systems to define property -- this original law of nature, the one that establishes property in what was previously common, still applies. By this principle, whatever fish anyone catches in the ocean, that great commons still shared by all humanity, or whatever ambergris anyone collects, becomes the property of the person who put in the labor to retrieve it from the common state nature left it in. Even among us, the hare someone is hunting is considered to belong to the person pursuing it during the chase. Since a wild hare is still considered common property and no one's private possession, whoever has invested the labor of finding and chasing it has thereby removed it from the state of nature where it was common and has begun to establish ownership.
Some will object: "If gathering acorns or other fruits of the earth creates a right to them, then anyone can grab as much as they want." Not so. The same law of nature that gives us property also sets limits on that property. "God has given us all things richly" (1 Timothy 6:17) -- this is the voice of reason confirmed by scripture. But how far has he given them to us? For us to enjoy. A person may, through their labor, establish property in as much as they can use to benefit their life before it spoils. Whatever goes beyond that is more than their fair share and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for people to waste or destroy.
And when you consider the abundance of natural resources that existed for a long time in the world, and how few people there were to consume them, and how tiny a fraction of those resources any one person's labor could extend to and claim at the expense of others -- especially keeping within the reasonable bounds of what someone could actually use -- there was very little room for quarrels or disputes about property established this way.
But the main object of property isn't fruit and game anymore -- it's the land itself, since land encompasses and produces everything else. And I think it's clear that property in land is established the same way as the rest. As much land as a person tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of -- that much is their property. By their labor, they effectively fence it off from the commons.
Nor does it count as an objection to say that everyone else has an equal claim to it, and therefore no one can claim or enclose any without the consent of all the rest of humanity. When God gave the world in common to all of humanity, he also commanded people to work, and the difficulty of their situation required it. God and reason commanded them to cultivate the earth -- that is, to improve it for the benefit of life -- and to invest something of their own in it: their labor. So the person who obeyed this command of God by cultivating, tilling, and planting any part of the earth thereby attached to it something that was their property, something no one else had a claim to and couldn't take from them without doing them wrong.
Nor did this claiming of land by improving it harm anyone else, since there was still enough left, and just as good. In practical terms, the person who enclosed land for themselves left just as much for others, because someone who leaves as much as another person can use has effectively taken nothing at all. Nobody would think they'd been wronged by another person taking a big drink of water when there was an entire river left to quench their own thirst. And the situation with land and water, where there's enough for everyone, is exactly the same.
God gave the world to humanity in common. But since he gave it to them for their benefit, and for the greatest advantages they could draw from it, we can't suppose he intended it to stay common and uncultivated forever. He gave it for the use of the industrious and rational -- and labor was to be their title to it -- not for the whims and greed of the quarrelsome and contentious. Someone who still had equally good land available for their own improvement had no reason to complain and no right to meddle with what someone else had already improved through their own labor. If they did meddle with it, they clearly wanted the benefit of another person's hard work, which they had no right to -- not the unworked ground that God had given them in common with others to labor on, of which there was just as much available as what was already claimed, and more than they knew what to do with or could ever put to use.
It's true that in English commons, or in any other country where there are plenty of people living under an established government with money and commerce, no one can enclose or claim any part without the consent of all the other commoners. That's because this land is left common by agreement -- that is, by the law of the land, which must not be violated. And though it's common in the sense that certain people share it, it's not common to all of humanity. It's the joint property of this county or this parish. Besides, what's left over after someone encloses part of it wouldn't be as good to the rest of the commoners as the whole was when they could all use it.
But in the beginning, when the great commons of the world was first being populated, things were completely different. The law that governed people actually favored appropriation. God commanded it, and human need compelled it. What a person fixed their labor on was their property, and no one could take it from them. So we see that cultivating the earth and having dominion go together: one gave title to the other. By commanding people to cultivate the earth, God gave authority to claim property. And the conditions of human life, which require labor and materials to work with, necessarily lead to private possessions.
Nature set the proper limits on property through the extent of people's labor and the needs of life. No one's labor could cultivate or claim all the land. No one's appetite could consume more than a small part of its produce. So it was impossible for anyone, by this method, to encroach on another person's rights or claim property that would harm their neighbor, who would still have room for just as large and good a piece of land after the first person had taken theirs as before.
This natural limit kept everyone's possessions quite moderate -- only as much as they could claim for themselves without hurting anyone -- in the early ages of the world, when people were more in danger of getting lost by wandering away from their group in the vast wilderness than of running out of room to farm. And the same limit could still be applied today without hurting anyone, as full as the world seems. Imagine a person or family in the same situation as those who first populated the world in Adam's or Noah's time. Let them settle in some remote, vacant part of the American interior. We'd find that the land they could claim for themselves, by the rules I've described, wouldn't be very large, and it still wouldn't -- even today -- hurt the rest of humanity or give anyone reason to complain about their encroachment, even though the human race has now spread to every corner of the world and vastly exceeds the small numbers of the beginning.
In fact, land without labor is worth so little that I've heard it said that in Spain itself, a person can plow, plant, and harvest on land they have no title to other than their own use of it -- and far from objecting, the local people consider themselves grateful to someone who, by working neglected and therefore wasted land, has increased the supply of grain they needed. But whether or not that's true (I don't put much weight on it), I will say this boldly: the same rule of property -- namely, that everyone should have as much as they could make use of -- would still hold in the world without crowding anyone, since there's enough land to support double the current population. That is, it would hold if the invention of money and people's tacit agreement to place a value on it hadn't introduced, by consent, larger possessions and a right to them. I'll explain shortly how that happened.
This much is certain: in the beginning, before the desire to have more than a person needed had distorted the real value of things (which depends only on their usefulness for human life), or before people had agreed that a little piece of yellow metal that wouldn't rot or decay should be worth a great slab of meat or a whole pile of grain -- in those times, although people had a right to claim through their labor as much of nature's bounty as they could use, this couldn't have been very much, and it wouldn't have hurt others, since the same plenty was available to anyone willing to put in the same effort.
And let me add this: the person who claims land by working it doesn't reduce the common stock of humanity -- they increase it. The food produced by one acre of enclosed and cultivated land is, to put it very conservatively, ten times more than what's produced by an acre of equally rich land left wild and common. So the person who encloses land and gets more of life's necessities from ten cultivated acres than they could have gotten from a hundred wild ones can truly be said to have given ninety acres to humanity. Their labor now supplies them from ten acres with what would have required a hundred acres lying in common.
I've actually underestimated the improved land here, rating its productivity at only ten to one when it's much closer to a hundred to one. Ask yourself: in the wild woods and uncultivated wilderness of America, left to nature without any improvement or farming, would a thousand acres provide the people living there with as many of life's comforts as ten acres of equally fertile land do in Devonshire, where it's well farmed?
Before anyone claimed ownership of land, the person who gathered wild fruit, or killed, caught, or tamed animals -- anyone who invested their labor in nature's spontaneous products, altering them in any way from the state nature put them in -- acquired ownership of them. But if those things spoiled while in their possession without being properly used -- if the fruit rotted or the meat went bad before they could eat it -- they were breaking the common law of nature and were liable to be punished. They were invading their neighbor's share, because they had no right to anything beyond what they could actually use before it went to waste.
The same limits governed the possession of land. Whatever a person tilled and reaped, stored up and used before it spoiled -- that was rightfully theirs. Whatever they enclosed and could graze and make use of, the livestock and produce were also theirs. But if the grass in their enclosure rotted on the ground, or the fruit of their planting went to waste without being gathered and stored, then that part of the earth, despite the enclosure, was still to be considered waste and could become someone else's possession.
So in the beginning, Cain could take as much ground as he could farm and make it his own, while still leaving enough for Abel's sheep to graze on. A few acres would have been enough for both of them. But as families grew and hard work expanded their resources, their holdings grew with their needs. Yet it was usually without any fixed property in the ground itself -- until people formed communities, settled down together, and built cities. Then, by mutual agreement, they eventually marked out the boundaries of their separate territories and agreed on borders between themselves and their neighbors, and by their own internal laws they established property rights for the members of their society.
We can see this pattern in the part of the world that was first settled and therefore most densely populated: even as late as Abraham's time, people wandered freely with their flocks and herds -- which were their wealth -- moving from place to place. Abraham himself did this in a country where he was a foreigner. Clearly, at least a large part of the land was still held in common: people didn't value it or claim ownership of any more than they actually used. But when there wasn't enough room in one place for their herds to graze together, they would separate by mutual agreement, as Abraham and Lot did (Gen. 13:5), and expand their pasture wherever suited them. For the same reason, Esau left his father and brother and settled on Mount Seir (Gen. 36:6).
And so, without assuming any private ownership for Adam that excluded all other people -- which can't be proved anyway, and no one's property could be derived from it -- but assuming instead that the world was given, as it was, to all of humanity in common, we can see how labor could give people clear title to separate portions of it for their private use, without any doubt about the rightness of it or any room for quarreling.
Nor is it as strange as it might first seem that the ownership created by labor should outweigh the communal ownership of land. It is labor, in fact, that puts the real difference in value on everything. Consider the difference between an acre of land planted with tobacco or sugar, sown with wheat or barley, and an acre of the same land lying common without any farming at all. You'll find that the improvement from labor accounts for the far greater part of the value. I think it's a very modest estimate to say that nine-tenths of the products of the earth that are useful to human life are the result of labor. And if we calculate more precisely, tracing everything back through all the work that went into it, sorting out what comes purely from nature and what comes from labor, we'll find that in most cases ninety-nine percent of the value is entirely due to labor.
Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the indigenous nations of the Americas. They are rich in land but poor in all the comforts of life. Nature has provided them just as generously as any other people with the raw materials of abundance -- fertile soil capable of producing plenty of food, clothing, and everything enjoyable. Yet for lack of improving it through labor, they don't have a hundredth of the comforts we enjoy. A king ruling over a large and fertile territory there eats worse, sleeps worse, and dresses worse than a day laborer in England.
To make this clearer, let's trace some of the ordinary things we use every day through the various stages they go through before they reach us, and see how much of their value comes from human labor. Bread, wine, and cloth are things we use daily and in great quantity. Yet without labor to supply us with these more useful products, we'd be stuck with acorns for bread, water for wine, and leaves or animal skins for clothing. Whatever bread is worth beyond the value of acorns, wine beyond water, and cloth or silk beyond leaves, skins, or moss -- all of that is entirely owed to labor and industry.
The first set -- acorns, water, leaves -- is the food and clothing that unassisted nature gives us. The second set -- bread, wine, cloth -- is what our industry and effort prepare for us. And when you calculate how much the second exceeds the first in value, you'll see that labor makes up by far the greatest part of the value of everything we enjoy in this world. The ground that produces the raw materials barely counts, or at most counts for only a tiny fraction. So little, in fact, that even among us, land left entirely to nature -- without any grazing, farming, or planting -- is called, as it truly is, wasteland. And we'll find the benefit from it amounts to almost nothing.
This shows how much the number of productive people matters more than the sheer size of a territory. Expanding useful land and putting it to work effectively is the great art of government. And the ruler wise and generous enough to use well-established laws of liberty to protect and encourage the honest hard work of their people, against the oppression of power and the pettiness of factions, will quickly outstrip their neighbors. But that's a side point. Let me get back to the argument at hand.
An acre of land that produces twenty bushels of wheat here, and another acre in America that would do the same with the same farming, are without doubt of the same natural value. But the benefit humanity receives from the first in a year is worth five pounds, while the second is possibly not worth a penny if all the profit a person living there could get from it were valued and sold here -- or at least, I can truly say, not one-thousandth as much. It is labor, then, that puts the greatest part of the value on land. Without labor, land would scarcely be worth anything. It is labor that we owe the greatest part of all its useful products to.
All the extra value of the straw, bran, and bread produced by that acre of wheat compared to the product of an equally good acre lying waste -- all of that is the effect of labor. And it's not just the farmer's effort, the reaper's and thresher's toil, and the baker's sweat that must be counted into the bread we eat. The labor of those who broke in the oxen, who dug and worked the iron and stone, who felled and shaped the timber used for the plow, the mill, the oven, and any of the countless other tools needed to turn seed corn into bread -- all of that must be charged to the account of labor and credited as its effect. Nature and the earth furnished only the nearly worthless raw materials.
It would be a remarkable catalog of things that human industry provided and made use of for every loaf of bread before it reached our table, if we could trace them all: iron, wood, leather, bark, timber, stone, bricks, coal, lime, cloth, dyes, chemicals, pitch, tar, masts, ropes, and all the materials used in the ship that brought any of the supplies used by any of the workers at any stage of the process. It would be almost impossible -- or at least far too lengthy -- to list them all.
From all of this, it's clear that even though the things of nature are given in common, a person, by being the master of themselves and the "owner of their own person and the actions or labor of it, still had in themselves the great foundation of property." And what made up the greater part of what they applied to the support and comfort of their existence, once invention and skill had improved the conveniences of life, was entirely their own and did not belong in common to others.
So labor, in the beginning, gave a right of property wherever anyone was willing to invest it in what was common -- and for a long time, common land remained the far greater part of the earth, and it still is, more than humanity makes use of. At first, people mostly contented themselves with what unassisted nature offered for their needs. But afterward, in some parts of the world -- where the growth of population and wealth, combined with the use of money, had made land scarce and therefore valuable -- the various communities established the boundaries of their distinct territories. Through their own internal laws, they regulated the private property of the members of their society. And so, by agreement and contract, they formalized the property that labor and industry had originally created.
The treaties and alliances made between different states and kingdoms -- whether explicitly or implicitly giving up any claim to land in each other's possession -- have, by common consent, surrendered their rights to the natural commons that they all originally shared, and through these agreements have established property among themselves in distinct parts and parcels of the earth. Yet there are still great stretches of land that lie waste -- their inhabitants not having joined the rest of humanity in agreeing to use a common currency -- and these remain more than the people living on them can use, and so are still held in common. Though this situation can hardly occur among those parts of humanity that have agreed to use money.
The vast majority of things truly useful for human life -- the kinds of things that the first people living in common on the earth sought out, just as people in the Americas still do today -- are generally things that don't last long. If they aren't consumed, they decay and spoil on their own. Gold, silver, and diamonds, on the other hand, are things that custom or agreement has given value to, far beyond any real practical use or necessity.
Now, among the useful goods that nature provided in common, everyone had a right (as I've said) to as much as they could use, and they owned whatever they could affect with their labor -- whatever their industry could transform from the state nature had left it in. A person who gathered a hundred bushels of acorns or apples owned them as soon as they were gathered. They just had to make sure they used them before they spoiled. Otherwise, they'd taken more than their share and robbed others. And really, it was as foolish as it was dishonest to hoard more than you could use.
If someone gave part away to somebody else so it didn't spoil uselessly in their possession, that counted as using it too. And if someone traded plums that would have rotted in a week for nuts that would last a whole year, they did no one any wrong. They didn't waste the common stock or destroy any portion of the goods that belonged to others, as long as nothing spoiled uselessly in their hands.
And again, if someone wanted to trade their nuts for a piece of metal they liked the color of, or exchange their sheep for shells, or their wool for a sparkling pebble or a diamond, and keep those things for the rest of their life -- they weren't violating anyone's rights. They could pile up as many of these durable things as they pleased. The limit on rightful property wasn't about the size of what you possessed. It was about whether anything was perishing uselessly in your hands.
And this is how money came into use: some lasting thing that people could keep without it spoiling, and that by mutual consent they would accept in exchange for the truly useful but perishable necessities of life.
And just as different degrees of hard work naturally led people to accumulate possessions in different proportions, the invention of money gave them the opportunity to keep expanding those possessions. Imagine an island, completely cut off from all trade with the rest of the world, where there were a hundred families along with sheep, horses, cows, and other useful animals, wholesome fruits, and enough land to grow grain for a hundred thousand times as many people. But suppose there was nothing on the island -- either because everything was too common or too perishable -- that could serve as money. What reason would anyone have to expand their holdings beyond what their family could use and consume, whether from their own work or from bartering with others for similarly perishable goods?
Where there is nothing that is both lasting and scarce -- and therefore valuable enough to be worth hoarding -- people won't be inclined to expand their landholdings, no matter how rich or available the land is. Ask yourself: what would a person do with ten thousand or a hundred thousand acres of excellent, well-cultivated land, fully stocked with cattle, in the interior of America, with no hope of trading with the rest of the world or selling any of the produce for money? It wouldn't be worth the trouble of fencing. We'd see them give up everything beyond what supplied the necessities of life for themselves and their family, letting it return to the wild commons of nature.
In the beginning, all the world was America, and even more so than America is now, because nowhere on earth was there any such thing as money. Find something that has the use and value of money among a person's neighbors, and you'll see that same person immediately start expanding their possessions.
But since gold and silver have little practical use for human life compared to food, clothing, and transportation -- their value coming only from human agreement, though labor still largely determines their worth -- it's clear that people have agreed to unequal and disproportionate ownership of the earth. Through a tacit and voluntary consent, they've found a way for a person to legitimately possess more land than they can personally use the product of, by accepting gold and silver in exchange for the surplus. These metals can be hoarded without hurting anyone, since they don't spoil or decay in the hands of the person holding them.
This division of things into unequal private holdings is something people have made workable outside the bounds of organized society and without any formal agreement -- simply by placing a value on gold and silver and tacitly agreeing to use money. Within governments, of course, the laws regulate property rights, and land ownership is determined by the legal system.
And so, I think, it's very easy to see how labor could initially create a title of property in the common things of nature, and how using those things set the boundaries of that property. There was no reason for quarreling about title, and no uncertainty about how much you could rightfully claim. Right and convenience went hand in hand: a person had a right to everything they could invest their labor in, but they had no temptation to work for more than they could use. This left no room for disputes about title or for encroaching on the rights of others. The portion a person carved out for themselves was easy to see. And it was as useless as it was dishonest to carve out too much, or take more than you needed.
It might seem like a petty complaint, in a discussion like this, to pick on words and names that everybody has gotten used to. But it may not be a bad idea to suggest new ones when the old ones tend to lead people astray -- as the phrase "paternal power" probably has. It seems to place the power of parents over their children entirely in the father, as if the mother had no share in it. But if we consult either reason or scripture, we'll find that she has an equal claim. This gives us good reason to ask: shouldn't this really be called parental power? After all, whatever obligation nature and the act of bringing children into the world places on those children, it must bind them equally to both parents, since both are equally responsible for their existence. And sure enough, we see that God's law everywhere joins mother and father together without distinction when it commands children to obey: "Honor your father and your mother" (Exodus 20:12). "Whoever curses his father or his mother" (Leviticus 20:9). "Every one of you shall respect his mother and his father" (Leviticus 19:5). "Children, obey your parents" (Ephesians 6:1). That's the consistent message of both the Old and New Testaments.
If this one point had been properly considered -- without even looking any deeper into the matter -- it might have kept people from falling into the huge mistakes they've made about parental power. This power, however loosely it might bear the name of "absolute dominion" or "royal authority" when it was called "paternal power" and seemed to belong exclusively to the father, would have sounded pretty strange, and in the very name revealed the absurdity, if this supposed absolute power over children had been called "parental" instead. That would have revealed that it belonged to the mother too. And that doesn't work at all for those who argue so passionately for the absolute power and authority of "fatherhood," as they call it -- the idea that the mother should have any share in it would destroy their whole argument. It would have badly undermined the monarchy they're arguing for, when the very name showed that this supposedly fundamental authority -- from which they want to derive one-person rule -- was placed not in one person but in two, jointly. But let's move on from this issue of names.
Although I've said above, in Chapter 2, "that all people are by nature equal," I can't be taken to mean every kind of equality. Age or virtue may give some people a rightful claim to precedence. Exceptional ability and merit may raise others above the common level. Birth may oblige some people, and personal connections or favors may oblige others, to show respect to those whom nature, gratitude, or other considerations have made it appropriate. But all of this is perfectly consistent with the kind of equality I was talking about -- equality in terms of jurisdiction or authority over one another. That was the equality relevant to the subject at hand: the equal right that every person has to natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of anyone else.
Children, I'll admit, are not born in this state of equality, though they are born to it. Their parents have a kind of authority and jurisdiction over them when they come into the world, and for some time afterward. But it's only temporary. The bonds of this subjection are like the swaddling clothes children are wrapped up in and supported by during the helplessness of infancy. As they grow up, age and reason gradually loosen those bonds, until eventually they fall away entirely and leave a person free to manage their own affairs.
Adam was created as a fully developed man, his body and mind in complete possession of their strength and reason, and so he was capable from the very first moment of his existence to provide for his own survival and govern his actions according to the law of reason that God had planted in him. From Adam, the world was populated with his descendants, who are all born as infants -- weak, helpless, without knowledge or understanding. But to make up for this imperfect state until growth and age could remedy it, Adam and Eve, and all parents after them, were bound by the law of nature to preserve, nourish, and educate the children they had brought into the world -- not as their own handiwork, but as the handiwork of their Maker, the Almighty, to whom they would have to answer for them.
The law that governed Adam was the same law meant to govern all his descendants: the law of reason. But his children entered the world differently than he did -- through natural birth, which produced them ignorant and without the use of reason. So they weren't immediately subject to that law. After all, nobody can be bound by a law that hasn't been made known to them. And since this law is made known only through reason, anyone who hasn't yet developed the use of reason can't be said to be under it. Adam's children, not being immediately rational at birth, were not immediately free.
Here's the key insight: law, properly understood, is not so much a restriction on freedom as it is a guide for free, intelligent beings toward their own best interests. It goes no further than what serves the general good of everyone subject to it. If people could be happier without it, the law would vanish on its own as a useless thing. And something that only keeps us away from swamps and cliffs hardly deserves to be called "confinement." So however much people may misunderstand it, the purpose of law is not to abolish or restrict freedom, but to preserve and expand it. In every society of beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom. Because liberty means being free from the violence and restraint of others -- and that's impossible where there's no law. But freedom is not, as some would have it, "a license for everyone to do whatever they want." (After all, who could be free if every other person could push them around on a whim?) Rather, freedom is the liberty to arrange and manage your person, your actions, your possessions -- your entire property -- as you see fit, within the bounds of the laws you live under, without being subject to the arbitrary will of another person, but free to follow your own judgment.
The power that parents have over their children, then, comes from the duty they're obligated to fulfill: taking care of their children during the helpless state of childhood. Educating their minds and governing their actions during their ignorant early years, until reason can take over and relieve the parents of that responsibility -- that's what children need and what parents are required to provide. God gave human beings understanding to direct their actions, and along with it, freedom of will and liberty of action as the natural companion of that understanding, within the limits of whatever law they're subject to. But while a person is in a condition where they don't yet have understanding of their own to guide their will, they shouldn't have a will of their own to follow. Whoever understands on their behalf must also decide on their behalf -- must guide their will and regulate their actions. But when a child reaches the same condition that made their father a free person, the child becomes free too.
