Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics Part 11

In Chapter XIII., he deals with the natural condition of Mankind, as concerning their Felicity and Misery. All men, he says, are by nature equal. Differences there are in the faculties of body and mind, but, when all is taken together, not great enough to establish a steady superiority of one over another. Besides even more than in strength, men are equal in _prudence_, which is but experience that comes to all.

People indeed generally believe that others are not so wise as themselves, but 'there is not ordinarily a greater sign of equal distribution of anything than that every person is contented with his share.'

Of this equality of ability, the consequence is that two men desiring the exclusive possession of the same thing, whether for their own conservation or for delectation, will become enemies and seek to destroy each other. In such a case, it will be natural for any man to seek to secure himself by antic.i.p.ating others in the use of force or wiles; and, because some will not be content with merely securing themselves, others, who would be content, will be driven to take the offensive for mere self-conservation. Moreover, men will be displeased at being valued by others less highly than by themselves, and will use force to extort respect.

Thus, he finds three princ.i.p.al causes of quarrel in the nature of man--_compet.i.tion, diffidence_ (distrust), and _glory_, making men invade for gain, for safety, and for reputation. Men will accordingly, in the absence of any power to keep them in awe, be in a constant state of war; by which is meant, not actual fighting, but the known disposition thereto, and no a.s.surance to the contrary.

He proceeds to draw a very dismal picture of the results of this state of enmity of man against man--no industry, no agriculture, no arts, no society, and so forth, but only fear and danger of violent death, and life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. To those that doubt the truth of such an 'inference made from the pa.s.sions,' and desire the confirmation of experience, he cites the wearing of arms and locking of doors, &c., as actions that accuse mankind as much as any words of his.

Besides, it is not really to accuse man's nature; for the desires and pa.s.sions are in themselves no sin, nor the actions proceeding from them, until a law is made against them. He seeks further evidence of an original condition of war, in the actual state of American savages, with no government at all, but only a concord of small families, depending on natural l.u.s.t; also in the known horrors of a civil war, when there is no common power to fear: and, finally, in the constant hostile att.i.tude of different governments.

In the state of natural war, the notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no place, there being no law; and there is no law, because there is no common power. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice is no faculty of body and mind like sense and pa.s.sion, but only a quality relating to men in society. Then adding a last touch to the description of the state of nature,--by saying of property, that 'only that is every man's that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it,'--he opens up, at the close of the chapter, a new prospect by allowing a possibility to come out of so evil a condition. The possibility consists partly in the pa.s.sions that incline to peace--viz., fear of death, desire of things necessary to commodious living, and hope by industry to obtain them; partly in reason, which suggests convenient articles of peace and agreement, otherwise called the Laws of Nature.

The first and second Natural Laws, and the subject of contracts, take up Chap. XIV. First comes a definition of _Jus Naturale_ or Right of Nature--the liberty each man has of using his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature or life. Liberty properly means the absence of external impediments; now a man may externally be hindered from doing all he would, but not from using what power is left him, according to his best reason and judgment. A Law of Nature, _lex naturalis_ is defined, a general rule, found out by reason, forbidding a man to do what directly or indirectly is destructive of his life, or to omit what he thinks may best preserve it. Right and Law, though generally confounded, are exactly opposed, Right being liberty, and Law obligation.

In the natural state of war, every man, being governed by his own reason, has a right to everything, even to another's body. But because thus no man's life is secure, he finds the First and fundamental law of nature, or general rule of reason, to be _to seek peace and follow it, if possible_: failing which, we may defend ourselves by all the means we can. Here the law being 'to endeavour peace,' from this follows the Second law, that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and self-defence he shall think it necessary, to _lay down this right to all things_; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself. This is the same as the Gospel precept, Do to others, &c.

Laying down one's right to anything is divesting one's self of the liberty of hindering another in the exercise of his own original right to the same. The right is _renounced_, when a man cares not for whose benefit; _transferred_, when intended to benefit some certain person or persons. In either case the man is _obliged_ or _bound_ not to hinder those, in whose favour the right is abandoned, from the benefit of it; it is his _duty_ not to make void his own voluntary act, and if he does, it is _injustice_ or _injury_, because he acts now _sine Jure_.

