University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER II

HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF THE DECLARATION:
THE NATURAL RIGHTS
PHILOSOPHY

Whether the political philosophy of the
Declaration of Independence is "true" or
"false" has been much discussed. In the late
eighteenth century it was widely accepted as
a commonplace. At a later time, in 1822,
John Adams made this a ground for detracting
from the significance of Jefferson's share in the
authorship of the famous document. He was
perhaps a little irritated by the laudation which
Fourth of July orators were lavishing on his
friend, and wished to remind his countrymen
that others had had a hand in the affair. "There
is not an idea in it," he wrote to Pickering,
"but what had been hackneyed in Congress
for two years before."[1] This is substantially
true; but as a criticism, if it was intended as
such, it is wholly irrelevant, since the strength
of the Declaration was precisely that it said
what everyone was thinking. Nothing could

have been more futile than an attempt to
justify a revolution on principles which no one
had ever heard of before.

In replying to Adams' strictures, Jefferson
had only to state this simple fact.

In writing to Lee, in 1825, Jefferson said again
that he only attempted to express the ideas
of the Whigs, who all thought alike on the
subject. The essential thing was

Not all Americans, it is true, would have
accepted the philosophy of the Declaration,
just as Jefferson phrased it, without qualification,
as the `common sense of the subject';
but one may say that the premises of this philosophy,
the underlying preconceptions from which
it is derived, were commonly taken for granted.
That there is a `natural order' of things in the
world, cleverly and expertly designed by God
for the guidance of mankind; that the `laws'
of this natural order may be discovered by
human reason; that these laws so discovered
furnish a reliable and immutable standard for
testing the ideas, the conduct, and the institutions
of men — these were the accepted premises,
the preconceptions, of most eighteenth
century thinking, not only in America but also

in England and France. They were, as Jefferson
says, the `sentiments of the day, whether
expressed in conversation, in letters, printed
essays, or the elementary books of public right.'
Where Jefferson got his ideas is hardly so much
a question as where he could have got away from
them.

Since these sentiments of the day were common
in France, and were most copiously, and
perhaps most logically, expressed there, it has
sometimes been thought that Jefferson and his
American contemporaries must have borrowed
their ideas from French writers, must have been
`influenced' by them, for example by Rousseau.
But it does not appear that Jefferson, or any
American, read many French books. So far
as the `Fathers' were, before 1776, directly
influenced by particular writers, the writers
were English, and notably Locke. Most Americans
had absorbed Locke's works as a kind of
political gospel; and the Declaration, in its
form, in its phraseology, follows closely certain
sentences in Locke's second treatise on government.
This is interesting, but it does not tell
us why Jefferson, having read Locke's treatise,
was so taken with it that he read it again, and
still again, so that afterwards its very phrases
reappear in his own writing. Jefferson doubtless
read Filmer as well as Locke; but the

phrases of Filmer, happily, do not appear in
the Declaration. Generally speaking, men are
influenced by books which clarify their own
thought, which express their own notions well,
or which suggest to them ideas which their
minds are already predisposed to accept. If
Jefferson had read Rousseau's Social Contract
we may be sure he would have been strongly
impressed by it. What has to be explained is
why the best minds of the eighteenth century
were so ready to be impressed by Locke's
treatise on civil government and by Rousseau's
Social Contract. What we have to seek is the
origin of those common underlying preconceptions
that made the minds of many men, in
different countries, run along the same track
in their political thinking.

It is well known that Locke's treatise, written
in reply to Filmer's Patriarcha, was an apology
for the Revolution of 1688. "Kings," said
Filmer, "are as absolute as Adam over the
creatures"; and in general the Stuart partisans
had taken their stand, as Sir Frederick Pollock
says, "on a supposed indefeasible right of kings,
derived from a supposed divine institution of
monarchy. . . . The Whigs needed an antidote,
and Locke found one in his modified
version of the original compact."[4] This means

that political circumstances had brought the
Whigs to the point of overturning the existing
government, that they were human enough
to wish to feel that this was a decent and right
thing to do, and that, accordingly, their minds
were disposed to welcome a reasoned theory
of politics which would make their revolution,
as a particular example under the general rule,
respectable and meritorious. The Whigs needed
a theory of politics that would make their revolution
of 1688 a `glorious revolution.' Locke
said himself that he had made all his discoveries
by "steadily intending his mind in a given
direction." Inevitably the Whigs steadily `intended
their minds' away from the idea of a
divine right in kings, since no glorious revolution
was to be found there, and towards a new
idea — in fact, towards Locke's modified version
of the compact theory.

It is significant that English writers were
formulating a new version of the compact theory
in the seventeenth century, while French and
American writers made little use of it until the
late eighteenth century. This does not necessarily
mean that British writers were more
intelligent and up-to-date, but is probably due
to the fact that in British history the seventeenth
century was the time of storm and stress for
kings, whereas this time fell later in France and

America. Jefferson used the compact theory to
justify revolution just as Locke did: the theory
came with the revolution in both cases. Rousseau
was indeed not justifying an actual revolution;
but, as Chateaubriand said, the Revolution
in France "was accomplished before it
occurred." It was accomplished in men's
minds before they made it the work of their
hands; and Rousseau spoke for all those who
were `intending their minds' away from an
actual, irrational, and oppressive political order
which rested in theory upon the divine right of
kings and priests to rule — and misrule. In
all three countries this common influence —
the widespread desire to limit the power of
kings and priests — was one source of those underlying
presuppositions which determined the
character of political speculation in the eighteenth
century; a strong antipathy to kings
and priests predisposed Jefferson and Rousseau,
as it predisposed Locke, to `intend their minds'
towards some new sanction for political authority.

