Chapter XXX (2)

41. The law of nature he derives not from consent of nations, nor from personal utility, but from the condition of man. It is discoverable by reason; its obligation is from God. He denies that it is founded on the intrinsic honesty or turpitude of actions. It was free to God whether he would create an animal to whom the present law of nature should be applicable. But supposing all things human to remain constant, the law of nature, though owing its institution to the free will of God, remains unalterable. He therefore neither agrees wholly with those who deem this law as one arbitrary and mutable at God’s pleasure, or those who look upon it as an image of his essential holiness and justice. For he doubts whether the law of nature is altogether conformed to the divine attributes as to a type; since we cannot acquire a right with respect to God; so that his justice must be of a different kind from ours. Common consent, again, is an insufficient basis of natural law, few men having searched into the foundations of their assent, even if we could find a more general consent than is the case. And here he expatiates, in the style of Montaigne’s school, on the variety of moral opinions.[904] Puffendorf next attacks those who resolve right into self-interest. But, unfortunately, he only proves that men often mistake their interest. “It is a great mistake to fancy it will be profitable to you to take away, either by fraud or violence, what another man has acquired by his labour; since others have not only the power of resisting you, but of taking the same freedom with your goods and possessions.” This is evidently no answer to Hobbes or Spinosa.

[904] C. 3.

42. The nature of man, his wants, his powers of doing mischief to others, his means of mutual assistance, show that he cannot be supported in things necessary and convenient to him without society, so that others may promote his interests. Hence, sociableness is a primary law of nature, and all actions tending towards it are commanded, as the opposite are forbidden by that law. In this he agrees with Grotius; and, after he had become acquainted with Cumberland’s work, observes that the fundamental law of that writer, to live for the common good, and show benevolence towards all men, does not differ from his own. He partly explains, and partly answers, the theory of Hobbes. From Grotius he dissents in denying that the law of nature would be binding without religion, but does not think the soul’s immortality essential to it.[905] The best division of natural law is into duties towards ourselves and towards others. But in the abridged work, the Duties of a Man and a Citizen, he adds those towards God.

[905] C. 8.

43. The former class of duties he illustrates with much prolixity and needless quotation,[906] and passes to the right of self-defence, which seems to be the debatable frontier between the two classes of obligation. In this chapter Puffendorf is free from the extreme scrupulousness of Grotius; yet he differs from him, as well as from Barbeyrac and Locke, in denying the right of attacking the aggressor, where a stranger has been injured, unless where we are bound to him by promise.[907]

[906] C. 4.

[907] C. 5.

44. All persons, as is evident, are bound to repair wilful injury, and even that arising from their neglect; but not where they have not been in fault.[908] Yet the civil action _ob pauperiem_, for casual damage by a beast or slave, which Grotius held to be merely of positive law, and which our own (in the only applicable case) does not recognise, Puffendorf thinks grounded on natural right. He considers several questions of reparation, chiefly such as we find in Grotius. From these, after some intermediate disquisitions on moral duties, he comes to the more extensive province of casuistry, the obligation of promises.[909] These, for the most part, give perfect rights which may be enforced, though this is not universal; hence, promises may themselves be called imperfect or perfect. The former, or _nuda pacta_, seem to be obligatory rather by the rules of veracity, and for the sake of maintaining confidence among men, than in strict justice; yet he endeavours to refute the opinion of a jurist who held _nuda pacta_ to involve no obligation beyond a compensation for damage. Free consent and knowledge of the whole subject are required for the validity of a promise; hence, drunkenness takes away its obligation.[910] Whether a minor is bound in conscience, though not in law, has been disputed; the Romish casuists all denying it unless he has received an advantage. La Placette, it seems, after the time of Puffendorf, though a very rigid moralist, confines the obligation to cases where the other party sustains any real damage by the non-performance. The world, in some instances, at least, would exact more than the strictest casuists. Promises were invalidated, though not always mutual contracts, by error; and fraud in the other party annuls a contract. There can be no obligation, Puffendorf maintains, without a corresponding right; hence, fear arising from the fault of the other party invalidates a promise. But those made to pirates or rebels, not being extorted by fear, are binding. Vows to God he deems not binding, unless accepted by him; but he thinks that we may presume their acceptance when they serve to define or specify an indeterminate duty.[911] Unlawful promises must not be performed by the party promising to commit an evil act, and as to performance of the other party’s promise, he differs from Grotius in thinking it not binding. Barbeyrac concurs with Puffendorf, but Paley holds the contrary; and the common sentiments of mankind seem to be on that side.[912]

[908] L. iii., c. 1.

[909] C. 5.

[910] C. 6.

[911] C. 6.

[912] C. 7.