This principle holds under every kind of law, whether natural or civil. Is someone subject to the law of nature? What made them free under that law? What gave them the right to dispose of their property according to their own will, within that law's boundaries? The answer: reaching a state of maturity where they could reasonably be expected to know the law well enough to keep their actions within its bounds. Once they've reached that state, they're presumed to know how far the law should guide them and how far they can exercise their freedom, and so they come to have it. Until then, someone else must guide them -- someone who is presumed to know what the law permits. If reaching such a state of reason, such an age of judgment, made that person free, the same will make their child free in turn.
Is someone subject to the law of England? What made them free under that law -- that is, free to manage their actions and possessions according to their own will, within that law's permission? The capacity to understand that law, which the law itself assumes at the age of twenty-one, and in some cases sooner. If this is what freed the father, the same thing will free the child. Until that point, we see that the law gives the child no will of their own; they're to be guided by the will of their father or guardian, who understands on their behalf. And if the father dies without appointing a substitute to act in his place -- if he hasn't provided a guardian to look after his child during the child's minority, during their lack of understanding -- the law steps in to do it. Someone else must govern the child and serve as their will until they've reached a state of freedom and their understanding is fit to take charge of their own decisions. But after that, father and child are equally free, just as much as a tutor and student are after the student comes of age. They're equally subject to the same law, with no authority left in the father over the life, liberty, or property of the child -- whether they're in the state of nature under the law of nature, or under the established laws of a government.
But if, through some unusual circumstance outside the ordinary course of nature, someone never develops the degree of reason needed to understand the law and live within its rules, that person is never capable of being free. They're never released to the management of their own will (because they have no sense of its limits, no understanding to serve as its proper guide), but remain under the guardianship and governance of others for as long as their own understanding is unable to take on that responsibility. This is why people with severe intellectual disabilities or mental illness are never freed from the authority of their parents.
As the theologian Richard Hooker put it: "Children, who have not yet reached the years at which they may have the use of reason; innocents, who are excluded by a natural limitation from ever having it; and third, people who are mentally ill, who for the present cannot possibly have the use of right reason to guide themselves -- all of these have for their guide the reason that guides other people, who serve as guardians over them, to seek and provide for their good" (Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I, Section 7).
All of which amounts to nothing more than the duty that God and nature have placed on people, just as on other creatures, to care for their offspring until the young can fend for themselves. It will hardly serve as an example or proof of any royal authority belonging to parents.
So we are born free, just as we are born rational -- not that we actually exercise either right at birth. The age that brings one brings the other too. And this is how natural freedom and subjection to parents can exist together, both founded on the same principle. A child is free by their father's right, by their father's understanding, which is to govern the child until they develop their own. The freedom of an adult at the age of discretion and the subjection of a child to their parents while still short of that age are so consistent, and so easy to tell apart, that even the most blinded advocates of monarchy-by-fatherhood can't miss the difference. Even the most stubborn must admit they're compatible.
For even if their whole doctrine were true -- even if the rightful heir of Adam were now known and, by that title, established as monarch on his throne, invested with all the absolute, unlimited power that Sir Robert Filmer talks about -- if he died as soon as his heir was born, wouldn't the child, however free and however sovereign, still have to be subject to his mother and nurse, to tutors and governors, until age and education brought him reason and the ability to govern himself and others? The necessities of his life, the health of his body, and the education of his mind would require him to be directed by the will of others, not his own. And yet would anyone claim that this temporary restraint and subjection were inconsistent with, or destroyed, the liberty or sovereignty he had a right to? Or that it handed his empire over to those who managed his childhood? On the contrary -- this governance only prepared him for his future role, and prepared him better and sooner.
If anyone should ask me, "When is my son old enough to be free?" I'd answer: exactly when his monarch is old enough to govern. "But at what point," says the wise Hooker (Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I, Section 6), "a person may be said to have reached sufficient use of reason to be capable of following the laws they are then bound to live by -- this is much easier for common sense to recognize than for anyone to determine precisely through academic learning and skill."
Commonwealths themselves acknowledge that there is a time when people are to begin acting as free citizens, and until that time they don't require oaths of loyalty, allegiance, or any other public acknowledgment of, or submission to, their country's government.
The freedom of a person, then, and their liberty to act according to their own will, is grounded on their having reason -- reason that can instruct them in the law they must live by, and help them understand how much room they have for the exercise of their own free will. To turn someone loose into unrestricted liberty before they have reason to guide them isn't granting them the privilege of their natural freedom. It's throwing them out among wild animals and abandoning them to a condition as wretched, and as far beneath a human being's dignity, as the animals' own. This is what puts authority into the parents' hands to govern their children during their minority. God has made it their responsibility to devote this care to their children, and has placed in them the natural inclinations of tenderness and concern to temper this power and apply it, as his wisdom intended, for the children's good, for as long as they need to be under it.
But what possible reason could turn this parental care into an absolute, arbitrary dominion on the father's part? His power extends no further than using whatever approach he finds most effective to give his children's bodies strength and health, and their minds energy and good judgment, so as to make them as useful as possible to themselves and others. And if their circumstances require it, to have them work for their own living when they're able. But in this power, the mother shares equally with the father.
In fact, this power belongs so little to the father by any special natural right, and belongs to him only as guardian of his children, that when he abandons his care of them, he loses his power over them. That power goes hand in hand with their upbringing and education; it's inseparably attached to those things. And it belongs just as much to the foster-father of an abandoned child as to the biological father of another. So little power does the mere act of fathering give a man over his children -- if all his care ends there, and this is the only claim he has to the name and authority of a father.
And what happens to this "paternal power" in parts of the world where one woman has more than one husband at a time? Or in those parts of America where, when a husband and wife separate -- which happens frequently -- the children all go with the mother, follow her, and are entirely under her care and support? If the father dies while the children are young, don't they naturally owe the same obedience to their mother, during their minority, as they would to their father if he were alive? And would anyone claim that the mother has legislative power over her children? That she can make permanent rules that are binding forever, by which they must regulate all their property and have their liberty restricted for the rest of their lives? Or that she can enforce those rules with the death penalty? Because that is the proper power of a government official, and the father doesn't have even the shadow of it. His authority over his children is temporary and doesn't extend to their lives or property. It's merely an aid during the weakness and imperfection of their youth, a form of discipline necessary for their education.
And although a father may dispose of his own possessions as he pleases -- as long as his children aren't in danger of starving -- his power doesn't extend to their lives or possessions, whether acquired through their own hard work or through someone else's generosity. Nor does it extend to their liberty, once they've reached the age of discretion. At that point, the father's authority ends, and he can no more control the liberty of his grown child than that of any other person. It must be far from an absolute or permanent authority -- an authority a person can walk away from, having permission from divine authority itself to "leave father and mother, and be joined to his wife."
But although there comes a time when a child is as free from subjection to the will and command of a parent as the parent is free from subjection to anyone else -- and they are each under no restraint except what is common to them both, whether the law of nature or the municipal law of their country -- this freedom does not excuse a child from the honor that, by the law of God and nature, they owe their parents. God made parents the instruments of his great plan for continuing the human race, and the source of their children's life. Just as he placed on parents the obligation to nourish, protect, and raise their children, so he placed on children a permanent obligation to honor their parents. This means showing an inward respect and reverence through all outward expressions of it, and it binds the child never to do anything that might injure, insult, disturb, or endanger the happiness or life of those from whom they received their own existence. It commits them to every act of defense, relief, help, and comfort toward those through whom they came into being and were made capable of enjoying life at all. No political status, no degree of freedom, can release children from this obligation.
But this is a very different thing from giving parents a power of command over their children, or authority to make laws and control their lives and liberties as they see fit. It's one thing to owe honor, respect, gratitude, and help. It's quite another to owe absolute obedience and submission. The honor due to parents is something a king on his throne owes his mother -- and yet this doesn't diminish his authority or make him subject to her government.
The subjection of a minor gives the father a temporary form of governance, which ends when the child reaches adulthood. The honor due from a child gives the parents a permanent right to respect, reverence, support, and a degree of compliance as well -- more or less, depending on how much the father invested in care, expense, and kindness during the child's upbringing. This doesn't end with adulthood; it holds through every stage and condition of a person's life.
The failure to distinguish between these two types of power -- namely, the authority the father has as guardian during the child's minority, and the right to honor that lasts a lifetime -- has probably caused a large share of the confusion about this whole subject. For to speak accurately about them, the first is really more a right belonging to children and a duty owed by parents than any special prerogative of fatherly power. The raising and education of children is a responsibility so firmly placed on parents, for the children's own good, that nothing can excuse them from it. And although the power to give orders and administer discipline comes along with it, God has woven into human nature such tenderness for children that there's little danger of parents being too harsh. The problem is rarely too much severity; the strong pull of nature works the other way. And that's why God Almighty, when he wanted to describe his gentle treatment of the Israelites, told them that although he disciplined them, "he disciplined them as a man disciplines his son" (Deuteronomy 8:5) -- that is, with tenderness and affection, keeping them under no stricter discipline than what was absolutely best for them, and it would have been less kind to ease up. This is the power that children are commanded to obey, so that the effort and care of their parents is not made harder or badly repaid.
On the other side, honor and support -- everything that gratitude demands in return for the benefits received from parents -- is the absolute duty of the child and the rightful privilege of the parents. This is designed for the parents' benefit, just as the guardian role is designed for the child's. Although education, the parents' duty, seems to involve more power -- because children's ignorance and limitations during youth require restraint and correction, which looks like authority and a kind of rule -- the duty summed up in the word "honor" actually requires less active obedience, even though the obligation is stronger on grown children than on young ones. After all, who could seriously argue that the command "Children, obey your parents" requires a man who has his own children to show the same submission to his father as his own small children show to him? Or that this rule would require him to follow all his father's orders if the old man, out of some inflated sense of authority, were foolish enough to still treat him like a boy?
So the first part of parental power -- or rather parental duty -- which is education, belongs to the father in a way that has a natural expiration date. When education is complete, it ends on its own. And it can even be transferred before then: a man can place his son's upbringing in someone else's hands. If he's apprenticed his son to another person, he's released the son, for that period, from a large part of his obedience to both father and mother. But the duty of honor -- the other part -- remains in full force regardless. Nothing can cancel it. It's so inseparable from both parents that the father's authority cannot strip the mother of this right, and no one can release a child from the obligation to honor the mother who bore him.
But both of these are a far cry from the power to make laws and enforce them with penalties that can reach a person's property, liberty, physical well-being, and life. The power of command ends when the child grows up. And although honor and respect, support and defense, and whatever gratitude can oblige a person to give in return for the greatest benefits a human being is naturally capable of receiving -- all of this is always owed from a child to their parents -- still, none of it puts a scepter in the father's hand or gives him sovereign power to command. He has no authority over his child's property or actions, and no right to have his will dictate his child's decisions in all things. Though it may well be appropriate for a grown child, in many matters that don't cause serious inconvenience to themselves and their family, to show deference to a parent's wishes.
A person may owe honor and respect to an elder or wise individual; protection to their child or friend; relief and support to someone in distress; and gratitude to a benefactor -- to such a degree that everything they have and everything they can do isn't enough to repay it. But none of these obligations give anyone the authority or the right to make laws over the person who owes them. And it's clear that all of this is due not just to the bare title of "father" -- not only because, as I've said, it's owed to the mother too, but because the obligations to parents and the degree of what's required of children can vary depending on the different amounts of care and kindness, trouble and expense, that are often invested in one child more than another.
This shows how it happens that parents in organized societies, where they themselves are subjects, still retain power over their children and have as much right to their children's obedience as parents who are in the state of nature. This would be completely impossible if all political power were nothing but parental power, and if the two were really one and the same thing. If they were, then since all parental power would belong to the ruler, ordinary subjects who happened to be parents would naturally have none of it. But these two kinds of power -- political and parental -- are so completely distinct and separate, built on such different foundations and given for such different purposes, that every subject who is a parent has just as much parental power over their children as the ruler has over his. And every ruler who has parents owes them just as much respect and obedience as the lowliest of his subjects owes to theirs. Parental power therefore can't contain any part or degree of the kind of authority that a ruler or government official has over citizens.
Although the parents' obligation to raise their children and the children's obligation to honor their parents cover all the power and submission proper to this relationship, there's another kind of influence the father commonly has that gives him a hold on his children's obedience. While this power isn't unique to him -- other people have it too -- the occasions for exercising it come up almost exclusively within private families, and instances of it elsewhere are rare and less noticed. So it passes in people's minds as part of fatherly authority. This is the power people generally have to leave their estates to whomever pleases them most. The father's property is the children's expected inheritance, typically divided in certain proportions according to the law and custom of each country. Yet it's usually within the father's power to be more generous or more stingy, depending on how well each child's behavior has matched his wishes and expectations.
This is no small hold on the obedience of children. And since there's always a condition attached to the enjoyment of land -- namely, submission to the government of the country where that land is located -- it's been commonly assumed that a father could bind his descendants to whatever government he himself was subject to, and that his agreement held them to it. But in reality, this is only a condition attached to the land and to the inheritance of property that falls under that government. It only applies to those who choose to accept the inheritance on those terms, and so it's a voluntary submission, not a natural obligation or binding commitment.
Every person's children are, by nature, as free as that person -- or any of their ancestors -- ever was. While they remain in that freedom, they may choose whatever society they want to join, whatever commonwealth they want to live under. But if they want to enjoy the inheritance of their ancestors, they must accept it on the same terms their ancestors had it, and submit to all the conditions that come with that property.
Through this power, fathers do indeed bind their children to obedience, even after their children are past the age of minority, and most commonly subject them to one political authority or another as well. But neither of these effects comes from any special right of fatherhood. They come from the reward the father holds in his hands to encourage and compensate such compliance. It's no more power than what a Frenchman has over an Englishman who, hoping to inherit an estate the Frenchman will leave him, will certainly have a strong motive to please. And if, when the estate is left to him, the Englishman wants to enjoy it, he'll certainly have to accept it on whatever conditions are attached to land ownership in the country where it's located -- whether that's France or England.
To wrap up, then: although the father's power of command extends no further than his children's minority, and only to a degree appropriate for the guidance and governance of that age; and although the honor and respect -- and all that the ancient Romans called pietas -- which children owe their parents throughout their lives and in every circumstance, along with all the support and defense due to them, gives the father no power to govern them (that is, to make laws and impose penalties on his children); and although through all of this he has no authority over the property or actions of his grown children -- still, it's easy to see how, in the earliest ages of the world, and in places still where sparse populations allow families to spread out into unoccupied territory with room to move or settle in vacant land, the father of a family could naturally become its ruler. He had already been in charge since his children's infancy. And since living together without some form of government would be difficult, it was most natural that, by the express or unspoken consent of the children when they grew up, authority should remain with the father, where it seemed to simply continue without any real change. In reality, nothing more was required than allowing the father to exercise, within his family, the executive power of the law of nature that every free person naturally possesses, and by that permission, effectively granting him a monarchical authority for as long as they remained part of his household.
But the proof that this was not based on any parental right, but only on the consent of his children, is clear from this: nobody doubts that if a stranger -- someone whom chance or business brought to the family -- had killed one of the father's children, or committed any other crime, the father could condemn and punish that stranger just as readily as he could any of his own children. But he couldn't possibly do this by virtue of any paternal authority over someone who wasn't his child. He could only do it by virtue of the executive power of the law of nature, which he had a right to as a human being. And he alone exercised this power within his family because the respect of his children had set aside their own exercise of it, deferring to the dignity and authority they were willing to let him hold above the rest of the family.
So it was easy, and almost inevitable, for children to make way -- by an unspoken, barely avoidable consensus -- for the father's authority and governance. They had been accustomed since childhood to follow his direction and to bring their small disagreements to him for resolution. And when they became adults, who was better suited to lead them? Their modest possessions and limited ambitions rarely produced major disputes. And when a disagreement did arise, where could they find a better judge than the man who had raised and provided for every one of them, and who had a natural affection for them all? It's no wonder they drew no sharp line between childhood and full adulthood, or didn't look to age twenty-one or any other specific age that would make them independent managers of their own lives and fortunes, when they had no reason to want out from under their father's guidance. The governance they'd lived under as children continued to be more a protection than a restriction. They could find no greater security for their peace, liberties, and possessions than in the rule of a father.
And so the natural fathers of families, by a gradual and almost imperceptible change, became the political rulers of those families as well. Depending on whether they happened to live long and leave behind capable and worthy heirs over several generations, or not, they laid the foundations of hereditary or elective kingdoms, under various constitutions and customs, shaped by whatever chance, design, or circumstances happened to mold them.
But if rulers base their titles on their fathers' right, and if it's considered sufficient proof of the natural right of fathers to political authority just because they were commonly the ones found exercising government in practice -- then I say, if this argument works, it would prove just as strongly that all rulers, indeed only rulers, should be priests. After all, it's just as certain that in the beginning, "the father of the family was priest, as that he was ruler in his own household."
God made human beings the kind of creatures who, in God's own judgment, were not meant to be alone. He put us under powerful pressures -- necessity, convenience, and natural inclination -- to drive us into forming societies, and he equipped us with understanding and language so we could keep those societies going and enjoy them. The first society was between husband and wife, which led to the society between parents and children. Over time, the relationship between master and servant was added to the mix. And though all of these relationships might, and usually did, come together under one roof to form a single family -- where the head of the household had a certain kind of authority appropriate to a family -- each of these relationships, whether taken separately or all together, still fell short of political society. We will see why if we look at the different purposes, bonds, and limits of each one.
Marriage is a voluntary agreement between a man and a woman. Its primary purpose is procreation, and it involves certain shared rights over one another's bodies that serve that end. But it also brings with it mutual support and assistance, and a shared set of interests -- all of which are necessary not only to keep the couple's care and affection united, but also for the sake of their children, who have a right to be fed and cared for by their parents until they can take care of themselves.
The point of a man and woman coming together is not merely reproduction, but the continuation of the species. So the bond between male and female ought to last beyond the act of reproduction itself -- as long as it takes to nourish and support the young ones, who need to be provided for by the parents who brought them into the world until they can fend for themselves. This rule, which the infinitely wise Creator set for all his works, we can see the lower creatures follow faithfully. Among grass-eating mammals, the bond between male and female lasts no longer than mating itself, because the mother's milk is enough to nourish the young until they can graze on their own. The male just does the begetting and then has nothing more to do with the female or the offspring, since he has nothing to contribute to their survival. But among predators, the bond lasts longer, because the mother cannot easily support herself and feed a large litter by hunting alone -- a more difficult and dangerous way of making a living than grazing. The father's help is necessary to maintain their family, which cannot survive until the young can hunt for themselves without the joint effort of both parents. The same pattern holds for nearly all birds (except some domestic ones, where abundant food means the rooster doesn't need to help feed the chicks). Since baby birds need food brought to the nest, the parents stay together until the young can fly and provide for themselves.
And here, I think, lies the main -- if not the only -- reason why the human male and female are bound together longer than other creatures: namely, because a woman is capable of getting pregnant again, and usually does, long before the previous child has outgrown its dependence on its parents and can fend for itself. So the father, who has an obligation to care for the children he has brought into the world, is bound to stay in the marriage relationship with the same woman longer than other creatures. In other species, the young can take care of themselves before the next mating season rolls around, so the bond dissolves naturally, and the animals are free until the usual mating season calls them to choose new partners. Here you cannot help but admire the wisdom of the great Creator. Having given humans the ability to think ahead and save for the future, not just meet present needs, he has made it necessary for the bond between husband and wife to be more lasting than among other creatures -- so that their hard work might be encouraged and their interests better united, enabling them to provide and save up for their shared children. Casual mixing or easy and frequent breakups of the marital relationship would seriously undermine all of that.
But although these are bonds that make the marriage tie more firm and lasting in humans than in other species, it still raises a fair question: why shouldn't this agreement -- once procreation and education are taken care of, and inheritance is arranged for -- be terminable, either by mutual consent, or after a set period of time, or under certain conditions, just like any other voluntary agreement? There is nothing in the nature of the thing, nor in its purposes, that requires it always to be for life. I mean this for people who are not bound by any established law that requires all such contracts to be permanent.
Now, a husband and wife may share one common concern, but since they have different minds, they will inevitably sometimes have different desires too. Since someone has to have the final say -- that is, the tie-breaking vote -- it naturally falls to the husband as the abler and stronger partner. But this authority extends only to matters of their shared interest and property. It leaves the wife in full and free possession of whatever is hers by right under their agreement, and it gives the husband no more power over her life than she has over his. The husband's power is so far from that of an absolute monarch that the wife has the liberty to separate from him in many cases, where natural right or their contract allows it -- whether that contract was made by themselves in the state of nature, or established by the customs or laws of the country they live in. And when they do separate, the children go to the father or the mother as the terms of the contract determine.
All the purposes of marriage can be achieved under a political government just as well as in the state of nature. The government does not take away the rights or powers that either spouse naturally needs to fulfill those purposes -- namely, procreation and mutual support and assistance while they are together. Government only steps in to settle any disputes that might arise between husband and wife on these matters. If it were otherwise -- if absolute sovereignty and the power of life and death naturally belonged to the husband and were necessary for the marriage relationship -- then there could be no marriage in any country where the husband is not given such absolute authority. But since the purposes of marriage require no such power in the husband, the nature of marriage itself does not grant it to him, because it is simply not necessary for that relationship. Marriage can exist and fulfill its purposes without it. In fact, shared property, power over that property, mutual help and support, and everything else that belongs to marriage could all be adjusted and regulated by the contract that unites the couple, as long as it is consistent with having children and raising them until they can take care of themselves. Nothing is necessary to any society that is not necessary to the purposes for which it was formed.
The relationship between parents and children, and the distinct rights and powers belonging to each, I have already covered at length in the preceding chapter, so I do not need to say anything more about it here. And I think it is clear that it is very different from a political society.
"Master and servant" are terms as old as history itself, but they have been applied to people in very different situations. A free person makes himself a servant to another by selling his labor for a set period of time in exchange for wages. And though this usually puts him into the master's household and under its ordinary rules, it gives the master only a temporary power over him -- and no more than what is spelled out in the contract between them. But there is another kind of servant, whom we call by the special name of "slave." These are prisoners captured in a just war, who are by the right of nature subjected to the absolute control and arbitrary power of their masters. These people, as I have argued, have forfeited their lives, and with their lives, their freedom, and their possessions. Being in a state of slavery and incapable of owning property, they cannot be considered part of civil society at all, since the chief purpose of civil society is the preservation of property.