The idea that secular political authority rested
upon compact was not new — far from it;
and it had often enough been used to limit the
authority of princes. It could scarcely have
been otherwise indeed in that feudal age in
which the mutual obligations of vassal and

overlord were contractually conceived and defined.
Vassals were often kings and kings
often vassals; but all were manifestly vassals
of God who was the Lord of lords and the King
of kings. Thus mediaeval philosophers had
conceived of the authority of princes as resting
upon a compact with their subjects, a
compact on their part to rule righteously,
failing which their subjects were absolved from
allegiance; but this absolution was commonly
thought to become operative only through the
intervention of the Pope, who, as the Vicegerent
of God on earth, possessed by divine
right authority over princes as well as over
other men. Thus princes ruled by divine
right after all, only their right was a second
hand right, deriving from God through the
Pope. Afterwards the princes, when they had
become kings and as kings had got the upper
hand, jostled the Pope out of his special seat
and became coequals with him in God's favor;
so that in the seventeenth century the right of
kings to rule was commonly thought to come
directly from God, and the Pope lost his power
of intervening to absolve subjects from allegiance
to a bad king. Charles II of England
and Louis XIV of France both thought this a
reasonable doctrine, nor did either of them lack
learned men to back them up; Bossuet proved
that it was obviously good religious doctrine —
Politique tiree de l'Écriture Sainte; while Cambridge
University assured Charles II that
"Kings derive not their authority from the
people but from God; . . . To Him only they
are accountable."[5]

This clearly closed the door to relief in case
there should be any bad kings. In the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries there were a number
of bad kings; and so some people were always
to be found seeking a method of bringing bad
kings to book. Popular resistance to kings was
commonly taught both by the Jesuits and the
Protestant dissenters: by the Jesuits (by
Catholic monarchists called "dissenters") on
the ground that only the Pope has Divine
authority; by Protestant Dissenters (by Protestant
monarchists called "Jesuits") on the
ground that it was possible for subjects themselves
to claim as intimate relations with God
as either king or Pope. Calvin was one of the
writers who opened up this latter inviting
prospect to suceeding generations.

This is admitted; but then the ambassador
must clearly abide by his instructions; and
therefore,

What God had commanded, subjects might
plainly read in holy writ — the scriptures as
interpreted by those ministers whose business it
was to understand them; for which reason,
no doubt, Calvin would have ministers and
magistrates walk together in close communion.

In 1579, another Frenchman, Hubert Languet,
or whoever it was that wrote the Vindiciae
contra tyrannos, gave greater precision
to this idea. Subjects are obviously not bound
to obey a king who commands what is contrary

to the will of God. But are they bound to
resist such a king? According to the Vindiciae
they are. When kings were set up, two compacts
were entered into: in the first, God on
the one side, and people and king on the other,
engaged to maintain the ancient covenant which
God had formerly made with his chosen people
of Israel; in the second, the king contracted
with his subjects to rule justly, and they with
him to be obedient.[7] Thus kings are under
binding contract to rule justly, while subjects
have a covenant with God to see that they do
so. In the seventeenth century English sectaries
not only preached but practiced resistance
to kings and magistrates, finding their justification,
not so much in an explicit compact
with God, as in natural law, which was that
right reason or inner light of conscience which
God had given to men for their guidance. The
Levellers were complained of because, be the
"Lawes and customes of a Kingdom never so
plain and cleer against their wayes, yet they
will not submit, but cry out for natural rights
derived from Adam and right reason." Milton
spoke for the refractory dissenters of that age
when he said,

Here was a `version of the original compact'
which Locke might have used to justify the
Revolution of 1688. He might have said, with
any amount of elaboration, that the people had
a compact with God which reserved to them the
right to rebel when kings ruled unrighteously.
Why was Locke not satisfied with this version?
Certainly no one had less desire than Locke to
deny that God was the maker and ruler of all.
He could quote scripture too, as well as Milton
or Filmer. We see, he says, that in the dispute
between Jephthah and the Ammonites, "he
[Jephthah] was forced to appeal to Heaven:
"The Lord the Judge (says he) be judge this
day." Well, of course, says Locke, "everyone
knows what Jephthah here tells us, that the

Lord the Judge shall judge."[9] But the trouble
is the Lord does not do it now; he reserves his
decision till the Day of Judgment. Jephthah
appealed to the Lord, but the Lord did not
speak, did not decide the dispute between
Jephthah and the Ammonites; the result of
which was that Jephthah had to decide it himself
by leading out his armies. So it always
is in the affairs of men: whether I shall appeal
to Heaven, "I myself can only be the judge
in my own conscience, as I will answer it, at
the great day, to the supreme judge of all men."
If we resist kings, God will no doubt judge us
for it in the last day; but men will judge us now.
Let us, therefore, ask whether there is not
happily a compact between men and kings,
God not interfering, on which we can stand to
be judged by men when we resist kings.

The truth is that Locke, and the English
Whigs, and Jefferson and Rousseau even more
so, had lost that sense of intimate intercourse
and familiar conversation with God which
religious men of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries enjoyed. Since the later seventeenth
century, God had been withdrawing from immediate
contact with men, and had become,
in proportion as he receded into the dim distance,

no more than the Final Cause, or Great Contriver,
or Prime Mover of the universe; and as
such was conceived as exerting his power and
revealing his will indirectly through his creation
rather than directly by miraculous manifestation
or through inspired books. In the eighteenth
century as never before, `Nature' had
stepped in between man and God; so that there
was no longer any way to know God's will
except by discovering the `laws' of Nature,
which would doubtless be the laws of `nature's
god' as Jefferson said. "Why should I go in
search of Moses to find out what God has said to
Jean Jacques Rousseau?" Why indeed, when
the true revelation was all about him in Nature,
with sermons in stones, books in the running
brooks, and God in everything. The eighteenth
century, seeking a modified version of the
original compact, had to find it in nature or
forever abandon the hope of finding it.