45. The obligations of veracity Puffendorf, after much needless prolixity on the nature of signs and words, deduces from a tacit contract among mankind, that words, or signs of intention, shall be used in a definite sense which others may understand.[913] He is rather fond of these imaginary compacts. The laxer casuists are in nothing more distinguishable from the more rigid than in the exceptions they allow to the general rule of veracity. Many, like Augustin and most of the fathers, have laid it down that all falsehood is unlawful; even some of the jurists, when treating of morality, had done the same. But Puffendorf gives considerable latitude to deviations from truth, by mental reserve, by ambiguous words, by direct falsehood. Barbeyrac, in a long note, goes a good deal farther, and indeed beyond any safe limit.[914] An oath, according to those writers, adds no peculiar obligation; another remarkable discrepancy between their system and that of the theological casuists. Oaths may be released by the party in favour of whom they are made; but it is necessary to observe whether the dispensing authority is really the obligee.

[913] L. iv., c. 1.

[914] Barbeyrac admits that several writers of authority
since Puffendorf had maintained the strict obligation of veracity
for its own sake; Thomasius, Buddæus, Noodt, and above all, La
Placette. His own notions are too much the other way, both
according to the received standard of honourable and decorous
character among men, and according to any sound theory of ethics.
Lying, he says, condemned in Scripture, always means fraud or
injury to others. His doctrine is, that we are to speak the
truth, or to be silent, or to feign and dissemble, accordingly as
our own lawful interest, or that of our neighbour, may demand it.
This is surely as untenable one way as any paradox in Augustin or
La Placette can be the other.

46. We now advance to a different part of moral philosophy, the rights of property. Puffendorf first inquires into the natural right of killing animals for food; but does not defend it very well, resting this right on the want of mutual obligation between man and brutes. The arguments from physiology and the manifest propensity in mankind to devour animals, are much stronger. He censures cruelty towards animals, but hardly on clear grounds; the disregard of moral emotion, which belongs to his philosophy, prevents his judging it rightly.[915] Property itself in things he grounds on an express or tacit contract of mankind, while all was yet in common, that each should possess a separate portion. This covenant he supposes to have been gradually extended, as men perceived the advantage of separate possession, lands having been cultivated in common after severalty had been established in houses and moveable goods; and he refutes those who maintain property to be coeval with mankind, and immediately founded on the law of nature.[916] Nothing can be the subject of property which is incapable of exclusive occupation; not therefore the ocean, though some narrow seas may be appropriated.[917] In the remainder of this fourth book he treats on a variety of subjects connected with property, which carry us over a wide field of natural and positive jurisprudence.

[915] C. 3.

[916] C. 4. Barbeyrac more wisely denies this assumed compact,
and rests the right of property on individual occupancy.

[917] C. 5.

47. The fifth book of Puffendorf relates to price, and to all contracts onerous or lucrative, according to the distinction of the jurists, with the rules of their interpretation. It is a running criticism on the Roman Law, comparing it with right reason and justice. Price he divides into proper and eminent; the first being what we call real value, or capacity of procuring things desirable by means of exchange; the second the money value. What is said on this subject would now seem common-place and prolix; but it is rather interesting to observe the beginnings of political economy. Money, he thinks, was introduced by an agreement of civilized nations, as a measure of value. Puffendorf, of more enlarged views than Grotius, vindicates usury which the other had given up; and mentions the evasions usually practised such as the grant of an annuity for a limited term.

48. In the sixth book we have disquisitions on matrimony and the rights incident to it, on paternal and on herile power. Among other questions he raises one whether the husband has any natural dominion over the wife. This he thinks hard to prove, except as his sex gives him an advantage; but fitness to govern does not create a right. He has recourse therefore to his usual solution, her tacit or express promise of obedience. Polygamy he deems contrary to the law of nature, but not incest except in the direct line. This is consonant to what had been the general determination of philosophers.[918] The right of parents he derives from the general duty of sociableness, which makes preservation of children necessary, and on the affection implanted in them by nature; also on a presumed consent of the children in return for their maintenance.[919] In a state of nature this command belongs to the mother, unless she has waived it by a matrimonial contract. In childhood, the fruits of the child’s labour belong to the father, though the former seems to be capable of receiving gifts. Fathers, as heads of families, have a kind of sovereignty, distinct from the paternal, to which adult children residing with them are submitted. But after their emancipation by leaving their father’s house, which does not absolutely require his consent, they are bound only to duty and reverence. The power of a master over his servant is not by nature, nor by the law of war, but originally by a contract founded on necessity. War increased the number of those in servitude. A slave, whatever Hobbes may say, is capable of being injured by his master; but the laws of some nations give more power to the latter than is warranted by those of nature. Servitude implies only an obligation to perpetual labour for a recompence (namely, at least maintenance); the evil necessary to this condition has been much exaggerated by opinion.[920]

[918] L. vi., c. 1.

[919] C. 2.

