Category: Political Science Notes

After reading this essay you will learn about the English idealism or Oxford idealism.

Any analysis of idealism or idealist philosophy will remain incomplete without proper and elaborate mention of English idealism or what is also called Oxford idealism. The English idealists drew their inspiration from German idealists. But German idealists were not the single source.

A. D. Lindsay in his Introduction to T. H. Green’s The Principles of Political Obligations makes the following remark:

“Green and his fellow idealists represent the renewed liberalism of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. They were all of them, for all their Platonism and Hegelianism, in the succession of utilitarian’s. They were all fundamentally indi­vidualists and democrats. But they were convinced that utilitarianism had become barren as a political creed because of the inadequate philosophy upon which it was based”.

Marcuse, an important member of Critical Theory group, says:

“The British movement was still connected with the principles and philosophy of liberalism and for this very reason lay much closer to the spirit of Hegel than did the Italian”.

So it can be maintained that Oxford or English Idealism had several sources platonism, German Idealism, Utilitarianism and, above all, British liberal tradition of democracy and parliamentary system of government.

The persons who were influenced by Hegel’s idealism were Thomas Hill Green, Bosanquet, and D. G. Ritchie. Bosanquet’s famous work Philosophical Theory of the State was published in 1899. D. G. Ritchie, who came under the influence of Hegel’s idealism, wrote Darwinism and Politics, Principles of State Interference, Darwin and Hegel, and Natural Rights. All these were published between 1889 and 1895.

The most important idealist philosopher was T. H. Green. His famous book is Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligations. The Lectures were delivered by Green in 1879 and were published in 1882 after his death.

A. D. Lindsay writes:

They represent the most important contribution to political theory of the school of thought sometimes known as the “Oxford Idealists. Edward Card, William Wallace and Arnold Toynbee were also members of the school.”

Kant and Hegel did not attach too much importance to the representative institutions of England. They were accustomed to the authoritarianism of Germany and saw the disunity and constant fight among the various independent units of German states. Liberal tradition had no scope to develop in Germany.

Even Hegel castigated the representative institutions of England. People of that country could not test the freedom which was to be realized by monarchy and on this ground he branded England as the most backward country of Europe.

Kant also believed that the representatives had no scope to work independently, because they had to depend on the ministers. This was the academic situation on the eve of the emergence of Oxford idealism.

Barker writes, “Some modification of the theories of Kant and Hegel is thus obviously needed to make the idealist theory of the continent square with the representative institutions of England and to adjust a theory which emphasizes the majesty of the state to a practice which emphasizes the liberty of the subject.”

The on-going economic, political and other situations of Britain influenced the Oxford idealists to think about society in a new way. They thought that the attitude towards the activities, role etc. of the state required to be amended or might be made suitable for the changed situation.

In the post-Industrial Revolution period the British society was in the grip of crises and problems relating to social, economic, and political matters. The authority of a state cannot play the role of a helpless onlooker and leave everything to fate or God. This can never be the duty of a responsible government.

It must exercise power to arrest the crises in order to free the citizens from problems. But, at the same time, the democratic institutions which took centuries to assume proper shape must be given adequate importance and place.

In other words, the English idealists felt the need for reconciliation between the authority of state and democratic values and principles.

Green and other Oxford idealists were convinced that a new political philosophy must be found out in order to tackle the situation arising out of the Industrial Revolution. The sixties and seventies of the nineteenth century saw the heyday of Utilitarianism. The only important member of the Benthamite school was J. S. Mill.

The size of the school was very small, but its impact was very great. In fact, utilitarian philosophy dominated the English academic and political world for a considerable period of time. But it took no time for the Oxford idealists to discover the barrenness of the philosophy.

Utilitarianism had reduced the individual to a bundle of pleasures and pains. The state, to the utilitarian thinkers, was simply a collection of independent individuals. One individual was completely indifferent to the weal’s and woes of another person. This philosophy of utilitarian thinkers was inadequate. No further progress could be made in such an understanding of politics.

It is said that Carlyle was a bitter critic of the creed of “each for himself and the devil take the hindmost.” The growing misery of the poor disturbed their mind and they pondered over finding out a solution.

That is why the Oxford idealists leaned to Carlyle’s thought. In a great society, an individual cannot remain alone. He cannot make himself busy with his own affairs. The social problems must be treated as a whole.

In society each man is not up to himself. This philosophy of Carlyle led the Oxford idealists to think in terms of a new philosophy. But they did not share Carlyle’s aristocratic ideas and anti-democrat leanings. It is due to this fact that the Oxford idealists were democrats and individualists.

They felt that a new start had to be made and a proper conception of human nature and action acquired before an adequate political theory could be constructed That is why none of them were concerned only with political theory.

Their politics were to be the outcome of a view of human nature and of the world—of moral philosophy and of metaphysics (A. D. Lindsay).

The utilitarian thinkers wanted to make politics a science of achieving happiness and pleasure and avoiding pain.

Simultaneously they thought that the individuals had sufficient reason and intelligence to know what pain is and what is meant by pleasure and how to achieve them.

The generalisation about human nature as well as ability had no scientific basis. It was a sheer imagination of the utilitarians. The impractical and unfounded assessment of human nature made the thought system of utilitarians unsuitable for the post-Industrial Revolution British society. They did not think about numerous common men. On the contrary, the idealists woke up for the common people.

The fruits of democracy and the benefits of social wealth must be made available for the poorest of the poor. So the attitude of Green and other fellow idealists differed fundamentally from that of the utilitarians.

In the 1870s and 1880s there was a change in public opinion. Legislation, in Dicey’s phrase, was passing from an individualist to a collectivist trend.

The state was no longer confining itself to securing the free play of competition and vindicating freedom of contract, but was addressing itself to the more positive function. Public opinions already awakened and it demanded alertness of the state.

The Oxford idealists echoed the sentiment of the mass of men. They abandoned their academic recluse. They roamed in the dark and narrow lanes of London City and mixed with the denizens of those lanes and by-lanes.

This enabled them to be acquainted with the economic and other conditions of those hapless men. Particu­larly T. H. Green did this.

They were idealists, wanted to idealize politics. But they were also realists. They, through serious efforts, came to be acquainted with the down to earth condition. The Oxford idealists were humanists and, at the same time realists. This differentiates them from German idealists and utilitarians.

A few more words may be added to clear the nature of Oxford or English idealism. Herbert Marcuse points out that mention has sometimes been made that the development of British idealism from Green to Bosanquet was one in which the liberal philosophy of earlier epoch was abandoned.

Of course the abandonment took place very slowly. So far as the terms and words of British idealism are concerned it is purely Hegelian. But if we consider the spirit or inner meaning of Hegel’s idealism we shall find that the English idealism is far removed from it.

There are several points of departure. Bradley’s metaphysics, notwithstanding its Hegelian concepts, has a strong irrationality that is alien to Hegel.

“From its beginning the renaissance of idealism showed a definite anti-materi­alist tendency, a quality it shares with the tendencies accompanying the transition from liberalism to authoritarianism. The ideology accompanying this movement prepared the individual for more labour and less enjoyment, a slogan of the authoritarian economy. Gratification of individual wants had to give way before duties to the whole”.

Bosanquet has said that an imperative is imposed upon us by the concept of social good. Liberty of the individual can be realized only through the obedience to that imperative.

Thus, English idealism is a combination of new liberalism and authoritarianism. What the Oxford or English idealists have emphasized is that man no doubt seeks pleasure and tries to avoid pain. But his is not the only feature of human character. Many people have feelings for other and try to do something for them.

They follow an ideal and try to implement it. They do not always achieve success but they do not always abandon the ideal. We may call English idealism as realist idealism. It is an idealism that thinks about ordinary men and renewed role of state. From this has emerged the concept of welfare state.

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After reading this article you will learn about John Locke:- 1. Life of John Locke 2. Political Ideas of John Locke 3. Influence on Political Thought.

Life of John Locke:

John Locke was born in 1632 (44 years after the birth of Hobbes) in a well-established famous family and died in 1704. His father was an Orthodox Christian and he wanted his son to study and cultivate religion. But Locke showed least interest in religion.

He began to study medicine. Some of his biographers say that his study of medicine helped him to be associated with the royal family He had a chance of first meeting in 1666 with Anthony Ashley Cooper and later on Cooper became Earl of Shaftsbury.

He also came in touch with other important families and persons. All these helped him to build up his career. But Locke’s relation with the royal family did not last long.

A sort of bitterness developed between Locke and the royal family on religious and political grounds and this disheartened him. He went to Holland and stayed there some time. While in Holland he developed cordial relationship with William.