The concept of Nature was of course nothing
new either, any more than the theory of compact.
Stoic philosophers and Roman jurists
had made much of Nature and Natural Law.
Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century,
noted three distinct meanings of the word
natural as applied to man. The third of these
meanings, which mediaeval writers had taken
over from the classical world, Aquinas defines

as "an inclination in man to the good, according
to the rational nature which is proper to him;
as, for example, man has a natural inclination
to know the truth about God, and to live in
society." Natural law was accordingly that
part of law discoverable by right reason, and
as such occupied a strictly subordinate place
in the mediaeval hierarchy of laws. According
to Aquinas, the highest of all laws, comprehending
all others, was the Eternal Law, which
was nothing less than the full mind of God.
Something, but not all, of the mind of God
could be known to man: part of it had been
revealed in the Bible or might be communicated
through the Church (Positive Divine Law); and
part of it could be discovered by human reason
(Natural Law); lowest of all in the hierarchy
came Human Law, or the positive laws of
particular states.[10] Thus Natural Law obviously
took precedence over Human Law, but must
always be subordinate to that part of the Eternal
Law which God had revealed in the Bible or
through the Church. Natural Law was in fact
not the law of nature, but a natural method of
learning about the law of God. Above all, what
could be learned by this method was strictly
limited: Natural Law was that part of the mind
of God which man could discover by using his
reason, but God had provided beforehand,
through the Bible and the Church, a sure means
of letting man know when his reason was not
right reason but unreason.

The concept of Nature which held the field
in the eighteenth century seems at first sight
very different from this; but the difference is
after all mainly on the surface. The eighteenth
century did not abandon the old effort to share
in the mind of God; it only went about it
with greater confidence, and had at last the
presumption to think that the infinite mind of
God and the finite mind of man were one and the
same thing. This complacent view of the matter
came about partly through the Protestant
Reformation, which did much to diminish the
authority of the Church as the official interpreter
of God's will; but it came about still more
through the progress of scientific investigation
which had been creating, since the time of
Copernicus, a strong presumption that the mind
of God could be made out with greater precision
by studying the mechanism of his created
universe than by meditating on the words of
his inspired prophets. Some of the `laws' of
this curious mechanism had already been formulated
by Kepler and Galileo. Well, what if
all the `laws' of God's universe could be discovered
by the human reason? In that case

would not the infinite mind of God be fully
revealed, and the Natural Law be identical with
the Eternal Law? Descartes was bold enough to
suggest this wonderful possibility. "I think,
therefore, I am." Whatever is, is rational;
hence there is an exact correspondence between
human reason and the objective world. I
think, therefore I am; and if I can think straight
enough and far enough, I can identify myself
with all that is. This `all that is' the eighteenth
century understood as Nature; and to effect
a rational explanation of the relation and operation
of all that is, was what it meant by discovering
the `laws' of Nature. No doubt Natural
Law was still, as in the time of Aquinas, that
part of the mind of God which a rational creature
could comprehend; but if a rational creature
could comprehend all that God had done, it
would, for all practical purposes, share completely
the mind of God, and the Natural Law
would be, in the last analysis, identical with the
Eternal Law. Having deified Nature, the eighteenth
century could conveniently dismiss the
Bible and drop the concept of Eternal Law
altogether.

In this deification of Nature, a decisive influence
must be ascribed to Isaac Newton, whose
great work, the Principia, was first published
in 1686. Newton probably had no intention

of deifying Nature. He was engaged in more
commonplace occupations: noting the effect
which an ordinary glass prism had upon rays
of light which passed through it; determining
whether the deflection of the moon's orbit, in
any minute of the moon's progress, was the same
as the distance which a body at that height
would move in the first minute of its fall towards
the earth. But Newton struck the imagination
of his time, as Darwin did of his time,
just because his important conclusions were
arrived at by such commonplace methods. If
the character of so intangible a thing as light
could be discovered by playing with a prism,
if, by looking through a telescope and doing a
sum in mathematics, the force which held the
planets could be identified with the force that
made an apple fall to the ground, there seemed
to be no end to what might be definitely known
about the universe. Perhaps after all God
moved in these clear ways to perform his
wonders; and it must be that he had given man
a mind ingeniously fitted to discover these
ways. Newton, more than any man before
him, so it seemed to the eighteenth century,
banished mystery from the world. In his
hands `Philosophy' came to be no more than a
matter of observation and mathematics, an
occupation which any intelligent person might
in some measure pursue, instead of the manipulation
of a subtle dialectic which only the adept
could follow and which created more difficulties
than it solved.

The interest of the scientific world in Newton's
work is indicated by the appearance, prior to
1789, of some eighteen editions or reprintings
of the Principia.[11] British universities were
teaching the new doctrine before the end of
the seventeenth century; and when Newton,
crowned with honors and offices, died in 1727,
his funeral was a national event, observed with
forms usually accorded only to royalty. At
that time Descartes was still in the ascendant
in France. Newton was not indeed unknown
there, having been admitted, as early as 1699,
to the small number of foreign associates of
the Academy of Sciences; but it was not until
after his death that his doctrines were much
attended to in France. In 1734, the annual
prize of the Academy was shared by John
Bernoulli, who had submitted a Cartesian
memoir, and his son Daniel, who had defended
the Newtonian theories. The last prize granted
for a Cartesian paper was in 1740. Voltaire,
who was in England at the time of Newton's
death, came home and devoted himself to convincing

his countrymen that they were behind
the times in still holding to Descartes, for
that purpose preparing the very influential
book of exposition, Elemens de la philosophie
de Neuton, which was published in 1738.
Fontenelle, the most distinguished defender of
Cartesianism in France, died in 1756; and by
1759, when the Principia appeared in a French
translation, it may be said that French scientists
had generally accepted the Newtonian
philosophy.[12]