[920] C. 3.

|Puffendorf and Paley compared.|

49. Puffendorf and Cumberland are the two great promoters, if not founders of that school in ethics, which abandoning the higher ground of both philosophers and theologians, that of an intrinsic fitness and propriety in actions, resolved them all into their conduciveness towards good. Their _utile_ indeed is very different from what Cicero has so named, which is merely personal, but it is different also from his _honestum_. The sociableness of Puffendorf is perhaps much the same with the general good of Cumberland, but is somewhat less comprehensive and less clear. Paley, who had not read a great deal, had certainly read Puffendorf; he has borrowed from him several minor illustrations, such as the equivocal promise of Timur (called by Paley Temures) to the garrison of Sebastia, and the rules for division of profits in partnership. Their minds were in some respects alike; both phlegmatic, honest, and sincere, without warmth or fancy; yet there seems a more thorough good-nature and kindliness of heart in our countryman. Though an ennobled German, Puffendorf had as little respect for the law of honour as Paley himself. They do not indeed resemble each other in their modes of writing; one was very laborious, the other very indolent; one sometimes misses his mark by circuity, the other by precipitance. The quotations in Puffendorf are often as thickly strewed as in Grotius, though he takes less from the poets; but he seems not to build upon their authority, which gives them still more the air of superfluity. His theory indeed, which assigns no weight to anything but a close geometrical deduction from axioms, is incompatible with much deference to authority; and he sets aside the customs of mankind as unstable and arbitrary. He has not taken much from Hobbes, whose principles are far from his; but a great deal from Grotius. The leading difference between the treatises of these celebrated men is that, while the former contemplated the law that ought to be observed among independent communities as his primary object, to render which more evident he lays down the fundamental principles of private right or the law of nature, the latter, on the other hand, not only begins with natural law, but makes it the great theme of his inquiries.

|Rochefoucault.|

50. Few books have been more highly extolled or more severely blamed than the Thoughts or Maxims of the Duke of Rochefoucault. They have, indeed, the greatest advantages for popularity; the production of a man less distinguished by his high rank than by his active participation in the factions of his country at a time when they reached the limits of civil war, and by his brilliancy among the accomplished courtiers of Louis XIV.; concise and energetic in expression; reduced to those short aphorisms, which leave much to the reader’s acuteness, and yet save his labour; not often obscure and never wearisome; an evident generalisation of long experience, without pedantry, without method, without deductive reasonings, yet wearing an appearance at least of profundity, they delight the intelligent though indolent man of the world, and must be read with some admiration by the philosopher. Among the books in ancient and modern times which record the conclusions of observing men on the moral qualities of their fellows, a high place should be reserved for the Maxims of Rochefoucault.

51. The censure that has so heavily fallen upon this writer is founded on his proneness to assign a low and selfish motive to human actions, and even to those which are most usually denominated virtuous. It is impossible to dispute the partial truth of this charge. Yet it may be pleaded, that many of his maxims are not universal even in their enunciation; and that, in others, where, for the sake of a more effective expression, the position seems general, we ought to understand it with such limitations as our experience may suggest. The society with which the Duke of la Rochefoucault was conversant could not elevate his notions of disinterested probity in man, or of unblemished purity in woman. Those who call themselves the world, it is easy to perceive, set aside, in their remarks on human nature, all the species but themselves, and sometimes generalise their maxims, to an amusing degree, from the manners and sentiments which have grown up in the atmosphere of a court or an aristocratic society. Rochefoucault was of far too reflecting a mind to be confounded with such mere worldlings; yet he bears witness to the contracted observation and the precipitate inferences which an intercourse with a single class of society scarcely fails to generate. The malignity of Rochefoucault is always directed against the false virtues of mankind, but never touches the reality of moral truths, and leaves us less injured than the cold, heartless indifference to right which distils from the pages of Hobbes. Nor does he deal in those sweeping denials of goodness to human nature which are so frequently hazarded under the mask of religion. His maxims are not exempt from defects of a different kind; they are sometimes refined to a degree of obscurity, and sometimes, under an epigrammatic turn, convey little more than a trivial meaning. Perhaps, however, it would be just to say that one third of the number deserve to be remembered, as at least partially true and useful; and this is a large proportion, if we exclude all that are not in some measure original.

|La Bruyere.|

52. The Characters of La Bruyere, published in 1687, approach to the Maxims of La Rochefoucault by their refinement, their brevity, their general tendency to an unfavourable explanation of human conduct. This nevertheless is not so strongly marked, and the picture of selfishness wants the darkest touches of his contemporary’s colouring. La Bruyere had a model in antiquity, Theophrastus, whose short book of Characters he had himself translated, and prefixed to his own; a step not impolitic for his own glory, since the Greek writer, with no contemptible degree of merit, has been incomparably surpassed by his imitator. Many changes in the condition of society, the greater diversity of ranks and occupations in modern Europe, the influence of women over the other sex, as well as their own varieties of character and manners, the effects of religion, learning, chivalry, royalty, have given a range to this very pleasing department of moral literature which no ancient could have compassed. Nor has Theophrastus taken much pains to search the springs of character; his delineations are bold and clear, but merely in outline; we see more of manners than of nature, and the former more in general classes than in portraiture. La Bruyere has often painted single persons; whether accurately or no, we cannot at this time determine, but with a felicity of description which at once renders the likeness probable, and suggests its application to those we ourselves have seen. His general reflections, like those of Rochefoucault, are brilliant with antithesis and epigrammatic conciseness; sometimes perhaps not quite just or quite perspicuous. But he pleases more, on the whole, from his greater variety, his greater liveliness, and his gentler spirit of raillery. Nor does he forget to mingle the praise of some with his satire. But he is rather a bold writer for his age and his position in the court, and what looks like flattery may well have been ironical. Few have been more imitated, as well as more admired, than La Bruyere, who fills up the list of those whom France has boasted as most conspicuous for their knowledge of human nature. The others are Montaigne, Charron, Pascal, and Rochefoucault; but we might withdraw the second name without injustice.