When William became king of England Locke was appointed a commissioner of commerce and plantation. From his life we come to know that he came in contact with trade, commerce and administration and from these entire he earned huge experience.

At the age of 54 he first established himself as an author. His important works include Essays on Human Understanding, Letters Concerning Toleration. His most famous book—Two Treatises on Civil Government was published in or around 1690. Many people are of opinion that Locke wrote this book to justify the Glorious Revolution of 1688. But this view has been contested by some.

Maurice Cranston in his noted essay published in Thompson-edited Political Ideas says that much before the Glorious Revolution the book was written. Let us quote few lines from Cranston’s article.

He says:

“There is the idea that the book was written to justify the Glorious Revolution of 1688.”

Cranston further observes:

“It now seems that the book was written something like ten years before the Glorious Revolution”. According to Cranston this date is interesting. Of course the book was published after the Revolution.

Some people are of opinion that the Glorious Revolution did not take place abruptly. Discontent was simmering and favourable situation for the Revolution was developing. Locke was acquainted with it and it may safely be assumed that he had sympathy for the Revolution. He became known as the philosopher of the Glorious Revolution—Cranston observes in this way.

It is said that Locke’s Two Treatises is to some extent a polemical work. But Cranston is of opinion that it is immaterial. It is a good book of politics and philosophy. Particularly it has left behind a message of liberalism and a responsible government.

Locke’s Two Treatises is not an ordinary book. It is at par with Plato’s Republic and J. S. Mill’s Essay on Liberty. “Locke’s work is both theoretical and didactic. He passes from the particular question of his own duty to his own king to the general question of any man’s duty to any ruler and so to the problems of obligations and of sovereignty at the highest level of abstraction” (Thompson – Political Ideas). The basic problems Locke dealt with are to be found today. His concepts of consent, responsibility of the ruler to the people, constitutionalism, and basic liberties—all these still haunt us. Today in the twenty-first century we remember Locke for his ideas about rulers’ obligation to the ruled.

Political Ideas of John Locke:

1. State of Nature:

Like Thomas Hobbes, Locke starts his analysis with a hypothetical state of nature and in chapter II consisting of 12 sections (section 4 to 15) he has discussed various aspects of the imaginary state of nature.

In Locke’s opinion the state of nature was a state of perfect freedom. They had the liberty to do anything and everything. But according to Locke it was not a state of license because in the state of nature law of nature was quite operative.

This law of nature which was the embodiment of reason prevented men from doing harmful work. “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone, and reason….teaches all mankind….being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possession. Locke says that none shall be deprived of life, health, liberty and possessions or property. But in actual situation this did not happen.”

In the state of nature everybody had full freedom to do whatever he desired. They were guided by law of nature and its reason. But the problem is what is exactly the law of nature and its reason that was not known to the inhabitants of the state of nature.

Since the law of nature and its reason were not properly clarified and executed every man has a right to punish another man and very often that happened.

It is due to the fact that in the state of nature there was no authority to explain and execute the law of nature. People of the state of nature enjoyed unlimited freedom. But this unlimited freedom of some stood on the way of enjoying freedom for others.

John Locke has said that the people of the state of nature sometimes inflicted harm or injury upon others. But this they did not out of any bad motive but out of ignorance. But this does not mean that they were perfectly honest.

From Locke’s version we come to know that they were in-between morality and immorality. Though the people of the state of nature observed the law of nature, what was exactly this law was that created the problem Locke claims that in the state of nature there prevailed peace and order but that in a limited scale and because of this in the state of nature disorder very often raised its head. Locke is of opinion that it was the problem.

G. N. Gough is a renowned interpreter of Lockean philosophy. Gough says that he never meant that the law of nature was the supreme authority and everyone had clear conception about it.

In Gough’s view that was the problem. Misuse of the law of nature was quite rampant or prevalent. Gough has cautioned us by saying that we must not be emotional or over-enthusiastic about Locke’s law of nature.

Gough has said:

The law of nature is for him the moral standard to which all men, including governors themselves, should conform, and his insistence on it is the foundation of his case for limited constitutional government instead of the arbitrary power so dreaded and hated by contemporary Englishmen (John Lock’s Political Philosophy).

John Locke has claimed that in the state of nature there were several inconveniences. Dunning has beautifully stated that the state of nature as conceived by Locke is a pre-political rather than pre-social condition. In this single and small sentence Dunning has stated the real picture of Lockean state of nature.

The state of nature imagined by Locke was never the heaven on earth. But it was not definitely hell. Hobbes imagined that the state of nature was a hell—nasty, brutish and short. In this regard Locke differs from Hobbes. and this he clearly stated in sections 19 and 20.

In section 19 Locke says:

“The plain difference between the state of nature and the state of war which however some men have confounded are as far distant as a state of peace, good-will, mutual assistance, and preservation. Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth with authority to judge between them are properly the state of nature.” It is clear that Locke in this passage has unequivocally clarified the nature of state of na
ture. His words “some men” mean Hobbes.

Hobbes depicted the state of nature but Locke states that it is a state of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance and preservation. Locke has further stated that in the state of nature there was no common judge with authority.

There were aberrations or violations of law of nature. But without a common superior authority, there was none on earth to appeal. This was the most important inconvenience of the state of nature.

John Locke has also admitted that the people of the state of nature were very often guided by reason and good motive and in that situation they wanted to settle the disputes among themselves. But mere attempts or gesture were not sufficient.

Barker, explaining Locke’s view, says that the people of that atmosphere ardently desired to get rid of the difficulties of the state of nature and this thought finally motivated them to set up an authority who will implement the law of nature, to judge whether the implementation is impartial and proper.

They also decided to institute an authority whose function would be to enforce same law in a uniform manner. If all these steps are adopted the state of nature will not be an abode of disunity and trouble, it will be an abode of peace and tranquillity.

2. Social Contract:

In section 13 Locke says:

“I easily grant that civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniences of the state of nature, which must certainly be great where men may be judges in their own case.”

The proper remedy to the inconveniences of the state of nature is the erection of a civil government and the civil government alone cannot be the provider of remedy, a civil society was necessary.

The members of the state of nature felt that a judge was badly needed because only a judge with sufficient authority can put everything in order which was lacking in the state of nature.

Though Locke refuted Hobbes’s idea of state of war in the state of nature we hear him saying men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth with authority to judge between them, are properly the state of nature. But force upon the person of another, where there is no common superior to appeal for relief, is the state of war….To avoid this state of war…is one great reason of men’s putting themselves into society and quitting the state of nature, for where there is an authority, a power on earth…there the continuance of the state of war is excluded.

We thus see that Locke is, here, quite clear about his intention regarding the erection of civil society. Power was the best remedy to all evils that plagued the people of the state of nature. Why?

He says – “Political power, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death and consequently, all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury.”

If we go through the entire process of social contract we shall find certain basic features. It was felt by the people of the state of nature that setting up of a civil society was the proper remedy to all inconveniences that people witnessed.

Hence we can conclude that social contract was a sort of mechanism that was used by the people to save from certain difficulties. Hobbes also saw this in the same light. In the opinion of Dunning the Lockean social contract was pre-political but not pre-social.

That is, people of the state of nature maintained amongst themselves social behaviour and manner which means that there was sociability among them. Contract politicized the society. Social contract was itself a mechanism or weapon. Again, the contract empowered the people to control the government to act in accordance with the conditions laid down in the contract.

According to the term of the contract people may or can demand security in various forms. If we go through the contract we shall find that everyone gave consent to the preparation of the contract and it is called the tacit consent.

Some interpreters of Locke’s philosophy argue that the inhabitants of the state of nature did two contracts—one is written and the other is unwritten. Before making social contract people did an unwritten contract among themselves and the objective of that contract was they desire to set up a civil society through a contract for better and safe living.

Recent interpreters of Locke’s political thought have said that Locke thought of double contract. The source of this idea comes from the words stated in sections 95, 97 and in several other sections. In section 97 we find him saying – “everyman, by consenting with others to make one body-politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation to everyone of that society to submit to the determi­nation of the majority and to be concluded by it, or else, this original compact whereby he with others incorporates into one society.”

Here the two words— “original compact” are very significant. We can easily assume that he had in mind the existence of another contract, otherwise he could not use the word “original”.

We can assume that after making one compact, the people made another compact. The first compact set up a body-politic or civil society and the second compact enabled them the modus operandi of the management of body-politic.

John Locke was not satisfied by setting up a body-politic or commonwealth or civil society. The civil society to him was not simply a state, it must be a complete democracy and it is assumed that to achieve this another compact was made.