But the fame of Newton was not confined to
the scientific fraternity. It was not necessary
to read the Principia in order to be a good
Newtonian, any more than it is necessary to
read the Origin of Species in order to be a good
Darwinian. Relatively few people read the
Principia, which contains much difficult mathematics.
No less a person than Dr. Richard
Bentley wrote to Newton for a list of books
on mathematics by the aid of which he could
study the Principia intelligently; and John
Locke, himself no mean philosopher, had to
take the word of Huygens that the mathematical
parts of the book were sound.[13] "Very few
people read Newton," said Voltaire, "because it

is necessary to be learned to understand him.
But everybody talks about him."[14] These
people could subscribe to the Newtonian philosophy
without ever having to open the formidable
Principia; and they were well aware that
the great scientist had uncovered the secrets
of Nature, and of Nature's God, in a way that,
to an earlier generation, might have seemed
almost indiscreet. They were indoctrinated into
the new philosophy through conversation, and
through popular lectures and books which
humanely omitted the mathematics of the
Principia, devoting the space thus gained to
a confident and edifying amplification of its
cautious conclusions which might have astonished
Sir Isaac himself, but which made the new
philosophy interesting and important to the
average man.

The number of such books of popularization
was, relatively speaking, very great. In Mr.
Gray's admirable bibliography one may count,
among the books about the Principia published
before 1789, 40 in English, 17 in French, 3
in German, 11 in Latin, 1 in Portuguese, and 1
in Italian. This does not include books about
the other works of Newton, such as the Optics;
nor does it include separate editions of the
books enumerated above, of which, in the case

of the most popular works, there were sometimes
a half dozen or more. For example, in 1720
J. T. Desaguliers published a two-volume
translation of 's Gravesande's Latin work,
Physices elementa mathematica, under the title,
Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy,
confirmed by Experiments; or an Introduction
to Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. To meet
the demand for this book a one-volume edition
was issued the following year; while a fourth
edition appeared in 1731, and a sixth in 1747.
Desaguliers evidently found a great deal in
the Newtonian philosophy, more than Newton
ever discovered; for we find him publishing,
in 1728, The Newtonian System of the World the
Best Model of Government, an Allegorical Poem.

Another successful popularizer was Benjamin
Martin, who went about giving courses of
lectures, with experiments. The ladies and
gentlemen who paid their money for this new
learning, finding some difficulties, petitioned
Mr. Martin, so at least he tells us, "to draw
up such an Introduction to Philosophy as might
prepare them to understand the several subjects
of my lectures and experiments, and when
these are over to refresh their memories."
What they wanted was an easy textbook;
and their "constant importunity" induced Mr.
Martin, in 1751, to publish such a book:

The demand for this celebrated work was such
that five editions were printed within fifteen
years. Besides, it was not alone in the field.
James Ferguson's Astronomy Explained upon
Newton's Principles, and made easy to those who
have not studied mathematics, first published in
1756, went into the seventh edition in 1773.
Voltaire's Elemens de la philosophie de Neuton,
`revised and corrected,' was translated into
English by John Hanna and published the
same year it appeared in the original (1738).
Nor were the ladies barred from the new
philosophy. Mr. Martin's lectures were designed
for `gentlemen and ladies'; and in 1737
Count Alogrotti published, at Naples, Il Newtonianismo
per le dame, of which there were successive
editions in 1738, 1739, and 1746. The
work was translated into French in 1738 (Le
newtonianisme pour les dames), and into English

in 1739 (Theory of Light and Colours), with
new editions of the latter in 1742 and 1745.

In the hands of the popularizers, the Newtonian
philosophy became a `Philosophy' indeed:
was broadened out into a `System of the World'
which could be made to serve as a model of
government, an argument to confound atheists
and `libertines,' a sure mathematical foundation
for natural religion, or a major premise from
which a strictly materialistic interpretation
could be derived. It was these broader uses of
the Newtonian philosophy that made it so
popular, and that gave to the work of Newton
a significance beyond the narrow field of physics
and astronomy. In truth Newton's name and
fame played much the same part in eighteenth
century thought which the name and fame of
Darwin have played in the thought of our own
day. His name became a symbol which called
up, in the mind of the reading and thinking
public, a generalized conception of the universe,
a kind of philosophical premise of the most
general type, one of those uncriticized preconceptions
which so largely determined the
social and political as well as the strictly scientific
thinking of the age.

This generalized conception of the universe,
through which the work of Newton so powerfully
affected the social and political thought

of the eighteenth century, is very clearly formulated
by M. Leon Bloch, a competent modern
student, in his recent book, La philosophie de
Newton.

This is very neatly put, perhaps too neatly.
We may, however, find much the same idea, less

neatly put, put more in the English way, and
with more of the eighteenth century flavor, in a
contemporary work, An Account of Sir Isaac
Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, by Colin
Maclaurin. This was perhaps the most substantial
of the British works of exposition, yet
sufficiently popular to run to three editions.
Maclaurin was the most distinguished scientific
disciple of Newton, a professor of mathematics
in the University of Edinburgh. His
exposition of Newton's experiments is doubtless
correct enough, yet he does not hesitate to
deduce from these experiments a general philosophy
of the universe, in which the relation of
God to Nature, and of man to both, is dogmatically
expounded.