|Education. Milton’s Tractate.|

53. Moral philosophy comprehends in its literature whatever has been written on the best theory and precepts of moral education, disregarding what is confined to erudition, though this may frequently be partially treated in works of the former class. Education, notwithstanding its recognised importance, was miserably neglected in England, and quite as much, perhaps, in every part of Europe. Schools, kept by low-born illiberal pedants, teaching little, and that little ill, without regard to any judicious discipline or moral culture, on the one hand, or, on the other, a pretence of instruction at home under some ignorant and servile tutor, seem to have been the alternatives of our juvenile gentry. Milton raised his voice against these faulty methods in his short Tractate on Education. This abounds with bursts of his elevated spirit; and sketches out a model of public colleges, wherein the teaching should be more comprehensive, more liberal, more accommodated to what he deems the great aim of education than what was in use. “That,” he says, “I call a complete and generous education which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war.” But when Milton descends to specify the course of studies he would recommend, it appears singularly ill-chosen and impracticable, nearly confined to ancient writers, even in mathematics and other subjects where they could not be sufficient, and likely to leave the student very far from that aptitude for offices of war and peace which he had held forth as the reward of his diligence.

|Locke on Education. Its merits.|

54. Locke, many years afterwards, turned his thoughts to education with all the advantages that a strong understanding and entire disinterestedness could give him; but, as we should imagine, with some necessary deficiencies of experience, though we hardly perceive much of them in his writings. He looked on the methods usual in his age with severity, or, some would say, with prejudice; yet I know not by what proof we can refute his testimony. In his Treatise on Education, which may be reckoned an introduction to that on the Conduct of the Understanding, since the latter is but a scheme of that education an adult person should give himself, he has uttered, to say the least, more good sense on the subject than will be found in any preceding writer. Locke was not like the pedants of his own or other ages, who think that to pour their wordy book-learning into the memory is the true discipline of childhood. The culture of the intellectual and moral faculties in their most extensive sense, the health of the body, the accomplishments which common utility or social custom have rendered valuable, enter into his idea of the best model of education, conjointly at least with any knowledge that can be imparted by books. The ancients had written in the same spirit: in Xenophon, in Plato, in Aristotle, the noble conception which Milton has expressed, of forming the perfect man, is always predominant over mere literary instruction, if indeed the latter can be said to appear at all in their writings on this subject; but we had become the dupes of schoolmasters in our riper years, as we had been their slaves in our youth. Much has been written, and often well, since the days of Locke; but he is the chief source from which it has been ultimately derived; and though the Emile is more attractive in manner, it may be doubtful whether it is as rational and practicable as the Treatise on Education. If they have both the same defect, that their authors wanted sufficient observation of children, it is certain that the caution and sound judgment of Locke have rescued him better from error.

|And defects.|

55. There are, indeed, from this or from other causes, several passages in the Treatise on Education to which we cannot give an unhesitating assent. Locke appears to have somewhat exaggerated the efficacy of education. This is an error on the right side in a work that aims at persuasion in a practical matter; but we are now looking at theoretical truth alone. “I think I may say,” he begins, “that of all the men we meet with nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education. It is this which makes the great difference in mankind. The little or almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences; and there it is as in the fountains of some rivers, where a gentle application of the hand turns the flexible waters into channels that make them take quite contrary courses; and by this little direction given them at first in the source, they receive different tendencies, and arrive at last at very remote and distant places.” “I imagine,” he adds soon afterwards, “the minds of children as easily turned this or that way as water itself.”[921]

[921] Treatise on Education, § 152. “The difference,” he
afterwards says, “to be found in the manners and abilities of men
is owing more to their education than to anything else.” § 32.

56. This passage is an instance of Locke’s unfortunate fondness for analogical parallels, which, as far as I have observed, much more frequently obscure a philosophical theorem, than shed any light upon it. Nothing would be easier than to confirm the contrary proposition by such fanciful analogies from external nature. In itself, the position is hyperbolical to extravagance. It is no more disparagement to the uses of education that it will not produce the like effects upon every individual, than it is to those of agriculture (I purposely use this sort of idle analogy) that we do not reap the same quantity of corn from every soil. Those who are conversant with children on a large scale will, I believe, unanimously deny this levelling efficacy of tuition. The variety of characters even in children of the same family, where the domestic associations of infancy have run in the same trains, and where many physical congenialities may produce, and ordinarily do produce, a moral resemblance, is of sufficiently frequent occurrence to prove that in human beings there are intrinsic dissimilitudes, which no education can essentially overcome. Among mere theorists, however, this hypothesis seems to be popular. And as many of these extend their notion of the plasticity of human nature to the effects of government and legislation, which is a sort of continuance of the same controlling power, they are generally induced to disregard past experience of human affairs, because they flatter themselves that under a more scientific administration mankind will become something very different from what they have been.