Such conduct Hobbes likens to an intellectual absurdity or self-contradiction. Voluntary signs to be employed in abandoning a right, are words and actions, separately or together; but in all bonds, the strength comes not from their own nature, but from the fear of evil resulting from their rupture.

He concludes that not all rights are alienable, for the reason that the abandonment, being a voluntary act, must have for its object some good to the person that abandons his right. A man, for instance, cannot lay down the right to defend his life; to use words or other signs for that purpose, would be to despoil himself of the end--security of life and person--for which those signs were intended.

_Contract_ is the mutual transferring of right, and with this idea he connects a great deal. First, he distinguishes transference of right to a thing, and transference of the thing itself. A contract fulfilled by one party, but left on trust to be fulfilled by the other, is called the _Covenant_ of this other, (a distinction he afterwards drops), and leaves room for the keeping or violation of faith. To contract he opposes _gift, free-gift_, or _grace_, where there is no mutual transference of right, but one party transfers in the hope of gaining friends.h.i.+p or service from another, or the reputation of charity and magnanimity, or deliverance from the merited pain of compa.s.sion, or reward in heaven.

There follow remarks on signs of contract, as either express or by inference, and a distinction between free-gift as made by words of the present or past, and contract as made by words past, present, or future; wherefore, in contracts like buying and selling, a promise amounts to a covenant, and is obligatory.

The idea of _Merit_ is thus explained. Of two contracting parties, the one that has first performed merits what he is to receive by the other's performance, or has it as _due_. Even the person that wins a prize, offered by free-gift to many, merits it. But, whereas, in contract, I merit by virtue of my own power and the other contractor's need, in the case of the gift, I merit only by the benignity of the giver, and to the extent that, when he has given it, it shall be mine rather than another's. This distinction he believes to coincide with the scholastic separation of _merilum congrui_ and _merilum condigni_.

He adds many more particulars in regard to covenants made on mutual trust. They are void in the state of nature, upon any reasonable suspicion; but when there is a common power to compel observance, and thus no more room for fear, they are valid. Even when fear makes them invalid it must have arisen after they were made, else it should have kept them from being made. Transference of a right implies transference, as far as may be, of the means to its enjoyment. With beasts there is no covenant, because no proper mutual understanding.

With G.o.d also none, except through special revelation, or with his lieutenant in his name. Anything vowed contrary to the law of nature is vowed in vain; if the thing vowed is commanded by the law of nature, the law, not the vow, binds. Covenants are of things possible and future. Men are freed from them by performance, or forgiveness, which is rest.i.tution of liberty. He p.r.o.nounces covenants extorted by fear to be binding alike in the state of mere nature and in commonwealths, if once entered into. A former covenant makes void a later. Any covenant not to defend one's self from force by force is always void; as said above, there is no transference possible of right to defend one's self from death, wounds, imprisonment, &c. So no man is obliged to accuse himself, or generally to give testimony where from the nature of the case it may be presumed to be corrupted. Accusation upon torture is not to be reputed as testimony. At the close he remarks upon oaths. He finds in human nature two imaginable helps to strengthen the force of words, otherwise too weak to insure the performance of covenants. One of these--_pride_ in appearing not to need to break one's word, he supposes too rare to be presumed upon. The other, _fear_, has reference either to power of spirits invisible, or of men. In the state of nature, it is the first kind of fear--a man's religion--that keeps him to his promises. An oath is therefore swearing to perform by the G.o.d a man fears. But to the obligation itself it adds nothing.

Of the other Laws of Nature, treated in Chap. XV., the third, _that men perform their covenants made_, opens up the discussion of _Justice_.