The eighteenth century, obviously, did not
cease to bow down and worship; it only gave
another form and a new name to the object
of worship: it deified Nature and denatured
God. Since Nature was now the new God,
source of all wisdom and righteousness, it was
to Nature that the eighteenth century looked
for guidance, from Nature that it expected to
receive the tablets of the law; and it was just
as necessary now as ever for the mind of the
rational creature to share in the mind of this

new God, in order that his conduct, including
the `positive laws of particular states,' might
conform to the universal purpose. The Philosopher,
as Maclaurin says, `while he contemplates
and admires so excellent a System,
cannot but be himself excited and animated to
correspond with the general harmony of Nature.'
The words may be taken as a just expression of
the eighteenth century state of mind: on its
knees, with uplifted eyes contemplating and
admiring the Universal Order, it was excited
and animated to correspond with the general
harmony.

This was no doubt an inspiring idea, but certainly
not a new one. Great and good men in
all ages had endeavored to correspond with the
general harmony. Formerly this was conceived
as an endeavor to become one with God;
and for some centuries the approved method,
in Europe, was thought to be fasting and prayer,
the denial of the flesh, the renunciation of the
natural man. "Who shall deliver me from
the body of this death!" cried the saint. The
physical and material world was thought to be
a disharmony, a prison house, a muddy vesture
of decay, closing in and blinding the spirit so
that it could not enter into the harmony that
was God. But the eighteenth century, conceiving
of God as known only through his

work, conceived of his work as itself a universal
harmony, of which the material and the
spiritual were but different aspects.

In breaking down the barriers between the
material and the spiritual world, between man
and nature, John Locke played a great rôle.
His Essay Concerning the Human Understanding,
published in 1690, was an enquiry into "the
original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge,"
an enquiry which the author thought
of the highest use "since it is the understanding
that sets man above the rest of sensible
beings, and gives him all the advantage and
dominion which he has over them." The first
part of this enquiry was devoted to `ideas,' and
`how they come into the mind." On this point
Locke thought he had something new to say,
and his first task was to show how untenable
the currently accepted view was.

Although this alone, Locke thought, ought to
convince a reasonable man, he nevertheless
devoted sixty pages of fine print to proving
that there is no such thing as an innate idea;
and having demonstrated this point, he devoted
more pages still to proving that "all ideas come
from sensation or reflection."

Of these two fountains of knowledge, the more
important was the first — impressions received
from external sensible objects. This "great
source of most of the ideas we have, depending
wholly upon our senses, and derived from them
to the understanding, I call SENSATION."

Locke's `sensational' philosophy became, with
some modifications in detail, the psychological
gospel of the eighteenth century. A trained
philosopher might think that the conception of
`innate ideas' which Locke destroyed was no
more than a man of straw, a "theory of innate
ideas," as Mr. Webb says, "so crude that it is
difficult to suppose any serious thinker ever held
it."[19] That may be. Yet it is certain that
Locke's book had a great influence on the common
thought of his age, which may be due to
the fact that serious thinkers are few, while
crude theories, generally speaking, rule the
world. Put in the form in which it entered

into the common thought of the eighteenth
century, Locke's theory may be stated as follows:
God has not revealed the truth that is
necessary for man's guidance, once for all, in
holy writ, or stamped upon the minds of all
men certain intuitively perceived intellectual and
moral ideas which correspond to the truth so
revealed; on the contrary, all the ideas we can
have come from experience, are the result of
the sensations that flow in upon us from the
natural and social world without, and of the
operations of the reflecting mind upon these
sensations; from which it follows that man, as
a thinking and an acting creature, is part and
parcel of the world in which he lives, intimately
and irrevocably allied to that Universal Order
which is at once the work and the will of God.

Locke's Essay Concerning the Human Understanding
went into the 26th edition in 1828.
There is in existence a copy of this edition
which contains an autograph letter from Andrew
Lang to a friend: "Dear Grose, This is yours;
I never read one word of Mr. Locke, but how
did the dreary devil stagger like Crockett to a
26th edition?"[20] The answer to this question
is that most of the twenty-six editions were
printed in the eighteenth century, and the

eighteenth century prized Locke because he
furnished a formal argument in support of the
idea that "men, barely by the use of their natural
faculties, may attain to all the knowledge they
have." Locke, more perhaps than any one else,
made it possible for the eighteenth century to
believe what it wanted to believe: namely,
that in the world of human relations as well
as in the physical world, it was possible for men
to `correspond with the general harmony of
Nature'; that since man, and the mind of man,
were integral parts of the work of God, it was
possible for man, by the use of his mind, to
bring his thought and conduct, and hence the
institutions by which he lived, into a perfect
harmony with the Universal Natural Order.
In the eighteenth century, therefore, these
truths were widely accepted as self evident:
that a valid morality would be a `natural
morality,' a valid religion would be a `natural
religion,' a valid law of politics would be a
`natural law.' This was only another way of
saying that morality, religion, and politics
ought to conform to God's will as revealed in
the essential nature of man.

It went without saying that kings and ministers
and priests, as well as philosophers, ought
to be `excited and animated to correspond with
the general harmony of Nature'; and if, once

fully enlightened on that point, they would
not do so, they must unquestionably be pronounced
no better than rebels against the
Great Contriver, the Author and Governor of
the Universe. But how, after all, could you
tell for sure whether kings and ministers and
priests were, or were not, in accord with Nature?
The presumption was no doubt against them,
but how be sure? In appealing from custom and
positive law to the over-ruling law of God, the
eighteenth century followed well established
precedent; but a practical difficulty arose when
the will of God was thought to be revealed,
neither in papal command nor in the words of
scripture, but in the endless, half-deciphered
Book of Nature. Nature was doubtless an
open book, yet difficult to read, and likely to
convey many meanings, so various a language
did it speak. George III, as well as Sam Adams,
was presumably God's work; and if God's
will was revealed in his work, how were you to
know that the acts of George III, whose nature
it was to be tyrannical, were not in accord
with Natural Law, while the acts of Sam Adams,
whose nature it was to be fond of Liberty, were
in accord with Natural Law? Everything in
the physical world was certainly part of God's
universe, and therefore according to nature;
why was not everything in the world of human
relations part of God's universe also, and equally
according to nature?