Let us see what he says in section 132:

“By commonwealth it must be understood to mean not a democracy or any form of government but any independent community which the Latins signified by the word civitas.”

According to Locke the word civitas means commonwealth. The administration and control of the body-politic shall be in the hands of the people. Perhaps this was in the mind of Locke and in order to do this there arose the necessity of another contract and Locke has done this. Locke was out and out a democrat. He had no intention to follow the footsteps of Hobbes, that is, to set an absolute power through the contract. One compact will lay the foundation of a civil society and another compact will make it a civitas or commonwealth.

3. Liberalism:

J. S. McClelland (History of Western Political Thought) writes:

“Liberals have always shown a certain fondness for Locke, and it is easy to see why. Certain assumptions which Locke makes, certain attitudes which he held and certain arguments which he uses, fit in well with the doctrine which at the beginning of the nineteenth century came to be called liberalism.”

J. S. McClelland wants to say that in the Second Treatise Locke makes several comments which clearly lay the foundation of liberalism.

Pie says that property is a natural right and simultaneously it is inviolable. Property can, however, be taken but behind this there must be free and voluntary consent of the owner. Locke has said that in the state of nature people enjoyed the facilities of private property but because of certain inconveniences of the state of nature the enjoyment of the benefits of private property very often faced interrup­tions.

This situation inspired them to set up a system of administration that could give guarantee right to property. The right to property was so important to Locke that without the consent of people’ or owner of the property nobody had any right to levy taxes on property. That is levy of tax must be preceded by owner’s consent.

John Locke wrote a book Letter Concerning Toleration. This book conveys his idea about liberalism. He has said that everybody should practice
toleration about others and this toleration will teach people not to intervene in the private affairs of other individuals. To put it in other words, the right to privacy is a basic right and the democratic states have admitted it and made it a part of the constitutional rights.

Rationality or rational behaviour is an essential feature of liberalism and its existence in Lockean philosophy has encouraged them to find out liberalism in Locke. The liberals claim that in the Lockean analysis of contract there is enough emphasis on rationality. The individuals are well-aware of their rights as well as responsibility to other fellow citizens and society.

The liberals call it rationality. Another manifestation of Locke’s idea of rationality is that they formed a civil society for the proper protection and utilization of natural rights and somehow they were confident that only in a civitas it is possible and for that purpose they made a second compact.

It indicates their rationality. It is also said that to live in a civil society implies obligations. That is, in the state of nature the people had no feeling of obligation. But in civil society everyone must have the feeling of obligation; Locke’s people had that feeling.

Another element of Locke’s theory of social contract is “Lockean model of society is competitive capitalist model. Men are free to acquire and are encouraged by God to do so.” Free competition and capitalism are important parts or aspects of liberal philosophy.

In Locke’s time capitalism was in embryonic stage and its proper development required congenial atmosphere and Locke, through the instrumental­ity of contract, wanted to ensure this.

A very important element of Locke’s liberalism is to be found in his concept of slate as a fiduciary trust. He thought that the general public was the source of government’s power. Again, the government is always accountable to the people for all its policies and acts.

The people have also the power to dislodge the government if it fails to act according to the terms and conditions of the contract.

Locke’s concept of fiduciary trust is unique and this has introduced the famous idea of constitutionalism which is the main feature of the American constitution. Its central idea is that both the rulers and the ruled are bound by the principles laid down in the constitution.

Locke’s separation of power is another important part of his liberalism and needless to say that it is an important part.

In section 134 he has said that men left the state of nature and set up a civil society for the purpose of protection, and enjoyment of property peacefully. But this cannot be done without laws and it is the chief function of the legislature to enact laws.

Its implication is that legislature constitutes a branch of state and supreme power is vested in this organ. But the execution of laws shall be vested in a body of persons which is separate from the legislative body.

The legislative and executive powers are separated from each other. Though these two organs are separate from each other both are governed by the same laws.

Locke says that after the formation of civil society a state or body-politic will have to establish relation with other states to deal with war and peace and for the purposes of making alliances. Locke calls this function federative. In other words what we call today international or foreign affairs function Locke calls it federative.

We thus, in Lockean model, get three departments or organs of government— legislative, executive and federative. Hence we find that much before Montesquieu (1689-1755) Locke initiated the idea of separation of power. The framers of the American constitution later on made it a part of their constitution. In the eighteenth century the idea was regarded as key to the principle of bringing state authority under control. It was also thought that if powers are separated from each other that will put proper check on the government.

Democracy is a part of Lockean theory of liberalism. We want to mention few features of Locke’s idea of democracy:

(1) Locke has said that the contract has been finalized by taking the consent of everyone. Subsequently some may differ from others but this difference of opinion may be taken as normal.

(2) The opinion of the majority shall be the principle of day-to-day administration.

(3) The state shall be administered by the principle of law and terms laid down in the contract. This is the constitutionalism. It is believed that constitutionalism is the basic aspect of democracy and the liberals of all types emphasize it as a very crucial part of democracy.

(4) An important aspect of Locke’s idea of democracy is that people are the real source of government’s power. Today many may call it as a type of popular sovereignty. Implication is the entire state shall be managed by the will of the people.

(5) Locke has called the newly created civil society as a trust. It means the state acts only for the benefit and welfare of people. In other words, it is the custodian of people’s interests. Locke thought of a continuous relation between the ruler and the ruled. Government cannot do anything against people’s interests.

(6) In today’s democracy we talk about the protection of certain basic rights and Locke said so. To him right to property, security and life was essential and any authority worthy of its name must make arrangement for the protection of these three basic rights.

(7) Locke was quite cautious of the rights and privileges of citizens and in a democratic state all these are quite safe but not in an autocracy. That is why we find that from the very beginning he framed principles which will control the state authority He did not think about making sovereign power absolute.

4. Bourgeois Ideas:

C. B. Macpherson and many others after painstaking research have discovered Locke’s sympathy with the capitalists. J. S. McClelland says “The Lockean model of society is a competitive, capitalist model—Men are free to acquire and are encouraged by God to do so.”

Macpherson says:

“Locke’s constitutionalism is a defence of the rights of expanding property rather than of individuals against the state.”

Another critic’s opinion runs:

“Locke deliberately intended to lead up to a justification of unlimited capitalist appropriation, and the resultant unequal distri­bution of property. What made this possible along with the invention of money, was the fact that he regarded labour as alienable property, which a man could sell for wages.”

We have quoted three observations of three eminent persons who are experts of Lockean philosophy. From three different angles they have viewed Locke’s bour­geois concept. In numerous places of The Second Treatise Locke has said that one of the reasons of abandoning the state of nature was the insecurity of property.

The implication is in the state of nature people were deprived of the adequate use of property, that is, property was quite insecure in that natural atmosphere. This feeling was so intense that they decided to abandone the state of nature.

It is interesting to note that the concept of state of nature is simply a symbol. What he wanted to emphasize is that protection and personal use of property was very important to them.

The idea of state of nature is simply a fiction. In the natural condition people will be highly concerned about property—is simply an imagina­tion. Only in a developed and well-ordered society people’s concern for property can be imagined.

We can say John Locke was actually thinking of a capitalist state. It may be that Locke’s capitalist society or state was purely in primary condition. But it is out of our consideration. Locke’s model of state is a capitalist state.

C. B. Macpherson has said that Locke was uncompromising supporter of capit
alism. He further observes that the transition from state of nature to civil society, in the opinion of C. B. Macpherson, is not simply the product of an idle brain, it is a calculated step safeguarding the interests of capitalists or owners of the vast amount of property.

This occupied the mind of Locke and setting up of a state was the best possible way. Lockean state may have manifold functions but the most important one is to protect the property which was insecure in the state of nature.

Macpherson says:

“Locke’s whole theory of limited and conditional government was essentially a defence of property. The view of Locke’s state is in effect a joint stock company whose shareholders were the men of property”. He was so much interested in acquisition and protection of property that he has allotted a complete chapter—Chapter 5 consisting of 27 sections.

John Locke was quite concerned about the security of people. Macpherson has explained it differently. Only the property owners or wealthy persons seriously think of their security and safety.

Again, those who think in this way are rational. It is quite natural that the propertied person will always try to be conscious of the proper security of property Locke has interpreted is as rationality. Macpherson has interpreted it in this way.

Macpherson says:

“When man, in general is thus conceived in the image of bourgeois rational man, the natural condition of man is eminently rational and peaceable”. Rich and poor people, according to Macpherson, living in the same society cannot be equally rational.

