LETTER XXII. ON PARTIES. YOU hear much of parties, and you complain that you can learn very little about their principles, though they have so much to say against one another. The pretensions of different parties are frequently brought into question in a great assembly, where you may possibly have a personal concern hereafter in the business of your country; and therefore you are certainly right in desiring to understand what they are. Some, you say, are called whigs, some tories; some affect to be neutral, declaring against all parties, and saying, that men differ with one another only about words and names. Some say, whigs out of place are tories; and tories in place are whigs: which is to say, that there is no principle amongst us but that of self-interest; and thus you are left in total darkness as to the proper differences in opinion by which parties are guided. The terms whig and tory are nick-names, with which the two parties of republicans and loyalists pelted one another, with great animosity, in the reign of Charles the Second: and are scarcely worth an explanation. To cut the matter as short as I can, and give you a general idea of their different views in a short compass, I must tell you, that these two parties take different sides in the great question concerning the origin of civil government. Some say, government is of God; by which it is meant, that his authority, in a certain sense, must take place in civil society, for its order and support; as his power prevails in the constitution of nature: and they say, there are difficulties in the subject, which can never be got over on any other supposition. Others say, that government is a human institution, and that all the power by which governors act is derived from those who are governed; as if you should say, that the captain of the ship has his commission from the crew. They who espouse this latter opinion, have endeavoured to clear the way to it by laying down four other very extraordinary propositions; which are these following. First, that there was a time when there was no society amongst men, but they wandered about in a state of savage equality, as companions to the beasts; such as the poet describes them: Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris Hor. Sat. i. 3. Secondly, that by some one wiser than the rest they were collected by degrees into society, and began to form a political body. Thirdly, that when men could not be kept to their duty, they began to enact laws to keep them in order. Fourthly, that when it was found by experience, that laws might be evaded by offences committed without witnesses, they endeavoured to work a persuasion in men's minds, that there was an invisible being, who could see into men's hearts, and would punish offences in another life; and thus the exigences of society would lead naturally to the invention of religion. Not one of these propositions can be proved by any evidence of reason or history. As to the first of them, if ever there was a time when men were savage, those men were in a state of degeneracy, and had lost the benefits of society. As to the second, men were not originally collected. into society, because they are in it by nature; inas much as all larger societies must have subsisted at first in single families, which would increase naturally into more extensive.communitics. To prevent that state of equality which is merely ideal, and never existed any where upon earth, a man and his wife, who are the rudiments of all larger society, were brought together with unequal powers; the wife being the weaker by nature, and subject to the husband; and the children, who follow the condition of the mother, are subject to the same authority. A learned and useful author, with whom you are acquainted, to avoid the force of this argument, is driven to the necessity of supposing that the wife hath an authority over the husband as the husband hath over the wife: but the contrary is self-evident; and therefore government arises of course from the condition of human nature; it is a necessary consequence of that natural law by which mankind is multiplied. The father of the family is the natural ruler of it; and none can be so absurd as to suppose, that the father derives his power from the children who are begotten of him: that power is the gift of his Maker, and follows by necessity from the order of nature.. You will find a great advantage, and avoid infinite confusion, by thus considering government in its actual rudiments. For all great things are best understood. by considering them under their smallest formsmarima e minimis: and till you can find some way of reducing complicated cases to simple ideas, you will scarcely be able to understand any thing clearly. As to the third proposition, that laws were prior to religion, it is contrary to reason, and to all positive testimony. It is contrary to reason, because the obligation of religion is greater than that of law, extending to all cases, as well secret as open. It therefore supersedes the use of laws, which are made only for the ungodly; for people who either have no religion, or wilfully transgress what they have. Religion therefore is prior, as the more compendious and powerful obligation. The proposition is also contrary to positive testimony because even heathens allow that religion was before law. We read of religion, and of religious institutions, in Homer; and that kings have their power, honour, and support from God: but we read of no laws then in being: the term is not used in Homer's writings. The words of Justin are remarkable-Populus nullis legibus tenebatur: arbitria principum pro legibus erunt*; and I look upon this fact as a collateral proof, that all government subsisted at first in families, and increased from domestic into national: for who but a father can want no more law than that of natural affection for the government of his household and descendants? And what subjects but children either would or could submit by choice to be governed by the will of another! So far as laws look upwards, they were made first in popular states, to bind those governors who had no natural affection for those who were subject to them: People who think they have nothing to expect either from the principles or the affections of their rulers, will be upon their defence, * Justin, lib. i. cap, 1. and bind them as fast as they can: though mutual sus. picion is productive of evils too many to be enumerated. You may have a view of them, if you read a discourse by Swift (one of the best he ever wrote) on the contests and dissentions in Athens and Rome: it will shew you what is meant by a balance of power-that the many may be tyrants as well as a single person-how mercenary orators have inflamed the people to their own ruin-how popular jealousies and tumults have led naturally to arbitrary power, &c. Then, fourthly, that religion arose from the exigencies of society, and was a political invention, brought in aid to the inefficacy of laws, it is the falsest of all, For the proof of a God was in the works of the creation, prior to all law, and therefore could never arise from political necessity. Even to this day we find a sense of religion, such as it is, and some regard to the obligations of it, in those nations who have neither laws nor writing amongst them. This system of policy, to which some great names have given a sanction, is wrong in every step of its reasoning. And here I must observe besides, that there is a case of capital consideration, for which it has no provision. Every government must exercise a power of life and death; a power which no government can derive from human authority, because no man has a power over his own life, and cannot be said to give to another what he hath not in himself. that this power can be derived only from God; wha being the author of man's life, has a right to dispose of it. So An author who belongs to the class of the Nouveaur Philosophes, endeavours to solve this difficulty on his own principles, in an Essay on Crimes and Punishments. He seems well inclined to give to every man 4 |