It was easy enough to read the Book of Nature
in this sense, and even to make verse out of it,
as Pope did.

According to this reading it seemed that Nature,
having devoured God, was on the point of incontinently
swallowing Man also — a monstrous
conclusion for those who were convinced that
all was not right. That all was not right was a
belief that became widespread and profoundly
held in the latter eighteenth century; and those
who were thus `steadily intending their minds'
away from the actual political and social order
in search of a better, had at all hazards to make
out that certain aspects of actual human relations
were not in harmony with Nature,
while other aspects were. Convinced that the

torture of Calas, for example, or the Stamp
Act, or George III, was something less than
`harmony not understood,' they had to demonstrate
that `life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness' were according to Nature and the will
of God, whereas tyranny and cruelty and the
taking of property without consent were not.

This is only another way of saying that in
order to find a fulcrum in Nature for moving the
existing order, the eighteenth century had to
fall back upon the commonplace distinction
between good and bad; unless the will of God,
as revealed in the nature of man, was to be
thought of as morally indifferent, some part of
this nature of man had to be thought of as good
and some part as bad. The eighteenth century
had to appeal, as it were, from nature drunk to
nature sober. Now the test or standard by
which this appeal could be validly made was
found in nature itself — in reason and conscience;
for reason and conscience were parts of
man's nature too, and God had manifestly given
man reason and conscience, as natural guides,
precisely in order that he might distinguish that
part of his own thought and conduct which was
naturally good from that which was naturally
bad. Natural law, as a basis for good government,
could never be found in the undifferentiated
nature of man, but only in human reason

applying the test of good and bad to human
conduct. Thus the eighteenth century, having
apparently ventured so far afield, is nevertheless
to be found within hailing distance of
the thirteenth; for its conception of natural
law in the world of human relations was essentially
identical, as Thomas Aquinas' conception
had been, with right reason.

It is true that right reason had a much freer
field in the eighteenth century than in the
thirteenth; it was not limited either by a
special revelation or by an established Church;
and above all it could appeal for support to
history, to the experience of mankind. From
the record of human activities in all times and
in all places, as well as from the established
laws of the material universe, it would be
easily possible to verify and to substantiate the
verdict of right reason. Whatever the Bible
might say, right reason could reject miracles
because they were contrary to common sense
and the observed procedure of the physical
world. Whatever the Church might command,
right reason could denounce cruelty and intolerance
because the common conscience of mankind
revolted at cruelty and intolerance. Whatever
the dogmas of particular religions might be,
right reason could prefer the precepts of natural
Religion which were to be found as Voltaire

said, in the "principles of morality common to
the human race." Whatever customs and positive
laws might prevail in particular states,
right reason could estimate their value in the
light of the customs and laws common to all
states. What I have searched for, said Montaigne,
is "la connaissance de l'homme en
général" — the knowledge of man in general.[21]
This is precisely what the eighteenth century
did: with the lantern of enlightenment it went
up and down the field of human history looking
for man in general, the universal man, man
stripped of the accidents of time and place;
it wished immensely to meet Humanity and to
become intimate with the Human Race. If it
could find Humanity it would have found man
in general, the natural man; and so it would
have some chance of knowing what were the
rights and laws which, being suited to man in
general, were most likely to be suited to particular
men, everywhere and always.

We have now got a long way from the Declaration
of Independence and Thomas Jefferson,
and even from John Locke, in whose book
Jefferson found so well expressed the ideas
which he put into the Declaration. Let us
then return to John Locke, whom we have too
long left to his own devices, seeking a `modified

form of the original compact,' being unable
to make use of the older version. The older
version, which was a compact between the
people and God in person, Locke could not use
because, as we saw, nature had stepped in
between God and man. Locke, like every one
else, had therefore to make his way, guided by
reason and conscience, through Nature to find
the will of God; and the only version of the
original compact from which he could derive
governmental authority, was such a compact
as men, acting according to their nature, would
enter into among themselves. Since the will
of God was revealed in Nature, you could
find out what God had willed governments to
be and do only by consulting Nature — the
nature of man. The question which Locke had
to answer was therefore this: What kind of
political compact would men enter into, if they
acted according to the nature which God had
given them?

To answer this question, Locke says, we must
consider

This state which all men are `naturally in,'
this state of nature, is not a state of licence;
it is a state of perfect freedom and equality,
but of freedom and equality only `within the
bounds of the law of nature.' What is this law
of nature?

In Locke's state of nature all men are thus
free and all are bound. Is not this a paradox?

No, because the state of nature, in which Locke
seeks the origin of government, is not the actual
pre-social state of history, but an imaginative
state rationally constructed. Locke, like the
political writers of the eighteenth century, was
not concerned to know how governments had
come to be what they were; what he wanted
to know was whether there was any justification
for their being what they were. "Man is born
free, and is everywhere in chains," exclaimed
Rousseau. "How was this change made? I
do not know. What can make it legitimate?
I believe I can answer that question."[24] This is
the question Locke seeks to answer — what can
justify governments in binding men by positive
laws? In order to answer it he first asks what
law would bind men if government, positive
law, and custom were, conceivably, non-existent?
His answer is that in that case no law would
bind them except the law of reason. Reason
would bind them, because reason is the `common
rule and measure God hath given to mankind';
reason would at once bind and make free; it
would, as Locke says, oblige every one: but
it would oblige them precisely in this, that it
would teach them that all are perfectly free and
equal and that no one `ought to harm another
in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.'
Locke's natural law is the law of reason, its
only compulsion is an intellectual compulsion,
the relations which it prescribes such as would
exist if men should follow reason alone.