So let us consider the head of a household with all these relationships under his roof -- wife, children, servants, and slaves -- united under the domestic rule of a family. However much this arrangement may resemble a little commonwealth in its organization, roles, and even its numbers, it is actually very far from one, both in its structure, its power, and its purpose. And if you insist on calling it a monarchy, with the father as absolute monarch, then absolute monarchy turns out to have a pretty flimsy and limited kind of power. As I have already shown, the head of the family has a very distinct and differently limited authority -- both in terms of duration and scope -- over each of the different people in it. Setting aside the slave (and the family is just as much a family, and the father's power as head of household just as great, whether there are any slaves in it or not), the father has no power of life and death over any of them -- and even what power he does have, a mother heading a household could hold just as easily. He certainly cannot have absolute power over the whole family when he has only very limited power over each individual in it. But to see how a family, or any other group of people, differs from what is properly called political society, the best approach is to look at what political society itself actually consists of.
Every person, as I have shown, is born with a right to perfect freedom and the uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other person or group of people in the world. By nature, everyone has the power not only to preserve their property -- that is, their life, liberty, and possessions -- against the attacks and schemes of others, but also to judge and punish violations of the law of nature by others, with whatever punishment they believe the offense deserves, up to and including death for crimes whose severity, in their judgment, demands it. But no political society can exist or survive without having the power to preserve the property of its members and to punish offenses committed by those within the society. Therefore, political society exists -- and only exists -- where every member has given up their natural power and handed it over to the community in all cases that do not bar them from appealing for protection to the law the community has established. In this way, all private judgment by individual members is set aside. The community becomes the referee, operating through fixed standing rules that are impartial and the same for everyone. And through officials authorized by the community to enforce those rules, it settles all disputes that may arise among any of its members concerning matters of right, and it punishes offenses that any member commits against the society with whatever penalties the law has established. This makes it easy to tell who is and who is not part of a political society. Those who are united into one body and have a common established law and court system to appeal to, with the authority to settle disputes and punish offenders, are in civil society with one another. But those who have no such common authority to appeal to -- I mean here on earth -- are still in the state of nature, where each person is, in the absence of any other authority, judge and executioner for himself. And that, as I have shown before, is the pure state of nature.
And so the commonwealth gains the power to determine what punishment fits the various offenses it considers worthy of punishment among its members -- which is the power of making laws -- as well as the power to punish any harm done to any of its members by someone outside the society -- which is the power of war and peace. All of this is for the preservation of the property of every member of the society, as far as possible. But even though every person who has entered civil society and become a member of a commonwealth has thereby given up their power to punish offenses against the law of nature based on their own personal judgment, they have -- along with turning the judgment of offenses over to the legislature in all cases where they can appeal to a court -- also given the commonwealth the right to use their strength to enforce the commonwealth's judgments whenever called upon to do so. These are really their own judgments, since they are made by themselves or by their representatives. And here we find the origin of the legislative and executive powers of civil society. The legislative power is to judge by established laws how severely offenses within the commonwealth are to be punished. The executive power is to determine, through case-by-case judgments based on the actual circumstances, how to respond to threats from outside. And for both purposes, the commonwealth can call upon the combined strength of all its members when necessary.
Therefore, whenever any number of people are united into one society in such a way that each person gives up their personal power to enforce the law of nature and hands it over to the public, there -- and only there -- is a political or civil society. And this happens in one of two ways: either when a number of people in the state of nature come together to form one people, one body politic, under one supreme government; or when someone joins and incorporates themselves into a government already in existence. By doing either, a person authorizes the society -- or what amounts to the same thing, the legislature of that society -- to make laws for them as the public good requires, and they owe their own assistance in enforcing those laws to the degree that falls to them. This is what takes people out of the state of nature and into a commonwealth: setting up a judge on earth with the authority to settle all disputes and remedy all injuries that may happen to any member of the commonwealth. That judge is the legislature, or the officials it appoints. And wherever any number of people, however they may be associated, have no such decisive authority to appeal to, they are still in the state of nature.
From all this, it is clear that absolute monarchy -- which some people consider the only real form of government in the world -- is actually inconsistent with civil society, and therefore cannot be a form of civil government at all. The whole point of civil society is to avoid and remedy the problems of the state of nature, which inevitably arise when every person is judge in their own case, by setting up a recognized authority that every member of the society can appeal to for any injury suffered or dispute that arises, and that every member of the society ought to obey. Wherever there are people who have no such authority to appeal to for settling their differences, those people are still in the state of nature. And that includes every absolute prince in relation to those under his rule.
Since the absolute prince is assumed to hold all legislative and executive power in his own hands alone, there is no judge to be found, no appeal available to anyone, who might fairly, impartially, and with real authority decide the matter -- and from whose decision you could actually get relief and remedy for any harm or injustice suffered at the prince's hands or by his command. So such a man, whether you call him czar, grand sultan, or whatever you like, is as much in the state of nature with everyone under his rule as he is with the rest of humanity. Wherever any two people exist who have no established rule and no common judge to appeal to on earth for settling disputes about their rights, they are still in the state of nature and subject to all its problems. But there is one terrible difference for the subject -- or rather, the slave -- of an absolute prince. In the ordinary state of nature, a person has the freedom to judge their own rights and, to the best of their ability, to defend them. But under an absolute monarch, whenever your property is invaded by the will and command of the ruler, you not only have no appeal (as you would in a proper civil society), but -- as if you have been stripped of the basic dignity of a rational being -- you are denied even the freedom to judge or defend your own rights. And so you are exposed to all the misery and danger that anyone could fear from a person who exists in the unrestrained state of nature, yet is corrupted by flattery and armed with power.
Anyone who thinks absolute power purifies people's character and corrects the worst tendencies of human nature needs only to read the history of this age or any other to be convinced otherwise. The person who would have been arrogant and violent in the forests of America would probably not be much better on a throne, where learning and religion might be trotted out to justify everything he does to his subjects, and the sword would quickly silence anyone who dares to question it. If you want to see what protection absolute monarchy actually provides, what kind of "fathers of their countries" it makes princes, and what degree of happiness and security it delivers to civil society -- where this type of government has been perfected -- just look at the recent accounts from Ceylon.
In absolute monarchies, just like in other governments, subjects do have the right to appeal to laws and judges to settle disputes and restrain violence between themselves. Everyone agrees this is necessary, and anyone who tried to take it away would rightly be considered an enemy of society and humanity. But whether this comes from a genuine love of mankind and the kind of care we all owe one another, there is reason to doubt. It may be nothing more than what every person who loves their own power, profit, and prestige naturally does: keep those animals from hurting or destroying each other when they are laboring and toiling solely for the master's pleasure and advantage. They are taken care of not out of any love the master has for them, but out of love of himself and the profit they bring him. For if you ask what security, what protection there is in such a system against the violence and oppression of the absolute ruler -- well, the very question can hardly be tolerated. They are ready to tell you that merely asking about your safety deserves death. Between subject and subject, they will admit, there must be rules, laws, and judges for their mutual peace and security. But as for the ruler, he should be absolute and above all such arrangements -- because he has the power to do more harm and injustice, so it must be his right to do it. To ask how you can be protected against harm from the side where the strongest hand holds all the power is immediately branded the voice of rebellion and treason. It is as if when people left the state of nature and entered into society, they all agreed that every one of them except one person should be bound by laws -- but that one person should keep all the freedom of the state of nature, amplified by power and made reckless by the certainty of going unpunished. To believe this is to think that people are such fools that they take care to protect themselves from the damage that polecats and foxes might do, but are perfectly content -- no, actually feel safe -- to be devoured by lions.
But no matter what flatterers may say to muddle people's thinking, it does not stop people from feeling. And when they realize that some person, regardless of his rank, has placed himself outside the bounds of the civil society they belong to, and that they have no recourse on earth against any harm they may suffer from him, they tend to regard themselves as being in the state of nature in relation to that person -- and to take steps, as soon as they can, to secure the safety and protection that civil society was created to provide, and for which alone they entered into it. And so, though perhaps at first (as I will discuss more fully later in this work) some good and exceptional leader earned the trust and deference of the rest through his goodness and virtue, so that a kind of natural authority developed -- and the power to make decisions and settle disputes was handed to him by tacit consent, with no other safeguard than the confidence everyone had in his integrity and wisdom -- eventually, when time gave authority (and, as some would have us believe, sacredness) to customs that had innocently and carelessly begun in those early ages, successors of a very different character came along. The people, finding that their property was not safe under the government as it then stood (whereas government has no other purpose than the preservation of property), could never feel secure or at rest, nor believe they were truly in civil society, until the legislative power was placed in collective bodies -- call them a senate, a parliament, or whatever you like. Through this arrangement, every single person became equally subject, alongside the humblest members of society, to the laws that he himself, as part of the legislature, had helped establish. No one could use their own personal authority to escape the force of the law once it was made, and no one could claim any special privilege to excuse their own offenses or the offenses of those under them. "No person in civil society can be exempted from the laws of it." For if any person can do whatever they see fit, and there is no appeal on earth for remedy or protection against any harm they might do, I ask: is that person not still perfectly in the state of nature, and therefore no part or member of civil society at all? Unless someone is willing to claim that the state of nature and civil society are one and the same thing -- and I have never yet found anyone so great a champion of anarchy as to say that.
Since, as I've already established, all people are by nature free, equal, and independent, no one can be removed from this condition and subjected to another's political power without their own consent. The only way anyone gives up their natural liberty and takes on the obligations of civil society is by agreeing with other people to join together and form a community -- for the sake of comfortable, safe, and peaceful lives among one another, with secure enjoyment of their property and greater protection against outsiders. Any number of people can do this, because it doesn't harm the freedom of the rest -- those who don't join are left exactly where they were, in the liberty of the state of nature. When any group of people have consented to form one community or government, they are immediately incorporated into one body politic, in which the majority has the right to act and make decisions for the whole.
Here's why. When any number of people have, by the consent of every individual, formed a community, they've made that community into one body -- with the power to act as one body. And that power can only operate through the will and decision of the majority. After all, the only thing that drives any community is the consent of its members, and since it's necessary for one body to move in one direction, the body must move whichever way the greater force carries it -- which is the consent of the majority. Otherwise, it would be impossible for the community to act or continue as one body, one community, which is exactly what every individual agreed to when they consented to unite. So everyone is bound by that consent to accept the majority's decisions. And this is why we see that in assemblies authorized to act by specific laws, where no particular number is specified as a quorum, the majority's vote counts as the act of the whole and carries the decision -- since by the law of nature and reason, the majority has the power of the whole.
So every person, by consenting with others to form one body politic under one government, puts themselves under an obligation to every member of that society: to submit to the majority's decisions and be bound by them. Otherwise, the original agreement by which they incorporated into one society would mean nothing -- it would be no agreement at all -- if each person were left as free and unbound as they were before in the state of nature. What kind of agreement would that be? What new obligation would there be if no one were any more bound by the society's decisions than they personally felt like agreeing to? That would be exactly as much liberty as they had before the agreement -- or as anyone else still in the state of nature has, since such a person can submit to any acts of a community if they feel like it, and ignore the rest.
Because if the majority's consent cannot reasonably be accepted as the act of the whole and binding on every individual, then nothing short of every single person's consent could make anything the act of the whole. But getting unanimous consent is next to impossible. Just think about the health problems and business conflicts that, even in a group much smaller than a commonwealth, will inevitably keep many people away from the public assembly. Add to that the variety of opinions and the clash of interests that unavoidably arise in any gathering of people, and forming a society on such terms would be like the old story of Cato going to the theater just to walk right out again. A system like this would make even the mightiest Leviathan shorter-lived than the feeblest creature -- it wouldn't last beyond the day it was born. And we can't seriously believe that rational beings would deliberately create societies only to have them immediately fall apart. Where the majority can't make decisions for the rest, the group can't act as one body, and it will consequently dissolve right away.
Therefore, whenever people leave the state of nature and unite into a community, they must be understood to have given up to the majority all the power necessary to achieve the purposes for which they joined the society -- unless they've specifically agreed that decisions require some number greater than a simple majority. And this is done simply by agreeing to unite into one political society. That's the entire agreement that exists, or needs to exist, between the individuals who enter into or form a commonwealth. So what begins and actually constitutes any political society is nothing more than the consent of any number of free people capable of forming a majority, agreeing to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is the one and only thing that ever did, or ever could, give rise to any lawful government in the world.
I find two objections raised against this.
First: "There are no examples in recorded history of a group of independent, equal people who got together and set up a government this way."
Second: "It's impossible, as a matter of right, for people to do this, because all people are born under some government already, so they must submit to that government and aren't free to start a new one."
Here's my answer to the first objection. It's not the least bit surprising that history gives us very few accounts of people living together in the state of nature. The disadvantages of that condition, combined with people's natural desire for companionship, meant that as soon as any group came together, they immediately united and incorporated -- if they intended to stay together. And if we can't accept that people were ever in the state of nature just because we don't hear much about them in that condition, we might as well say that the armies of Shalmaneser or Xerxes were never children, because we hear nothing about them until they were grown men marching in armies. Government is everywhere older than written records. Writing rarely develops among a people until a long history of civil society has, through more basic and necessary skills, provided for their safety, comfort, and prosperity. Only then do they start looking into the history of their founders and digging into their origins -- by which time they've long since outlived the memory of how it all began. It's the same with commonwealths as with individual people: they're usually ignorant of their own births and early years, and if they know anything about their origins, they owe it to the accidental records that others happened to keep. And the records we do have about the beginnings of governments around the world -- except for the Jews, where God directly intervened (and which doesn't support the idea of paternal dominion at all) -- are all either clear examples of the kind of beginning I've described, or at least bear obvious traces of it.
You'd have to have a strange determination to deny clear facts, just because they don't fit your theory, if you refuse to admit that the beginnings of Rome and Venice came from the joining together of several people who were free and independent of one another, with no natural superiority or subordination among them. And if we can trust the word of Jose de Acosta, he tells us that in many parts of the Americas there was no government at all. "There are strong and obvious reasons to believe," he says, speaking of the people of Peru, "that for a long time they had neither kings nor commonwealths, but lived in groups, as people still do today in Florida, among the Cheriquanas, in Brazil, and in many other nations that have no established leaders. Instead, when the occasion calls for it -- in peace or war -- they choose their captains as they please" (Book I, Chapter 25). Now, if someone objects that every person there was born subject to their father or to the head of their family, I've already shown that the obedience a child owes a parent doesn't take away their freedom to join whatever political society they choose. But however that may be, these people were clearly actually free. Whatever superiority some political theorists today might want to assign to certain individuals among them, the people themselves claimed no such thing. They were all equal by consent until, by that same consent, they set rulers over themselves. So their political societies all began from voluntary unions and the mutual agreement of people freely choosing their governors and forms of government.
And I trust that the men who left Sparta with Palantus, as mentioned by Justin (Book III, Chapter 4), will be accepted as having been free people, independent of one another, who set up a government over themselves by their own consent. So there -- I've given several examples from history of free people in the state of nature who came together, incorporated, and started a commonwealth. And if the lack of such examples is supposed to prove that governments weren't and couldn't have been started this way, then I'd suggest the champions of paternal authority had better drop this line of argument rather than use it against natural liberty. Because if they can produce as many historical examples of governments founded on paternal right, I think -- though at best, an argument from "what has happened" to "what should happen" doesn't carry much force -- one could safely concede the point. But if I could give them some advice, they'd do well not to dig too deeply into the actual origins of governments as they've existed in practice. They might find, at the foundation of most of them, something very unfavorable to the theory they're promoting -- and a kind of power quite different from what they're arguing for.
But to wrap up this point: reason clearly supports our side -- that people are naturally free -- and the examples of history show that governments around the world, at least those that began peacefully, were founded on the consent of the people. So there's little room for doubt about where the right lies, or what has been the general opinion and practice of humankind when it comes to first establishing governments.
Now, I won't deny that if we look back as far as history can take us toward the origins of commonwealths, we'll generally find them governed by a single person. And I'm also inclined to believe that where a family was large enough to sustain itself and stayed together without mixing with others -- as often happens when there's plenty of land and few people -- government commonly started with the father. Here's why: by the law of nature, the father has the same right as anyone else to punish offenses against natural law however he sees fit. So he could punish his own children for wrongdoing even after they'd grown up and left childhood. And they were very likely to accept his punishment, and everyone would join him against the offender. In practice, this gave him the power to enforce his judgments against any wrongdoer, effectively making him the lawmaker and governor of everyone who stayed with the family. He was the natural person to trust with this role -- fatherly love meant he'd look after their property and interests. The habit of obeying him during childhood made it easier to submit to him than to anyone else. So if they had to have someone in charge -- and government is nearly impossible to avoid when people live together -- who better than the man who was their common father? Unless, of course, negligence, cruelty, or some other deficiency of mind or body made him unfit for the job. But when the father died and left behind an heir who, for lack of age, wisdom, courage, or other qualities, was less fit to rule -- or when several families met and agreed to form a community together -- there's no doubt they used their natural freedom to set up whoever they judged most capable and most likely to govern them well. Consistent with this, we find that the peoples of the Americas -- who lived beyond the reach of the conquering swords and expanding empires of Peru and Mexico, and so enjoyed their own natural freedom -- though they generally preferred the heir of their deceased leader, all other things being equal, would pass him over if they found him weak or incapable, and set up the strongest and bravest person as their ruler instead.
So even though we find, looking back through all the records of human history, that government was usually in the hands of one person, this doesn't undermine what I'm arguing: namely, that the origin of political society depends on the consent of individuals to join together and form one society. Once incorporated, they could set up whatever form of government they thought best. But because this pattern has led people to mistakenly assume that government is naturally monarchical and properly belongs to the father, it's worth pausing to consider why people in the beginning generally chose this form. Although the father's prominence may have given rise to one-person rule at the founding of some commonwealths and placed power in one hand at the start, it's clear that the reason government continued under a single ruler had nothing to do with respect for fatherly authority. Nearly all small monarchies -- which means almost all monarchies near their origin -- were commonly, or at least occasionally, elective.
So here's how it worked. First, in the earliest days, a father's governance of the children he'd raised had accustomed them to being ruled by one person. Experience taught them that when this rule was carried out with care, skill, affection, and love for those under it, it was enough to secure all the political happiness they were looking for in society. No wonder, then, that they naturally gravitated toward the form of government they'd been used to since childhood and that they'd found through experience to be both easy and safe. On top of that, monarchy is the simplest and most obvious form of government for people whose experience hadn't taught them about other systems, and whose lives hadn't yet given them reason to worry about the overreach of power or the dangers of unchecked authority -- things that hereditary monarchy tends to claim and impose. It's not surprising that they didn't bother much with thinking up ways to restrain the excesses of those to whom they'd given authority, or with balancing government power by distributing it among different hands. They hadn't experienced the oppression of tyrannical rule, and neither the customs of the age nor their possessions nor their way of life -- which provided little incentive for greed or ambition -- gave them any reason to fear or guard against it. So it's no wonder they adopted a form of government that was not only the simplest and most obvious, but also best suited to their current situation. What they needed most was defense against foreign invasions and attacks, not a complicated system of laws. Their simple, modest way of life, which kept their desires within the narrow limits of each person's small property, produced few disputes and therefore little need for many laws, or for a variety of officials to oversee legal proceedings or enforce justice -- since there were few offenses and few offenders. And since these were people who liked each other well enough to join into a society together, they must have had some familiarity, friendship, and trust among themselves. Naturally, they were more worried about outsiders than about each other. So their first concern was how to protect themselves against foreign threats. It made sense for them to adopt a system of government suited to that goal, and to choose the wisest and bravest person to lead them in war and command them against their enemies -- and in this role, primarily, to be their ruler.
This is why we see that the leaders of the Indigenous peoples in the Americas -- which still reflects the pattern of the earliest ages in Asia and Europe, when populations were small and the lack of people and money gave no one any incentive to expand their landholdings or fight for more territory -- are little more than generals of their armies. Although they command absolutely in war, at home and in peacetime they exercise very little authority and have only modest power. Decisions about peace and war are ordinarily made either by the people or by a council. Though war itself, which can't tolerate shared command, naturally concentrates authority in the leader alone.
We see the same pattern in Israel itself. The chief role of their judges, and their first kings, seems to have been serving as captains in war and leaders of their armies. Besides what is implied by the phrase "going out and in before the people" -- which meant marching out to war and leading the forces home again -- this is plain from the story of Jephthah. When the Ammonites made war on Israel, the Gileadites, in desperation, sent for Jephthah -- an illegitimate son of their family whom they had previously cast out -- and made a deal with him: if he would help them against the Ammonites, they'd make him their ruler. They did so in these words: "And the people made him head and captain over them" (Judges 11:11), which seems to have been the same as being judge. "And he judged Israel" (Judges 12:7) -- that is, he was their commander-in-chief -- "six years." Similarly, when Jotham reminded the Shechemites of their debt to Gideon, who had been their judge and ruler, he said: "He fought for you, and risked his life, and delivered you out of the hands of Midian" (Judges 9:17). Nothing is mentioned about Gideon except what he did as a military leader -- and that's all we find in his story, or in the stories of any of the other judges. Abimelech is even called "king," though at most he was just their general. And when the Israelites, fed up with the poor leadership of Samuel's sons, demanded a king "like all the nations, to judge them, and to go out before them, and to fight their battles" (1 Samuel 8:20), God granted their request and said to Samuel: "I will send you a man, and you shall anoint him to be captain over my people Israel, so that he may save my people out of the hands of the Philistines" (1 Samuel 9:16) -- as if the king's only job were to lead armies and fight in their defense. Accordingly, when Samuel inaugurated Saul by pouring a flask of oil on his head, he declared that "the Lord has anointed you to be captain over his inheritance" (1 Samuel 10:1). And those who, after Saul had been formally chosen and acclaimed king by the tribes at Mizpah, were still unwilling to accept him as king -- their only objection was this: "How shall this man save us?" (1 Samuel 10:27). As if they were saying: this man isn't fit to be our king because he doesn't have the military skill and leadership to defend us. And when God decided to transfer the kingship to David, it was in these words: "But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be captain over his people" (1 Samuel 13:14) -- as if the entire royal authority were nothing but being their general. Later, when the tribes that had supported Saul's family finally came to Hebron to submit to David, they told him, among other reasons for accepting him as king, that he had effectively been their king during Saul's time -- so they had every reason to formally accept him now. "Also," they said, "in the past, when Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them back. And the Lord said to you, 'You shall shepherd my people Israel, and you shall be a captain over Israel.'"