57. In the age of Locke, if we may confide in what he tells us, the domestic education of children must have been of the worst kind. “If we look,” he says, “into the common management of children we shall have reason to wonder, in the great dissoluteness of manners which the world complains of, that there are any footsteps at all left of virtue. I desire to know what vice can be named which parents and those about children do not season them with, and drop into them the seeds of, as often as they are capable to receive them.” The mode of treatment seems to have been passionate and often barbarous severity alternating with foolish indulgence. Their spirits were often broken down and their ingenuousness destroyed by the former; their habits of self-will and sensuality confirmed by the latter. This was the course used by parents; but the pedagogues of course confined themselves to their favourite scheme of instruction and reformation by punishment. Dugald Stewart has animadverted on the austerity of Locke’s rules of education.[922] And this is certainly the case in some respects. He recommends that children should be taught to expect nothing because it will give them pleasure, but only what will be useful to them; a rule fit, in its rigid meaning, to destroy the pleasure of the present moment in the only period of life that the present moment can be really enjoyed. No father himself, Locke neither knew how ill a parent can spare the love of his child, nor how ill a child can want the constant and practical sense of a parent’s love. But if he was led too far by deprecating the mischievous indulgence he had sometimes witnessed, he made some amends by his censures on the prevalent discipline of stripes. Of this he speaks with the disapprobation natural to a mind already schooled in the habits of reason and virtue.[923] “I cannot think any correction useful to a child where the shame of suffering for having done amiss does not work more upon him than the pain.” Esteem and disgrace are the rewards and punishments to which he principally looks, and surely this is a noble foundation for moral discipline. He also recommends that children should be much with their parents, and allowed all reasonable liberty. I cannot think that Stewart’s phrase “hardness of character,” which he accounts for by the early intercourse of Locke with the Puritans, is justly applicable to anything that we know of him; and many more passages in this very treatise might be adduced to prove his kindliness of disposition, than will appear to any judicious person over austere. He found in fact everything wrong; a false system of reward and punishment, a false view of the objects of education, a false selection of studies, false methods of pursuing them. Where so much was to be corrected, it was perhaps natural to be too sanguine about the effects of the remedy.

[922] Preliminary Dissertation to Encyclop. Britann.

[923] If severity carried to the highest pitch does prevail, and
works a cure upon the present unruly distemper, it is often
bringing in the room of it a worse and more dangerous disease by
breaking the mind; and then in the place of a disorderly young
fellow, you have a low-spirited moped creature, who however with
his unnatural sobriety he may please silly people, who commend
tame inactive children, because they make no noise, nor give them
any trouble; yet at least will probably prove as uncomfortable a
thing to his friends, as he will be all his life an useless thing
to himself and others. § 51.

58. Of the old dispute as to public and private education he says, that both sides have their inconveniencies, but incline to prefer the latter, influenced, as is evident, rather by disgust at the state of our schools than by any general principle.[924] For he insists much on the necessity of giving a boy a sufficient knowledge of what he is to expect in the world. “The longer he is kept hood-winked, the less he will see when he comes abroad into open daylight, and be the more exposed to be a prey to himself and others.” And this experience will, as is daily seen, not be supplied by a tutor’s lectures, any more than by books; nor can be given by any course save a public education. Locke urges the necessity of having a tutor well-bred, and with knowledge of the world, the ways, the humours, the follies, the cheats, the faults of the age he is fallen into, and particularly of the country he lives in, as of far more importance than his scholarship. “The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.... He that thinks not this of more moment to his son, and for which he more needs a governor, than the languages and learned sciences, forgets of how much more use it is to judge right of men and manage his affairs wisely with them, than to speak Greek and Latin, and argue in mood and figure, or to have his head filled with the abstruse speculations of natural philosophy and metaphysics; nay, than to be well versed in Greek and Roman writers, though that be much better for a gentleman, than to be a good Peripatetic or Cartesian; because these ancient authors observed and painted mankind well, and give the best light into that kind of knowledge. He that goes into the eastern parts of Asia will find able and acceptable men without any of these; but without virtue, knowledge of the world, and civility, an accomplished and valuable man can be found nowhere.”[925]

[924] § 70.

[925] § 94.

59. It is to be remembered, that the person whose education Locke undertakes to fashion is an English gentleman. Virtue, wisdom, breeding, and learning, are desirable for such an one in their order, but the last not so much as the rest.[926] It must be had, he says, but only as subservient to greater qualities. No objections have been more frequently raised against the scheme of Locke than on account of his depreciation of classical literature, and of the study of the learned languages. This is not wholly true: Latin he reckons absolutely necessary for a gentleman, though it is absurd that those should learn Latin who are designed for trade, and never look again at a Latin book.[927] If he lays not so much stress on Greek as a gentleman’s study, though he by no means would abandon it, it is because, in fact, most gentlemen, especially in his age, have done very well without it; and nothing can be deemed indispensable in the education of a child, the want of which does not leave a manifest deficiency in the man. “No man,” he observes, “can pass for a scholar who is ignorant of the Greek language. But I am not here considering of the education of a professed scholar, but of a gentleman.”[928]

[926] § 138.