Such a state as this, an ideal state, in which
all men follow the law of reason and no compulsion
is necessary — such a state never in
fact existed. Therefore let us modify this
hypothetical state, so as to bring it a little
nearer the reality. Suppose a few men in this
rational state, refusing to act rationally, violate
the law of nature which is reason, by taking
away the `life, health, liberty or possessions of
another.' What is to be done about it? In
that case, Locke says, "the execution of the
law of nature is . . . put into every man's
hands, whereby every one has a right to punish
the transgressor of the law, . . . but only . . .
so far as calm reason and conscience dictate,
what is proportionate to his transgression."[25]
Any one who should, for example, commit a
murder, might, according to the law of reason,
be put to death. "Cain was so fully convinced,
that every one had a right to slay such a criminal,
that after the murder of his brother, he
cries out: `Every one that findeth me, shall
slay me.' So plain was it writ in the hearts of
mankind."[26] Thus in this new rational Garden

of Eden every one is the executor of that natural
law of reason which God has written in the
hearts of men: if a Cain appears now and then,
any one may take his life.

Now it may be, let us suppose so at all events,
that a good many Cains will appear, so that all
the Abels, the great majority who still live by
reason, are in danger of their lives, and are at
great inconvenience to defend them. And
suppose further that all these rational and conscientious
Abels, being a great majority, come
together saying: Why should we all be forever
going up and down to watch where many
Cains come to strike? Go to, let us appoint a
few to watch for all. The question is, how
might these many Abels be supposed to proceed
in this business? Would they not say: These
few, whom we appoint to watch for us, that we
may be safe in our lives, our health, our liberty
and our possessions, are to make what rules
are necessary for that purpose, but for that purpose
only; and we agree in return to abide by
those rules, so long as the few whom we appoint
to make the rules do effectively, by means of
these rules, make us safe in our lives, our liberties,
and our possessions. Such is the modified
version of the original compact which Locke finds
in the state of nature.

This is all very well, in a hypothetical state
of nature; but it might be asked, "it is often
asked as a mighty objection, `Where are, or
ever were men in such a state of nature?' "[28]
Well, they are so, Locke replies in substance,
whenever they find themselves in relation without
any positive law to bind them; as, for
example, rulers of sovereign states in relation
to each other, or the "two men on the desert
island, mentioned by Garcilasso de la Vega in

his history of Peru." These are in a state of
nature "in reference to one another: for truth
and keeping of faith belongs to men as men, and
not to members of society." Men as men
(that is to say man in the abstract, Montaigne's
`man in general') are in the state of
nature. Locke's state of nature is not the actual
pre-social state of history, but the logical nonsocial
state, which he constructs imaginatively,
as a premise from which to deduce the rational
limits of governmental authority. In the actual
pre-social state of history there may well have
been more Cains than Abels; and no doubt
governments have in fact been established by
custom unconsciously and irrationally submitted
to, or by force, by conquest, or by the
flagrant usurpation of kings. This is admitted;
but the fact of tyranny is no more a justification
of tyranny in the social state, than the
fact of murder is a justification of murder in
the pre-social state. What Locke is seeking is
not the historical origin, but the rational justification,
of government.

If, therefore, any one says that men never did
in fact live in a state where conduct was guided
by reason, but that in fact they originally lived
in a state of confusion and anarchy, in a state
of war, and that "therefore God hath certainly
appointed government to restrain the partiality

and violence of men," the answer is that this
is no doubt true. But what do you deduce from
this truth? Do you say that because God has
appointed governments to restrain the violence
of men, it follows that God approves of tyrannical
governments because tyrannical governments
do in fact exist? If you say so, then you
say, with Hobbes, that God approves any government
which gets itself established because
it gets itself established, and in so far as it has
power to maintain itself. Well, Locke says, I
do not agree with you.

The sum and substance of Locke's elaborate
enquiry into the origin and character of government
is this: since reason is the only sure guide
which God has given to men, reason is the only
foundation of just government; and so I ask,
not what authority any government has in
fact, but what authority it ought in reason to
have; and I answer that it ought to have the
authority which reasonable men, living together
in a community, considering the rational interests
of each and all, might be disposed to submit
to willingly; and I say further that unless
it is to be assumed that any existing government
has of right whatever authority it exercises
in fact, then there is no way of determining
whether the authority which it exercises in fact is
an authority which it exercises of right, except by
determining what authority it ought in reason
to have. Stripped of its decorative phrases,
of its philosophy of `Nature' and `Nature's
God' and the `Universal Order,' the question
which Locke asked was a simple one: `I desire
to know what kind of government that is . . .
where one man . . . may do to all his subjects
whatever he pleases, without the least liberty to

any one to question or control those who execute
his pleasure?' This, generally speaking,
was what the eighteenth century desired to
know. The answer which it gave to that question
seemed self-evident: Such a government
is a bad government; since governments exist
for men, not men for governments, all governments
derive their just powers from the consent
of the governed.