So whether a family gradually grew into a commonwealth -- with the father's authority passing to the eldest son, and everyone growing up under it, quietly accepting it, and no one objecting because it was fair and easy, until time seemed to confirm it and establish a right of succession by long practice -- or whether several families, brought together by chance, proximity, or shared interests, united into a society: in either case, the need for a military leader to defend them against enemies, combined with the great confidence that the innocence and honesty of that simple but virtuous age inspired -- the kind of age that characterizes nearly all the societies that grow into lasting governments -- led the first founders of commonwealths to generally place the rule in one person's hands, without any explicit limitations or restrictions beyond what the nature of the situation and the purpose of government required. Whichever of these paths first put rule into the hands of a single person, one thing is certain: no one was entrusted with power except for the public good and safety. And in the early days of commonwealths, those who held power generally used it for those ends. If they hadn't, young societies could never have survived. Without such devoted leaders -- like nurturing parents, tender and careful of the public welfare -- all governments would have collapsed under the weakness and fragility of their infancy, and ruler and people would have perished together.
But the golden age -- before vain ambition and a wicked lust for possession had corrupted people's minds and given them a false idea of true power and honor -- had more virtue and therefore better rulers, as well as less corrupt citizens. Back then, there was no overreach of authority on the rulers' side to oppress the people, and therefore no disputes about rights and privileges on the people's side to limit or restrain the power of their leaders. There was no conflict between rulers and ruled about government or governors. But when ambition and luxury in later ages led rulers to hold onto and expand their power without doing the work for which it was given -- and when flattery taught rulers to see their own interests as separate from their people's -- then people found it necessary to examine more carefully the origins and rightful limits of government, and to find ways to restrain the excesses and prevent the abuses of power that, having been entrusted to rulers solely for the people's benefit, was being used to harm them instead.
So we can see how natural it was that people who were originally free -- who either submitted to the governance of their father by consent, or came together from different families to form a government -- would generally place the rule in one person's hands and choose to live under a single leader, without even bothering to set explicit conditions limiting or regulating his power. They thought his honesty and good judgment were safeguard enough. But they never imagined monarchy to be divinely ordained. We never heard that idea from anyone in the whole history of humankind until it was "revealed" to us by the theological geniuses of this latest age. Nor did anyone ever consider fatherly power to be a right to political dominion or the foundation of all government. And this is enough to show that, as far as history gives us any evidence, we have reason to conclude that all peaceful beginnings of government have been founded on the consent of the people. I say "peaceful" because I'll have occasion elsewhere to discuss conquest, which some consider another way of founding governments.
The other objection I find raised against the origin of governments in the way I've described is this:
"Since all people are born under some government or another, it's impossible for any of them to ever be free and at liberty to join together and start a new one, or to establish a lawful government."
If this argument works, then I have to ask: how did so many lawful monarchies come into existence? Because if anyone, accepting this premise, can show me even one person in any period of history who was free to start a lawful monarchy, I'll commit to showing them ten other free people who were equally at liberty to unite and begin a new government -- whether a monarchy or any other form. Here's why: if any person born under someone else's rule can somehow be free enough to have the right to command others in a new and separate government, then by the same logic, every person born under someone else's rule can be equally free, and can become either a ruler or a subject of a new, distinct government. So by their own principle, either all people, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, are free -- or else there is only one lawful ruler and one lawful government in the entire world. And if that's the case, all they need to do is tell us which one it is. Once they do, I have no doubt the whole of humankind will happily agree to obey.
Now, it should be a sufficient answer to this objection just to show that it lands its proponents in the same difficulties it's supposed to create for their opponents. But I'll go a bit further to reveal the weakness of this argument.
"All people," they say, "are born under a government, and therefore they can't be free to start a new one. Everyone is born subject to their father or their prince, and is therefore under a permanent obligation of subjection and allegiance." But it's obvious that humanity has never acknowledged or accepted any such natural subjection -- whether to father or prince -- that bound them without their own consent to obey that person and their heirs.
After all, there's no more common pattern in history, both sacred and secular, than people withdrawing themselves and their obedience from the authority they were born under, leaving the family or community they grew up in, and setting up new governments elsewhere. This is where all those numerous small commonwealths in the early ages came from, and they kept multiplying as long as there was room enough. Eventually the stronger or luckier ones swallowed the weaker, and those great states in turn broke apart and dissolved into smaller ones. All of this is testimony against the idea of inherited fatherly sovereignty, and it plainly proves that it was not the father's natural right, descending to his heirs, that created governments in the first place. If it had been, there could never have been so many small kingdoms. There would have been only one universal monarchy -- unless people had the freedom to separate from their families and from whatever government existed there, and go off to create distinct commonwealths and governments as they saw fit.
This has been the way of the world from its very beginning right up to today. And being born under established, long-standing political systems with settled laws and fixed forms of government is no more a barrier to human freedom than being born in the woods among the unattached inhabitants who roam freely through them. Those who would have us believe that being born under a government automatically makes us its natural subjects -- with no claim to the freedom of the state of nature -- have no argument for this (aside from parental authority, which I've already addressed) other than the claim that our fathers or ancestors gave away their natural liberty and thereby bound themselves and all their descendants to permanent subjection to whatever government they submitted to. Now, it's true that whatever commitments or promises someone makes for themselves, they're bound by. But no one can, by any agreement whatsoever, bind their children or future descendants. A son, when grown, is every bit as free as his father. A father's decision can no more give away his son's liberty than it can give away anyone else's. A father may, however, attach conditions to land he holds as a subject of a commonwealth, conditions that would require his son to join that community if he wants to enjoy those possessions -- because the property was the father's, and he can dispose of it or set terms for it as he pleases.
And this is what has generally caused the confusion on this subject. Since commonwealths don't allow any part of their territory to be separated off or enjoyed by people outside their community, a son can't ordinarily inherit his father's property without accepting the same terms his father did -- by becoming a member of the society. This immediately puts him under the government he finds established there, just like any other subject of that commonwealth. And so "the consent of free people born under a government -- which is the only thing that makes them members of it" -- is given individually, one by one, as each person comes of age, not all at once in a group. Because of this, people don't notice it happening, and since they assume it either isn't happening or isn't necessary, they conclude that people are naturally subjects just as they are naturally human.
But it's clear that governments themselves understand it differently. They claim no power over a son based on any power they had over his father. They don't consider children to be their subjects just because the father was. If a subject of England has a child by an English woman in France, whose subject is that child? Not the King of England's -- the child would need permission to be admitted to the privileges of English citizenship. And not the King of France's -- because then how would the father have the freedom to take the child away and raise it however he pleases? And who has ever been condemned as a traitor or deserter for leaving or fighting against a country simply because they happened to be born there to parents who were foreigners? It's clear, then, both from the actual practice of governments and from the law of right reason, that a child is born a subject of no country or government. The child is under the father's care and authority until reaching the age of reason. Then they are a free person, at liberty to choose which government to join and which body politic to unite with. If an Englishman's son, born in France, has this freedom, then obviously there is no obligation on him from his father's being a subject of England, nor is he bound by any agreement made by his ancestors. And why shouldn't his own son have the same freedom, wherever he happens to be born? Since a father's natural authority over his children is the same regardless of where they're born, and the ties of natural obligation aren't bounded by the official borders of kingdoms and commonwealths.
Since every person is, as I've shown, naturally free, and nothing can place them under subjection to any earthly power except their own consent, we need to consider what counts as a sufficient declaration of consent to make someone subject to the laws of any government. There's a common distinction between express consent and tacit consent, both of which are relevant here. No one doubts that express consent -- someone explicitly agreeing to enter a society -- makes them a full member of that society, a subject of that government. The difficulty is figuring out what should count as tacit consent, and how far it extends -- that is, how far someone should be considered to have consented, and thereby submitted to a government, when they've said nothing about it at all. Here's what I say: every person who has any possessions or who enjoys any part of the territory of any government gives their tacit consent by doing so, and is obligated to obey the laws of that government for as long as they enjoy those benefits -- just as much as anyone else living under it. Whether their possession is land owned permanently by them and their heirs, or merely a rented room for a week, or even just the act of traveling freely along the highway -- in effect, the mere fact of being within the territory of a government is enough.
To understand this better, consider that when any person first joins a commonwealth, by uniting themselves to it they also hand over and subject to the community whatever possessions they have, or will later acquire, that don't already belong to some other government. It would be a flat contradiction for someone to enter a society designed to secure and regulate property, while expecting that their land -- whose ownership is to be governed by that society's laws -- should somehow be exempt from the authority of the very government to which they, the owner, are subject. So by the same act through which a person who was previously free unites themselves to a commonwealth, they also unite their previously free possessions to it. Both person and property become subject to the governance and authority of that commonwealth for as long as it exists. Therefore, whoever afterward comes to enjoy any part of that land -- whether through inheritance, purchase, permission, or any other means -- must accept it on the terms under which it stands: namely, that they submit to the government of the commonwealth that has jurisdiction over it, just as any other subject of it would.
But since the government has direct jurisdiction only over the land, and reaches the person occupying it (before they've formally incorporated themselves into the society) only insofar as they live on and enjoy it, the obligation that comes from such enjoyment to submit to the government begins and ends with the enjoyment itself. So whenever a person who has given nothing but tacit consent to the government decides to give up those possessions -- by gift, sale, or otherwise -- they are free to leave and join any other commonwealth, or to agree with others to start a new one, in any unoccupied part of the world they can find. By contrast, someone who has once given their actual, express consent to be a member of a commonwealth is permanently and absolutely bound to remain a subject of it, and can never return to the freedom of the state of nature -- unless some disaster causes the government they were under to be dissolved, or some official act cuts them off from being a member of it.
But merely obeying the laws of a country, living quietly, and enjoying its privileges and protections does not make someone a member of that society. It's only a matter of local protection and the reciprocal respect owed by and to all people who, not being in a state of war, come within the territory of any government -- everywhere that its laws extend. But this no more makes someone a permanent member and subject of that commonwealth than staying in someone's household for a while would make you a subject of that household's head -- even though, while you stayed there, you'd be expected to follow the house rules and respect the authority you found. This is why we see that foreigners, even if they live their entire lives under another government and enjoy its privileges and protections, and even though they are bound -- even in conscience -- to submit to its administration as much as any citizen, still don't thereby become subjects or members of that commonwealth. Nothing can make anyone a member except actually entering into the society through a positive commitment and an express promise and agreement. This is what I believe about the beginning of political societies and the consent that makes someone a member of any commonwealth.
If people living in the state of nature are as free as we've described -- absolute masters of their own persons and possessions, equal to the greatest among them, answerable to nobody -- then why would anyone give that up? Why would someone surrender their independence and submit to the authority and control of some other power?
The answer is pretty obvious. Even though a person has all these rights in the state of nature, actually enjoying them is deeply uncertain and constantly under threat from others. After all, everyone else is just as much a king as you are -- every person is your equal, and the majority of them aren't exactly strict followers of fairness and justice. So holding onto your property in this condition is very unsafe and very insecure. This is what makes people willing to leave behind a situation that, however free it may be, is full of fears and constant dangers. It makes perfect sense that someone would seek out and willingly join a society with others who have already united, or who want to unite, for the mutual protection of their lives, liberties, and possessions -- which I call by the general name "property."
The great and primary purpose, therefore, of people uniting into commonwealths and placing themselves under government, is the protection of their property. And in the state of nature, there are several things missing that make this protection impossible.
First, there is no established, settled, well-known law, accepted and recognized by common consent as the standard of right and wrong and the common measure for deciding all disputes. Now, the law of nature is perfectly clear and intelligible to all rational beings. But people are biased by self-interest and often ignorant of it because they haven't bothered to study it, so they tend not to accept it as a binding law when it applies to their own particular situations.
Second, in the state of nature there is no known and impartial judge with the authority to settle all disagreements according to established law. Since everyone in the state of nature is both judge and enforcer of the law of nature, and since people are biased in their own favor, passion and the desire for revenge are very likely to carry them too far and make them too harsh in their own cases -- while negligence and indifference make them too lenient when it comes to other people's.
Third, in the state of nature there often isn't enough power to back up a just verdict and carry it out properly. People who commit offenses will rarely hesitate, when they have the strength, to use force to defend their wrongdoing. This kind of resistance frequently makes punishment dangerous, and often fatal, for those who try to carry it out.
So despite all the privileges of the state of nature, people find themselves in a pretty bad situation as long as they stay in it, and they are quickly driven into forming societies. That's why we rarely find any group of people living together in the state of nature for very long. The problems they're exposed to -- from the irregular and unpredictable way that everyone exercises their individual power to punish those who break the rules -- drive them to take shelter under the established laws of government, seeking the protection of their property there.
This is what makes people so willing to give up their individual power of punishment, handing it over to be exercised only by whoever the community appoints for that purpose, and according to whatever rules the community -- or those the community has authorized -- agrees upon. And here we have the original basis for both the legislative and executive power, as well as for governments and societies themselves.
In the state of nature -- setting aside the liberty to enjoy innocent pleasures -- a person has two powers.
The first is the power to do whatever they see fit for the preservation of themselves and others, within the bounds of the law of nature. By this law, which is common to everyone, all of humanity forms one community, one society, distinct from all other creatures. And if it weren't for the corruption and wickedness of those who have gone wrong, there would be no need for anything else -- no reason for people to separate from this great and natural community and form smaller, distinct associations through formal agreements.
The other power a person has in the state of nature is the power to punish crimes committed against that law. Both of these powers are given up when someone joins what I might call a private or particular political society, incorporating themselves into a commonwealth that is separate from the rest of humanity.
The first power -- doing whatever they thought necessary for the preservation of themselves and the rest of humanity -- they give up to be regulated by laws made by the society, to the extent that preserving themselves and the rest of that society requires. These laws of society in many cases restrict the liberty they had under the law of nature.
Second, they completely give up the power of punishment. They commit their natural strength -- which they could previously use to enforce the law of nature on their own authority, however they saw fit -- to assisting the executive power of the society, as its laws require. This makes sense because, being now in a new situation where they get to enjoy many benefits from the labor, assistance, and companionship of others in the same community, as well as protection from its collective strength, they should also give up as much of their natural liberty in providing for themselves as the good, prosperity, and safety of the society requires. This is not only necessary but fair, since every other member of the society does the same.
But even though people, when they enter society, hand over the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature to the society, to be managed by the legislature as the good of the society requires -- they do so only with the intention of better preserving themselves, their liberty, and their property. After all, no rational person can be imagined to change their situation with the goal of ending up worse off. Therefore, the power of the society, or the legislature that the people establish, can never be assumed to extend any further than the common good. The government is obligated to secure everyone's property by addressing those three problems I mentioned above -- the ones that made the state of nature so unsafe and difficult.
And so, whoever holds the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth is required to govern by established, standing laws that have been publicly announced and are known to the people -- not by improvised decrees. They must govern through impartial and upright judges who decide disputes according to those laws. And they must use the force of the community at home only to enforce those laws, and abroad only to prevent or remedy foreign attacks and secure the community from invasion. All of this must be directed toward no other purpose than the peace, safety, and public good of the people.
132. As I've already shown, when people first come together to form a society, the majority holds all the power of the community. They can do whatever they want with that power, and the form of government they create depends on where they decide to place it.
If the majority keeps the supreme power for itself -- making laws for the community as needed and executing those laws through officials they appoint -- then you have a perfect democracy.
If they hand the power of making laws to a small group of select people, and to those people's heirs or successors, then you have an oligarchy.
If they hand it to a single person, then you have a monarchy. And there are two flavors of monarchy: if the power passes to that person's heirs, it's a hereditary monarchy; if the power belongs to that person for life only, and when they die the right to choose a successor returns to the people, it's an elective monarchy.
Using any combination of these, the community can create mixed or blended forms of government however they see fit. And if the legislature is originally given to one or more people only for their lifetimes, or for some other limited period, then the supreme power reverts back to the community when that time is up. Once it reverts, the people can place it in whatever hands they choose, creating an entirely new form of government.
Here's the key point: the form of government depends entirely on where the supreme power is placed -- and that supreme power is the legislature. (After all, it's impossible to imagine that a lower power could dictate to a higher one, or that anyone other than the supreme authority could make laws.) However the lawmaking power is arranged, that's the form the commonwealth takes.
133. One important clarification: throughout this work, when I say "commonwealth," I don't mean a democracy or any particular form of government. I mean any independent community -- what the Romans expressed with the word civitas. In our language, "commonwealth" is the best equivalent, and it captures the idea of such a society better than "community" or "city" does. After all, there can be smaller, subordinate communities within a government, and the word "city" in English carries a completely different meaning from "commonwealth."
So to avoid confusion, I've chosen to use the word "commonwealth" in the same sense that King James I used it, which I believe is its true and proper meaning. If anyone doesn't like this choice, I'm perfectly happy to swap it for a better word -- if they can come up with one.
The whole reason people join together into a society is to enjoy their property in peace and safety, and the main tool for achieving that is the system of laws established in that society. So the first and most fundamental positive law of every commonwealth is the creation of the legislature. And the first and most fundamental natural law -- which governs even the legislature itself -- is the preservation of society and, as far as is consistent with the public good, of every person in it.
This legislature is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth but sacred and unalterable once the community has placed it in certain hands. No decree from anyone else, no matter how it's worded or what force backs it up, can have the authority and binding power of law unless it comes from the legislature that the public has chosen and appointed. Without that, a law can't have what is absolutely necessary for it to be a law: the consent of the society. Nobody can have the power to make laws over people except through their own consent and through authority received from them.
And so all the obedience that anyone can be bound to pay, even by the most solemn commitments, ultimately traces back to this supreme power and is directed by the laws it enacts. No oath sworn to any foreign power, and no domestic subordinate authority, can release any member of society from obedience to the legislature acting within its trust. Nor can such oaths bind anyone to obey commands that contradict the laws the legislature has enacted, or that go further than those laws allow. It would be absurd to imagine that anyone could be ultimately bound to obey any power in society other than the supreme one.
Now, although the legislature -- whether placed in one person or many, whether it sits permanently or meets only periodically -- is the supreme power in every commonwealth, it still has limits.
First, the legislature is not, and cannot possibly be, absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the people. Here's why: the legislature's power is simply the combined power of every member of society, handed over to the person or assembly that makes the laws. And that combined power can't be greater than what those individuals had in the state of nature before they entered society and gave it up to the community. Nobody can transfer more power to another than they have themselves, and nobody has absolute arbitrary power over themselves or over anyone else -- not to destroy their own life, and not to take away the life or property of another person.
As I've already shown, a person cannot subject themselves to someone else's arbitrary power. And since in the state of nature no one had arbitrary power over the life, liberty, or possessions of another -- but only as much power as the law of nature gave them for preserving themselves and the rest of humanity -- that is all anyone does, or can, give up to the commonwealth, and through it to the legislature. So the legislature can have no more than this.
Their power, even at its absolute maximum, is limited to the public good of the society. It is a power that has no purpose other than preservation, and therefore can never have the right to destroy, enslave, or deliberately impoverish the people. The obligations of natural law don't disappear in society. In many cases they're actually drawn tighter, with human laws attaching known penalties to enforce them. Natural law stands as an eternal rule for all people -- legislators just as much as everyone else. The rules that legislators make for other people's actions must conform to the laws of nature, that is, to the will of God, of which natural law is a declaration. And since the fundamental law of nature is the preservation of humanity, no human law can be valid if it goes against that principle.
Second, the legislature, the supreme authority, cannot assume the power to rule by sudden, arbitrary decrees. Instead, it is bound to administer justice and decide the rights of the people through publicly announced, standing laws and through known, authorized judges.
Here's why: the law of nature is unwritten. It exists nowhere except in people's minds. People who, through passion or self-interest, misquote or misapply it can't easily be shown their mistake when there's no established judge to settle the matter. And so natural law on its own doesn't do what it should -- namely, settle disputes and protect people's property -- especially when everyone is the judge, interpreter, and enforcer of it in their own case. And the person who has justice on their side, typically having nothing but their own individual strength, doesn't have enough force to defend themselves against wrongs or to punish offenders.
To avoid these problems -- the ones that make property so insecure in the state of nature -- people unite into societies so they can have the combined strength of the whole community to protect and defend their property, and so they can have standing rules by which everyone knows what belongs to them. This is exactly why people give up all their natural power to the society they join, and why the community places the legislative power in whatever hands they see fit -- with this understanding: that they will be governed by clearly declared laws. Otherwise, their peace, security, and property would be just as uncertain as it was in the state of nature.
Absolute arbitrary power, or governing without settled standing laws -- neither of these is compatible with the purposes of society and government. People would not have given up the freedom of the state of nature and bound themselves to a government unless it was to preserve their lives, liberties, and fortunes, and to secure their peace and security through established rules of right and property.
It can't be assumed that they would ever intend -- even if they had the power to do so -- to give any one person, or group of people, absolute arbitrary power over their persons and estates, putting a weapon into a ruler's hand to wield unlimited power over them on a whim. That would be putting themselves in a worse condition than the state of nature, where at least they had the freedom to defend their rights against the attacks of others, and stood on equal footing to maintain those rights, whether threatened by a single person or by many acting together.
But suppose they did hand themselves over to the absolute arbitrary power and will of a legislator. In that case, they would have disarmed themselves and armed him to prey on them whenever he pleases. A person is in a far worse position when exposed to the arbitrary power of one person who commands 100,000 soldiers than when exposed to the arbitrary power of 100,000 separate individuals. After all, there's no guarantee that the will of the person commanding all that force is any better than anyone else's -- even though his power is 100,000 times stronger.
And therefore, whatever form the commonwealth takes, the ruling power ought to govern by declared and established laws, not by sudden commands and open-ended resolutions. Otherwise, humanity will be in a far worse condition than in the state of nature -- if they've armed one person or a few people with the combined power of the whole population, only to be forced to obey the excessive and unlimited whims of people's sudden thoughts and previously unknown desires, without any established standards to guide and justify their actions.
All the power the government has exists only for the good of society. It ought not to be arbitrary and exercised at will. Rather, it ought to be exercised through established and publicly announced laws -- so that people can know their duties and be safe and secure within the limits of the law, and so that rulers, too, are kept within their bounds, not tempted by the power in their hands to use it for purposes, and in ways, that they would not want publicly known and would not openly acknowledge.
Third, the supreme power cannot take any part of a person's property without their consent. Since the protection of property is the very purpose of government -- the reason people enter into society in the first place -- it necessarily follows that people must have property. Otherwise, we'd have to say that by entering society, they lost the very thing they entered society to protect. That's too absurd a conclusion for anyone to accept.
Since people in society do have property, they have such a right to the goods that the law of the community assigns to them that nobody has the right to take their possessions, or any part of them, without their own consent. Without that protection, they have no property at all -- because I truly have no property in something that another person can rightfully take from me whenever they please, against my will.
So it's a mistake to think that the supreme or legislative power of any commonwealth can do whatever it wants with people's estates, or take any part of them at will. This is less of a danger in governments where the legislature consists, wholly or partly, of assemblies whose membership changes -- where the members, once the assembly dissolves, become ordinary citizens subject to the common laws of their country just like everyone else. But in governments where the legislature is a permanent assembly that never dissolves, or where it's concentrated in a single person -- as in absolute monarchies -- there's always a danger that the rulers will come to see themselves as having interests separate from the rest of the community. And so they'll be inclined to increase their own wealth and power by taking whatever they like from the people. After all, a person's property is not at all secure -- even if there are good and fair laws setting the boundaries between them and their fellow citizens -- if the person who commands those citizens has the power to take whatever portion of their property they please and use it however they see fit.