[927] § 189.

[928] § 195.

60. The peculiar methods recommended by Locke in learning languages, especially the Latin, appear to be of very doubtful utility, though some of them do not want strenuous supporters in the present day. Such are the method of interlinear translation, the learning of mere words without grammar, and, above all, the practice of talking Latin with a tutor who speaks it well--a phœnix whom he has not shown us where to find.[929] In general, he seems to underrate the difficulty of acquiring what even he would call a competent learning, and what is of more importance, and no rare mistake in those who write on this subject, to confound the acquisition of a language with the knowledge of its literature. The best ancient writers both in Greek and Latin furnish so much of wise reflection, of noble sentiment, of all that is beautiful and salutary, that no one who has had the happiness to know and feel what they are, will desire to see their study excluded or stinted in its just extent, wherever the education of those who are to be the first and best of the country is carried forward. And though by far the greater portion of mankind must, by the very force of terms, remain in the ranks of intellectual mediocrity, it is an ominous sign of any times when no thought is taken for those who may rise beyond it.

[929] § 165.

61. In every other part of instruction, Locke has still an eye to what is useful for a gentleman. French he justly thinks should be taught before Latin; no geometry is required by him beyond Euclid, but he recommends geography, history and chronology, drawing, and what may be thought now as little necessary for a gentleman as Homer, the jurisprudence of Grotius and Puffendorf. He strongly urges the writing English well, though a thing commonly neglected, and after speaking with contempt of the artificial systems of logic and rhetoric, sends the pupil to Chillingworth for the best example of reasoning, and to Tully for the best idea of eloquence. “And let him read those things that are well writ in English to perfect his style in the purity of our language.”[930]

[930] § 188.

62. It would be to transcribe half this treatise, were we to mention all the judicious and minute observations on the management of children it contains. Whatever may have been Locke’s opportunities, he certainly availed himself of them to the utmost. It is as far as possible from a theoretical book; and in many respects the best of modern times, such as those of the Edgeworth name, might pass for developments of his principles. The patient attention to every circumstance, a peculiar characteristic of the genius of Locke, is in none of his works better displayed. His rules for the health of children, though sometimes trivial, since the subject has been more regarded, his excellent advice as to checking effeminacy and timorousness, his observations on their curiosity, presumption, idleness, on their plays and recreations, bespeak an intense, though calm, love of truth and goodness; a quality which few have possessed more fully, or known so well how to exert, as this admirable philosopher.

|Fenelon on female education.|

63. No one had condescended to spare any thoughts for female education, till Fenelon, in 1688, published his earliest work, Sur l’Education des Filles. This was the occasion of his appointment as preceptor to the grandchildren of Louis XIV.; for much of this treatise, and perhaps the most valuable part, is equally applicable to both sexes. It may be compared with that of Locke, written nearly at the same time, and bearing a great resemblance in its spirit. Both have the education of a polished and high-bred youth, rather than of scholars, before them; and Fenelon rarely loses sight of his peculiar object, or gives any rule which is not capable of being practised in female education. In many respects he coincides with our English philosopher, and observes with him that a child learns much before he speaks, so that the cultivation of his moral qualities can hardly begin too soon. Both complain of the severity of parents, and deprecate the mode of bringing up by punishment. Both advise the exhibition of virtue and religion in pleasing lights, and censure the austere dogmatism with which they were inculcated, before the mind was sufficiently developed to apprehend them. But the characteristic sweetness of Fenelon’s disposition is often shown in contrast with the somewhat stern inflexibility of Locke. His theory is uniformly indulgent; his method of education is a labour of love; a desire to render children happy for the time, as well as afterwards, runs through his book, and he may perhaps be considered the founder of that school which has endeavoured to dissipate the terrors and dry the tears of childhood. “I have seen,” he says, “many children who have learned to read in play; we have only to read entertaining stories to them out of a book, and insensibly teach them the letters, they will soon desire to go for themselves to the source of their amusement.” “Books should be given them well bound and gilt, with good engravings, clear types; for all that captivates the imagination facilitates study; the choice should be such as contain short and marvellous stories.” These details are now trivial, but in the days of Fenelon they may have been otherwise.

64. In several passages he displays not only a judicious spirit, but an observation that must have been long exercised. “Of all the qualities we perceive in children,” he remarks, “there is only one that can be trusted as likely to be durable, which is sound judgment; it always grows with their growth, if it is well cultivated; but the grace of childhood is effaced; its vivacity is extinguished; even its sensibility is often lost, because their own passions and the intercourse of others insensibly harden the hearts of young persons who enter into the world.” It is therefore a solid and just way of thinking which we should most value and most improve, and this not by any means less in girls than in the other sex, since their duties and the occupations they are called upon to fill do not less require it. Hence he not only deprecates an excessive taste for dress, but, with more originality, points out the danger of that extreme delicacy and refinement which incapacitate women for the ordinary affairs of life, and give them a contempt for a country life and rural economy.

