crushed, or even materially affected, as a commercial city, by the discoveries of the Portuguese. She was in fact more opulent, as her buildings of themselves may prove, in the sixteenth century, than in any preceding age. The French trade from Marseilles to the Levant, which began later to flourish, was what impoverished Venice, rather than that of Portugal with the East Indies. This republic was the perpetual theme of admiration with the Italians. Serra compares Naples with Venice; one, he says, exports grain to a vast amount, the other imports its whole subsistence; money is valued higher at Naples, so that there is a profit in bringing it in, its export is forbidden; at Venice it is free; at Naples the public revenues are expended in the kingdom; at Venice they are principally hoarded. Yet Naples is poor and Venice rich. Such is the effect of her commerce and of the wisdom of her government, which is always uniform, while in kingdoms, and far more in viceroyalties, the system changes with the persons. In Venice the method of choosing magistrates is in such perfection, that no one can come in by corruption or favour, nor can any one rise to high offices who has not been tried in the lower. Low rate of essential to 55. All causes of wealth, except those he has enumerated, Serra holds to be subaltern or temporary; thus the low rate of exchange is subject to the common acci- exchange not dents of commerce. It seems, however, to have wealth. been a theory of superficial reasoners on public wealth, that it depended on the exchanges far more than is really the case; and in the second part of this treatise Serra opposes a particular writer, named De Santis, who had accounted in this way alone for abundance of money in a state. Serra thinks that to reduce the weight of coin may sometimes be an allowable expedient, and better than to raise its denomination. The difference seems not very important. The coin of Naples was exhausted by the revenues of absentee proprietors, which some had proposed to withhold; a measure to which Serra justly objects. This book has been reprinted at Milan in the collection of Italian economists, and, as it anticipates the principles of what has been called the mercantile theory, deserves some attention in following the progress of opinion. The once celebrated treatise of Mun, England's Treasure by foreign Trade, was written before 1640; but not being published till after the Restoration, we may postpone it to the next period. 56. Last in time among political philosophers before the Hobbes. works. middle of the century we find the greatest and most His political famous, Thomas Hobbes. His treatise De Cive was printed in 1642 for his private friends. It obtained, however, a considerable circulation, and excited some animadversion. In 1647 he published it at Amsterdam, with notes to vindicate and explain what had been censured. In 1650 an English treatise, with the Latin title, De Corpore Politico, appeared; and in 1651 the complete system of his philosophy was given to the world in the Leviathan. These three works bear somewhat the same relation to one another that the Advancement of Learning does to the treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum; they are in effect the same; the same order of subjects, the same arguments, and in most places either the same words, or such variations as occurred to the second thoughts of the writer; but much is more copiously illustrated and more clearly put in the latter than in the former; while much also, from whatever cause, is withdrawn or considerably modified. Whether the Leviathan is to be reckoned so exclusively his last thoughts that we should presume him to have retracted the passages that do not appear in it, is what every one must determine for himself. I shall endeavour to present a comparative analysis of the three treatises, with some preference to the last. Analysis of his three treatises. 57. Those, he begins by observing, who have hitherto written upon civil policy have assumed that man is an animal framed for society; as if nothing else were required for the institution of commonwealths, than that men should agree upon some terms of compact which they call laws. But this is entirely false. That men do naturally seek each other's society, he admits by a note in the published edition of De Cive; but political societies are not mere meetings of men, but unions founded on the faith of covenants. Nor does the desire of men for society imply that they are fit for it. Many may desire it who will not readily submit to its necessary conditions. This he left out in the two other treatises, thinking it, perhaps, too great a concession to admit any desire of society in man. 58. Nature has made little odds among men of mature age as to strength or knowledge. No reason, therefore, can be given why one should by any intrinsic superiority command others, or possess more than they. But there is a great difference in their passions; some through vain-glory seeking pre-eminence over their fellows, some willing to allow equality, but not to lose what they know to be good for themselves. And this contest can only be decided by battle, showing which is the stronger. 59. All men desire to obtain good and to avoid evil, especially death. Hence they have a natural right to preserve their own lives and limbs, and to use all means necessary for this end. Every man is judge for himself of the necessity of the means, and the greatness of the danger. And hence he has a right by nature to all things, to do what he wills to others, to possess and enjoy all he can. For he is the only judge whether they tend or not to his preservation. But every other man has the same right. Hence there can be no injury towards another in a state of nature. Not that in such a state a man may not sin against God, or transgress the laws of nature. But injury, which is doing any thing without right, implies human laws that limit right. 