If the philosophy of Locke seemed to Jefferson
and his compatriots just `the common sense
of the matter,' it was not because Locke's
argument was so lucid and cogent that it could
be neither misunderstood nor refuted. Locke's
argument is not particularly cogent unless you
accept his assumptions as proved, nor lucid
until you restate it to suit yourself; on the contrary,
it is lumbering, involved, obscured by
innumerable and conflicting qualifications — a
dreary devil of an argument staggering from
assumption posited as premise to conclusion
implicit in the assumption. It was Locke's
conclusion that seemed to the colonists sheer
common sense, needing no argument at all.
Locke did not need to convince the colonists
because they were already convinced; and they
were already convinced because they had long
been living under governments which did, in a
rough and ready way, conform to the kind of

government for which Locke furnished a reasoned
foundation. The colonists had never in
fact lived under a government where `one
man . . . may do to all his subjects whatever
he pleases.' They were accustomed to living
under governments which proceeded, year by
year, on a tacitly assumed compact between
rulers and ruled, and which were in fact very
largely dependent upon `the consent of the
governed.' How should the colonists not accept
a philosophy, however clumsily argued, which
assured them that their own governments, with
which they were well content, were just the
kind that God had designed men by nature to
have!

The general philosophy which lifted this
common sense conclusion to the level of a cosmic
law, the colonists therefore accepted, during
the course of the eighteenth century, without
difficulty, almost unconsciously. That human
conduct and institutions should conform to the
will of God was an old story, scarcely to be
questioned by people whose ancestors were
celebrated, in so many instances, for having
left Europe precisely in order to live by God's
law. Living by God's law, as it turned out,
was much the same as living according to
"the strong bent of their spirits." The strong
bent of their spirits, and therefore God's law,

had varied a good deal according to the locality,
in respect to religion more especially; but so
far as one could judge at this late enlightened
date, God had showered his blessings indifferently
upon all alike — Anglicans and Puritans,
Congregationalists and Presbyterians,
Catholics, Baptists, Shakers and Mennonites,
New Lights and Old Lights. Even Quakers,
once thought necessary to be hanged as pestilent
blasphemers and deniers of God's will,
now possessed a rich province in peace and
content. Many chosen peoples had so long
followed God's law by relying upon their own
wits, without thereby running into destruction,
that experience seemed to confirm the assertion
that nature was the most reliable revelation of
God's will, and human reason the surest interpreter
of nature.

The channels through which the philosophy of
Nature and Natural Law made its way in the
colonies in the eighteenth century were many.
A good number of Americans were educated at
British universities, where the doctrines of
Newton and Locke were commonplaces; while
those who were educated at Princeton, Yale, or
Harvard could read, if they would, these authors
in the original, or become familiar with their
ideas through books of exposition. The complete
works of both Locke and Newton were in

the Harvard library at least as early as 1773.
Locke's works were listed in the Princeton
catalogue of 1760. As early as 1755 the Yale
library contained Newton's Principia and
Locke's Essay; and before 1776 it contained
the works of Locke, Newton, and Descartes,
besides two popular expositions of the Newtonian
philosophy. The revolutionary leaders do not
often refer to the scientific or philosophical
writings of either Newton or Locke, although
an occasional reference to Locke's Essay is to be
found; but the political writings of Locke,
Sidney, and Milton are frequently mentioned
with respect and reverence. Many men might
have echoed the sentiment expressed by Jonathan
Mayhew in 1766:

And Josiah Quincy expressed the common idea
of his compatriots when, in 1774, he wrote into
his will these words:

For the general reader, the political philosophy
of the eighteenth century was expounded
from an early date in pamphlet and newspaper
by many a Brutus, Cato, or Popliocola. An
important, but less noticed, channel through
which the fundamental ideas of that philosophy
— God, Nature, Reason — were made familiar
to the average man, was the church. Both in
England and America preachers and theologians
laid firm hold of the Newtonian conception of
the universe as an effective weapon against
infidelity. Dr. Richard Bentley studied Newton
in order to preach a `Confusion of Atheism,'
deriving a proof of Divine Providence from the
physical construction of the universe as demonstrated
by that `divine theorist,' Sir Isaac
Newton.[32] What a powerful support to Revelation
(and to Revolution) was that famous argument
from design! The sermons of the century
are filled with it — proving the existence and

the goodness of God from the intelligence which
the delicately adjusted mechanism of Nature
everywhere exhibited.[33]

In 1750 there was published at Boston a book
of Twenty Sermons, delivered in the Parish
Church at Charleston, South Carolina, by the
Reverend Samuel Quincy. In these sermons we
find the Nature philosophy fully elaborated.

In his famous election sermon of 1754, Jonathan
Mayhew uses this philosophy, without the

formulae, for deriving the authority of government.
Government, he says,

In later Massachusetts election sermons, from
1768 to 1773, we find both the philosophy and
the formulae; the three concepts of God, Nature,
and Reason, which Samuel Quincy made
the foundation of religion, are there made the
foundation of politics and government as well.[36]
And so there crept into the mind of the average
man this conception of Natural Law to confirm
his faith in the majesty of God while destroying
his faith in the majesty of Kings.

English writers in the nineteenth century,
perhaps somewhat blinded by British prejudice
against the French Revolution and all
its works, complacently took it for granted
that the political philosophy of Nature and

natural rights upon which the Revolution was
founded, being particularly vicious must be
peculiarly French; from which it followed,
doubtless as the night the day, that the Americans,
having also embraced this philosophy,
must have been corrupted by French influence.
The truth is that the philosophy of Nature, in
its broader aspects and in its particular applications,
was thoroughly English. English
literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries is steeped in this philosophy. The
Americans did not borrow it, they inherited it.
The lineage is direct: Jefferson copied Locke
and Locke quoted Hooker. In political theory
and in political practice the American Revolution
drew its inspiration from the parliamentary
struggle of the seventeenth century. The
philosophy of the Declaration was not taken
from the French. It was not even new; but
good old English doctrine newly formulated to
meet a present emergency. In 1776 it was
commonplace doctrine, everywhere to be met
with, as Jefferson said, "whether expressed in
conversation, in letters, printed essays, or the
elementary books of public right." And in
sermons also, he might have added. But it
may be that Jefferson was not very familiar
with sermons.