Polity by William Whewell
Art. I. — The Elements of Morality, including Polity. By William Whewell, D. D., Master of Trinity College, and Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cambridge, Author of the History and the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. New York : Harper& Brothers. 1845. 2 vols. 16mo.
Dr. Whewell has been for some years well known as a scientific writer of great learning, candor, and soundness. His Bridgewater Treatise was second to none in the series, and may be studied as a model by any one whose office it is to embody for the use of general readers the results of profound research and scholarship. But his reputation rests, and probably will rest, chiefly on his History and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, — works which cover with singular fidelity the entire ground which they profess to occupy, — the former with a perfectness of method and an accuracy of detail which leave little to be desired, — the latter with a patience, caution, precision, and blended clearness and depth of thought, which must command the respect and admiration of those who dissent from its doctrines. The work now before us fills the same place for the department of Ethics, which the first of the above-named works does for the Inductive Sciences. It is not a treatise on Moral Philosophy, but an appropriate basis for such a treatise, which we cannot but anticipate as forthcoming (though not explicitly announced) from the same hand. The object of this work is to present what we may term the physiology of morality, that is, an outline of the undoubted facts and phenomena connected with man’s moral being, self-consciousness, and agency, and of the leading eras and aspects of the ethical history of the race. Or, as the author takes England for his station, constantly applies his principles to the public law and sentiment of England, and seems on many subjects to have stopped short himself at the point which they have reached, we might define this work to be an answer to the question, ” Through what elements of human nature, through what processes of development and culture, are the conscience and the moral standard of an enlightened and virtuous English Churchman what they are ” ? This route of inquiry excludes, of course, the many metaphysical questions which properly belong to the department of ethics, such as the ultimate basis of moral obligation, the power of motives, the nature of the will, and the seat, laws, and limits of free agency ; but it presents a clear and philosophical statement of the facts from which alone these questions can be answered. We propose to give an outline view of the ground thus covered by Dr. Whewell, with such remarks of our own as the work and the subject may suggest and our limits permit.
Man is made a moral being by his powers of observation, reflection, and reasoning, combined with his conscious free agency. He understands what he does, and he does what he prefers to do. Moreover, as actions lead to events by invariable laws, they are the legitimate subjects of rules. But moral rules, as they are designed to act upon the will, must, in order to be of any avail, be adjusted with reference to those motives or springs of action which immediately influence the will. The springs of action our author enumerates as follows: “The Appetites or Bodily Desires; the Affections; the Mental Desires; the Moral Sentiments; and the Reflex Sentiments,” under which head he classes the desire of love or esteem from others, and the desire of our own approval, together with ” all those Springs of Action which are designated by some compound of the world Self; as Self-Admiration, Self-Love.” This last class seems to us redundant. We can trace no difference in kind between “the desire of superiority,” enumerated among the mental desires, and that of popularity or fame, which is put among the reflex sentiments. We do not deny, indeed, that the love of fame is a reflex sentiment ; but so is hunger, thirst,
avarice, each implying an external object of desire, the reflex action of which influences the will. And as for the class of sentiments designated by the compounds of self, these may all be resolved into different forms of self-consciousness ; and self-consciousness is an essential condition of every desire or sentiment, while self-love, in its largest sense, may be assumed as the connecting formula between every spring of action and the will. This entire class of sentiments might, then, better be distributed, according to their respective aims and ends, among the mental desires and the moral sentiments.
The various springs of action operate with different degrees of intensity upon different individuals. But reason is conceived of as the same in all persons, as to its decisions and results ; and the common reason of mankind leads to the establishment of such rules of action as shall confine the several springs of action to their just places in the economy of individual and social being. Moral rules exist of necessity ; for ” we cannot conceive man as man, without conceiving him as subject to rules, and making part of an order in which rules prevail.” Man does not create society, but is born for it and into it. Society is as essential an element of human nature, as reason or conscience. And there can be no society, unless it have for its basis rules, enacted by the common reason, which shall so circumscribe and balance the springs of action in each individual, as to leave certain essential objects of desire open to the attainment of all. Actions derive their value from their ends ; and a subordinate end derives its value from a higher end which it promotes. In assigning reasons for our rules of action, we pass successively from lower to higher ends, till we arrive at the Supreme Good as the ultimate end. This supreme good is rather the limit than *lhe expression of our conceptions of the desirable. We cannot define it ; but in our rules of action, we constantly aim at it and approximate towards it. The supreme good implies a supreme rule of action, — the sum and archetype of all our approximate rules ; and with reference to the supreme rule we conceive of actions as right and wrong, — terms which are indefinable, and represent certain ultimate ideas that underlie all our moral self-consciousness and our reflection on moral subjects.
