The growing sense of political individuality and the gradual dwindling
of the ideal of a universal Christian empire were most important
factors in the change from ancient to modern modes of thought. Dante's
De Monarchia no longer embodied the political aspirations of
European states. Humanism, moreover, had restored ancient ideals of
political life, and the result was an attempt on the part of some
Renaissance writers to formulate systems of political philosophy which
should meet the conditions of the times.
The first independent political philosopher of this period was
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527). In the celebrated work
entitled Il Principe and in his other writings Machiavelli
expounds a system of state utilitarianism. He teaches that, in the
government of the state, means are to be judged exclusively with
reference to the end for which they are employed, without
consideration, or at least without due consideration, of the relation
which they bear to the principles of morality. "Where it is a question
of saving one's country," he writes, "there must be no
hesitation on the score of justice or injustice, cruelty or kindness,
praise or blame, but, setting all things else aside, one must snatch
whatever means present themselves for the preservation of life and
liberty." [1] Machiavelli waged war on the Christian religion, contending
that Christianity is opposed to the true advancement of the state, and
that it is inferior to the religion of ancient Rome, inasmuch as it
fails to inculcate the political virtues. His ideal of a ruler is that
of one who should combine the qualities of the fox with those of the
lion. The ruler should make himself liked if he can; if he cannot, he
must make himself feared: he should maintain the outward semblance of
honesty and morality even when, for reasons of state, he is obliged to
set the principles of honesty and morality aside. [2]
[1] Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, III, 41, quoted
by Pastor, op. cit., V, 165.
[2] Il Principe, Capp. 15 ff.
Thomas More (1478-1535) and Jean Bodin (1530-1596),
inspired by a spirit altogether different from that which animated
Machiavelli, developed from Platonic principles highly ideal schemes of
state organization and government. More (Blessed Thomas More, as he is
now entitled to be called) was educated at Oxford, and after some years
of very successful practice at law entered into political life,
becoming successively Speaker of the House of Commons, treasurer to the
exchequer, and lord chancellor. Having incurred the displeasure of
Henry VIII, he was committed to the Tower, and after eighteen months'
imprisonment was executed on the charge of attempting to deprive the
king of the title of Supreme Head of the Church in England. In his
Utopia (De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia) he
describes an imaginary republic so governed as to secure universal
happiness. Bodin is more scientific in his method than any of the other
political philosophers of this period. He may be said to have
inaugurated the historical method of studying political philosophy.
THOMAS HOBBES
Life. Thomas Hobbes was born at Westport, now in Malmesbury in
Wiltshire, in 1588. He was educated at Oxford, and during his repeated
sojourns at Paris he became acquainted with Gassendi, Mersenne, and
Descartes, who had a marked influence on his system of speculative
philosophy. His political doctrines were influenced, no doubt, by the
disorders of the English Revolution. He died in 1679. His principal
works are Leviathan, sive de Materia, Forma et Potestate Civitatis
Ecclesiasticae et Civilis, and Elementa Philosophiae
including three parts: De Corpore, De Homine, and De
Cive. [3]
[3] De Cive (1642) was translated in 1651 under the title
Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society. The
Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Authority of Government,
appeared in English in 1651 and was translated into Latin in 1670.
Extracts from the English edition are given in Woodbridge,
Philosophy of Hobbes (Minneapolis, 1903).
DOCTRINES [4]
[4] Consult Robertson, Hobbes (Blackwood's Philosophical
Classics, Edinburgh and Philadelphia, 1886); Tonnies, Hobbes
(Stuttgart, 1896). Hobbes' complete works were published by Molesworth
(London, 1839 ff.).
Hobbes, like Bacon, concerned himself chiefly with the practical aspect
of philosophy; but instead of applying philosophical principles to
technical inventions, as his fellow-countryman had attempted to do, he
addressed himself to the task of applying philosophy to the solution
of political questions. We shall study, therefore, first the
speculative and secondly the political doctrines of Hobbes.