It is not that the poor people are not rational. Their rationality is of different type. Macpherson says that Locke’s idea of rationality is chiefly the rationality of rich people.

Locke has categorically stated that man owns property through his own labour and he has every right over it. But when he found that some people here conspire to misappropriate his property through unfair means or by means of physical force, these people decided to create an institution whose one of the important functions would be to protect property.

Furthermore, he has said in his chapter on property that the individuals have every right over the property and it cannot be taken away without their consent. The framers of the American constitution borrowed this concept from Locke and they have made right to property a fundamental right.

One of the main features of capitalism is a state or society is always a class state. Now J. S. McClelland raises an important question—Is Locke’s state a class state or society? Locke never tells us in the Second Treatise, but there are broad hints elsewhere in his works, especially in his draft Constitution for the Carolina, where he refers to his “American Polity as a democracy of God’s proprietors”. According to Locke the state is a regulating mechanism.

It will regulate the state affairs for the protection of property. In the opinion of Macpherson— “The whole theory of property is a justification of the natural right not only to unequal property but to unlimited individual appropriation”. Only the property-owners took the leading part in setting up of new state or civil society.

5. Civil Society:

John Dunn in his illuminating essay John Locke’s conception of civil society claims that only two genuinely great political thinkers—namely Locke and Hegel—have used the term civil society. This claim has solid reason. In a number of places Locke has used the terms civil society or civil government.

In section 13 he writes:

“I easily grant that civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniences of the state of nature.” Again, in section 95, we find him saying “The only way whereby anyone divests himself of his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of civil society is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community.”

Here I have cited two instances to establish that Locke was conscious of the idea of civil society. There is a difference between civil government and civil society but in Locke’s ideas both were used almost in the same since.

Locke has clearly stated that the civil society is the proper remedy for the inconveniences of the state of nature. John Locke thought that the civil society had two important advantages over the state of nature. One is the civil society is governed by civil laws which are far better than the laws of nature or natural laws.

He thought that the laws of a civil society are clear and certain and can be easily applied. In a civil society there are impartial judges. Locke thought that for the protection of life, liberty and property impartiality of judges was indispensable and the state of nature lacked this. For the implementation of laws there shall be a political power. In section 3 he has said that the political power is the proper authority to make and implement laws. Needless to say that only in a civil society this is possible.

Sunil Khilnani in his article The Development of Civil Society makes certain observations about Locke’s idea on civil society. “For Locke, the fundamental contrast defining a civil society was the state of nature – a predicament in which deeply held individual beliefs about how to be collided and where there could be no authoritative answer to the question “Who will be judges?”

A civil society was one purged as effectively as possible of this condition. Locke made no separation between civil society and political society. Rather, a civil society was a “benign state”, a legitimate political order.

John Dunn has repeatedly used the term benign state by which he means to state that Locke’s state is actually a harmless state or civil society and state are both used by him interchangeably John Dunn has repeatedly used the term benign state in place of civil society.

Locke’s civil society is simply a Civilized Society which is an aggregation of some “civilized” people. Locke has not categorically used the word civilized in his long analysis. But it has been assumed by his interpreters that only disciplined men can think of forming a civil society by throwing away their uncivilised behaviour which they displayed in the state of nature.

Their dissatisfaction about the state of nature is a clear indication of the fact that they were guided by reason and not by emotion. At the same time we can note that Locke’s people loved democracy and hated autocracy.

John Dunn has thrown ample light on Lockean theory of civil society. He observes that Locke’s civil society does not refer to a political or social substance that can be set over against an existent state.

What he refers to in modern terminology is essentially the state liked the non-pathological state. Dunn’s term the state liked is really innovative. It means that Locke’s state is not an all-powerful state with absolute sovereign power. But it is not simply a conglomeration of discrete individuals.

So Locke’s civil society is benign state, state liked. Locke had no intention to prepare the framework of a state in modern sense or in Hobbesian way.

He could have done it but he did not do that. Hobbes’s state was the claimant of coercion and effective monopoly of power (Dunn). It is to be noted that both Hobbes’s and Locke’s men were very clever persons. Hobbes’s people gave consent to the absoluteness of sovereign power. On the other hand, Locke’s men gave their approval to the democratic process to be followed by the authority of the civil society or, to use Dunn’s phrase, state liked.

Analysing Lockean concept of civil society John Dunn further observes that the civil society in Lockean conception is the “optimal remedy for the state of nature.”

In the background of social, political and economic condition of Locke’s contem­porary society the concept of civil society was the best solution.
“But Dunn further adds that it is necessarily an “imperfect remedy.”

In Dunn’s judgment there were imperfections in his plan of civil society. But in one sense Locke’s plan of civil society is really wonderful. He did not place an absolute sovereign power at the top of the administration of civil society.

Like Hobbes he could easily do that, but he did not do. By making it democratic he paved the way for constitutionalism and liberalism. Here lies his credit.

6. Popular Sovereignty and Resistance:

The name of the last chapter of Locke’s Second Treatise runs—Of the Dissolution of Government. Locke was an eyewitness of the political turmoil’s that took place in the last two decades of the seventeenth century.

Particularly the autocratic rule of some rulers moved his mind and thought. Several questions were raised in his mind. He was thinking about the consequences of tyrannical rule. In the background of these incidents he wrote the above chapter.

John Morrow in his A History of Political Thought:

A Thematic Introduction writes the following words:

“Locke produced an account of sovereignty as a form of trusteeship and he argued that when the terms of the relationship are breached the bonds of civil society are dissolved.”

An interesting point in Locke’s analysis is that there is no illegitimate political rule. It means that whenever an existing government loses confidence of the general mass that government is removed from power.

Since the legislature is the holder of supreme power, any violation of the terms and conditions of the contract will lead people to dissolve the assembly. Moreover this dissolution will free the people from showing their obligation to the assembly.

That is why Locke has said there is nothing like misrule or illegal administration. Locke has repeatedly said that the assembly or legislature is the trustee of the people. It implies that the primary duty of the legislature is to act in accordance with the terms laid down in the compact.

Explaining Locke’s views about rights and duties of the people John Morrow says:

“Locke regarded resistance as an individual right, but he also thought that individuals have a duty to resist unjust governors. But since resistance takes place in a situation where government has already been dissolved, the duty to resist is one that individuals impose on themselves”.

“At the outbreak of the religious wars in 1562 the Prince de Conde, as leader of the Huguenots, issued a declaration justifying his decision to resort to arms” (Quentin Skinner. The foundations of modern political thought-II). The clear purpose of this observation is that in the second half of the sixteenth century religious in-toleration reached its zenith and the innocent people were indiscriminately murdered. These innocent people were known as Huguenots.

They demanded that for the sake of self-defence they had the right to resist. Naturally the right to resist was not new when Locke was writing his Second Treatise. What is new is that the right to resist an autocratic ruler or a person who had violated the terms of the contract and was administering the civil society in an autocratic way.

Several thousand Huguenots were killed because of the insistence of the fact that they had the right to practice their religious faith and several thousand people were murdered in the Bartholomew Massacre in 1572. We think that Locke was acquainted with this incident and keeping this in mind he strongly emphasized the right to resistance.

There is a very important aspect in Locke’s theory of popular sovereignty and resistance. In section 241 he has raised a very vital question—who shall be judge? The background of this question is if the people have the right to dislodge a government from power on the ground of its failure the pertinent question is who shall judge the failure of the government.

In the previous section (section, 240). Locke says—who shall be judge whether the prince or legislative act contrary to their trust? To this I reply – The people shall be judge, for who shall be judge whether his trustee or deputy acts well and according to the trust reposed in him but he who deputes him and must have still a power to discard him when he fails in his trust? The five words, The people shall be judge—clearly establish that Locke was thinking of popular sovereignty. The final authority shall be vested in the hands of people and popular sovereignty says so.

Locke was a very intelligent man and his thought achieved full maturity when he published his Second Treatise in 1689, because by that time he was 57 years old.

Naturally he could not think that resistance or revolution could be the normal way of any civil society. That on any flimsy ground an elected government cannot be dislodged from power. In several places he has said that the subjects should be prepared to tolerate both “minor mismanagement” and isolated “great mistakes.” Mistakes, violations of rules and numerous other mismanagements may occur. Locke does not advise his people to ignore, but to tolerate and if necessary they may resort to legal avenues for redressal. Locke calls this toleration.

He apprehended that if governments are repeatedly removed from power that would create an anarchical situation. He was of the view that, in a civil society, there should exist law and order and, at the same time, peace.

If governments are frequently removed from power peace shall be the victim. The point however remains that people have the right to judge the right and wrong of the government and have the right to resist.