Moral rules, in prescribing what it is right for each person
to do, must take into account the objects of desire to which each person is entitled. They thus recognize rights, and impose corresponding obligations. There are certain fundamental rights which flow necessarily from the moral nature of man, and the conceptions of which are universal. These conceptions are the basis of public law. All law aims at their realization, but with greater or less success according to the existing degree of culture, or the historical circumstances, which may have favored or retarded the development of a particular class of rights. Thus laws, though based on immutable principles and universal ideas, may be partial, imperfect, and mutable, — indeed, must ever be in a transition state, as it is their office to embody the conceptions of rights m local and historical circumstances, which can never be the same in two different communities or two successive generations.
Our author enumerates as essential rights “the rights of personal security, the rights of property, the rights of contract, the rights of marriage, and the rights of government”; and proceeds to trace the development of these several classes of rights in the Roman and the English law. We cannot follow him in this sketch, which is fair, accurate, concise, and comprehensive. He passes thence to the consideration of duties and virtues. Obligations relate to outward acts. So long as we invade no man’s rights, no man can justly make any farther claim upon us. Beyond this point, law cannot go. But the obligation to refrain from certain illegal actions imposes upon us the duty of refraining from such thoughts, desires, and purposes as might lead to these actions. The law, ” Thou shalt not steal,” imposes the duty of not coveting ; the law, ” Thou shalt not kill,” the duty of suppressing those angry, malicious, revengeful thoughts, of which murder is the ripened fruit. Moral precepts thus cover with prohibitions addressed to the minds of men the whole circuit of wrong actions which the law prohibits. But the prohibition of certain wrong desires and purposes implies the duty of cherishing the opposite desires and purposes. The mind cannot repose with satisfaction on a negative morality. The supreme law of human action must necessarily include the whole of our nature, so as to direct every faculty, power, and affection towards its proper object. The idea of perfect goodness is a universal idea, and it embraces several distinct conceptions, corresponding to the several kinds of rights and obligations ; and each of these gives rise to a separate class of moral precepts, and asserts its supremacy over a distinct department of the thoughts, desires, and purposes. The moral conceptions, to which all others may be reduced or referred, are benevolence, justice, truth, purity, and order, which, considered as dispositions of mind, may be termed the cardinal virtues. From these conceptions are deduced the propositions which we term the fundamental principles of morality. Thus, ” Each man is to have his own,” is the principle of justice. To the principles corresponding to the five cardinal virtues our auther adds the principle of earnestness, ” The affections and intentions must not only be rightly directed, but energetic,” and that of moral purpose, ” Things are to be sought only as means to moral ends,” — principles which express the intuitive conviction of every moral agent. The various forms and manifestations of character included in the Jive cardinal virtues, together with the opposite shades and degrees of vice, are drawn out with great perspicuity and accuracy of detail ; but there are no salient points which demand special notice, and our limits will not permit us to give even a hasty sketch of the discussion. We cannot, however, refrain from expressing our admiration of the symmetry between Dr. Whewell’s classification of rights and his list of cardinal virtues. The term cardinal virtues has hitherto been an arbitrary term, applied, as the caprice of an individual author dictated, to the prominent traits of a good character, without reference to their susceptibility of a farther analysis or of identification with each other. But the classes of rights ennumerated in this work grow out of the ultimate, elementary conditions of human well-being ; and, as virtue is necessarily based on human rights, and aims at their security and extension, it must therefore have a separate phasis, and ought to have a generic name, corresponding to each class of rights. Accordingly, the rights of personal security are protected by benevolence ; those of property by justice ; those of contract by truth ; those flowing from the marriage relation by purity, which prescribes the subjection of the lower parts of our nature to the higher ; those of government by order, which dictates obedience to laws, and the discharge of one’s relative duties as a member of the body politic. To these
virtues the principle of earnestness gives intensity, energy, and progressive development, while that of moral purpose unites them in their highest office of enriching and ennobling the individual soul.
