civil society, the first step in the explanation of the phenomenon of human government. But if we were to stop here, we should leave much unexplained. How came man to form such compacts — everywhere, in all ages, and nations? Is it accidental? Is there not rather a foundation in his very nature for just this condition of things? Is he not, even, as Aristotle said, a political animal? Here, then, we must bring in a second theory, and place it beside, or rather beneath the first, civil government is founded in compact, but that compact is founded in the social nature of man.

Nor would I stop here. How comes he by this nature? Is it not the gift of God - an endowment conferred upon the creature by the all-wise Creator? Did not God, in making man as he is, and conferring upon him this social nature, intend that he should be subject to civil authority? Here, then, we bring in still a third theory, that of the divine will, and place it at the foundation of the whole Civil government is founded in compact; but that com pact, again, depends on the nature of man; and this, in turn, rests ultimately on the will of God.

Of Divine Authority in what Sense. According to the view now presented, civil government is of divine authority in this sense, and in this sense only, that by the constitution of things, and of human nature, God has settled it that civil government, of some sort, there shall be; but of what sort it shall be, he has left it for men themselves to decide; and this they do decide, each community or people for itself, by some sort of social compact or agreement. It is not in the nature of things for any community of human beings to consent to live together without any form of government; and, in point of fact, the rudest and wildest community on earth will be found

to have provided itself with some kind, and some degree of civil government.

§ III. — HISTORIC SKETCH.-Different OPINIONS AS TO THE NATURE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

In the preceding sections the nature and foundation of civil government have been discussed as regards their general principles. It may serve to fix these principles more definitely in our minds, and perhaps contribute to the clearer apprehension of them, if we trace, in its general outlines, the history of the topic now under consideration, as regards the opinions which have been held by writers of distinction respecting the nature of civil government.

Opinions of the Ancients. — The idea of the state as a natural and a necessary institution, having its foundation in the very nature and constitution of man, was familiar to the ancients. Thus Aristotle: "It is manifest that the state is one of the things which exist by nature; and that man is by nature a political animal. A man belonging to no state is less than man, or more."

This view, however, by no means prevented them from regarding civil government, at the same time, as of divine origin, founded in the will of Deity. "All laws," says Plato, "came from God. No mortal man was the founder of laws." Aristotle coincides with this view. "Law," says Cicero, "is nothing else but right reason, derived from the divinity, and government an emanation of the divine. mind." The classical scholar need not be reminded that the writings of the ancient masters are pervaded with this sentiment.

Nor, again, does this divine origin of government preclude, in their opinion, the consent of the governed, as in

reality the proximate source of power. Locke is not, as often stated, the author of this theory of government; on the contrary, it is a principle recognized in substance by the most distinguished political philosophers of the ancient world; and that in perfect consistency with their view of the divine origin of government. The idea of a social compact is no novelty in the world.

Plato makes "a tacit agreement between each member, and the whole community," to be the foundation of the state, and affirms that they who violate the laws, violate the agreement. "The civil law," says Aristotle, "is that which takes place amongst a number of free persons, who are members of the same community, in which they live on a footing of equality."

"The state," says Cicero, "is not every assemblage of men anyhow gathered, but a community united together by common laws, common interest, and a common consent." In like manner, Livy affirms that the force of the supreme command is based on the consent of those who obey.

Of the Moderns. Among the moderns, the doctrine of the divine origin of government has been very generally held by English divines and statesmen. Subjection to the civil power, in the language of Bishop Horsley, is "a conscientious submission to the will of God." "Civil government," says Bishop Butler, "is that part of God's government over the world which he exercises by the instrumentality of men. Considering that all power is of God, all authority is properly of divine appointment." The view of Dr. Paley has already been stated. He bases the authority of government on the will of God as collected from expediency. The following is the language of Edmund Burke: "All dominion over man is the effect of the divine

disposition. It is bound by the eternal laws of him that gave it, with which no human authority can dispense. * We are all born in subjection-all born equally, high and low, governors and governed, in subjection to one great, immutable, preëxistent law, prior to all our devices, and all our contrivances, paramount to all our ideas, and all our sensations, antecedent to our very existence, — by which we are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the universe, and out of which we cannot stir. This great law does not arise out of our conventions, or compacts; on the contrary, it gives to our compacts and conventions all the force and sanction they can have."

Coincident with the views now expressed is that of the great theologian Calvin: "The reason why we should be subject to magistrates, is, because they are appointed by the ordinance of God. Since it has pleased God so to administer the government of this world, he who resists their power, strives against the divine ordinance, and so fights against God. Because, to disregard his providence who is the author of civil government, is to go to war with him.” These words are a comment upon a passage in the thirteenth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, in which the divine authority of civil government is very clearly set forth, and which may be regarded as not merely the Pauline, but the general Scripture doctrine of human govern

mént.

Not Inconsistent with Social Compact. But, while maintaining the views now stated respecting human government, as founded in the will of God, and ultimately deriving its authority from that high source, the writers whom I have quoted by no means maintain that the various forms which human governments practically assume are also and equally of divine authority. On the contrary,

they recognize the form as a matter of human invention. and choice; and so, and that not inconsistently, they recognize, in many cases, the principle of the social compact. So, also, as we have seen, did Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, while, in like manner, tracing back all law to a divine original, nevertheless admit the consent of the governed as the proximate source of authority in the state. Thus Bishop Horsley, whom I have already quoted, while maintaining "that all government is in such sort of divine institution, that, be the form of any particular government what it may, the submission of the individual is a principal branch of that religious duty which each man owes to God," is careful to admit "that all particular forms of government which now exist are the work of human policy, under the control of God's overruling providence.” They have not thought it, therefore, at all inconsistent with their theory of the divine authority of civil government, to inquire into the origin and sources of political power, as a thing of human contrivance and social compact. For, as has been well stated by Puffendorf, in his Law of Nature and Nations, "he who affirms sovereignty to result immediately from compact, doth not in the least detract from the sacred character of civil government, or maintain that princes bear rule by human right only, not by divine."

The doctrine of Social Compact has been held, in fact, by almost all the chief writers on Moral and Political Philosophy in modern times. Puffendorf, Grotius, Montesquieu, Blackstone, Milton, Bacon, Sidney, Locke, Barbeyrac, Burlamaqui, John Q. Adams, Jefferson, are among the more prominent names which occur in this connection. Of these, it will be sufficient to quote as authority Grotius and Blackstone. The former says: "Men, not influenced by the express command of God, but of their own accord, having