Nozick’s Assessment of Political Ideas of John Locke:

Robert Nozick in his Anarchy, State and Utopia has assessed John Locke’s political ideas from various angles. In Chapter 2 Nozick says that Locke’s civil society may reasonably be called protective association. The term protective association (or protection association) is quite significant.

In the state of nature there were inconveniences and groups of people assembled together to find out or remedy to these inconveniences and the consequence was that they formed an association (in Locke’s language civil society).

This association protects them from the difficulties and Nozick calls it a protective association. The members will form a protective association does not mean that this association will be at the beck and call of the members to deal with all problems and find out solutions. Again, this association will not follow a policy of non-intervention.

The exact role of the protective association will be to adopt certain rules and procedures which will find out solutions to the grievances raised by the members of the association.

The protective association is not a state with absolute power. The main function of such association will be to protect the people from the feuds or irrational behaviour. The protective association will follow or adopt a middle way.

Its policy will never be a policy of non-intervention or to intervene in all affairs of citizens. The associations will save the members from anarchy and, in the words of Locke, the inconveniences.

The members of the state of nature formed such protective associations on the basis of voluntary arrangements. So we find that the Voluntary arrangements constitute the main part of the protective association.

Influence of Locke on Political Thought:

It is little bit difficult to assess the importance of Locke who is considered as a controversial political philosopher. But he was also very popular notwithstanding his inconsistencies. We shall quote here several observations made by eminent persons.

On
the occasion of Locke’s tercentenary in 1932 Ernest Barker wrote an article which was published in the Times Literary Supplement. In this article Barker wrote “It was the political theory of Locke which affected the nation at large most deeply. Nor did it affect England. It penetrated into France and passed through Rousseau into the French Revolution, it penetrated into the North American colonies.”

We find a tremendous impact of Locke’s book—The Two Treatises—on the American Constitution. The framers of this constitution borrowed several ideas from Locke’s book—such as separation of powers, constitutionalism, and right to property, life and liberty.

Maxey rightly says:

The Declaration of Independence is but a Thunderous transcript of this mighty book (Political Philosophies). Let us now turn to another assessment. In the political philosophy of Locke the Whigs in England found a justification for their regime.

At the same time it provided agrarian reformers. Locke had a number of admirers in France. Voltaire was both a critic and supporter of Locke. In fact, Voltaire popularized many ideas of Locke and Locke got French supporters.

I have already noted the influence of Locke on the preparation of the constitution. Again I want to point out another aspect of his influence.

A critic observes in the following words “So close is the Declaration of Independence to Locke in form, phraseology and content that Jefferson was accused of copying the Second Treatise. Not only this.”

Several states of America copied verbatim the words and ideas from Locke in the preparation of their constitution. Locke is treated by many as the father of modern liberalism and United States is perhaps the first state which borrowed Locke’s liberalism and implemented it. Hence we can say that the foundation of American liberalism is Locke’s political philosophy.

Plamenatz, a renowned critic of political philosophies, makes the following observation:

“His writings do not conclusively prove that he was a democrat. But the principles which he proclaimed in an era of aristocratic resistance to absolute monarchy are used in the West to justify liberal democracy. We may find many of Locke’s argument inconclusive, we may think of him too careless and superficial. But his heart is in the right place, for that place is pretty much where our heart in the West is today.”

Plamenatz wants to say that the words and phrases used by Locke are sometimes misleading. But if we study his heart or what he wants to say we shall find that his heart really longs for democracy, liberty and rights. These are the most valuable concepts of political science.

The best tribute, I think, comes from C. L. Wayper:

“His is the last great voice of one great generation and first great voice of another great generation.”

He could not bring himself out of medieval atmosphere. But he did not accept it. But he laid the foundation of a new era of politics—era of liberalism, democracy, popular sovereignty.

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After reading this article you will learn about the political ideas of Ulrich Zwingli.

The all-pervasive corruption and the political ambition of church spread to Swit­zerland. During the 15th century, Swiss reformers started agitation against the church and the leadership was given by Ulrich Zwingli.

Ulrich Zwingli claimed that his reform was independent of Luther’s, that he had been teaching reforming doctrines even before he had heard of Luther. But historians do not agree with this lofty claim of Zwingli.

His humanism and radical ideas are more advanced than those of Luther; Zwingli’s writings reveal that he was more interested in politics than in theology. He started the Reformation movement for the furtherance of welfare objectives of state.

Ulrich Zwingli thought that the church was an invisible organization of saints and for this reason it could not remove indiscipline and irreligious activities. This could be done only by the secular authority.

The church should be concerned only with the inward affairs of Christians and external matters should be dealt with by the civil government. The Zwinglian system, observes Dunning, thus blended state and church in a single organisation.

Ulrich Zwingli was out and out a nationalist and democrat. Zwingli’s democratic and patriotic feeling injected aggressiveness into the Reformation movement. Because of his movements, democratic government was established in Zurich and many other cantons of Switzerland.

The political and social atmospheres of Switzerland were different from those of other European countries and this difference led Ulrich Zwingli to launch a different movement. He advised the Christians to cooperate with the secular authority to strengthen the tradition of Switzerland.

Gettel commenting on Zwingli’s political ideas, writes “A democratic state imbued with social spirit of primitive Christianity was Zwingli’s political ideal”.

Like Luther and Melanchthon he propagated the doctrine of passive obedience on the part of the subjects and the toleration of difference in belief only so far as the teachings of the scriptures were not contravened. To disobey the secular ruler is to disobey God.

“Zwingli sympathized with the quest for reform by cool ridicule. He had more wit, more philosophy, more learning, less profundity, less religious sense than Luther. His desire to reform the church was a little more likes the desire of the humanist who hated inefficiency and obscurantism.”

Ulrich Zwingli lost his life in an attempt to prevent the Catholic cantons from enforcing their views of the scriptures upon adherents of the reformed faith.

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This article provides a short bio of St. Augustine:- 1. Life and Time of St. Augustine 2. The Story of Two Cities of St. Augustine 3. Political Ideas.

Life and Time of St. Augustine:

When St. Augustine was born in 354 A. D. at Tagaste, a town in North Africa, the Roman Empire was at the zenith of its power and glory but showed signs of disintegration. Augustine was pagan in his youth, but was not satisfied with paganism.

His ardent desire to search for truth led him finally to adopt Christianity and this he did at the age of thirty-three. In 391 he was ordained a priest and in 395 he became of Bishop.

In 429 the Vandals invaded Africa, in the following year he died. St. Augustine was pupil of St. Ambrose. It was the credit of Ambrose to convert him to Christianity. The most famous work of St. Augustine is City of God (De Civitate Dei) which he started to write in 413 and finished in 426 A. D. It is a voluminous work of twenty-two books.

In order to understand the political thought of St. Augustine it is necessary to know the background with which he was faced. Christianity achieved the status of state religion in 313 A. D. and after eighty years of this the Roman Empire collapsed. When Christianity was declared state religion, paganism was proscribed and prohibited.

However, many orthodox Christians and other persons have tried to find out the relation of the fall of the Roman Empire and attainment of Christianity’s new status. Christian qualities of other-worldliness, pacific attitude to every affair and contempt for revered national deities were not favourable for a powerful Roman Empire.

Moreover, Christianity did not recognize the loyalty to Rome as the first and foremost loyalty. But the declaration of Christianity as a state religion created resentment in the minds of many, particularly the strong adherents of paganism.

The purpose of Christianity was to establish one religion and one faith. On the contrary, paganism was for many faiths and many attitudes to religion.

It wanted pluralism in the field of religion. Seeing the disintegration of the Roman Empire the pagans pointed the needle of suspicion to the betrayal to the old Roman deities under which Rome had risen to the position of world power.

The Christian fathers failed to understand the disintegration of the empire even after its conversion. The Christians were still more perturbed to realize that the imperial power on which they laid their hope for temporal security and worldwide domination was unable to save even itself from destruction.

The destruction of Roman Empire and the attack of paganism upon Christianity perplexed and perturbed St. Augustine whose father was a pagan and mother was a Christian. He heard both the cry of the pagans and the plaint of the Christians.

Augustine started a thorough investigation about the destruction of the Roman Empire and his celebrated work the City of God was a reply of pagan challenge to the Christianity. Pagan challenge was that Christianity was solely responsible for its own downfall. His City of God combines Plato and Cicero.

In Plato’s ideal state dogma or idealism was the dominant element. To Cicero love for God was vital and it was a mighty social bond. Augustine treated Christianity as a dogma and he thought that it would be the controlling force of the state. Law, politics, adminis­tration and relations among all men are determined by the wish of God.