All duties imply the duty of cultivating them, that is, the duty of moral progress, which can never terminate on earth ; for, so long as we live, we ” have room to make ourselves better and wiser, to increase the warmth of our affections, to purify our hearts, to elevate our thoughts, to make ourselves more and more virtuous.” Transgressions not only arrest our moral progress, but are steps in a retrograde moral course. After transgression, our progress can be resumed only by repentance, amendment, and reformation ; nor can the moralist pronounce, without authority from a higher source, that even these can avert the consequences of sin, and restore the integrity of the moral nature. Conscience is the faculty by which we determine whether our dispositions or actions are right or wrong. Conscience (con-science) is self-knowledge. It implies the knowledge of our own moral condition, of the principles to which it is amenable, of the complexion which it bears as good or evil. It is at once witness, law, and judge. As law, however, it does not necessarily and in all points coincide with the supreme law. It represents the individual’s degree of moral culture and stage of moral progress. Therefore, while he who acts against his conscience is always wrong, he who acts in conformity with his conscience is not necessarily right. He may not have educated his conscience, — he may have violated the duty of progress ; and in that case, conscientiousness is no excuse. Or he may have had imperfect opportunities of developing the ideas of right and duty ; in which case, whatever judgment we may pass upon the moral agent, his dispositions and conduct cannot be regarded with approbation by one whose conscience is more enlightened.
Compared with the supreme law, the most highly educated conscience is imperfect, and may sometimes render doubtful responses. Hence come what moralists have termed cases of conscience, to the discussion of several of which the author devotes one of his most ably written and interesting chapters. From this chapter, which we would gladly quote entire, we offer several extracts on subjects of immediate interest, on which well disposed people might range themselves on
different sides as to their judgments and conduct. Thus, we have heard good men assert the right of an anonymous author to maintain his incognito, even at the expense of literal truth, against intrusive questioners., who have no legal or moral right to know the fact. To such persons we would commend the following statement.
” The author of an anonymous work, who wishes to remain unknown as the author, but is suspected, is asked whether he wrote the work. To refuse to reply would be to acknowledge it. Such authors have held, that, in such a case, they may deny the authorship. They urge, that the Questioner has no right to know : that the Author has a Right to remain concealed, and has no means of doing so but by such a denial. But this defence is wrong. The author has no moral Eight to remain concealed at the expense of telling a Lie : that is, it is not right in him thus to protect himself. But on the other hand, he is not bound to answer. Nor need he directly refuse to do so. He may evade the question, or turn off the subject. There is nothing to prevent his saying, ‘ How can you ask such a question ?’ or any thing of the like kind, which may remove the expectation of an answer. If he cannot secure his object in this or some similar way, it is to be recollected that he has drawn the inconvenience upon himself, by first writing an anonymous work, and then engaging in conversation on such terms, that he cannot escape answering questions about the authorship of the work. He has no Right, moral or other, to insist that these two employments may be pursued jointly without inconvenience. Familiar conversation is a play of reciprocal insight and reciprocal guidance of thought ; and such weapons a man may very rightly use, to guard his secret. But he may not assume that it must be guarded at any rate, by means right or wrong, by declarations true or false. On the other hand, he may seek, as widely as he chooses, for some turn of conversation by which he may baffle curiosity without violating truth. To discover such a turn is a matter of skill, self-command, and invention. If he fail and be detected, he may receive some vexation or inconvenience ; but if he succeed at the expense of truth, he receives a moral stain.” — Vol. i., pp. 280, 281.
We commend the following extract to the attention, both of lawyers who would be good and true men, and of those who doubt whether the profession of an advocate can be pursued without the sacrifice of integrity.
“‘ ” Some Moralists have ranked with the cases in which Convention supersedes the general rule of truth, an Advocate asserting
he justice, or his belief in the justice, of his Client’s cause. As a reason why he may do this, though he believe otherwise, it is said that no promise to speak the truth was given, or supposed to be given. But we reply by asking, If there is no mutual understanding that he shall speak truly, to what purpose does he speak, or to what purpose do the judges hear ?
” By those who contend for such indulgence to Advocates, it is alleged, that the Profession of Advocate exists as an instrument for the administration of Justice in the Community ; and that it is a necessary maxim of the Advocate’s Profession, that he is to do all that can be done for his Client. It is urged, that the application of Laws is a matter of great complexity and difficulty : that the right administration of them in doubtful cases is best provided for, if the arguments on each side be urged with the utmost force, and if the Judge alone decide which side is in the right ; that, for this purpose, each Advocate must urge all the arguments he can devise, and must enforce them with all the skill he can command. It is added, to justify the Advocate, that, being the Advocate, he is not the Judge ; — that it is not his office to determine on which side Justice is ; and that therefore his duty, in his office, is not affected by his belief on this subject.