But government -- regardless of who holds it -- is, as I've already shown, entrusted with this condition and for this purpose: that people might have and secure their property. The prince or the senate, however much power they may have to make laws regulating property among the citizens, can never have the power to seize the whole or any part of people's property without their consent. That would effectively leave them with no property at all.
And to see that even absolute power, where it is necessary, is not arbitrary just because it's absolute -- that it is still limited by reason and confined to the purposes that required it to be absolute in certain cases -- we need look no further than the ordinary practice of military discipline. The preservation of the army, and through it the preservation of the entire commonwealth, requires absolute obedience to the command of every superior officer. Disobeying or disputing even the most dangerous or unreasonable order is justly punishable by death.
And yet, consider this: the sergeant who can command a soldier to march straight into the mouth of a cannon, or to stand in a breach where he is almost certain to die, cannot command that soldier to hand over a single penny of his money. The general who can condemn a soldier to death for deserting his post or for refusing the most desperate order cannot, with all his absolute power of life and death, touch one cent of that soldier's estate or seize the smallest bit of his goods -- even though he can order him to do anything and hang him for the slightest disobedience. Why? Because that kind of blind obedience is necessary for the purpose for which the commander has his power -- namely, preserving the rest of the army. But disposing of the soldier's personal property has nothing to do with it.
Now, it's true that governments can't run without significant funding, and it's only fair that everyone who enjoys their share of the government's protection should pay their share toward maintaining it from their own estate. But this must still be done with their own consent -- that is, the consent of the majority, given either by the people themselves or by representatives they've chosen. If anyone claims the power to impose and collect taxes on the people by their own authority alone, without the people's consent, they are violating the fundamental law of property and undermining the very purpose of government. Because what property do I really have in something that someone else can rightfully take from me whenever they please?
Fourth, the legislature cannot transfer the power of making laws to anyone else. Since the legislature holds only a delegated power from the people, those who have it cannot hand it off to others. Only the people themselves can determine the form of the commonwealth, which they do by establishing the legislature and deciding in whose hands it will rest.
When the people have said, "We will submit to rules and be governed by laws made by these particular people, in this particular way," nobody else can come along and say that different people will make laws for them. The people can't be bound by any laws except those enacted by the representatives they've chosen and authorized to legislate for them. The power of the legislature, derived from the people through a positive, voluntary grant, can be no greater than what that grant conveyed. Since it conveyed only the power to make laws -- not the power to make new legislators -- the legislature has no authority to transfer its lawmaking power and place it in other hands.
These are the limits that the trust placed in them by society, and the law of God and nature, have set on the legislative power of every commonwealth, in every form of government.
First, they must govern by publicly announced, established laws -- laws that don't change to suit particular cases, but apply as one rule for rich and poor alike, for the court favorite and the farmer at the plow.
Second, these laws must be designed for no other ultimate purpose than the good of the people.
Third, they must not raise taxes on the people's property without the consent of the people, given by the people themselves or by their elected representatives. And this applies particularly to governments where the legislature sits permanently, or at least where the people haven't reserved any part of the legislative power to deputies chosen by themselves from time to time.
Fourth, the legislature must not -- and cannot -- transfer the power of making laws to anyone else, or place it anywhere other than where the people have put it.
143. The legislative power is the power that gets to decide how the force of the commonwealth will be used to protect the community and its members. But here's the thing: because the laws that need to be constantly enforced and permanently in effect can actually be written in a fairly short amount of time, there's no reason the legislature needs to be in session all the time. It simply doesn't have enough work to keep it permanently busy.
And there's another crucial reason to not let the legislature sit permanently. It would be far too great a temptation -- given the natural human tendency to grab at power -- for the same people who make the laws to also have the power to enforce them. If that happened, they could exempt themselves from obeying the very laws they write. They could tailor the law, both in its creation and in its enforcement, to serve their own private interests. Over time, they'd develop a set of interests completely separate from the rest of the community -- the exact opposite of what society and government are supposed to achieve.
That's why, in well-organized commonwealths -- where the good of the whole is given the attention it deserves -- the legislative power is placed in the hands of multiple people. These representatives assemble together and, by themselves or jointly with others, have the power to make laws. But once they've finished that work, they break up and go home. And now they themselves are subject to the laws they just made. This creates a powerful new incentive for them to make sure those laws actually serve the public good.
144. Now, even though laws can be made relatively quickly, once they're on the books, they have a constant and lasting force. They need ongoing enforcement and continuous attention. So it's necessary to have a power that's always active -- one that oversees the execution of the laws and keeps them in effect. And this is how the legislative and executive powers come to be separated.
145. There is yet another power in every commonwealth, one we might call natural, because it corresponds to the power every individual naturally had before they entered into society. Here's the logic: within a commonwealth, the members are distinct individuals in relation to each other and are governed by the laws of their society. But in relation to the rest of the world outside, they form one single body. As a community, they are still in the state of nature with respect to all the other nations and peoples on earth -- just as each individual was before they joined the commonwealth.
This is why disputes between a member of the society and people outside it are handled by the public as a whole. An injury done to one member of the body draws the entire community into seeking reparation. So when you look at it from this angle, the whole community is one body in the state of nature, relative to all other states or individuals outside of it.
146. This power, then, encompasses the power of war and peace, of forming leagues and alliances, and of conducting all transactions with any persons and communities outside the commonwealth. You could call it the "federative" power -- the power over foreign affairs and treaties -- if you like. Honestly, I don't care much about the name, as long as the concept is understood.
147. These two powers -- the executive and the federative -- are genuinely distinct from each other in nature. The executive power handles the enforcement of the domestic laws of the society, applying them to everyone within it. The federative power manages the security and interests of the public in its dealings with the outside world -- with all the nations and peoples that might help or harm it.
Yet in practice, these two powers are almost always united in the same hands. And while the federative power -- whether managed well or poorly -- is enormously important to the commonwealth, it is far less suited to being governed by pre-established, fixed laws than the executive power is. Laws that regulate how citizens deal with one another can be laid down in advance, since those situations are relatively predictable. But when it comes to dealings with foreign nations -- which depend heavily on the foreigners' own actions and their constantly shifting plans and interests -- much of the decision-making simply has to be left to the judgment and wisdom of whoever holds this power. They have to manage it using the best of their skill, for the benefit of the commonwealth.
148. Now, as I said, the executive and federative powers of every community are genuinely distinct in themselves. But they're extremely difficult to separate and place in the hands of different people at the same time. Both of them require the force of the society to carry out their functions, and it would be nearly impossible to put the commonwealth's force under two separate and independent commands. If the executive and the federative were controlled by different people who could act independently of each other, the public's force would be pulled in different directions -- and that, sooner or later, would be a recipe for disorder and ruin.
149. In a properly established commonwealth -- one that's standing on its own foundations and operating as it should, meaning it's working to preserve the community -- there can be only one supreme power: the legislature. Every other power must be subordinate to it.
But here's the crucial thing: the legislature itself only holds a fiduciary power -- a power held in trust -- to act for certain specific purposes. And because of this, the people always retain a supreme power to remove or alter the legislature whenever they find it acting against the trust placed in it. Here's why: all power that's given with a trust attached to it -- power granted to achieve a specific goal -- is limited by that goal. Whenever that goal is clearly being ignored or actively opposed, the trust is necessarily broken, and the power reverts back to the people who granted it in the first place. They can then place it wherever they think best for their safety and security.
So the community perpetually retains the ultimate power to save themselves from the schemes and designs of anyone -- even their own legislators -- whenever those legislators are foolish or wicked enough to plot against the liberties and property of the people. After all, no person and no society of people has the power to hand over their own preservation, or the means of preserving themselves, to the absolute will and arbitrary rule of someone else. Whenever anyone tries to force them into such a slavish condition, they will always have the right to protect what they have no power to give away, and to get rid of anyone who violates this fundamental, sacred, and unalterable law of self-preservation -- the very reason they entered into society in the first place.
In this sense, then, the community can be said to always be the supreme power. But not under any form of government -- because this ultimate power of the people can never come into play until the government has been dissolved.
150. In all cases, as long as the government is functioning, the legislature is the supreme power. Think about it: whatever can give laws to someone else must necessarily be superior to them. And the legislature is only the legislature of the society because it has the right to make laws for every part and every member of that society, prescribing rules for their actions and granting the power to enforce those rules when they're broken. So the legislature must be supreme, and every other power held by any member or branch of the society is derived from it and subordinate to it.
151. In some commonwealths, the legislature doesn't sit permanently, and the executive power is held by a single person who also has a share in the legislative process. In that setup, this single person can reasonably enough be called "supreme" too -- but not because they hold all the supreme power (which is lawmaking). Rather, it's because they hold the supreme executive authority, meaning all lower officials derive their power from them, or at least most of it. On top of that, there's no legislative authority above them, since no law can be made without their consent -- and you obviously can't expect that consent to put them under the control of the other part of the legislature. So in this sense, they are properly enough called supreme.
But notice something important: even though oaths of allegiance and loyalty are sworn to this person, they're sworn to them as the supreme executor of the law -- not as the supreme lawmaker. The law is made by the joint power of this person together with others. And allegiance is really nothing more than obedience to law. The moment this person violates the law, they have no right to obedience, because they can only claim it as the public figure invested with the power of law. In that role, they're really just the image, the representative, of the commonwealth, animated by the will of the society as declared in its laws. In this capacity, they have no personal will and no personal power -- only that of the law.
But when they abandon this role -- when they drop this public will and start acting on their own private agenda -- they degrade themselves. They become nothing more than a single private individual, without power and without legitimate authority. And no one owes obedience to them anymore, because the members of the society owe obedience only to the public will of that society.
152. When the executive power is placed in someone who does not have a share in the legislature, it's clearly subordinate and accountable to the legislature, and can be changed or removed at the legislature's pleasure. So it's not the supreme executive power as such that's exempt from subordination. What we're really talking about is the supreme executive power vested in a person who also has a share in the legislature -- someone who has no separate legislative superior to be subordinate and accountable to, except to the extent that they themselves choose to participate and consent. In practice, they're only as subordinate as they themselves think appropriate -- which, as you can probably guess, isn't going to be very much.
As for the other ministerial and subordinate powers in a commonwealth, we don't need to go into detail about them. There are so many, varying infinitely across different customs and constitutions in different commonwealths, that it's impossible to give a complete account of them all. The only thing we need to note for our present purposes is this: none of them have any authority whatsoever beyond what has been explicitly granted and delegated to them, and every one of them is accountable to some other power in the commonwealth.
153. It isn't necessary -- and it's not even advisable -- for the legislature to be in session all the time. But it is absolutely necessary for the executive power to be always active, because while there isn't always a need for new laws, there is always a need for the existing laws to be carried out.
When the legislature has handed the execution of its laws over to others, it retains the power to take that authority back whenever it sees fit, and to punish anyone for mismanaging the enforcement of those laws. The same goes for the federative power -- the power over foreign affairs. Both the executive and the federative are ministerial powers, subordinate to the legislature, which, as I've already shown, is the supreme power in a properly constituted commonwealth.
Now, I'm assuming here that the legislature consists of multiple people. (If it's a single person, it would naturally be in session all the time, and as the supreme power would naturally also hold the supreme executive power along with the legislative.) This body of people may assemble and exercise their legislative authority at whatever times their original constitution specifies, or at times they themselves set through adjournment, or whenever they please. If neither the constitution nor their own adjournment has set a specific time, and there's no other prescribed method for calling them together, the power to meet is always theirs -- because the supreme power was placed in them by the people, so it belongs to them permanently, and they may exercise it whenever they choose. The only limits are those set by their original constitution or by their own acts of adjournment. When the appointed time comes, they have every right to assemble and get back to work.
154. If the legislature -- or any part of it -- is made up of representatives chosen by the people for a limited time, after which they return to being ordinary citizens with no share in the legislature until they're chosen again, then the power to choose those representatives must also be exercised by the people. This happens either at regularly scheduled intervals or whenever they're called upon to do it.
In this second case, the power to convene the legislature is usually placed in the hands of the executive. And this arrangement comes with one of two limitations on timing: either the original constitution requires the legislature to assemble and act at certain fixed intervals -- in which case the executive simply handles the administrative work of issuing the directions for elections and assemblies according to the proper procedures. Or else it's left to the executive's judgment to call new elections when circumstances -- the needs and emergencies of the public -- require amending old laws, making new ones, or addressing or preventing problems that are affecting or threatening the people.
155. Now you might ask: what if the executive, having control of the military force of the commonwealth, uses that force to prevent the legislature from meeting and doing its job, when either the constitution or the public interest demands it?
My answer is this: using force against the people without authority, and contrary to the trust placed in the person who does it, is a state of war against the people. And the people have a right to restore their legislature to the exercise of its power. After all, the whole point of establishing a legislature was for it to exercise the power of making laws -- either at certain set times or whenever the need arises. When the legislature is blocked by force from doing what is essential to the society, what the safety and preservation of the people depends on, the people have a right to remove that obstacle by force.
In all situations and conditions, the true remedy for force used without authority is to meet force with force. Anyone who uses force without authority always puts themselves in a state of war as the aggressor and deserves to be treated accordingly.
156. The power to assemble and dismiss the legislature, when placed in the executive's hands, does not give the executive superiority over the legislature. It's a fiduciary trust -- placed in the executive for the safety of the people, in a situation where the unpredictability of human affairs makes a rigid, fixed schedule impractical.
Here's the thing: the original framers of the government couldn't possibly have had enough foresight to set exactly the right intervals for the legislature's meetings that would perfectly suit the needs of the commonwealth for all time to come. The best solution they could find for this problem was to entrust the scheduling to the judgment of someone who would always be present and whose job it was to watch over the public good.
Constant, frequent meetings of the legislature, and long sessions without real need, would be a burden to the people and would eventually produce serious problems. Yet events can move so quickly that the legislature's immediate involvement is sometimes urgently needed -- any delay in convening it could endanger the public. And sometimes the legislature's business is so substantial that their limited session time isn't enough to get the job done, robbing the public of the benefit that can only come from their careful deliberation.
So what could be done to protect the community from danger on either side -- the danger of fixed schedules that don't match changing circumstances? The answer: entrust the timing to the judgment of someone who is always present and who understands the current state of public affairs, so they can use this prerogative for the public good. And who better to hold this trust than the person already entrusted with executing the laws for the very same purpose?
So, assuming the timing of the legislature's sessions wasn't fixed by the original constitution, this power naturally fell to the executive -- not as an arbitrary power depending on personal whim, but as a trust to be exercised solely for the public welfare, as changing times and circumstances might require.
Whether fixed schedules for convening the legislature, or discretion left to the ruler, or some mixture of both has the fewest drawbacks -- that's not my business to settle here. I only want to show that even though the executive may have the prerogative to convene and dissolve the legislature, this doesn't make the executive superior to it.
157. Things in this world are in such constant flux that nothing stays the same for long. People, wealth, trade, and power all shift locations. Once-thriving, mighty cities crumble into ruins and become neglected, desolate backwaters, while obscure, empty places grow into populous regions bursting with wealth and people.
But things don't change evenly across the board, and private interests have a way of keeping old customs and privileges alive long after the reasons for them have vanished. So in governments where part of the legislature consists of representatives chosen by the people, it often happens over time that the system of representation becomes wildly unequal and completely out of proportion to what it was originally based on.
Want to see what absurdities can result from following custom after reason has abandoned it? Consider this: a place that is a town in name only -- where not even ruins remain, where you'd barely find a shack, let alone a house, and where the only inhabitant might be a lone shepherd -- sends just as many representatives to the great assembly of lawmakers as an entire county teeming with people and rich with resources.
Outsiders look at this in amazement, and everyone agrees it needs fixing. But most people think it's nearly impossible to fix, because the structure of the legislature is the original and supreme act of the society -- it comes before any ordinary laws, and it depends entirely on the people. No lesser power can change it. And since the people, once the legislature is established, have no power to act as long as the government stands (in the kind of government we've been discussing), this problem is considered to have no solution.
158. "The welfare of the people is the supreme law" -- this is certainly so just and fundamental a rule that anyone who sincerely follows it cannot go seriously wrong.
So if the executive, who has the power to convene the legislature, adjusts representation based on the true proportion of things rather than mere tradition -- rebalancing the number of representatives for each district based on actual contribution to the public good rather than outdated custom -- this can't be considered setting up a new legislature. It's restoring the old and true one, correcting the distortions that time has gradually and inevitably introduced. After all, it's in the interest and intention of the people to have fair and equal representation. Whoever brings them closest to that is an undeniable friend and supporter of the government, and can count on the consent and approval of the community.
Remember: prerogative is nothing more than a power in the hands of the ruler to provide for the public good in situations where unforeseen and unpredictable circumstances make rigid laws unsafe to follow. Whatever is done clearly for the good of the people and to establish the government on its true foundations is, and always will be, legitimate prerogative.
The very power to create new districts and new representatives assumes that the measures of representation will shift over time. Places that previously had no representation may come to deserve it, and by the same logic, places that once had it may shrink into insignificance and no longer merit the privilege. What undermines government isn't change from the current arrangement -- which may itself be the product of corruption or decay -- but rather any change that tends to harm or oppress the people, or to give one group an unfair advantage over the rest.
Whatever can honestly be recognized as beneficial to society and to the people in general, based on fair and lasting principles, will always justify itself. And whenever the people get to choose their representatives through undeniably fair and equal measures -- measures that fit the original design of the government -- it cannot be doubted that this is the will and act of the society, no matter who permitted or brought it about.
159. In any government where the legislative and executive powers are held by different people -- as they are in all well-designed monarchies and properly structured governments -- the good of society requires that certain things be left to the judgment of whoever holds executive power. Here's why: the legislators can't possibly foresee every situation and write laws to cover everything that might benefit the community. So the person who enforces the laws, having that power in hand, has a natural right to use it for the good of society in the many situations where existing law gives no guidance -- at least until the legislature can be convened to address the issue.
There are many things that the law simply cannot provide for, and those must necessarily be left to the discretion of the executive to handle as the public good requires. In fact, it's fitting that the laws themselves should sometimes give way to executive power -- or rather, to the fundamental law of nature and government: that all members of society should be preserved as far as possible.
After all, many situations can arise where strict, rigid enforcement of the law actually does harm. For example: imagine a house catches fire, and the only way to stop it from spreading is to tear down an innocent neighbor's house. A rigid reading of the law might prevent that. Or consider someone who technically falls within the reach of the law -- which doesn't distinguish between people -- but whose actions actually deserve a reward or a pardon, not punishment. In cases like these, it makes sense for the ruler to have the power to soften the severity of the law and pardon certain offenders. The whole point of government is to preserve everyone as much as possible, so even the guilty should be spared when punishing them wouldn't actually protect the innocent.
160. This power to act at one's own discretion for the public good -- without the law prescribing what to do, and sometimes even against the law -- is what we call prerogative.
Why does it exist? Because in some governments, the lawmaking body isn't always in session, and it's usually too large and too slow to handle the quick decisions that execution requires. And because it's impossible to foresee every situation and draft laws to cover every public need -- or to write laws that won't cause harm when rigidly enforced in every case and against every person they happen to catch. For all these reasons, the executive is given latitude to do many things by choice that the laws don't specifically prescribe.
161. As long as this power is used for the benefit of the community, and in keeping with the trust and purposes of government, it is genuine prerogative, and no one questions it. The people are rarely fussy or picky about this. They're far from scrutinizing prerogative when it's being used, to any reasonable degree, for the purpose it was intended -- namely, the good of the people, and not obviously against them.
But if a dispute arises between the executive and the people about whether something really counts as prerogative, the question is easily settled: just look at whether exercising this power tends to help or harm the people.
162. It's easy to see that in the early days of government, when commonwealths were barely larger than families, they didn't need many more laws than families either. The rulers were like fathers watching over their people for their good, so government was almost entirely prerogative. A few established laws were enough, and the ruler's good judgment and care covered everything else.
But when weak rulers, swayed by their own mistakes or by flattery, began using this power for their own private interests rather than for the public good, the people were forced to define prerogative through explicit laws in the areas where they found it was being abused. And so these declared limits on prerogative were made necessary by the people in situations that they and their ancestors had previously left completely open to the wisdom of rulers who used it properly -- that is, for the good of their people.
163. So anyone who says the people have "encroached" on the prerogative when they've gotten part of it defined by law has a very wrong understanding of government. By doing so, the people haven't taken from the ruler anything that rightfully belonged to him. They've simply declared that the power they originally left in his or his ancestors' hands -- to be used for their good -- was never intended to be his once he started using it for something else.
The whole purpose of government is the good of the community. So any changes made to government that serve that purpose cannot be an encroachment on anyone, since no one in government can have a right to pursue any other goal. The only real encroachments are those that harm or hinder the public good.
People who argue otherwise speak as if the ruler had his own separate interest, distinct from the good of the community -- as if he wasn't put there to serve it. And that assumption is the root cause of nearly all the evils and disorders that plague monarchies.
If that were really how things worked -- if the ruler's interests were separate from the people's -- then the people under his government wouldn't be a society of rational beings who came together for their mutual benefit. They wouldn't be people who set rulers over themselves to guard and promote their good. No, they'd be more like a herd of lesser creatures under the control of a master who keeps them and works them for his own pleasure or profit.
If people were really so lacking in reason, so brutish, as to enter society on those terms, then prerogative might indeed be what some people want it to be: an arbitrary power to do things that harm the people.
164. But since we can't assume that a rational being, when free, would voluntarily put himself under someone else's authority just to be harmed -- though where he finds a good and wise ruler, he may not think it necessary or useful to set precise boundaries on that ruler's power in every situation -- prerogative can be nothing more than this: the people allowing their rulers to do various things by their own judgment, where the law is silent or even against the letter of the law, for the public good -- and then accepting it when it's done that way.
A good ruler who keeps the trust placed in his hands and cares for the good of his people can never have too much prerogative -- that is, too much power to do good. But a weak or bad ruler who claims the same power his predecessors exercised without specific legal authority, treating it as a right that belongs to his office that he can use however he pleases -- to create or advance his own interests apart from the public interest -- that ruler gives the people every reason to claim their rights and limit a power that they were content to allow tacitly as long as it was used for their benefit.
165. And so if you look into the history of England, you'll find that prerogative was always broadest in the hands of the wisest and best rulers. The people, seeing that everything these rulers did was aimed at the public good, didn't challenge what was done without explicit legal authority, as long as it served that good. And even if some human weakness or occasional mistake appeared -- since rulers are only human, after all, made like everyone else -- as long as it was clear that the overall direction of their actions was nothing but the care of the public, the people were satisfied.