Till rights have been transferred and covenants made there is no justice or injustice; injustice is no other than the non-performance of covenants. Further, justice (and also property) begins only where a regular coercive power is const.i.tuted, because otherwise there is cause for fear, and fear, as has been seen, makes covenants invalid. Even the scholastic definition of justice recognizes as much; for there can be no constant will of giving to every man his own, when, as in the state of nature, there is no _own_. He argues at length against the idea that justice, _i.e._, the keeping of covenants, is contrary to reason; repelling three different arguments. (1) He demonstrates that it cannot be reasonable to break or keep covenants according to benefit supposed to be gained in each case, because this would be a subversion of the principles whereon society is founded, and must end by depriving the individual of its benefits, whereby he would be left perfectly helpless. (2) He considers it frivolous to talk of securing the happiness of heaven by any kind of injustice, when there is but one possible way of attaining it, viz., the keeping of covenants. (3) He warns men (he means his contemporaries) against resorting to the mode of injustice known as rebellion to gain sovereignty, from the hopelessness of gaining it and the uncertainty of keeping it. Hence he concludes that justice is a rule of reason, the keeping of covenants being the surest way to preserve our life, and therefore a law of nature. He rejects the notion that laws of nature are to be supposed conducive, not to the preservation of life on earth, but to the attainment of eternal felicity; whereto such breach of covenant as rebellion may sometimes be supposed a means. For that, the knowledge of the future life is too uncertain. Finally, he consistently holds that faith is to be kept with heretics and with all that it has once been pledged to.

He goes on to distinguish between justice of men or manners, and justice of actions; whereby in the one case men are _just_ or _righteous_, and in the other, _guiltless_. After making the common observation that single inconsistent acts do not destroy a character for justice or injustice, he has this: 'That which gives to human actions the relish of justice, is a certain n.o.bleness or gallantness of courage rarely found, by which a man scorns to be beholden for the contentment of his life to fraud, or breach of promise.' Then he shows the difference between injustice, injury, and damage; a.s.serts that nothing done to a mail with his consent can be injury; and, rejecting the common mode of distinguis.h.i.+ng between _commutative_ and _distributive_ justice, calls the first the justice of a contractor, and the other an improper name for just distribution, or the justice of an arbitrator, _i.e._, the act of defining what is just--equivalent to equity, which is itself a law of nature.

The rest of the laws follow in swift succession. The 4th recommends _Grat.i.tude_, which depends on antecedent grace instead of covenant.

Free-gift being voluntary, _i.e._, done with intention of good to one's self, there will be an end to benevolence and mutual help, unless grat.i.tude is given as compensation.

The 5th enjoins _Complaisance_; a disposition in men not to seek superfluities that to others are necessaries. Such men are _sociable_.

The 6th enjoins _Pardon_ upon repentance, with a view (like the last) to peace.

The 7th enjoins that punishment is to be only for correction of the offender and direction of others; _i.e._, for profit and example, not for 'glorying in the hurt of another, tending to no end.' Against _Cruelty_.

The 8th is against _Contumely_, as provocative of dispeace.

The 9th is against _Pride_, and enjoins the acknowledgment of the equality of all men by nature. He is here very sarcastic against Aristotle, and a.s.serts, in opposition to him, that all inequality of men arises from consent.

The 10th is, in like manner, against _Arrogance_, and in favour of _Modesty_. Men, in entering into peace, are to reserve no rights but such as they are willing shall be reserved by others.

The 11th enjoins _Equity_; the disposition, in a man trusted to judge, to distribute equally to each man what in reason belongs to him.

Partiality 'deters men from the use of judges and arbitrators,' and is a cause of war.

The 12th enjoins the common, or the proportionable, use of things that cannot be distributed.

The 13th enjoins the resort to _lot_, when separate or common enjoyment is not possible; the 14th provides also for _natural_ lot, meaning first possession or primogeniture.

The 15th demands safe conduct for mediators.

The 16th requires that parties at controversy shall submit their right to _arbitration_.

The 17th forbids a man to be his own judge; the 18th, any interested person to be judge.

The 19th requires a resort to witnesses in a matter of fact, as between two contending parties.

This list of the laws of nature is only slightly varied in the other works. He enumerates none but those that concern the doctrine of Civil Society, pa.s.sing-over things like Intemperance, that are also forbidden by the law of nature because destructive of particular men. All the laws are summed up in the one expression: Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thyself.