The Story of Two Cities of St. Augustine:

In the City of God, St. Augustine has imagined of two cities—heavenly city or Civitas Dei and earthly city or Civitas terrene. Two cities have been formed by two loves. The earthly city is the creation of self-love and to the contempt of God and the heavenly city is the creation of love to God, even to the contempt of self. The earthly city glorifies the self and the heavenly city glorifies God.

The people of the earthly city run after their personal interests and they are making all sorts of efforts immoral and unethical for the perpetuation of benefits which they have cropped. Feuds and animosity are very common among the princes, administrators and common people. Augustine has lamented that goodliness honesty virtue and other universal values are not to be found in the people of earthly city.

The heavenly city is diametrically opposite to the earthly city. It is inhabited by angels or holy persons. They do not look after their personal benefits or interests. The goodliness and sacrifice dominate the behaviour and attitude of the inhabitants of heavenly city.

This city is not raged by feuds and conflicts. Peace, good relation and holiness are the permanent features. People do not lust for power. Since personal interests and lust for power are not motive forces, quarrels and animosity are not found.

People of the earthly city are primarily engaged in quarrels, wars and litigation. In this city, peace is a far-cry. Use of arms against each other is a very common affair. People are victims of vice and all sorts of misdeeds.

Pride and glory dominate the entire society. Love for victory sometimes becomes life-destroying. The cost of achievement of victory far exceeds the benefit. People are fools and devoid of good sense. They make arms to make wars and they make war to get peace. But their foolishness knows no bounds. Peace is never achieved.

St. Augustine has made a clear distinction between the two cities. The foundation of one is appetite and possessive impulses which are found in the lower categories of animal. Heavenly peace and salvation of mankind, according to Augustine, are the foundation of the Civitas Dei or heavenly city.

The Satans with wicked thought and activities and seeking self-interest, have made the earthly city a den. They have no respect for good qualities which Jesus Christ possessed. The predominance of the pagans is the sole cause of the fall of Rome.

There is no possibility of the disintegration of the kingdom of Christ because pagans have no existence there.

There is possibility of survival of the city of Satans. Because profligacy and debauchery cannot lay the foundation of a stable and enduring city. It is evident from the fall of the Roman Empire.

The alienation of the people from Christianity is the primary cause of the fall. Augustine has assumed that there is a continuous conflict between these two kingdoms and, finally, the kingdom where only the angels live will survive.

The source of Augustine’s City of God, it is said, is the Stoic conception of cosmologies, the true universal home of the righteous and wise human beings. Borrowing the central idea of heavenly city from the Stoic philosophy he has mixed it with biblical and apostolic conceptions and here lies the ingenuity of Augustine’s thought.

Significance of City of God:

Augustine’s City of God contains an analysis and comparison of two cities—one earthly and the other heavenly. But to view the City of God simply as a comparison of two imaginary cities is not proper. It has greater and deeper significance and we want to explore it.

Let us quote the pertinent observation of Gettel:

“The work of Augustine gave to the church at a critical period of its history a crystallized body of thought and put into definite statement the ideal which gave its distinctive existence and self-conscious purpose.”

When St. Augustine wrote City of God (413-426 A. D.) the whole Roman Empire was completely plunged into fierce controversy and although the united church was able to establish its authority or predominance in certain fields, it was faced with crisis.

Strong emperors could easily ignore the authority of the church. Paganism also posed a challenge to Christianity. In such a critical period, Augustine gave the church a definite direction
and a clear meaning to Christianity.

In unambiguous terms he has suggested that all the ecclesiastical powers shall be vested in the church and, through the allegiance to it, can the salvation of individual be made a matter of reality.

The conception of two cities does not mean the existence of two independent geographical areas completely separate from each other and having no relation between them. Rather, they are closely connected with each other.

Maxey says:

“These two may exist side by side and frequently intermingle and overlap. Because it deals with spiritual things, the church serves as a concrete embodiment of heavenly commonwealth and the state, because it deals with material things, bodies forth the earthly commonwealth. Ideally the two should be so completely fused that the distinction between the secular and spiritual would disappear.”

The people of the earthly city must break the shackles of bondage to impulses and impiety to achieve God-like character. Unconditional allegiance to God is the only way to penance. This is the central idea of the celebrated work City of God.

The City of God has significance. This book emphasizes that the state is not an end in itself but a means to an end—and the end is good life. People will atone for their sins through the state.

Following Plato and Aristotle, Augustine has proceeded to stress that the state is a reformatory organisation. In the City of God he has exhorted the Christians to show obedience to God. Corruption and unfaithful­ness were so much prevalent in his time that he was impelled to write this book.

Commenting on the importance of City of God, Ebenstein makes the following observation:

“The rebuttal of the paganism is only the more negative part of the City of God. Having demonstrated the hollowness and inconsistency of paganism, materialism and worldly success, Augustine proceeds to his more constructive task, the vision of the heavenly city. Augustine’s use of the word civitas should not be interpreted in a political sense. He was interested in God, Faith and Salvation and not so much in the organisation of the state”

The City of God is an allegory. It has a special message and this has relevance even today. Rampant corruption, degradation and lack of loyalty are the primary causes of instability of political system.

The City of God tells us of allegiance to the united church, we speak of allegiance to the political authority. Needless to say that absence of allegiance to an organized authority is the harbinger of anarchism. No sensible person can deny the importance of loyalty. He donned allegiance with the apparel of religion. It was not possible for him to raise himself above religion.

The City of God combines Plato’s concept of justice with Cicero’s law of nature. Law without justice is valueless. The City of God asserts that, for the kingdom of earth, both law and justice are essential.

We want to make it a point here that Augustine had no intention to banish the earthly city, rather, he wanted to reform it and law and justice could attain this objective.

Sabine says that City of God was written to defend Christianity, to refute the pagan charge that it was responsible for the decline of the Roman Empire. But in practice, Augustine developed his philosophy in this book. The City of God contains an interesting point.

The fundamental fact of human life is that the human interests are divided into two parts—earthly and heavenly. This is the central theme of Christian politics, ethics and theology. The City of God says that there is a constant conflict between bad and good, right and wrong and, finally, between body and soul. When soul will dominate over body and wisdom over ignorance, there will be an end of the struggle.

Augustine’s City of God dominated Christian thought for centuries. It “set over against the declining world of ancient Rome the eternal common wealth of God’s elect and sketched in fervid rhetoric the ideals and interests of that church here on earth which striven towards the kingdom of heaven.”

Several latter-day philoso­phers, for example Thomas Aquinas, Grotius etc., were considerably influenced by the thought of City of God.

It is also said that the Holy Roman Empire was built upon the foundation of the City of God. Therefore it is quite correct to opine that, after Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics, St. Augustine’s City of God was the most famous and influential book.

It may be called a compendium of Christian ideas and philosophy of the Middle Ages. The City of God acted as radar to the directionless and aberrant Christians. Here lies the significance of the City of God.

A recent author makes the following observation regarding the importance of City of God:

The City of God is timeless, does not correspond with any earthly realm and provides a positive framework for the realization of the supreme end for humanity.

Political Ideas of Augustine:

St. Augustine was not a political philosopher and, to speak the truth, he had not the intention to build up a well-reasoned political theory. In his elaborate investigation of the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire and all other related matters he has pointed out certain ideas about state, society, human nature etc. which are parts of political thought.

According to Augustine, God created man and endowed him with liberty and free will. In the original state of goodliness and justice men exercised this liberty very cautiously and only for the attainment of holiness and worship of God.

When wickedness dawned in the minds of men, they fell into the hands of Satans and began to commit sin after sin which precipitated their sufferings and misery.

How did they become prey of sin? He says— “what is man’s misery other than his own disobedience to himself: that seeing he would not what he might, how he cannot what he would?, his mind is troubled, his flesh painted, age and death approach, and a thousand other emotions seize on us against our wills which they could not do if our nature were wholly obedient unto our will?”—. Here Augustine wants to emphasize that man’s disobedience to himself causes disobe­dience to God.

When man becomes the slave of his own desires to get more pleasure and satisfaction he forgets the wills and wishes of God and also to worship Him. Man comes to be involved in sinful activities.

St. Augustine here speaks of self-control which is the royal path to get the blessings of God. Berki points out that the significant innovation of Augustine is that according to him “the corruption of human body, its inclination to worldly pleasure, is a consequence and not the cause of sin. While Plato, Aristotle as well as the Stoics looked upon the body as the source of baseness and uncleanness and an encumbrance to soaring human intellect, Augustine affords dignity to the fleshy substance of man.”