1. Speculative Philosophy. Hobbes is the first in a long line of
English nominalists and sensists. The only universality which he
admits is that of the name. The name is a sign taken at pleasure
to designate a plurality of objects. It is for us to decide what
objects a name shall designate, and the announcement of such a decision
is what we call a definition. In this connection he remarks that "Words
are wise men's counters; they do but reckon by them: but they are the
money of fools." [5]
[5] This and the following quotations are given by Lewes, Biog. Hist.
of Phil. (2 vols., New York, 1893), pp. 495 ff.
Reality is not only individual, it is also corporeal. All that
exists is body, all that occurs is motion. Spiritual substance can
neither be nor be thought. Neither is there in human knowledge any
element superior to sense. "The original of them all," he says,
speaking of men's thoughts, "is that which we call sense, for there is
no conception in a man's mind which hath not at first, totally or by
parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense." From the foregoing
principles Hobbes is led to affirm the doctrine of subjectivism.
"I shall endeavor," he writes, "to make plain these points: that the
object wherein color and images are inherent is not the object or thing
seen: that there is nothing without us (really) which we call image or
color: that the said image or color is but the apparition unto us of
the motion, agitation, or alteration which the object worketh in the
brain or spirits or some internal substance of the head."
2. Political Philosophy. Hobbes begins by denying the doctrine
on which Aristotle's philosophy of the state is based, the doctrine,
namely, that man is a political animal. The English philosopher assumes
rather the Epicurean principle that originally there existed a
condition of natural warfare among men -- homo homini lupus, or
bellum omnium contra omnes. But, he goes on to say, when men
discovered the disadvantages of continual strife, and realized that the
safety of life and property is a condition essential to progress, they
entered into a compact, by which it was stipulated that the individual
should vest all his rights in the supreme and absolute authority of the
state. The authority of the state has its origin, therefore, in a
social compact, and since the renunciation and transference of private
rights was complete and unreserved, the authority of the state is
absolute. Hobbes carries the doctrine of state absolutism to the
extreme of subjecting even conscience and religion to the authority of
the ruler. He teaches that the will of the ruler is the supreme arbiter
of right and wrong in the moral order and of true and false in the
matter of religious belief.
Historical Position. It would be difficult to overestimate the
influence of Hobbes on the subsequent development of philosophic
thought in England. Despite the wise maxim quoted above, philosophers
have too often used words as money rather than as counters, and all the
confusion arising from the use of vague and inaccurate terminology -- a
confusion which is, to the present day, the bane of English
philosophy -- may be traced, in large measure, to Hobbes. For him,
substance and body, imagination and intellect are synonymous, and if
these terms are confounded by subsequent writers, upon Hobbes must be
laid the chief part of the blame.
The causes which led to the study of political philosophy during the
transition period led also to the study of the philosophy of law. The
Italian Alberico Gentili (1552-1608) paid special attention to
the study of the law of war. The German Althus (1557-1638)
devoted himself to the study of Roman law. To these succeeded the
Netherlander Hugo Grotius (Hugo de Groot) (1583-1645), who in
defending the rights of his country to free trade with the Indies
developed a system of philosophy of natural law. His most celebrated
work is entitled De Jure Belli et Pacis (1625). He maintains the
doctrine of social contract, but while Hobbes regards the transference
of the rights of the individual to the state as irrevocable, Grotius
considers that rights once transferred may afterwards be recalled. He
favors the separation of Church and State, and advocates religious
toleration. By the phrase jus gentium he does not mean natural
law but rather positive international law, or the law regulating the
relations of one state with another.
Retrospect. The period of transition from mediaeval to modern
philosophy was a period of tendencies rather than of systems. It was an
age of new ideas, and of changes in the world of letters, science,
politics, and religion. It witnessed the disappearance of the old order
and the advent of the new. During this period of change, the
Aristotelian and Scholastic idea of a
geocentric universe gave way to the modern scientific notion of a
heliocentric system; the mediaeval ideal of a universal Christian
empire gave way to the modern ideals of individual national life; and
in many European states the spirit of ecclesiastical unity disappeared,
to be replaced by the notion of national church organization and the
assertion of individualism in matters of religious belief. Thus did the
Renaissance period usher in the modern era. It did not itself
contribute any permanent system of philosophy. To systematize in a
speculative scheme of thought the wealth of ideas, facts, and
tendencies resulting from the great intellectual movements of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was the task which the Renaissance
set and which the seventeenth century undertook to accomplish.