So whenever these rulers acted outside or even against the letter of the law, the people accepted it without the slightest complaint. They let these rulers expand their prerogative as much as they wanted, judging rightly that nothing was being done to undermine their laws, since these actions were in keeping with the foundation and purpose of all laws: the public good.
166. Rulers like these -- so wise and just they seemed almost godlike -- did indeed have some claim to broad executive power. Their example is the basis of the argument that absolute monarchy is the best form of government, since God himself governs the universe absolutely. These kings, the argument goes, shared in God's own wisdom and goodness.
And this is the basis of the famous saying: the reigns of good rulers have always been the most dangerous to the liberties of their people. Why? Because when their successors come along with different ideas about governing, they look back at what those good rulers did and try to turn it into precedent. They try to make the actions of those good rulers the standard for their own prerogative -- as if what was done solely for the good of the people gave them the right to do it for the harm of the people, if they felt like it.
This has often led to conflict, and sometimes to public upheaval, before the people could recover their original rights and get it officially declared that what was being claimed as prerogative never truly was prerogative at all. Because it's impossible for anyone in society to ever have a right to do the people harm.
At the same time, it's entirely possible and reasonable that the people wouldn't bother setting any limits on the prerogative of those rulers who never overstepped the bounds of the public good themselves. The bottom line: "Prerogative is nothing but the power of doing public good without a rule."
167. Take the power of calling parliaments in England, for example. The precise timing, location, and duration of parliamentary sessions is certainly a prerogative of the king. But it comes with a trust attached: it must be used for the good of the nation, as the demands of the times and the variety of circumstances require. Since it's impossible to predict which location will always be the best for assembly, or what the best timing will be, these choices were left to the executive power, to be made in whatever way best serves the public good and suits the purposes of parliament.
168. Now comes the old question that always gets asked about prerogative: "But who gets to judge whether this power is being used properly?"
My answer: when you have an executive power in place with such prerogative, and a legislature that depends on the executive's decision to convene it, there can be no judge on earth between them. Just as there can be no earthly judge between the legislature and the people, should either the executive or the legislature seize power and try to enslave or destroy the people.
In this situation, as in all cases where there is no judge on earth, the people have no other remedy than to appeal to heaven. When rulers make such attempts, they are exercising a power that the people never gave them -- since no one can ever be assumed to have consented to be ruled for their own destruction. What these rulers are doing, they have no right to do.
And whenever the body of the people, or any individual person, is deprived of their rights or subjected to the exercise of power without right, and there is no appeal on earth, then they have the liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause important enough.
So while the people may not be able to act as judges in the formal sense -- having no constitutionally established superior power to hand down a binding verdict -- they do have, by a law older and higher than any human legislation, the ultimate right to decide for themselves whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven. This right belongs to all of humanity wherever there is no appeal on earth.
And this judgment they can never give up. It is beyond anyone's power to submit so completely to another person as to give that person the freedom to destroy them. God and nature never allow anyone to abandon themselves so utterly as to neglect their own preservation. Since no one can take their own life, no one can give another person the power to take it either.
And don't think this lays a permanent foundation for chaos. This right doesn't kick in until the problem is so great that the majority feels it, is fed up with it, and sees the need to fix it.
But this is something the executive, or any wise ruler, never needs to worry about -- as long as they avoid it. And it is, of all things, the most important thing for them to avoid, because of all things, it is the most dangerous.
Though I've had reason to discuss these three types of power separately before, the major mistakes people have been making about government have largely come -- as I see it -- from confusing these distinct powers with one another. So it may be worth bringing them all together here for comparison.
First, paternal (or parental) power is simply the authority that parents have over their children, to govern them for the children's own good until they reach the age of reason -- a state of knowledge where they can be expected to understand the rules they're supposed to live by, whether that's the law of nature or the specific laws of their country. In other words, old enough to know these rules as well as any other free person living under them. The affection and tenderness that God has planted in the hearts of parents toward their children makes it obvious that this power was never meant to be a harsh, arbitrary form of government. It's only meant for the help, instruction, and protection of their offspring. But however that plays out in practice, there is -- as I've already proven -- no reason to think parental authority ever extends to power over life and death, not at any point, and not any more over their own children than over anyone else. Nor is there any basis for claiming that this parental power should keep a grown adult in subjection to their parents' will beyond this: having received life and education from them, a person is obligated to show respect, honor, gratitude, help, and support to both father and mother for the rest of their life. And so, yes, parental authority is a natural form of governance -- but it doesn't come anywhere close to the scope and jurisdiction of political power. A father's authority doesn't extend to the child's property at all, which belongs entirely to the child to manage as they see fit.
Second, political power is the power that every person has in the state of nature, which they have handed over to their society -- and through it, to the governors that the society has placed over itself -- with the express or implied understanding that it will be used for their benefit and the protection of their property. Now, this power that every person has in the state of nature, and which they give up to the society in all cases where the society can protect them, is twofold: the power to use whatever means they think best, as nature allows, for preserving their own property; and the power to punish violations of the law of nature in others, in whatever way their best judgment says will be most effective for preserving themselves and the rest of humanity. So the purpose and measure of this power, when it sits in every individual's hands in the state of nature, is the preservation of all their society -- that is, all of humanity in general. It follows that this power can have no other purpose or measure when it sits in the hands of a government official. Its only legitimate use is to preserve the members of that society in their lives, liberties, and possessions. Therefore, it cannot be an absolute, arbitrary power over people's lives and fortunes, which are to be preserved as far as possible. Instead, it is a power to make laws and attach penalties to them that serve the preservation of the whole -- by cutting off those parts, and only those parts, that are so corrupt they threaten what is healthy and sound. Without that justification, no severity is lawful. And this power has its origin solely in agreement and contract, and the mutual consent of those who make up the community.
Third, despotical power is an absolute, arbitrary power one person has over another, to take their life whenever they please. This is a power that neither nature gives -- since nature has made no such distinction between one person and another -- nor can any agreement convey. After all, since no one has that kind of arbitrary power over their own life, they can't give another person such power over it either. This power is solely the result of a forfeiture that an aggressor brings upon themselves when they put themselves into a state of war with another person. By abandoning reason -- which God gave as the rule governing relations between people and the common bond that unites all of humanity into one fellowship and society -- and by rejecting the way of peace that reason teaches, and instead resorting to the force of war to pursue unjust goals against someone they have no right over, the aggressor effectively defects from their own species and joins the beasts, making force (which is the animals' way) their rule of right. In doing so, they make themselves liable to be destroyed by the person they've wronged -- and by the rest of humanity who will join in carrying out justice -- just like any other wild beast or dangerous predator that humans can have neither society nor safety with. And so captives taken in a just and lawful war -- and only such captives -- are subject to despotical power. This power doesn't arise from any agreement, and it's not capable of any agreement either. It's simply the state of war continued. After all, what kind of agreement can you make with someone who isn't master of their own life? What conditions can they fulfill? And if you do grant them mastery over their own life again, the arbitrary despotical power of their master immediately ceases. Anyone who is master of themselves and their own life has a right to the means of preserving it. So the moment an agreement enters the picture, slavery ends. The person who agrees to conditions with their captive gives up their absolute power to that extent, and puts an end to the state of war.
Nature gives the first of these -- parental power -- to parents for the benefit of their children during their youth, to make up for their lack of ability and understanding in managing their property. (And by "property," as I've said throughout this work, I mean the property that people have in their persons as well as their goods.) Voluntary agreement gives the second -- political power -- to governors for the benefit of their subjects, to secure them in the possession and use of their properties. And forfeiture gives the third -- despotical power -- to lords, for the lords' own benefit, over those who have been stripped of all property.
Anyone who considers the different origins, different extents, and different purposes of these three powers will clearly see that parental power falls as far short of political power as despotical power exceeds it. Absolute dominion, no matter where it's placed, is so far from being one type of civil society that it's as incompatible with it as slavery is with property. Parental power exists only where a child's youth makes them incapable of managing their own property. Political power exists where people have property under their own control. And despotical power exists over those who have no property at all.
175. Even though legitimate governments can only originate in the way I've described -- based on nothing but the consent of the people -- the reality is that ambition has filled the world with so much chaos that war dominates a huge portion of human history. And in all that noise and violence, the need for consent tends to get drowned out. As a result, many people have confused military force with the consent of the people, treating conquest as a legitimate way to found a government.
But conquest is about as far from establishing a government as demolishing a house is from building a new one in its place. Sure, conquest often clears the way for a new commonwealth by destroying the old one. But without the consent of the people, it can never create a new one.
176. Now, pretty much everyone will agree that an aggressor -- someone who starts an unjust war and invades another person's rights -- can never gain legitimate authority over the people he conquers through that unjust war. After all, we don't normally think that robbers and pirates earn the right to rule over anyone they're strong enough to overpower, or that people are bound by promises that were forced out of them at knifepoint.
Suppose a robber breaks into my house, holds a dagger to my throat, and forces me to sign over my property to him. Would that give him a legitimate title to my estate? Of course not. And that's exactly the kind of "title" an unjust conqueror earns when he forces people into submission with his sword.
The injury and the crime are the same whether they're committed by someone wearing a crown or by some small-time thug. The offender's title and the number of his followers don't make the offense any less wrong -- if anything, they make it worse. The only difference is that powerful robbers punish petty ones to keep them in line, while the powerful ones themselves get rewarded with parades and victory celebrations -- because they're too powerful for the weak hands of justice in this world to punish, since they control the very power that's supposed to hold criminals accountable.
What's my remedy against a robber who broke into my house? Appeal to the law for justice. But what if justice is denied? What if I'm injured and can't even get up, or I've been robbed and don't have the means to pursue my case? If God has taken away every means of seeking a remedy, then all that's left is patience. But my son, when he's able, can seek the legal relief that I was denied. He, or his son after him, can keep renewing the appeal until he recovers his right.
In the same way, the conquered -- or their children -- have no court, no arbitrator on earth to appeal to. So they may appeal to heaven, as Jephthah did, and repeat their appeal until they've recovered the natural right of their ancestors: the right to have a legislature that the majority approves of and freely accepts.
If someone objects that this would cause endless trouble, I answer: no more trouble than justice causes anywhere else it's available to those who seek it. A person who bothers his neighbor without good reason gets punished by the very court he appeals to. And anyone who appeals to heaven had better make sure he has right on his side -- and a right worth the trouble and cost of the appeal -- because he'll answer to a tribunal that can't be deceived and that will surely repay everyone according to the harm they've caused to their fellow human beings (that is, to any part of mankind). From all this, it's clear that someone who conquers in an unjust war can never gain any legitimate claim to the obedience and submission of the conquered.
177. But suppose victory goes to the side that's actually in the right. Let's look at a conqueror in a lawful war and see what power he actually gets, and over whom.
178. First, it's obvious that he gets no power over those who fought on his side. The people who helped him conquer can't be made to suffer because of the victory -- they have to be at least as free as they were before. And most of the time, soldiers serve on certain terms and conditions, expecting to share in the spoils and other advantages that come with victory, or at least to receive a portion of the conquered territory.
I would certainly hope that the conquering people aren't meant to become slaves as a result of their own victory -- wearing their laurels only to show they're sacrifices to their leader's triumph!
The people who build their case for absolute monarchy on the right of the sword turn their founding heroes into complete tyrants. They seem to forget that these heroes had officers and soldiers who fought alongside them in battle, helped them conquer territories, and shared in the occupation of the lands they won. We're told by some that the English monarchy was founded on the Norman Conquest, and that our kings therefore have a claim to absolute power. But even if this were true (and history actually shows otherwise), and even if William had a legitimate right to wage war on this island, his authority by conquest would only extend to the Saxons and Britons who were living in England at the time. The Normans who came with him and helped him conquer -- and all their descendants -- are free people, not subjects by conquest, no matter how much authority you think conquest grants.
And if I, or anyone else, were to claim freedom as a descendant of those Normans, it would be very hard to prove otherwise. Besides, the law itself makes no distinction between descendants of Normans and descendants of Saxons, which shows that there's meant to be no difference in their freedom or privileges.
179. But let's suppose -- though this rarely happens -- that the conquerors and the conquered never merge into a single people under the same laws and freedoms. In that case, let's look at what power a lawful conqueror actually has over the people he's defeated.
I say that power is purely despotic. He has absolute power over the lives of those who, by waging an unjust war, have forfeited them. But he does not have power over the lives or fortunes of people who weren't involved in the war, nor even over the possessions of those who were.
180. Second, the conqueror gains power only over those who actually helped, participated in, or consented to the unjust force used against him. Here's why: the people of the defeated nation never gave their government the power to wage an unjust war -- because they never had that power themselves. So they shouldn't be held guilty of the violence and injustice committed in an unjust war, except to the extent that they actually supported it. This is no different from saying they shouldn't be held responsible for any violence or oppression that their government might commit against its own citizens or against other parts of the population -- since the people never authorized their government to do either of those things.
Now, it's true that conquerors rarely bother to make this distinction in practice. They're happy to let the chaos of war sweep everyone together. But that doesn't change what's right. The conqueror's power over the lives of the conquered exists only because those people used force to commit or uphold an injustice. So he can only hold that power over those who actually participated in that force. Everyone else is innocent. The conqueror has no more claim over people in the defeated country who did him no wrong -- and who therefore haven't forfeited their lives -- than he has over any random stranger who was living peacefully and never did him any harm.
181. Third, the power a conqueror gains over those he defeats in a just war is entirely despotic. He has absolute power over the lives of people who, by putting themselves in a state of war, have forfeited those lives. But that doesn't give him a right or title to their possessions.
I know this will seem like a strange argument at first glance, because it goes completely against what happens in the real world. After all, nothing is more common, when talking about who controls various countries, than to say "so-and-so conquered it" -- as if conquest automatically came with a right of ownership. But when we think about it, the practices of the strong and powerful, no matter how widespread, are rarely the standard of what's right -- even if part of what it means to be conquered is that you're not really in a position to argue against the terms the winning side dictates to you.
182. It's true that in any war, there's usually a combination of force and property damage. The aggressor rarely limits himself to attacking people -- he also attacks their property. But it's specifically the use of force that puts someone in a state of war. Whether someone starts with force and then causes injury, or first causes injury quietly through fraud and then uses force to avoid making things right (which amounts to the same thing as using force from the start), it's the unjust use of force that makes it a war.
Think of it this way: someone who breaks into my house and violently throws me out is doing essentially the same thing as someone who gets inside peacefully and then uses force to keep me out. (I'm speaking here of situations where there's no common judge on earth that we can both appeal to and are both obligated to obey.)
So it's the unjust use of force that puts someone in a state of war with another person. And whoever is guilty of it forfeits his life. By abandoning reason -- the rule that's supposed to govern interactions between people -- and resorting to force -- the way of animals -- he becomes as liable to be destroyed as any dangerous, savage beast that threatens someone's survival.
183. But the father's wrongdoing is not the children's fault. The children can be perfectly rational and peaceful despite their father's brutality and injustice. A father can forfeit his own life through his violence and crimes, but he can't drag his children into his guilt or his destruction.
His property -- which nature, in its desire to preserve all of mankind as much as possible, has designated for his children to keep them from starving -- still belongs to those children. Assuming the children didn't join in the war (whether because they were too young, were somewhere else, or simply chose not to), they've done nothing to forfeit their inheritance. The conqueror has no right to take their property away simply because he defeated the father who had tried to destroy him by force -- although he may have some right to use their property to repair the damages he suffered in the war and in defending his own rights. (I'll address how far that right extends shortly.)
So here's the key point: a conqueror who has the right to destroy a defeated enemy if he chooses does not thereby have the right to seize and enjoy that person's property. It's the aggressor's use of brutal force that gives the other side the right to take his life and destroy him like a dangerous predator. But it's only the actual damage sustained that gives anyone a claim to another person's property.
Here's an analogy: I may legally kill a thief who attacks me on the highway. But I may not -- even though it seems like a lesser offense -- take his money and let him go. That would be robbery on my part. His use of force and the state of war he created justified taking his life, but it didn't give me title to his property.
So the right of conquest extends only to the lives of those who joined in the war -- not to their property, except to the extent needed to cover reparations for damages suffered and the costs of the war. And even that comes with the reservation of the rights of the innocent wife and children.
184. Let's give the conqueror every possible benefit of the doubt. Even so, he has no right to seize more than the defeated person could legitimately forfeit. The defeated person's life is at the victor's mercy, and the conqueror can claim his labor and goods as reparation. But he cannot take the property of the defeated person's wife and children. They had their own claim to the property he possessed, and they had their own share of the family estate.
Here's a concrete example: Suppose I'm in the state of nature (and remember, all commonwealths exist in a state of nature relative to one another). I injure another person and refuse to make it right. The situation escalates to a state of war, and my attempt to defend by force what I wrongfully took makes me the aggressor. I'm conquered. My life is forfeit and at the mercy of the conqueror -- that much is true. But my wife's life and my children's lives are not. They didn't wage the war, and they didn't help in it. I couldn't forfeit their lives because their lives were never mine to forfeit. My wife had a share in my property, and I couldn't forfeit what belonged to her. And my children, born to me, had a right to be supported from my labor or my estate.
So here's the situation: the conqueror has a claim to reparation for the damages he suffered, and the children have a claim to their father's estate for their survival. As for the wife's share -- whether she earned it through her own labor or through a marriage agreement -- it's clear her husband couldn't forfeit what was rightfully hers.
What happens when these claims conflict? My answer is this: the fundamental law of nature requires that everyone be preserved as far as possible. So if there isn't enough to fully satisfy both claims -- the conqueror's losses and the children's survival -- then the one who has more than enough must give up some of his full compensation and yield to the more pressing and more important claim of those who would die without it.
185. But let's suppose the conqueror's war costs and damages are to be repaid down to the last penny, and that the children of the defeated, stripped of everything their father owned, are left to starve and die. Even then, the amount owed to the conqueror will rarely give him a claim to any entire country he conquers.
Here's why: the damages of war can hardly amount to the value of a significant piece of land in any part of the world where all the land is already claimed and none lies empty. If I haven't seized the conqueror's land (which is impossible if I'm the one who lost), then hardly any other damage I've done him could equal the value of my own land -- assuming it's similarly developed and roughly comparable in size. The most damage typically inflicted is the destruction of a year or two of crops (it rarely reaches four or five years' worth). As for money and other treasure seized -- these aren't natural goods at all. They only have an imaginary, made-up value. Nature assigns them no inherent worth. By nature's standard, they're worth no more than the wampum of the Indigenous Americans would be to a European prince, or than European silver coins would have been to an Indigenous American in earlier times.
And five years of crop production isn't worth the permanent inheritance of land -- not in a world where all the land is already claimed and there's no unclaimed territory for the dispossessed person to move to. You'll easily see this if you strip away the imaginary value of money: the gap isn't just five to five hundred -- it's far greater than that. (On the other hand, in places where there's more land than people can use, and anyone is free to claim the unused portions, half a year's production can actually be worth more than the land itself. But in those cases, conquerors don't bother much with acquiring the conquered people's land.)
The bottom line: no damage that nations inflict on each other in the state of nature (and all governments and their leaders are in a state of nature relative to one another) can give a conqueror the right to dispossess the descendants of the defeated and strip them of an inheritance that ought to belong to them and their descendants for all generations. The conqueror will naturally think of himself as the master. And it's certainly the condition of the defeated not to be in a position to challenge his claim. But if that's all he's got, it gives him nothing but the right that raw force gives the stronger over the weaker -- and by that logic, whoever is strongest would have the right to seize whatever he pleases.
186. So let me sum up: even in a just war, the conqueror has no right of dominion over those who fought alongside him, or over people in the defeated country who didn't oppose him, or even over the descendants of those who did fight against him. All of these people are free from any subjection to him. And if their former government has been destroyed, they're at liberty to create a new one for themselves.
187. Yes, it's true that in practice the conqueror usually uses his military power to hold a sword to people's throats and force them to accept whatever form of government he wants to impose on them. But the real question is: what right does he have to do this?
If someone says, "Well, they submit by their own consent," then that actually proves my point -- it admits that their consent is necessary for the conqueror to have any legitimate authority over them. The only remaining question is whether promises forced out of people without any right can count as genuine consent, and how binding they really are.
I say they're not binding at all. Whatever someone takes from me by force, I still have a rightful claim to, and he's obligated to give it back immediately. If someone forces my horse from me, he's obligated to return it at once, and I still have the right to take it back. By the same logic, someone who forced a promise out of me is obligated to release me from it immediately -- that is, to free me from the obligation. Or I can release myself from it -- that is, I can choose whether to honor it or not.
Here's the principle: the law of nature only obligates me according to its own rules. It can't bind me through a violation of those very rules -- and extorting something from me by force is exactly such a violation. Saying "but I gave my promise" doesn't change anything, any more than it excuses the force or transfers any real right when I reach into my own pocket and hand over my wallet to a thief who's holding a pistol to my chest.
188. From all of this, it follows that the government of a conqueror, imposed by force on people he had no right to wage war against -- or on people who didn't participate in the war against him even if it was just -- carries no legitimate obligation.
189. But let's take the strongest possible case for the conqueror: suppose that every single member of the defeated community can be considered to have joined in the unjust war, and that all their lives are therefore at the conqueror's mercy.
190. Even so, I say this doesn't apply to their children who are minors. Since a father doesn't have the power to take away his child's life or liberty, nothing he does can possibly forfeit it. So the children -- whatever may have happened to the fathers -- are free people. The conqueror's absolute power reaches only the actual individuals who were defeated and dies with them. Even if he governs those defeated people as slaves under absolute arbitrary power, he has no such right or authority over their children. He can have no power over the children except through their own consent. Whatever he may force them to say or do doesn't count. As long as it's force rather than free choice that compels their obedience, he has no lawful authority over them.
191. Every person is born with two rights. First, a right to freedom over their own person, which no one else has power over -- only the individual has the right to dispose of themselves as they see fit. Second, a right to inherit their father's property along with their siblings, ahead of anyone else's claim.
192. By the first right, a person is naturally free from subjection to any government, even if they were born within its territory. But if they reject the lawful government of the country where they were born, they must also give up the rights that came with it under its laws, and the property passed down to them from their ancestors -- assuming it was a government established by consent.
193. By the second right, the inhabitants of any country who are descended from people who were conquered and had a government forced on them against their will retain a right to the property of their ancestors. They keep this right even if they don't freely consent to the government whose harsh terms were imposed by force on the original inhabitants.
Here's why: the original conqueror never had a legitimate title to the land of that country. So the descendants of those who were forced to submit to a government imposed by the sword always have the right to throw it off and free themselves from the usurpation or tyranny that was forced upon them. They keep this right until their rulers establish a form of government that the people willingly and freely consent to.