Both society and state were created by God. They were partly punitive and partly remedial institutions. Before the reaction of the state and society the original men were innocents and they were shepherds.

Sin instigated men to be disobedient and ultimately brought them under servitude. If God did not come out to save men then entire mankind would have been destroyed.

That is why out of mercy God created two kingdoms—one for men seeking self-interest and the other for angels sacrificing self-interest and worshipping God only. The purpose of the heavenly city is to save mankind from sin and sufferings. We thus see that St. Augustine believes in the divine origin of the state and he has opposed the Donatists, who claimed freedom from civil obligations and considered the state as a diabolical institution.

It is surprising to note that although St. Augustine held a very key position in the realm of the church he did not deal with the most vexed question
of his time— the relationship between the church and the state.

He discussed at length the distinction between the two cities. His City of God was neither a state nor a church— but in the words of a critic a christianised church-state—from which unbelievers are excluded and claimed the supreme power in that state for the leaders of the ecclesiastical hierarchy Critics are of opinion that St. Augustine had no sympathy for the earthly city and that is why in his conception this city could not be a competitor of the kingdom of Jesus. Only a christianised church-state could be a saviour of degraded mankind.

The concept of justice holds a very important place in the thought-system of St. Augustine. Cicero conceived of the state as an association of people assembled together for the purpose of fulfilling certain common objectives. The natural law was the basis of the state and every individual must obey the law.

But St. Augustine has not accepted this view. To him justice is the most important thing or aspect of any state and if it is removed from the state, then it will be an association of robbers.

In a word, a state devoid of justice is not state at all. He, moreover, says that without justice laws are arbitrary decrees.

How does he define it? “Justice is a virtue distributing unto everyone his due. What justice is that, then, that takes man from the true God, and given him unto the condemned fiends?”

In a godless state individuals are deprived of their due shares and this is quite unjust. Here Augustine is not so much concerned with God. In the state of God, man will get his proper share and that is enough. Whether God is getting his worship that is immaterial.

Justice again conforms to order. Every society or organisation has certain orders and it is the duty of the members of that organisation to show obedience to those orders. Family is the smallest organisation and its members display obedience to it.

Similarly, the citizens of the state show obligation to it. But Augustine observes that the state is not the widest society and naturally its order cannot be universal.

The widest society is the society of all man under the kingship of God. God is the only authority in the universe that can issue and prescribe order. The individuals are bound to obey only the universal order of God.

The state may have its own justice, but that cannot be regarded as absolute. The order of the state must be in conformity with the universal order. The obligation to state order which violates the universal order of God may be just, but, in truth, it is not just at all. Therefore, justice implies conformity with the order of God.

There is a difference between justice of Plato and that of Augustine. The former was confined only within the boundary of the ideal state. Universal morality and order were not problems for Plato. He did not make any scheme for the conciliation between the state order and the universal order.

On the contrary, St. Augustine differs from Plato in his approach to justice. An individual is not only a member of the state; he is also a part of the universal order created by God. Augustine has admitted that true justice must conform to law.

In his opinion this law is the same for all times and for all men. So justice in Augustinian sense is always absolute.

Augustinian theory of slavery runs as follows. The prime cause of slavery is sin which brings man under the domination of his fellow. This is why the word slave is not found in the Scriptures. Slavery is a name introduced by sin and not by nature.

The origin of the Latin word slave is supposed to be found in the circumstances that those who by law of war were liable to be killed were sometimes preserved by their victors and were hence called servants. And these circumstances could never have arisen save through sin.

Every man who commits sin is the servant of sin. The servitude is penal and is appointed by that law which enjoins the preservation of the natural order and forbids its disturbance.

There is a difference between Aristotle and Augustine so far as the concept of slavery is concerned. According to the former, nature has made some men physically strong and mentally weak and some men the opposite.

So the physically strong persons will be slaves of mentally strong persons. Thus slavery is ordained by nature and not manmade. But to Augustine it is the punishment for sin and ordained by God.

“His theory is that the institution of slavery as a whole is a collective retribution upon the human race for the fall of harmony in Adam. Such a theory might be employed to explain the reduction of the whole human race to slavery, but it seems powerless to account for a condition of things in which some particular individuals are condemned to serve, while others are elevated to mastery at their expense.”

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After reading this article you will learn about the structure of government in its relation to the rights of civil and economic liberty.

Government by all has an intrinsic value, and is, of itself and in itself, something which is for the benefit of all and makes for the common good of all. Considered simply as a process, and apart from any results or product outside the process, it is a way of the development of the capacities of personality. But it has also an extrinsic value; it is also valuable for the results which it produces, and for the new rights—other than those of political liberty, and over and above them—which are added by its operation to the common fund of enjoyment.

If we look at the matter historically, we are led at once to the conclusion that during the days of struggle men pressed for the political right of government by the people not as an end in itself, or not only as art end in itself, but because they wished to secure for themselves and their fellows, by the exercise of this right, the enjoyment of other rights hitherto denied, or at any rate confined to the few.

The Chartists, for example, were vehement in urging the justice of their six political points; but the ultimate aims of their endeavour were economic aims. If that was true in the days of struggle, it is also true, as experience shows, that the actual achievement of political rights raises at once in the days of attainment two questions of economic rights – the question, first, of the economic rights which ought to follow on political rights by the logic of con­sistency, in order to secure more liberty for the worker in the course of his work and thus make the economic system correspond better with the political; and, secondly, the question of the economic rights which will inevitably and in any case follow on the acquisition of political rights by the simple logic of fact, or, in other words, as a result of the fact that the mass of the people now have the vote and will tend to use it in order to secure economic rights which they regard as the necessary conditions of economic liberty.

It follows then, alike by the logic of consistency and by the logic of fact, that an extension of the rights of political liberty must involve a similar extension of the rights of economic liberty. When the structure of government is altered, by the extension of political rights, the altered structure of government will alter in turn the economic structure, and it will do so by means of the extension of economic rights.

This extension of rights will take two forms. One of these forms is the extension to all of old rights, already recognized as belonging to the members of a section of the community, but not hitherto recognized as belonging to the members of the community as a whole, irrespec­tive of section or class.

The other form is a still further extension by the recognition of new rights, not hitherto recognized at all, and their general distribution to all the members of the com­munity. In brief, we have both an extension of the number of those among whom rights are distributed and an extension of the number of the rights distributed.

For the present we may confine ourselves to the extension of the number of those among whom rights are distributed. That rights are for all, and not merely for the members of a single section, is a simple proposition which now seems self-evident; but the actual extension to all even of old and long-recognized rights has been a slow historical process.

The width of vision which sees that ‘a man is a man for all that’, whatever the rank and the guinea’s stamp, is a slow historical acquisition. There was long a defect of vision, honest and genuine in its own day, which made men as it were near-sighted, and prevented them from seeing beyond a small and limited circle.

Privileged classes, accepting the idea of the general social necessity of different social functions arranged in an ordered hierarchy of ascending degrees or stations, proceeded from that idea to a firm convic­tion that the masses were confined by the nature of their func­tions—as ploughmen and artificers—to the one office of manual work, and were not intended, and indeed were not fit, either for the political right of the suffrage or for the civil and economic rights (full personal security, full personal freedom of move­ment, and the full ownership of personal property) which they themselves enjoyed.

We may almost say that they naturally thought in terms of ‘two nations’, or even of two grades of humanity and two classes of human beings. Three movements of thought, two of them belonging to the eighteenth century, and the third emerging in the course of the nineteenth, have radically altered these terms.

The first is the movement of humanitarianism, mainly based (at any rate in England) on the foundations of the Christian Gospel, and inspired by a fervent conviction that the benefits of the Gospel belonged to all and must be extended to all—to the slave, the prisoner, the factory-worker, and whoever else needed the comfort of a recognition of his common humanity and his common human rights.

Whether this Christian humani­tarianism were Evangelical or Catholic, whether it proceeded from the Low Church or the High, it changed and widened men’s view of the distribution of rights, and altered the narrow terms in which they had hitherto thought.

The other two move­ments which have worked in the same direction, however different they may be both from Christian humanitarianism and from one another, are the Benthamite utilitarianism which emerged at the end of the eighteenth century and the Marxian socialism which began to grow from the middle of the nine­teenth.

The Benthamites, going on the principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and holding that all were capable of happiness and had therefore the right to enjoy it, attacked the limitation of this universal right by the sinister interests of a privileged few, and advocated a structure of govern­ment under which all alike had a voice and a vote and the majority could use their voice and their vote to counteract sinister interests and to enthrone general happiness.