65. It will be justly thought at present, that he discourages too much the acquisition of knowledge by women. “Keep their minds,” he says in one place, “as much as you can within the usual limits, and let them understand that the modesty of their sex ought to shrink from science with almost as much delicacy as from vice.” This seems, however, to be confined to science or philosophy in a strict sense; for he permits afterwards a larger compass of reading. Women should write a good hand, understand orthography and the four rules of arithmetic, which they will want in domestic affairs. To these he requires a close attention, and even recommends to women an acquaintance with some of the common forms and maxims of law. Greek, Roman, and French history, with the best travels, will be valuable, and keep them from seeking pernicious fictions. Books also of eloquence and poetry may be read with selection, taking care to avoid any that relate to love; music and painting may be taught with the same precaution. The Italian and Spanish languages are of no use but to enlarge their knowledge of dangerous books; Latin is better as the language of the church; but this he would recommend only for girls of good sense and discreet conduct, who will make no display of the acquisition.

SECT. II.

ON POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.

_Puffendorf--Spinosa--Harrington’s Oceana--Locke on Government-- Political Economy._

|Puffendorf’s theory of politics.|

66. In the seventh book of Puffendorf’s great work, he comes to political philosophy, towards which he had been gradually tending for some time; primary societies, or those of families, leading the way to the consideration of civil government. Grotius derives the origin of this from the natural sociableness of mankind. But this, as Puffendorf remarks, may be satisfied by the primary societies. The real cause was experience of the injuries which one man can inflict on another.[931] And, after a prolix disquisition, he concludes that civil society must have been constituted, first, by a covenant of a number of men, each with each, to form a commonwealth, and to be bound by the majority, in which primary covenant they must be unanimous, that is, every dissentient would retain his natural liberty; next, by a resolution or decree of the majority, that certain rulers shall govern the rest; and, lastly, by a second covenant between these rulers and the rest, one promising to take care of the public weal, and the other to obey lawful commands.[932] This covenant, as he attempts to show, exists even in a democracy, though it is less evident than in other forms. Hobbes had admitted the first of these covenants, but denied the second; Barbeyrac, the able commentator on Puffendorf, has done exactly the reverse. A state once formed may be conceived to exist as one person, with a single will, represented by that of the sovereign, wherever the sovereignty may be placed. This sovereignty is founded on the covenants, and is not conferred, except indirectly like every other human power, by God. Puffendorf here combats the opposite opinion, which churchmen were as prone to hold, it seems, in Germany as in England.[933]

[931] L. vii., c. 1.

[932] C. 2.

[933] C. 3.

67. The legislative, punitive, and judiciary powers, those of making war and peace, of appointing magistrates, and levying taxes, are so closely connected that no one can be denied to the sovereign. As to his right in ecclesiastical matters, Puffendorf leaves it for others to determine.[934] He seems in this part of the work too favourable to unlimited monarchy, declaring himself against a mixed government. The sovereign power must be irresponsible, and cannot be bound by the law itself has given. He even denies that all government is intended for the good of the governed--a position strangely inconsistent with his theory of a covenant--but if it were, this end, the public good, may be more probably discerned by the prince than by the people.[935] Yet he admits that the exorbitancies of a prince should be restrained by certain fundamental laws, and holds, that having accepted such, and ratified them by oath, he is not at liberty to break them; arguing, with some apparent inconsistency, against those who maintain such limitations to be inconsistent with monarchy, and even recommending the institution of councils, without whose consent certain acts of the sovereign shall not be valid. This can only be reconciled with his former declaration against a mixed sovereignty, by the distinction familiar to our own constitutional lawyers, between the joint acts of A and B, and the acts of A with B’s consent. But this is a little too technical and unreal for philosophical politics.[936] Governments not reducible to one of the three simple forms he calls irregular; such as the Roman republic or German empire. But there may be systems of states, or aggregate communities, either subject to one king by different titles, or united by federation. He inclines to deny that the majority can bind the minority in the latter case, and seems to take it for granted that some of the confederates can quit the league at pleasure.[937]

[934] C. 4.

[935] C. 6.

[936] C. 6.

[937] C. 5.

68. Sovereignty over persons cannot be acquired, strictly speaking, by seizure or occupation, as in the case of lands, and requires, even after conquest, their consent to obey; which will be given, in order to secure themselves from the other rights of war. It is a problem whether, after an unjust conquest, the forced consent of the people can give a lawful title to sovereignty. Puffendorf distinguishes between a monarchy and a republic thus unjustly subdued. In the former case, so long as the lawful heirs exist or preserve their claim, the duty of restitution continues. But in the latter, as the people may live as happily under a monarchy as under a republic, he thinks that an usurper has only to treat them well, without scruple as to his title. If he oppresses them, no course of years will make his title lawful, or bind them in conscience to obey, length of possession being only length of injury. If a sovereign has been justly divested of his power, the community becomes immediately free; but if by unjust rebellion, his right continues till by silence he has appeared to abandon it.[938]

[938] C. 7.