Who doubts that the Greek Christians, descendants of the ancient inhabitants of that country, could justly throw off the Turkish yoke they've groaned under for so long, whenever the opportunity arises? No government can rightfully claim the obedience of a people who have not freely consented to it. And people can never truly be said to have consented unless they're placed in a full state of liberty to choose their government and their leaders -- or at the very least, until they have established laws that they themselves, or their representatives, have freely agreed to. They must also be guaranteed their rightful property -- meaning that they truly own what they have, so that no one can take any part of it without their consent. Without these conditions, people under any government are not free -- they are simply slaves held down by the force of war.
194. But suppose we grant that the conqueror in a just war has a right to the property as well as power over the persons of the conquered (which, as I've shown, he clearly does not). Even so, this wouldn't lead to absolute power continuing under the resulting government. Here's why: the descendants of the conquered are all free people. If the conqueror grants them estates and land to settle in his territory (without which the territory would be worthless), then whatever he grants them, they have property in -- to that extent.
And the nature of property is this: it cannot be taken from someone without their own consent.
195. Their persons are free by natural right, and their properties -- whether great or small -- are their own to dispose of as they see fit, not the conqueror's. Otherwise, it isn't really property at all.
Let me illustrate. Suppose the conqueror gives one person a thousand acres, to him and his heirs forever. And to another person, he leases a thousand acres for life at a rent of fifty or five hundred pounds a year. Doesn't the first person have a right to his thousand acres in perpetuity? And doesn't the second person have a right to his land for the term of his life, as long as he pays the stated rent? And doesn't the tenant have property in everything he earns beyond the rent through his own labor and effort during that lease -- say he earns double the rent?
Can anyone seriously argue that the king or conqueror, after making these grants, can use his power as conqueror to take back all or part of the land from the first person's heirs, or from the second person during his lifetime while he's paying the rent? Or that he can seize the goods or money they've earned on that land, at his pleasure?
If he can do that, then every free and voluntary contract in the world is meaningless and void. All it takes to dissolve any agreement is sufficient power. And all the grants and promises ever made by people in power are just mockery and deception.
After all, can there be anything more absurd than saying, "I give you and your descendants this property forever, conveyed in the most official and binding way possible -- but just so you know, I also reserve the right to take it all back tomorrow if I feel like it"?
196. I won't get into the debate about whether rulers are exempt from the laws of their own countries right now. But of this I am certain: they owe obedience to the laws of God and nature. No one, no power, can exempt them from the obligations of that eternal law. Those obligations are so great, and so strong when it comes to promises, that even omnipotence itself is bound by them. Grants, promises, and oaths are bonds that hold even the Almighty. Whatever certain flatterers may tell the rulers of this world, all of those rulers put together, along with all their people, are nothing compared to the great God -- just a drop in the bucket, a speck of dust on a scale, utterly insignificant.
197. So here's the bottom line on conquest. If the conqueror had a just cause, he has despotic power over the persons of everyone who actively aided and participated in the war against him. He also has the right to recover his damages and costs from their labor and estates -- as long as he doesn't violate anyone else's rights.
But over the rest of the population -- anyone who didn't consent to the war -- and over the children of the captives themselves, and over the possessions of either group, he has no power at all. By virtue of conquest alone, he has no legitimate title to rule over them, nor can he pass such a title to his descendants. If he tries to seize their property, he becomes the aggressor, putting himself in a state of war against them. He and all his successors would have no better a claim to power than Ivar or Hubba, the Danish invaders, had here in England -- or than Spartacus would have had if he'd conquered Italy. Which is to say: the conquered have every right to throw off that yoke as soon as God gives them the courage and opportunity to do it.
In the same way, regardless of whatever claim the kings of Assyria had over Judah by the sword, God helped Hezekiah throw off that conquering empire's dominion. "And the Lord was with Hezekiah, and he prospered; wherefore he went forth, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not" (2 Kings 18:7).
The point is clear: shaking off a power that was established by force rather than right -- even if it gets called "rebellion" -- is no offense before God. It's something God allows and supports, even when promises and agreements were made under duress. It's quite likely, for anyone who reads the story of Ahaz and Hezekiah carefully, that the Assyrians conquered Ahaz, deposed him, and installed Hezekiah as king while his father was still alive -- and that Hezekiah had sworn loyalty and paid tribute to Assyria the whole time.
197. If conquest is like a foreign usurpation, then usurpation is like a domestic conquest. But there's one crucial difference: a usurper can never have right on their side. After all, it's only usurpation when someone takes possession of what rightfully belongs to someone else.
Now, here's the important thing to understand about usurpation: as long as the usurper only takes over the position without changing anything else, it's simply a change of personnel -- not a change in the form or rules of government. But if the usurper stretches their power beyond what rightfully belonged to the lawful rulers of the commonwealth, then you've got tyranny layered on top of usurpation.
198. In every legitimate government, deciding who gets to hold power is just as natural and necessary as deciding what form the government takes. And both of these things were originally established by the people. Think about it this way: having no form of government at all produces roughly the same chaos as agreeing that your government will be a monarchy but then having no process for choosing who the monarch will be. It amounts to the same kind of anarchy.
That's why every commonwealth that has established a form of government has also established rules for appointing the people who will share in public authority, along with set procedures for transferring power to them. Because, again, the disorder is basically the same whether you have no government at all or you have a government in theory but no way to identify or select the person who's supposed to be in charge.
Here's the bottom line: anyone who takes control of any part of the government's power through means other than what the community's laws have prescribed has no right to be obeyed -- even if the form of the commonwealth is technically still intact. That person is not the one the laws appointed, and therefore not the one the people consented to. And neither the usurper nor anyone who derives their authority from the usurper can ever have a legitimate title to power -- not until the people are genuinely free to give their consent, and have actually given it, approving and confirming the authority that the usurper has until then held without right.
199. Just as usurpation is the exercise of power that rightfully belongs to someone else, tyranny is the exercise of power beyond what anyone has a right to. Tyranny is what happens when someone uses the power they hold not for the good of the people under them, but for their own private advantage. It's when a ruler -- no matter how they got their title -- treats their personal will, not the law, as the rule. It's when their commands and actions aren't aimed at protecting their people's rights and property, but at satisfying their own ambition, their thirst for revenge, their greed, or whatever other unchecked passion drives them.
200. If anyone doubts whether this is true or reasonable just because it comes from an ordinary citizen, then maybe the authority of a king will convince them. King James I, in his speech to Parliament in 1603, told them this:
"I will always put the welfare of the public and of the whole commonwealth ahead of any private interests of my own. I will always consider the prosperity and well-being of the commonwealth to be my greatest source of happiness. And this is exactly the point that separates a lawful king from a tyrant. I freely acknowledge that the greatest and most important difference between a rightful king and a usurping tyrant is this: the proud and ambitious tyrant thinks his kingdom and his people exist solely to satisfy his desires and unreasonable appetites, while the just and righteous king acknowledges that he exists for the benefit and prosperity of his people."
And again, in his speech to Parliament in 1609, he said:
"A king binds himself by a double oath to uphold the fundamental laws of his kingdom. He is bound tacitly, simply by being a king, which obligates him to protect his people and the laws of the kingdom alike. And he is bound expressly by the oath he takes at his coronation. Every just king in an established kingdom is therefore bound to honor the agreement he has made with his people through his laws, shaping his government in line with that agreement -- just as God made an agreement with Noah after the flood: 'From now on, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease while the earth remains.' Therefore, a king who governs an established kingdom ceases to be a king and degenerates into a tyrant the moment he stops ruling according to his laws."
And shortly after that: "All kings who are not tyrants or oath-breakers will be glad to stay within the limits of their laws. And those who try to persuade them otherwise are vipers and pests, dangerous to both the king and the commonwealth."
So there you have it: that learned king, who understood these ideas perfectly well, said the entire difference between a king and a tyrant comes down to this -- one makes the laws the boundary of his power and the public good the purpose of his government, while the other makes everything yield to his own will and appetite.
201. Now, it's a mistake to think this problem belongs only to monarchies. Other forms of government are just as susceptible. Wherever power that has been placed in anyone's hands for the purpose of governing the people and protecting their property gets redirected to other ends -- wherever it gets used to impoverish, harass, or crush people under arbitrary and lawless commands -- right there, that's tyranny, whether it's being done by one person or by many. After all, we read about the Thirty Tyrants of Athens just as we read about the single tyrant of Syracuse. And the unbearable rule of the Decemvirs in Rome was no better.
202. Wherever law ends, tyranny begins -- so long as the law is being violated to someone's harm. And whoever holds authority and exceeds the power the law gave them, using the force at their command to impose on people things the law doesn't allow -- that person stops being a legitimate official. They are acting without authority, and they can be opposed just like any other person who uses force to invade someone else's rights.
This principle is already recognized when it comes to lower-ranking officials. Think about it: an officer who has the legal authority to arrest me on the street can be resisted as a thief and a robber if he tries to break into my house to serve the warrant. I might know perfectly well that he has a valid warrant and full legal authority to arrest me in public -- but that doesn't give him the right to smash down my door.
And why should this principle not apply just as much to the highest officials as it does to the lowest ones? Is it reasonable that an eldest brother, because he inherited the biggest share of his father's estate, should therefore have the right to take away his younger brothers' portions? Or that a rich man who owns an entire county should have the right to seize his poor neighbor's cottage and garden whenever he feels like it?
The fact that someone rightfully possesses great power and enormous wealth -- far beyond what most people will ever have -- is not an excuse for plunder and oppression. It's not even close to a reason for it. Actually, it makes it worse. Going beyond the bounds of your authority is no more acceptable in a powerful official than in a petty one, no more justifiable in a king than in a constable. In fact, it's worse in the king, because he has been given more trust, already has a far greater share than everyone else, and is supposed -- given the advantages of his education, his position, and his advisors -- to have a better understanding of right and wrong.
203. "But wait," someone might object, "can a prince's commands really be opposed? Can he be resisted every time someone feels wronged and just imagines they haven't been treated fairly? This would destroy all government and leave nothing but anarchy and confusion."
Here's my answer: force should only be opposed to unjust and unlawful force. Anyone who resists in any other situation brings just condemnation on themselves from both God and humanity. So the kind of chaos people worry about won't actually happen, for several reasons.
First, in some countries, the person of the ruler is legally sacred. Whatever they command or do, their person remains immune from all questioning, all violence, and any legal prosecution or punishment. But even so, resistance can still be made to the illegal actions of lower officials acting on the ruler's orders -- unless the ruler, by actually putting himself into a state of war with his people, dissolves the government and leaves everyone in a position where they must fall back on the right of self-defense that belongs to everyone in the state of nature. (Because once things get to that point, who can say how it will end? A neighboring kingdom has shown the world a rather striking example of this.)
In every other scenario, the sacredness of the ruler's person shields him from all harm. And as long as the government holds together, he's protected from any violence whatsoever. You could hardly design a wiser system. After all, the damage a ruler can do by his own personal actions isn't likely to happen often or spread very far. He can't, by his own physical strength alone, overthrow the laws or oppress the whole body of the people. So even if a reckless ruler happens to come to power, the occasional harm that results from protecting his person is more than offset by the benefits: the public peace and the security of the government itself. It's safer for the body politic that a few private individuals might sometimes suffer than that the head of state should be constantly exposed to danger over minor provocations.
204. Second, this immunity only applies to the ruler's person. It does not protect those who use unjust force while claiming to act on his authority, when the law doesn't actually authorize what they're doing.
Here's a clear example: suppose someone has the king's writ -- a full, official commission from the king -- to arrest a man. Even with that commission, the officer cannot break into someone's house to make the arrest, nor can he execute the warrant on certain days or in certain places that the law prohibits. The commission itself might not mention any of these restrictions, but they are limitations imposed by the law. If anyone crosses those lines, the king's commission doesn't excuse them. The king's authority is given to him only by the law, so he cannot authorize anyone to act against the law or shield them from consequences for doing so.
The bottom line is this: the commission or command of any official, in areas where they have no authority, is just as worthless as a command from a random private citizen. The difference between an official and a private citizen is that the official has authority within certain limits and for certain purposes, while the private citizen has no authority at all. What gives someone the right to act is not the piece of paper they carry -- it's the actual authority behind it. And against the laws, there can be no authority.
But here's what's important: even when people resist illegal actions by officials, the ruler's person and authority remain perfectly safe. There's no danger to the ruler or to the government.
205. Third, even in a government where the ruler's person is not treated as sacred, this principle -- that it's lawful to resist unlawful exercises of power -- won't lead to chaos or endanger the ruler over every little complaint.
Here's why: whenever the injured party can get relief and have their damages repaired by going to the courts, there's no justification for using force. Force is only justified when someone is cut off from any legal remedy. The only thing that counts as hostile force is something that leaves you with no way to appeal to the law. Only that kind of force puts the person using it into a state of war, making it lawful to resist them.
Let me illustrate with two examples. A man with a sword stops me on the highway and demands my wallet, when I might not even have a dollar on me. I can lawfully kill that man. Now consider a different scenario: I hand someone a hundred pounds to hold while I get off my horse. When I come back, he refuses to return my money, and he draws his sword to defend his possession of it if I try to take it back. The damage this second man does to me is a hundred or even a thousand times greater than what the highway robber probably intended -- and I killed the robber before he actually did me any harm. Yet I can lawfully kill the first man but cannot so much as lay a hand on the second.
The reason is simple. The robber was using force that threatened my life. I had no time to appeal to the law to protect myself -- and once I was dead, it would be too late to appeal. The law can't bring a dead body back to life. That loss is irreparable, and to prevent it, the law of nature gave me the right to destroy the person who had put himself into a state of war with me and threatened my destruction. But in the second case, my life wasn't in danger. I could go to court, and the law could make the man pay back my hundred pounds.
206. Fourth, even if a government official commits unlawful acts and then uses his power to prevent the legal remedy from working -- even in cases of such open tyranny -- the right to resist won't easily destabilize the government.
If the oppression only affects a few people, then even though those individuals have every right to defend themselves and to use force to recover what was taken from them by unlawful force, that right won't easily lead them into a fight they know they'll lose. It's practically impossible for one person or a few oppressed individuals to destabilize a government as long as the majority of the people don't see themselves as affected. A handful of victims are no more likely to overthrow a well-established state than a single raving lunatic or an angry malcontent. The general public simply won't follow them.
207. But what if these illegal acts spread to the majority of the people? Or what if the oppression falls on just a few, but in a way that sets a precedent threatening everyone? What if people become genuinely convinced that their laws -- and with them, their property, their freedoms, and their very lives -- are in danger, and perhaps their religion too? Well, how exactly are you going to stop them from resisting the illegal force being used against them? I don't see how you could.
This is, I'll admit, an uncomfortable situation. But it's a risk that comes with every form of government, and it only happens when rulers bring things to such a point that their own people generally distrust them. It's the most dangerous position any government can put itself in. But honestly, rulers who end up there don't deserve much sympathy, because it's so easy to avoid. If a ruler truly means well for their people -- if they genuinely care about protecting the people and their laws -- it's simply impossible for the people not to see and feel it. Just like it's impossible for a loving father not to let his children see that he cares about them.
208. But when the whole world can observe one thing being said and another being done -- when people see clever schemes being used to get around the law, and the trust of prerogative (which is a discretionary power left in the ruler's hands to do good, not harm, to the people) being used for the exact opposite of its intended purpose -- when the people see that officials and lower magistrates are being chosen specifically because they'll serve those corrupt ends, promoted if they cooperate and sidelined if they don't -- when people see one experiment after another in arbitrary power -- when the religion most likely to bring in tyranny is quietly encouraged behind the scenes even while being publicly denounced, and the people pushing it are supported as much as possible, or at the very least tolerated and approved of -- when a long train of actions shows that every policy is trending in the same direction -- well, how can anyone keep themselves from seeing which way things are headed? How can they not start thinking about how to protect themselves?
It's like being on a ship. If you noticed that the captain was always steering toward Algiers, no matter what -- sure, sometimes bad winds, leaks in the hull, or shortages of crew and supplies might force him to change course for a while, but as soon as conditions allowed, he always turned right back toward Algiers -- how long would it take before you figured out where you were being taken?
211. If you want to talk clearly about how a government comes apart, you first need to distinguish between the dissolution of the society itself and the dissolution of the government. These are two very different things.
What creates a community -- what pulls people out of the loose state of nature and binds them into a single political society -- is the agreement each person makes with everyone else to join together and act as one body, forming one distinct commonwealth. The most common way (and really, almost the only way) this union gets dissolved is through foreign invasion and conquest. When that happens, the people can no longer maintain themselves as one complete, independent body. The union that held them together necessarily falls apart, and everyone returns to the condition they were in before -- free to fend for themselves and find safety however they see fit, in whatever other society they choose.
Whenever the society itself is dissolved, it's obvious that the government of that society can't survive either. Conquerors' swords have always been good at cutting governments down at the roots, tearing societies to pieces, and scattering the conquered population away from the protection and structure that was supposed to keep them safe from violence.
The world knows this all too well and has seen it happen too many times for me to need to say more about it. It hardly takes much argument to prove that when the society is destroyed, the government can't carry on -- any more than the frame of a house can keep standing when its materials have been scattered by a whirlwind or shaken into a heap of rubble by an earthquake.
212. But besides being overthrown from the outside, governments can also be dissolved from within.
First, a government is dissolved when the legislature is changed. Political society is a state of peace among its members, who have excluded the state of war from their midst by setting up a legislature to serve as the referee for settling all their disputes. The legislature is what unites the members of a commonwealth and binds them together into one living, coherent body. It is the soul that gives form, life, and unity to the commonwealth. From it, the various members draw their mutual connection, influence, and shared purpose.
So when the legislature is broken or dissolved, death and dissolution follow. Here's why: the very essence and unity of society depends on having one common will. The legislature, once established by the majority, serves as the voice and keeper of that will. Setting up the legislature is the first and most fundamental act of any society -- the act by which the people arrange for their continued union, under the direction of authorized persons and the framework of laws made by those persons, with the people's own consent and appointment.
Without this, no one person, and no group of people, has the authority to make laws that bind anyone else. So when someone who was never appointed by the people takes it upon themselves to make laws, those laws have no authority, and the people aren't bound to obey them. The people are once again free from subjection and may set up a new legislature however they see fit. They are perfectly within their rights to resist the force of anyone who tries to impose anything on them without proper authority.
Everyone is at their own disposal when the people who were delegated by society to declare the public will have been shoved aside, and others who have no such authority or delegation have seized their place.
213. This kind of thing is usually carried out by people within the commonwealth who abuse the power they hold. It's hard to analyze it properly, or know who deserves the blame, without understanding the specific form of government where it happens. So let's take a concrete example. Suppose the legislature is made up of three parts working together:
First, a single hereditary person who holds the permanent supreme executive power, including the power to call and dismiss the other two bodies within set time periods.
Second, an assembly of hereditary nobles.
Third, an assembly of representatives chosen for a limited time by the people.
Given a government structured like this, the following points are clear:
214. First, when such a ruler sets up his own arbitrary will in place of the laws -- which are the declared will of society, expressed through the legislature -- then the legislature has been changed. Think about it: the real legislature, in practical terms, is whatever body's rules and laws are actually being enforced and required to be obeyed. When different laws are imposed and different rules are put forward and enforced than what the properly constituted legislature enacted, then plainly the legislature has been changed.
Whoever introduces new laws without being authorized to do so by the fundamental agreement of society, or who subverts the existing laws, is disowning and overturning the very power by which those laws were made. That person is effectively setting up a new legislature.
215. Second, when the ruler prevents the legislature from meeting at its proper time, or from acting freely in pursuit of the goals it was set up to achieve, the legislature has been altered. After all, the legislature isn't just a certain number of people, or even those people meeting in a room. Unless they also have the freedom to debate and the time to carefully work out what's best for society, they aren't really the legislature.
When these things are taken away or changed so that society is deprived of the proper exercise of its power, the legislature has truly been altered. Names and titles don't make a government -- the actual use and exercise of the powers those titles were meant to carry is what matters. So anyone who takes away the freedom or blocks the activity of the legislature in its proper sessions has effectively destroyed the legislature and ended the government.
216. Third, when the ruler uses arbitrary power to change the voters or the methods of election, without the consent of and contrary to the interests of the people, the legislature is also altered. If people other than those authorized by society are doing the choosing, or if the election is conducted in some way other than what society prescribed, then the people chosen aren't really the legislature that the people appointed.
217. Fourth, when the people are handed over to the control of a foreign power -- whether by the ruler or by the legislature -- that is certainly a change of the legislature, and therefore a dissolution of the government. The whole reason people formed a society was to be preserved as one complete, free, and independent community, governed by its own laws. That purpose is destroyed whenever they are surrendered to the power of another.
218. In a government structured like the one I described, it's obvious why the blame for dissolution in these cases falls on the ruler. Since the ruler commands the military, the treasury, and the offices of state, and since rulers often convince themselves (or are flattered by others into believing) that as the supreme authority they are beyond anyone's control, the ruler alone is in a position to make large moves toward these kinds of changes. The ruler can do it under the cover of lawful authority, and has the means to terrorize or crush anyone who opposes these changes -- labeling them as troublemakers, seditionists, and enemies of the state.
No other part of the legislature, and certainly not the people, could attempt to change the legislature without open and visible rebellion -- which would be obvious to everyone and, if it succeeded, would produce results not much different from a foreign conquest. Besides, in a government like this, the ruler has the power to dissolve the other parts of the legislature, reducing its members to private citizens. So they could never, in opposition to the ruler or without the ruler's agreement, change the legislature by passing a law, since the ruler's consent is needed to give any of their decrees legal force.
Still, to the extent that other parts of the legislature contribute to any attack on the government -- whether by actively promoting such efforts or by failing to do what they can to prevent them -- they share the guilt. And this is surely the greatest crime that people can commit against one another.
219. There is one more way this kind of government can be dissolved: when the person who holds the supreme executive power neglects and abandons that role, so that the laws that have already been made can no longer be enforced.
This is, plain and simple, reducing everything to anarchy, and it effectively dissolves the government. Laws aren't made for their own sake -- they exist so that, through their enforcement, they can serve as the bonds of society, keeping every part of the body politic in its proper place and function. When enforcement stops entirely, the government visibly ceases to exist, and the people become a disorganized crowd without order or connection.
Where there is no longer any administration of justice to protect people's rights, and no remaining power within the community to direct its force or provide for public needs -- there is certainly no government left. Where the laws can't be enforced, it's the same as having no laws at all. And a government without laws is, I would think, a mystery in politics -- inconceivable to the human mind and incompatible with human society.