60. Thus the state of man in natural liberty is a state of war, a war of every man against every man, wherein the notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no place. Irresistible might gives of itself right, which is nothing but the physical liberty of using our power as we will for our own preservation and what we deem conducive to it. But as, through the equality of natural powers, no man possesses this irresistible superiority, this state of universal war is con Societates autem civiles non sunt meri congressus, sed fœdera, quibus faciendis fides et pacta necessaria sunt. ... Alia res est appetere, alia esse capacem. Appetunt enim illi qui tamen conditiones æquas, sine quibus societas esse non potest, accipere per superbiam non dignantur. + Non quod in tali statu peccare in VOL. II. M M Deum, aut leges naturales violare impossibile sit. Nam injustitia erga homines supponit leges humanas, quales in statu naturali nullæ sunt. De Cive, c. 1. This he left out in the later treatises. He says afterward (sect. 28.) omne damnum homini illatum legis naturalis vio latio atque in Deum injuria est. trary to his own good, which he necessarily must desire. Hence his reason dictates that he should seek peace as far as he can, and strengthen himself by all the helps of war against those with whom he cannot have peace. This then is the first fundamental law of nature. For a law of nature is nothing else than a rule or precept found out by reason for the avoiding what may be destructive to our life. 61. From this primary rule another follows, that a man should be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down his right to all things, and to be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow to other men against himself. This may be done by renouncing his right to any thing, which leaves it open to all, or by trans-. ferring it specially to another. Some rights, indeed, as those to his life and limbs, are inalienable, and no man lays down the right of resisting those who attack them. But, in general, he is bound not to hinder those to whom he has granted or abandoned his own right, from availing themselves of it; and such hinderance is injustice or injury; that is, it is sine jure, his jus being already gone. Such injury may be compared to absurdity in argument, being in contradiction to what he has already done, as an absurd proposition is in contradiction to what the speaker has already allowed. 62. The next law of nature, according to Hobbes, is that men should fulfil their covenants. What contracts and covenants are, he explains in the usual manner. None can covenant with God, unless by special revelation; therefore vows are not binding, nor do oaths add any thing to the swearer's obligation. But covenants entered into by fear he holds to be binding in a state of nature, though they may be annulled by the law. That the observance of justice, that is, of our covenants, is never against reason, Hobbes labours to prove; for if ever its violation may have turned out successful, this being contrary to probable expectation ought not to influence us. "That which gives to human actions the relish of justice, is a certain nobleness 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."* * Leviathan, c. 15. A short gleam of something above the creeping selfishness of his ordinary morality! 63. He then enumerates many other laws of nature, such as gratitude, complaisance, equity, all subordinate to the main one of preserving peace by the limitation of the natural right, as he supposes, to usurp all. These laws are immutable and eternal; the science of them is the only true science of moral philosophy. For that is nothing but the science of what is good and evil in the conversation and society of mankind. In a state of nature private appetite is the measure of good and evil. But all men agree that But all men agree that peace is good, and therefore the means of peace, which are the moral virtues or laws of nature, are good also, and their contraries evil. These laws of nature are not properly called such, but conclusions of reason as to what should be done or abstained from; they are but theorems concerning what conduces to conservation and defence; whereas law is strictly the word of him that by right has command over others. But so far as these are enacted by God in Scripture, they are truly laws. 66 64. These laws of nature, being contrary to our natural passions, are but words of no strength to secure any one without a controlling power. For till such a power is erected, every man will rely on his own force and skill. Nor will the conjunction of a few men or families be sufficient for security, nor that of a great multitude guided by their own particular judgments and appetites. For if we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent in the observation of justice and other laws of nature without a common power to keep them all in awe, we might as well suppose all mankind to do the same, and then there neither would be, nor need to be, any civil government or commonwealth at all, because there would be peace without subjection." Hence it becomes necessary to confer all their power on one man, or assembly of men, to bear their person or represent them; so that every one shall own himself author of what shall be done by such representative. It is a covenant of each with each, that he will be governed in such a manner, if the other will agree to the same. This is the generation of the great Leviathan, or mortal God, to whom, under the immortal God, we owe our Lev c. 17. |