69. Every one will agree that a lawful ruler must not be opposed within the limits of his authority. But let us put the case that he should command what is unlawful, or maltreat his subjects. Whatever Hobbes may say, a subject may be injured by his sovereign. But we should bear minor injuries patiently, and in the worst cases avoid personal resistance. Those are not to be listened to who assert that a king, degenerating into a tyrant, may be resisted and punished by his people. He admits only a right of self-defence, if he manifestly becomes a public enemy: in all this he seems to go quite as far as Grotius himself. The next question is as to the right of invaders and usurpers to obedience. This, it will be observed, he had already in some measure discussed; but Puffendorf is neither strict in method, nor free from repetitions. He labours much about the rights of the lawful prince insisting upon them, where the subjects have promised allegiance to the usurper. This, he thinks, must be deemed temporary, until the legitimate sovereign has recovered his dominions. But what may be done towards this end by such as have sworn fidelity to the actual ruler, he does not intimate. It is one of the nicest problems in political casuistry.[939]

[939] C. 8.

70. Civil laws are such as emanate from the supreme power, with respect to things left indifferent by the laws of God and nature. What chiefly belongs to them is the form and method of acquiring rights or obtaining redress for wrongs. If we give the law of nature all that belongs to it, and take away from the civilians what they have hitherto engrossed and promiscuously treated of, we shall bring the civil law to a much narrower compass; not to say that at present whenever the civil law is deficient we must have recourse to the law of nature, and that therefore in all commonwealths the natural laws supply the defects of the civil.[940] He argues against Hobbes’s tenet that the civil law cannot be contrary to the law of nature; and that what shall be deemed theft, murder, or adultery, depends on the former. The subject is bound generally not to obey the unjust commands of his sovereign; but in the case of war he thinks it, on the whole, safest, considering the usual difficulties of such questions, that the subject should serve, and throw the responsibility before God or the prince.[941] In this problem of casuistry, common usage is wholly against theory.

[940] L. viii., c. 1.

[941] L. viii., c. 1.

71. Punishment may be defined an evil inflicted by authority upon view of antecedent transgression.[942] Hence, exclusion, on political grounds, from public office, or separation of the sick for the sake of the healthy, is not punishment. It does not belong to distributive justice, nor is the magistrate bound to apportion it to the malignity of the offence, though this is usual. Superior authority is necessary to punishment; and he differs from Grotius by denying that we have a right to avenge the injuries of those who have no claim upon us. Punishment ought never to be inflicted without the prospect of some advantage from it; either the correction of the offender, or the prevention of his repeating the offence. But example he seems not to think a direct end of punishment, though it should be regarded in its infliction. It is not necessary that all offences which the law denounces should be actually punished, though some jurists have questioned the right of pardon. Punishments ought to be measured according to the object of the crime, the injury to the commonwealth, and the malice of the delinquent. Hence, offences against God should be deemed most criminal, and next, such as disturb the state; then whatever affect life, the peace or honour of families, private property or reputation, following the scale of the Decalogue. But though all crimes do not require equal severity, an exact proportion of penalties is not required. Most of this chapter exhibits the vacillating, indistinct, and almost self-contradictory resolutions of difficulties so frequent in Puffendorf. He concludes by establishing a great truth, that no man can be justly punished for the offence of another; nor even a community for the acts of their forefathers, notwithstanding their fictitious immortality.[943]

[942] C. 3.

[943] C. 3.

72. After some chapters on the law of nations, Puffendorf concludes with discussing the cessation of subjection. This may ordinarily be by voluntarily removing to another state with permission of the sovereign. And if no law or custom interferes, the subject has a right to do this at his discretion. The state has not a right to expel citizens without some offence. It loses all authority over a banished man. He concludes by considering the rare case of so great a diminution of the people, as to raise a doubt of their political identity.[944]

[944] C. 11. 12.

|Politics of Spinosa.|

73. The political portion of this large work, is not, as will appear, very fertile in original or sagacious reflection. A greater degree of both, though by no means accompanied with a sound theory, distinguishes the Political Treatise of Spinosa, one which must not be confounded with the Theologico-political Treatise, a very different work. In this he undertakes to show how a state under a regal or aristocratic government ought to be constituted so as to secure the tranquility and freedom of the citizens. Whether Spinosa borrowed his theory on the origin of government from Hobbes, is perhaps hard to determine: he seems acquainted with the treatise, De Cive; but the philosophical system of both was such as, in minds habituated like theirs to close reasoning, could not lead to any other result. Political theory, as Spinosa justly observes, is to be founded on our experience of human kind as it is, and on no visionary notions of an Utopia or golden age; and hence politicians of practical knowledge have written better on these subjects than philosophers. We must treat of men as liable to passions, prone more to revenge than to pity, eager to rule and to compel others to act like themselves, more pleased with having done harm to others than with procuring their own good. Hence, no state wherein the public affairs are entrusted to anyone’s good faith can be secure of their due administration; but means should be devised that neither reason nor passion should induce those who govern, to obstruct the public weal; it being indifferent by what motive men act if they can be brought to act for the common good.