220. In these cases and others like them, when the government is dissolved, the people are free to take care of themselves by setting up a new legislature. They can change the people in charge, or the form of government, or both -- whatever they decide is best for their safety and well-being. A society can never lose its natural and original right to preserve itself just because someone else messed things up. And that self-preservation can only be achieved through an established legislature and the fair and impartial enforcement of the laws it makes.
But here's the catch: things aren't so bad for the human race that people can't use this remedy until it's too late. To tell people they may set up a new legislature only after their old one has already been destroyed by oppression, manipulation, or betrayal to a foreign power -- that's just telling them they can look for relief after it's too late, when the damage is already done. In practice, this amounts to saying: "First become slaves, and then worry about your freedom." It's like waiting until the chains are already on before telling people they can act like free citizens.
If that's truly how it works, it's mockery, not a remedy. People can never be safe from tyranny if there's no way to escape it until they're completely crushed by it. And that is exactly why they have a right not just to get out of tyranny, but to prevent it.
221. There is, therefore, a second way governments are dissolved: when the legislature, or the ruler, or either of them, acts contrary to the trust placed in them.
First: the legislature violates its trust when it tries to invade the property of its citizens and make itself -- or any part of the community -- the masters and arbitrary controllers of the people's lives, liberties, and fortunes.
222. The reason people enter into society is to protect their property. And the reason they choose and authorize a legislature is so that laws can be made and rules set up as guardrails and fences around the property of every member of society -- to limit power and moderate the authority of every part and member of that society.
It simply cannot be the will of the society that the legislature should have the power to destroy the very thing everyone entered society to protect, the very thing for which they submitted themselves to lawmakers of their own making. So whenever the legislators try to seize and destroy the people's property, or reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people. At that point, the people are freed from any further obedience and are left with the ultimate refuge that God has provided to all people against force and violence.
Whenever the legislature violates this fundamental rule of society -- whenever, out of ambition, fear, foolishness, or corruption, it tries to grab for itself, or hand over to someone else, absolute power over the lives, liberties, and possessions of the people -- by this breach of trust, they forfeit the power the people gave them for exactly the opposite purpose. That power returns to the people, who have the right to reclaim their original freedom and, by establishing a new legislature of their choosing, provide for their own safety and security. That is, after all, the entire reason they formed a society in the first place.
What I've said here about the legislature in general applies equally to the supreme executive. The executive holds a double trust: a role in the legislature, and the supreme responsibility for enforcing the law. The executive violates both trusts when he tries to set up his own arbitrary will as the law of society.
The executive also acts against his trust when he uses the government's force, money, and offices to corrupt the representatives and bend them to his purposes. Or when he rigs the elections -- pressuring voters and dictating their choices, using promises, threats, bribes, or whatever other means he has to recruit representatives who have already agreed in advance how to vote and what to enact.
To rig the candidates and voters, and to reshape the entire election process -- what is this but cutting the government out at the roots and poisoning the very fountain of public security? The people reserved for themselves the right to choose their representatives as the primary safeguard of their property, and they did so for one reason only: so that those representatives would always be freely chosen and, once chosen, would freely deliberate and advise, based on what careful examination and mature debate showed the commonwealth truly needed. People who cast their votes before hearing the debate and weighing all the arguments are incapable of doing this.
To assemble a legislature like this -- to try to install the declared supporters of the ruler's personal agenda as if they were the true representatives of the people and the legitimate lawmakers of society -- is certainly as great a betrayal of trust, and as clear a declaration of intent to overthrow the government, as you could possibly find. And if you add to this the visible use of rewards and punishments to achieve the same goal, plus all the tools of corrupted law deployed to eliminate and destroy anyone who stands in the way of this scheme and refuses to go along with the betrayal of their country's liberties -- well, there's no doubt about what's going on.
What power should be left to someone who uses it this way, contrary to the trust that came with it when it was first granted? That's easy to figure out. And anyone can see that a person who has attempted something like this can never be trusted again.
223. Now, it will probably be objected: "The people are ignorant and always discontented. To base government on the unstable opinions and fickle moods of the people is to guarantee its destruction. No government could last if the people could set up a new legislature every time they got annoyed with the old one."
My answer is exactly the opposite. People are not nearly as quick to abandon their familiar forms of government as some like to suggest. They are hard to persuade even to fix acknowledged flaws in the system they're used to. And if there are defects -- whether original ones or ones that crept in over time through corruption -- it's no easy thing to get them changed, even when everyone can see the opportunity to do it.
This reluctance of people to abandon their old systems has, through the many revolutions this kingdom has seen in this and former ages, always brought us back to -- or kept us at -- our old form of government: king, lords, and commons. And no matter what provocations have led to the crown being taken from the heads of some of our rulers, the people have never gone so far as to give it to a different family line.
224. "But," someone will say, "this theory is a recipe for frequent rebellion."
My reply:
First, no more than any other theory. When people are made miserable and find themselves suffering under the abuse of arbitrary power -- you can talk up their rulers as much as you want, call them sons of Jupiter, declare them sacred and divine, say they descended from heaven or were authorized by God, give them whatever titles you please -- the same thing will happen. People who are generally mistreated and denied their rights will jump at any chance to throw off a burden that sits heavy on them. They will wish for and seek out the opportunity, and in the course of human affairs -- with all its changes, weaknesses, and accidents -- that opportunity rarely takes long to arrive. Anyone who has spent any time in the world has seen examples of this, and anyone who has done any reading can find examples across every type of government on earth.
225. Second, revolutions don't happen over every little bit of mismanagement in public affairs. Major mistakes by those in power, bad and impractical laws, all the ordinary stumbles of human weakness -- the people will put up with all of this without rebellion or even much complaining.
But when a long pattern of abuses, lies, and manipulations -- all pointing in the same direction -- makes the design visible to the people, and they can't help but feel the weight of what they're living under and see where things are heading, it should be no surprise that they rouse themselves and try to place power in hands that will actually secure the purposes for which government was created in the first place. Without those purposes being fulfilled, ancient titles and impressive-sounding institutions are not just no better -- they're actually worse than the state of nature or pure anarchy. The problems are just as great and just as immediate, but the remedy is further away and harder to reach.
226. Third, the doctrine that the people have the power to provide for their own safety by establishing a new legislature -- when their legislators have violated their trust by invading their property -- is actually the best defense against rebellion, and the surest way to prevent it.
Here's why. Rebellion is opposition not to specific people, but to authority -- and authority is grounded only in the constitution and laws of the government. So whoever uses force to break through those laws and justifies their violation by force -- those people are the real rebels, no matter who they are.
When people entered into society and established civil government, they banished force and replaced it with laws for the protection of property, peace, and unity. Anyone who brings force back into the picture, in defiance of those laws, is doing exactly what the Latin word tells us: they rebellare -- they "bring back war." They are the true rebels.
And who is most likely to do this? Those who are already in power -- because of the authority they claim, the military force at their disposal, and the flattery of those around them. So the most effective way to prevent this evil is to show those who are under the greatest temptation just how dangerous and unjust it is.
227. In both of the cases I've described -- whether the legislature is changed or the legislators act contrary to the purpose for which they were established -- the guilty parties are guilty of rebellion.
If anyone uses force to sweep away the established legislature of a society, along with the laws it made pursuant to the people's trust, that person destroys the referee that everyone had agreed to for the peaceful resolution of all their disputes, and tears down the barrier that kept the state of war at bay. Those who remove or change the legislature take away this decisive power, which no one can hold except by the appointment and consent of the people. By destroying the authority that the people -- and only the people -- had the right to establish, and by introducing a power the people never authorized, they actually create a state of war: force without authority.
By removing the legislature that society established -- the body whose decisions the people accepted and united around as the expression of their own will -- they untie the knot and throw the people back into the state of war.
And if those who use force to remove the legislature are rebels, then the legislators themselves can be no less so. When the people who were set up to protect and preserve the people, their liberties, and their property use force to invade and try to seize those very things, they put themselves into a state of war with the people who made them protectors and guardians of the peace. They are, in the fullest and most aggravated sense, rebels.
228. But suppose someone who says this "lays a foundation for rebellion" means something slightly different -- that telling people they're freed from obedience when illegal attacks are made on their liberties or property, and that they may resist the unlawful violence of officials who betray their trust, will lead to civil wars and internal turmoil. Suppose they argue that this doctrine is too destructive to the peace of the world to be tolerated.
Well, by the same logic, they might as well say that honest people shouldn't resist robbers or pirates, because resistance might cause disorder or bloodshed. If any harm comes from such situations, the blame belongs not to the person defending their own rights, but to the one who invaded their neighbor's.
If the honest, innocent person must quietly give up everything they have for the sake of "peace" -- handing it all over to whoever wants to take it by force -- I'd like people to consider what kind of peace that is. A peace that consists only of violence and plunder. A peace maintained solely for the benefit of robbers and oppressors.
Who would call it an admirable peace between the powerful and the weak when the lamb, without resistance, offers its throat to be torn apart by the domineering wolf?
The cave of Polyphemus gives us a perfect picture of this kind of "peace" and this kind of "government" -- where Ulysses and his companions had nothing to do but quietly let themselves be devoured. And no doubt Ulysses, being a practical man, preached passive obedience and urged his men to submit quietly, explaining to them how important peace is for humanity and warning them about all the bad things that might happen if they tried to resist Polyphemus, who had power over them.
229. The purpose of government is the good of humanity. And which is better for humanity: that the people should always be at the mercy of boundless tyranny? Or that rulers should sometimes face opposition when they go too far in using their power, employing it to destroy rather than protect the property of their people?
230. And don't let anyone claim that harm will result from this whenever some busybody or troublemaker decides they want to change the government. Sure, such people may cause a stir whenever they please. But it will only lead to their own well-deserved ruin. Until the damage becomes widespread and the bad intentions of the rulers become obvious, or their attacks become unmistakable to the majority, the people -- who are more inclined to endure than to fight back through resistance -- aren't going to rise up. Isolated cases of injustice or oppression, here and there affecting some unlucky individual, don't move them.
But if the people as a whole develop a conviction, grounded in clear evidence, that schemes are being carried out against their liberties -- and the general course and direction of events can only give them strong suspicions about the evil intentions of their rulers -- who is to blame for that? Who can help it if those who could have avoided this suspicion brought it on themselves? Are the people to blame for having the basic sense of rational beings and thinking about things as they actually find and feel them? Isn't it really the fault of those who arranged things in such a way that they wouldn't want people to see them for what they are?
I'll grant that the pride, ambition, and restlessness of private citizens have sometimes caused great disorder in commonwealths, and that factions have been fatal to states and kingdoms. But whether the trouble has more often started with the people's desire to throw off the rightful authority of their rulers, or with the rulers' arrogance and determination to seize arbitrary power over their people -- whether oppression or disobedience struck the first blow -- I'll leave to impartial history to decide.
This much I am sure of: whoever -- whether ruler or citizen -- uses force to invade the rights of either side, and lays the foundation for overturning the constitution and structure of any just government, is guilty of the greatest crime a person can commit. That person must answer for all the bloodshed, plunder, and devastation that the destruction of governments brings upon a country. And whoever does it deserves to be regarded as the common enemy and plague of the human race, and treated accordingly.
231. Everyone agrees that when foreign enemies or private criminals attack people's property by force, they may be resisted by force. But it has recently been denied that government officials doing the same thing may also be resisted -- as if those who enjoy the greatest privileges and advantages under the law somehow gained a power to break the very laws that gave them their elevated position in the first place.
The reality is just the opposite: their offense is all the greater, both because they are ungrateful for the larger share the law gave them, and because they are breaking the trust that their fellow citizens placed in their hands.
232. Whoever uses force without right -- as anyone in society does who uses it without law -- puts himself into a state of war with those against whom he uses it. In that state, all former obligations are canceled, all other rights cease, and everyone has the right to defend themselves and resist the aggressor.
This is so obvious that even Barclay -- that great champion of the power and sacred authority of kings -- is forced to admit that in some cases it is lawful for the people to resist their king. And he says this in a chapter where he's supposedly trying to prove that divine law forbids any and all rebellion. So it's clear, even from his own argument, that since resistance is sometimes justified, not all resistance to rulers counts as rebellion.
Here is what Barclay says:
"But if someone asks, 'Must the people then always submit to the cruelty and rage of tyranny? Must they watch their cities pillaged and burned, their wives and children exposed to the tyrant's lust and fury, and themselves and families driven to ruin and every kind of misery -- and just sit still? Must people alone be denied the basic right of resisting force with force, which nature grants freely to all other creatures for their protection from harm?'
"My answer is this: Self-defense is part of the law of nature, and it cannot be denied to the community, even against the king himself. But seeking revenge against him must absolutely not be allowed, as it goes against that same law.
"Therefore, if the king shows hatred not merely toward a few private individuals, but sets himself against the body of the commonwealth that he leads -- and with intolerable cruelty tyrannizes over the whole people or a significant portion of them -- then the people have a right to resist and defend themselves from harm. But with this restriction: they may only defend themselves, not attack the ruler. They may repair the damage done to them, but must not, for any provocation, go beyond the bounds of due respect. They may push back against an immediate assault, but they must not avenge past wrongs. It is natural for us to protect our lives and bodies, but for a lesser authority to punish a greater is against nature.
"The people may prevent harm that is being planned against them before it is carried out. But once it is done, they must not take vengeance on the king, even if he authored the wrong. This, then, is the advantage the people in general have over what any private person has: particular individuals, according to even our opponents (with the sole exception of Buchanan), have no remedy but patience. But the body of the people may, with due respect, resist intolerable tyranny -- though when tyranny is merely moderate, they ought to endure it."
233. So much for the great advocate of absolute monarchy and his allowance of resistance.
It's true that he attaches two limitations to it, both of them pointless:
First, he says resistance must be "with reverence."
Second, it must be without revenge or punishment. His reason: "Because a lesser authority cannot punish a greater one."
234. Taking the first limitation: how exactly do you resist force without hitting back? How do you fight "with reverence"? That would take some creative explaining. If you try to resist an attack with nothing but a shield to block the blows -- or in some other "respectful" posture, without a sword in your hand to weaken the attacker's confidence and strength -- your resistance won't last long. That kind of defense only guarantees you'll get beaten up worse.
This is as absurd a way of resisting as the Roman satirist Juvenal thought it was of fighting: "You do the punching; I just take the beating." And the outcome of such a one-sided combat will inevitably be what he described: "This is the freedom of the poor man: beaten up, he begs; pummeled with fists, he grovels, praying to be allowed to go home with a few teeth left."
That will always be what happens with this kind of imaginary resistance, where you're not allowed to strike back. So anyone who may legitimately resist must also be allowed to fight back. And then, let Barclay -- or anyone else -- try pairing a punch in the face or a blow to the head with as much "reverence and respect" as they can manage. If anyone can figure out how to combine violence with reverence, they may, for all I know, deserve a civil, respectful beating wherever they can find one.
235. As for Barclay's second limitation -- that "a lesser authority cannot punish a greater" -- that is true as a general rule, as long as the greater authority remains the greater authority. But resisting force with force creates a state of war, which levels the playing field and cancels all former relationships of deference, respect, and rank. Once that happens, the only advantage remaining is this: the person who opposes the unjust aggressor has the moral high ground, and when that person prevails, they have the right to punish the offender for both the breach of the peace and all the harm that followed from it.
Barclay himself, in another passage where he's more consistent with his own principles, actually denies that it's ever lawful to resist a king. But even there, he identifies two situations in which a king effectively un-kings himself. Here is what he says:
"Can there ever be a case where the people may rightfully, on their own authority, take up arms and move against a king who is tyrannizing over them? Absolutely not -- as long as he remains a king. 'Honor the king' and 'whoever resists the power resists God's ordinance' are divine commandments that will never permit it.
"The people, therefore, can never gain power over the king unless he does something that makes him stop being king. In that case, he strips himself of his crown and authority and returns to the status of a private citizen. The people then become free and superior to him, as the power they held during the period between kings -- before they crowned him -- returns to them.
"But very few offenses actually bring things to this point. After thinking it over carefully from every angle, I can find only two -- two cases in which a king, by his own actions, ceases to be king and loses all power, royal authority, and dominion over his people. (These are also noted by the scholar Winzerus.)
"The first case is if the king tries to destroy the government -- that is, if he has a purpose and plan to ruin the kingdom and the commonwealth. This is what is recorded of Nero: that he resolved to wipe out the Roman senate and people, lay the city waste with fire and sword, and then move somewhere else. And of Caligula: that he openly declared he would no longer be a ruler to the people or the senate, that he intended to murder the most distinguished men of both ranks and then retreat to Alexandria -- and that he wished the entire Roman people had a single neck so he could kill them all with one blow.
"When any king seriously plans and actively pursues designs like these, he immediately abandons all care and concern for the commonwealth. And as a result, he forfeits his power over his subjects -- just as a master loses his ownership of a slave he has abandoned."
"The second case is if the king makes himself the subject of another ruler, surrendering his kingdom -- which his ancestors left free and which the people placed freely into his hands -- to the control of a foreign power. Even if he perhaps doesn't intend to harm the people by doing this, he has nevertheless lost the most essential element of royal authority: being supreme in his kingdom, second only to God and answerable to no one else. He has also betrayed or forced his people -- whose freedom he was duty-bound to protect -- into the power and control of a foreign nation. By this act of giving away the kingdom, as it were, he loses whatever power he previously held without transferring any right whatsoever to the party he tried to hand it to. He thereby sets the people free and leaves them to govern themselves. One example of this can be found in the Scottish historical records."
236. In these cases, Barclay -- the great champion of absolute monarchy -- is forced to admit that a king may be resisted and ceases to be a king.
In short, to avoid multiplying examples: wherever the ruler has no authority, there he is no king, and he may be resisted. Wherever authority ceases, the king ceases too, and becomes like any other person who has no authority.
These two cases of Barclay's are not very different from the ones I described earlier as destructive to governments. The only difference is that Barclay has left out the underlying principle from which his own doctrine flows -- and that principle is the breach of trust: failing to preserve the form of government that was agreed upon, and failing to pursue the purpose of government itself, which is the public good and the protection of property.
When a king has effectively dethroned himself and put himself into a state of war with his people, what is to stop them from pursuing him -- a man who is no longer king -- the same way they would pursue anyone else who had declared war on them? Barclay and those who share his views would do well to explain that.
237. One more thing I want to highlight from Barclay. He says: "The people may prevent harm that is being planned against them before it is carried out." This means he allows resistance when tyranny is still just a plan.
He also says that when a king "seriously plans and actively pursues designs" to destroy the commonwealth, "he immediately abandons all care and concern for the commonwealth." So according to Barclay himself, the mere neglect of the public good should be taken as evidence of such a destructive design -- or at least as sufficient grounds for resistance.
And the underlying reason for all of this, as Barclay states it, is: "Because he betrayed or forced his people, whose freedom he was duty-bound to protect."
As for the part where Barclay adds "into the power and dominion of a foreign nation" -- that doesn't really matter. The offense and the forfeiture lie in the loss of the people's freedom, which the king was supposed to preserve. It makes no difference whether the people are enslaved by one of their own or by a foreign power. The injury is the same in both cases, and against this injury alone do they have the right to defend themselves.
History provides examples in every country showing that it's not the nationality of new rulers that offends the people -- it's the change of government that causes the outrage.
238. Bilson, a bishop of our church and a strong advocate for the power and prerogative of rulers, does (if I'm not mistaken) acknowledge in his treatise on Christian obedience that rulers may forfeit their power and their claim to the obedience of their citizens. And if I needed to cite more authorities in a case where reason is so clear, I could point my reader to Bracton, Fortescue, and the author of the Mirror of Justices, along with other writers who cannot be suspected of being ignorant of our government or hostile to it.
But I thought Hooker alone should be enough to satisfy those who rely on him for their theory of church governance, yet by some strange irony are led to deny the very principles on which he builds it. Whether these people are being used as tools by craftier operators to tear down their own framework -- well, they'd better look into that.
This much I am certain of: their political theory is so new, so dangerous, and so destructive to both rulers and the people, that previous generations could never tolerate it when it was first put forward. And I hope that future generations -- freed from the tyranny of these Egyptian taskmasters -- will despise the memory of such servile flatterers. These were people who, when it suited their purposes, reduced all government to absolute tyranny and wanted everyone to be born into what their own small souls fitted them for: slavery.
239. Here, I expect, the common question will be raised: "Who shall be judge whether the ruler or the legislature is acting contrary to their trust?"
This question, perhaps, will be spread among the people by disaffected and scheming agitators whenever the ruler is merely exercising legitimate authority.
My answer: The people shall be judge. For who should judge whether a trustee or representative is performing well and acting in accordance with the trust placed in him, if not the person who appointed him -- and who must, by virtue of having made that appointment, retain the power to remove him when he fails in his trust?
If this is reasonable in the private affairs of individuals, why should it be any different in a matter of the greatest possible importance, where the welfare of millions is at stake -- and where the harm, if not prevented, is far greater, and the remedy far more difficult, costly, and dangerous?
240. Furthermore, the question "Who shall be judge?" cannot mean that there is no judge at all. For where there is no court on earth to settle disputes among people, God in heaven is the judge. He alone, it is true, is the judge of what is right.
But every person is judge for themselves -- as in all other situations, so in this one -- of whether someone else has put themselves into a state of war with them, and of whether they should appeal to the Supreme Judge, as Jephthah did.
241. If a dispute arises between a ruler and some of the people, in a matter where the law is silent or unclear, and the stakes are high -- I would think the proper referee in such a case should be the body of the people. After all, in cases where the ruler has been given a trust and is exempt from the ordinary rules of law, if people feel aggrieved and believe the ruler is acting contrary to or beyond that trust, who is more qualified to judge than the body of the people, who originally granted that trust? They're the ones who know how far they meant it to extend.
But if the ruler, or whoever else is in charge, refuses this method of resolution, then the only appeal left is to heaven. Force used between parties who have no recognized earthly authority above them, or in a situation that permits no appeal to an earthly judge, is properly a state of war -- and in a state of war, the only appeal is to heaven. In that situation, the injured party must decide for themselves when they think it right to make that appeal and act on it.
242. To conclude: the power that every individual gave to the society when they entered into it can never return to those individuals as long as the society endures. It will always remain with the community, because without it there can be no community, no commonwealth -- which would contradict the original agreement.
Similarly, once the society has placed the legislature in an assembly of people, to continue in them and their successors, with the authority to provide for such successors, the legislature can never revert to the people as long as the government stands. By establishing a legislature with the power to continue indefinitely, the people have given up their political power to that body and cannot take it back.
But if they set time limits on the legislature and made the supreme power only temporary -- or if, through the misconduct of those in authority, that power is forfeited -- then upon the forfeiture, or when the set time expires, the power returns to the society. The people then have the right to act as the supreme authority and either continue the legislature in their own hands, create a new form of government, or keep the old form and place it in new hands -- whatever they think best.
F I N I S