The laws of nature he regards as always binding _in foro interno_, to the extent of its being desired they should take place; but _in foro externo_, only when there is security. As binding _in foro interno_, they can be broken even by an act according with them, if the purpose of it was against them. They are immutable and eternal; 'injustice, ingrat.i.tude, &c., can never be made lawful,' for war cannot preserve life, nor peace destroy it. Their fulfilment is easy, as requiring only an unfeigned and constant endeavour.

Of these laws the science is true moral philosophy, _i.e._, the science of good and evil in the society of mankind. Good and evil vary much from man to man, and even in the same man; but while private appet.i.te is the measure of good and evil in the condition of nature, all allow that peace is good, and that justice, grat.i.tude, _&c._, as the way or means to peace, are also good, that is to say, _moral virtues_. The true moral philosophy, in regarding them as laws of nature, places their goodness in their being the means of peaceable, comfortable, and sociable living; not, as is commonly done, in a mediocrity of pa.s.sions, 'as if not the cause, but the degree of daring, made fort.i.tude.'

His last remark is, that these dictates of reason are improperly called laws, because 'law, properly, is the word of him that by right hath command over others.' But when considered not as mere conclusions or theorems concerning the means of conservation and defence, but as delivered in the word of G.o.d, that by right commands all, then they are properly called laws.

Chapter XVI., closing the whole first part of the Leviathan, is of Persons, Authors, and Things Personated. The definitions and distinctions contained in it add nothing of direct ethical importance to the foregoing, though needed for the discussion of 'Commonwealth,'

to which he pa.s.ses. The chief points under this second great head are taken into the summary.

The views of Hobbes can be only inadequately summarized.

I.--The Standard, to men living in society, is the Law of the State.

This is Self-interest or individual Utility, masked as regard for Established Order; for, as he holds, under any kind of government there is more Security and Commodity of life than in the State of Nature. In the Natural Condition, Self-interest, of course, is the Standard; but not without responsibility to G.o.d, in case it is not sought, as far as other men will allow, by the practice of the dictates of Reason or laws of Nature.

II.--His Psychology of Ethics is to be studied in the detail. Whether in the natural or in the social state, the Moral Faculty, to correspond with the Standard, is the general power of Reason, comprehending the aims of the Individual or Society, and attending to the laws of Nature or the laws of the State, in the one case or in the other respectively.

On the question of the Will, his views have been given at length.

Disinterested Sentiment is, in origin, self-regarding; for, pitying others, we imagine the like calamity befalling ourselves. In one place, he seems to say, that the Sentiment of Power is also involved. It is the great defect of his system that he takes so little account of the Social affections, whether natural or acquired.

III.--His Theory of Happiness, or the Summum Bonum, would follow from his a.n.a.lysis of the Feelings and Will. But Felicity being a continual progress in desire, and consisting less in present enjoyment than in _a.s.suring_ the way of future desire, the chief element in it is the Sense of Power.

IV.--A Moral Code is minutely detailed under the name of Laws of Nature, in force in the Natural State under Divine Sanction. It inculcates all the common virtues, and makes little or no departure from the usually received maxims.

V.--The relation of Ethics to Politics is the closest imaginable. Not even Society, as commonly understood, but only the established civil authority, is the source of rules of conduct. In the _civil_ (which to Hobbes is the only meaning of the _social_) state, the laws of nature are superseded, by being supposed taken up into, the laws of the Sovereign Power.

VI.--As regards Religion, he affirms the coincidence of his reasoned deduction of the laws of Nature with the precepts of Revelation. He makes a mild use of the sanctions of a Future Life to enforce the laws of Nature, and to give additional support to the commands of the sovereign that take the place of these in the social state.

Among the numberless replies, called forth by the bold speculations of Hobbes, were some works of independent ethical importance; in particular, the treatises of c.u.mberland, Cudworth, and Clarke.

c.u.mberland stands by himself; Cudworth and Clarke, agreeing in some respects, are commonly called the _Rational_ moralists, along with Wollaston and Price (who fall to be noticed later).

RICHARD c.u.mBERLAND. [1632-1718.]