The Marxians, going on the assumption (not altogether unwarranted by the history of the past) that the existing structure of government was based on the domination of a small and interested social class, which made law to suit its own interest and thus limited rights to its own members, urged that the largest and the most numerous social class, the class of the workers, should acquire domination in its turn, and should then extend and generalize rights by instituting a workers’ State in which all would be workers and all would enjoy the common rights belonging to workers.

There is an obvious difference between the Benthamites and the Marxians. The Benthamites laid their primary emphasis on the rights of political liberty: they held that the extension of the suffrage was the key to a greater enjoyment of happiness by a greater number of individuals – they expected a peaceable extension of the rights of civil and economic liberty, following easily and naturally on a similar extension of the right of political liberty.

The Marxians were primarily concerned with economic liberty: they held that its attainment demanded effort, and even violence: they respected less the rights of individuals than the rights and the status of a whole class.

But great as is the difference between Benthamism and Marxianism, the effects of both have been so far similar, that both have tended towards the extension of rights to all, and both have helped to abolish the old assumption of a graded society marked by a graded enjoy­ment of rights.

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After reading this article you will learn about the State as a legal association and the scope of its legal purpose.

The State exists for the great, but single, purpose of law. The question may be asked, ‘But what of the idea, as old as the age of Aristotle, that the State exists for the sake of the general good lite of its members?’

The further question may also be asked, ‘Does not the State, apart from ideas, and as a plain matter of fact, actually regulate issues other than legal issues?’ A review of history is sufficient to show that the State in its time has touched many issues and played many parts; and it still continues today to be multifarious in its activity.

It has acted in the religious field, by measures ranging from the establishment of a State-Church to the regulation of the trust deeds under which free churches own their property and manage their daily concerns. It has acted, and it acts in­creasingly, in the economic field: in our own history the long line of its acts runs from the Elizabethan Statute of Artificers (and even earlier statutes) to the contemporary statutes which ‘nationalize’ some of the staple industries.

It has acted in the field of the intellect, by a succession of Education Acts: it has acted in the field of conscience, and in the name of social justice, by the institution of a system of public social services: it has acted in matters of the body, as well as in matters of the intellect and of conscience, and what it has done for public health and physical fitness is not the least of its doings. Can all these labours be comprehended under the rubric of law, or ascribed to a single ‘legal purpose’?

The answer is that the term ‘legal’ does not denote a set of things in a separate compartment, comparable to but separable from other sets of things (religious or economic or intellectual or moral) in other similar compartments. Life is not only a mat­ter of compartments: it is also a matter of modes.

The term ‘legal’ connotes a mode, if it also serves to denote a compart­ment; and what it connotes is of more importance than what it denotes. Considered as a mode, the term ‘legal’ means a method or process of action, irrespective of the field of action or the content of the field.

Legal action—we may also call it ‘political’, for, the political is also the legal, since the State is essentially law—legal action is a mode of treating things in general, things of all sorts and descriptions, religious or moral or educational or economic or whatever they may be, so far as they can be brought under a rule of law and thus made a matter of compulsory uniformity.

Law touches and treats all acts—so far as lets are amenable to its touch and treatment. But it is only external acts which are amenable to such treat­ment. A rule of law is an order (ultimately issued, by the community itself, but immediately issued by some organ which declares and enforces the sense of the com­munity), to do, or to abstain from doing, a defined and definite external act: an order enforced, in the last resort, by another external act of physical coercion.

From this point of view the State may order its members, as it did in 1559 by the Elizabethan Act of Uniformity, ‘all and every … to resort to their parish church … upon every Sunday and other . . . holy days … upon pain that every person so offending shall forfeit for every such offence twelve-pence’.

This is a legal order to perform an external act of physical attendance at public worship: an order enforced, in the event of contravention, by another external act of physical coercion which takes twelve pence from the pocket of the offender.

In a sense this is not a regulation of the religious life, which is a matter of the inward mind: it is a regulation of external acts performed in connexion with religious life. But the crux of the matter lies in the word ‘connexion’; and the enforce­ment by the authority of the State of an act so intimately con­nected with religious life as to be a symbol of inward conviction, and to be regarded in that light by the agent and enjoined with that intention by the authority, is something which is ultra vires and beyond the power of law.

The long struggle and the ultimate triumph of English Nonconformity, vindicating the principle that ‘in matters of the mind there is no compulsion’, has recalled the State to its bounds. We recognize today that true religion is a matter of the mind, to be sought and found in voluntary’ co­operation with others of like mind, and therefore to be sought and found in the area of Society. But we also recognize that the State cannot be excluded wholly from the field of religion.

Re­ligion means organization as well as inward conviction. Organi­zation involves financial and other external consequences; and those consequences come within the ambit of law, and therefore of the State. Wherever the legal mode is needed, that mode must necessarily enter. Wherever it cannot act—wherever, that is to say, compulsory uniformity is impossible—the mode is neces­sarily precluded.

The argument which applies to the religious field applies equally to the moral and the intellectual; it applies even to the economic. The economic process is indeed particularly immersed in financial and other consequences of a legal order which bring it particularly and peculiarly within the ambit of law and the supervision of the State.

But so far as it is a process which requires for its operation factors that cannot be ‘reduced to the one’—the irreducible inward factors of spontaneity of individual initiative and free variety of individual experiment— so far, and to that extent, it escapes, and will always escape, the net of legal regulation.

Here, as in every other field, the argu­ment brings us to two conclusions. The first is that there is no set of things, and no compartment of issues, about which you can say to law and the State, ‘You shall not enter; you have nothing to do with it: this is a reserved compartment’. The second is that for every set, and in every compartment, all that law and the State can do is to secure external acts of obedience under the sanction of otherwise applying external acts of coer­cion.

The first conclusion will lead us to say that the State and its law exist for the sake of the general good life. The second will lead us to say that all they can do for the general good life is to secure, by the ultimate sanction of force, the uniform doing of external acts, and to erect thereby an external framework for the inward movement of a good life which proceeds by its own proper motion.

There is no salvation in the State: there is only a sovereign safeguard. Salvation lies in ourselves, and we have to win it ourselves—in the shelter of the sovereign safeguard. We may dream of a State which itself is an institute of salvation. We only dream; and our dream is one which denatures the State and un-spheres law.

The State of reality is by its nature a sove­reign safeguard—no more, but also no less; and the sphere of law is obligatory rules of external action—no more, but also no less. Even if we ourselves, as members of the legal association, are makers and motors of the safeguard, it is only a safeguard, and not an institute of salvation, that we make and move, in that capacity of ourselves.

Even if we ourselves, acting directly or through an organ appointed by us for the purpose, are the declarers and enforcers of law, it is only law—a set of compul­sory uniform rules of external action—which we declare and enforce.

There remains a large sphere of activity which lies outside the State. It is the sphere, in a word, of the inward movement of the good life. That movement is not only a matter of the ‘indi­vidual’, acting as an individual.

It is a matter of ‘individuals’ – but how much, and how often, do individuals act in groups, or as groups—in families (the
innermost cells of our life), in schools (which are free societies of the mind in their inward operation, whatever their external framework may be), in churches and chapels, in professions and occupations, in ‘clubs’, ‘societies’, and ‘associations’ of every sort and description?

The inward movement of the good life is at least as much social as individual; and voluntary social co-operation is one of its greatest channels. Nor is such co-operation limited to the inward life. It has also helped, and it still helps, in making the external framework, and securing the external conditions, neces­sary for a good life.

The State is indeed the sovereign maker of the external framework; but it is not the only maker. There has always been, and there still remains, a space for social activity in the provision of the framework. In the first place, the State will always be, as it were, behind in the provision which it makes.

There will be external conditions which it has not, as yet, secured, because there is not, as yet, a general conviction of their necessity; and the laboratory of social invention, en­gaged in pioneer’s work, has to go ahead in planning and con­triving voluntary expedients, and even systems, which at a later stage may be generally adopted and incorporated.in the general framework.

Secondly, even when the State has itself secured external conditions in this or in that field, it has only secured them (it can do no more by its very nature) in the shape of a uniform rule, which is the same for all indifferently and without respect of persons. But persons are different; and some of them will need their special conditions, over and above, or diverging from, the conditions secured by a uniform rule.

Here social activity enters once more, not as a pioneer going on ahead, but as a ‘mate’ or collaborator standing by the side of the State to make some necessary adjustment or to add some necessary complement. The State, for example, may give unemployment benefit, and even add to it public assistance, by uniform rule; but there will still be special cases, and there will still be room for social action to meet such cases.

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