“In reply to these considerations, the Moralist may grant that it is likely to answer the ends of Justice in a community, that there should exist a Profession of Advocates, ready to urge, with full force, the arguments on each side in doubtful cases. And if the Advocate, in his mode of pleading and exercising his profession, allows it to be understood that this is all that he undertakes to do, he does not transgress his Duties of Truth and Justice, even in pleading for a bad cause ; since, even for a bad cause, there may be arguments, and even good arguments. But if, in pleading, he assert his belief that his cause is just, when he believes it unjust, he offends against Truth ; as any other man would do who, in like manner, made a like assertion. Nor is it conducive to the ends of justice, that every man, however palpably unjust his cause be, should have such support to it.
” To the argument, that the Advocate is not the Judge, and therefore that he is not responsible for his judgment on the merits of the case, the Moralist will reply, that every man is, in an unofficial sense, by being a moral agent a Judge of right and wrong, and an Advocate of what is right ; and is, so far, bound to be just in his judgments, and sincere in his exhortations. This general character of a moral agent he cannot put off, by putting on any professional character. Every man, when he advocates a case in which morality is concerned, has an influence upon his hearers, which arises from the belief that he shares the moral
To consider in the first place the Rights and Obligations of States.
We have already spoken of the rights of Government, and the Obligation of Obedience on the part of the governed (206). These Rights are Rights of the State. It is from the State, that all persons placed in Magistracies and Offices of Command derive their Right to the obedience of subordinate persons. It is as representing or possessing the Authority of the State, that they are Persons in Authority. The
Obedience which is rendered to the Magistrate, is rendered to the Law, and to the State, which is the
Source of the Law. The State is the origin of
Rights in general, as we have said ; but it is the
origin of other Rights, by having the Rights of
Government. Other Rights, as Rights of Property, it assigns to its subjects ; the Rights of Government,
it asserts to itself. 831. The relation between the Rights of individuals and the Rights of the State, has been vari-
ously presented by different Moralists. Some, as we
have &aid (469), have considered the Rights of the
State as formed by the addition of the Rights of Indi-
viduals. According to this doctrine, individuals
constitute a State, by uniting themselves, and con-
tributing to a common stock the rights which they
naturally possess ; sharing this stock of Rights
among themselves by common consent, and esta-
blishing Officers and Laws to carry their agreement
into effect.
We have already (469) pointed out the untenable
character of this Doctrine. Rights cannot exist
without the State. Individual Rights cannot be sup-
posed anterior to the State ; and thus, State Rights
cannot be hypothetically constructed out of Indivi-
dual Rights. But further: there are some State
Rights in particular, which are more evidently, from
Bpecial considerations, not aggregatps of individual
CHAP. I.] RIGHTS OF THE STATE. 188
Rights. These peculiar State Rights we shall pro-
ceed to describe.
832. The State has a Right to the National
Territory. Individuals derive their Rights to their
special Property in Land, from the State, according
to the Law of the Land ; but they could not derive
those Special Rights from the State, except the State
had a general Right to the whole. An Englishman
has a Right to his landed Property in England, be-
cause the Law of England gives it him. A French
man has a Right to his landed Property in France,
because the Law of France gives it him. But this
assumes that the English State, which speaks its
Will in the English Law, has a Right to the Soil of
England ; and in like manner, the French State is
assumed to have a Right to the Soil of France. An
Englishman may possess land in France ; but this
is, still, by the Law of France ; and implies the
Right of the French State to the French Territory.
There can be no property in Land, except what is
derived from the State in which the Land belongs.
833. We may illustrate this further. Suppose
any County of England were conceived as detached
from the State ; as no longer owing obedience to the
English State, or deriving Rights from it. What
Right, on this supposition, have the inhabitants of the
County to the land on which they live ? It may be
said, that they have the Right of Possession. But
Present Possession can confer no Right, on such a
supposition. Present Possession is a fact, which
may be succeeded, at any moment, by the opposite
fact of Dispossession ; and then the Right is gone.
Suppose the inhabitants of this County to be dispos-
sessed violently by a body of new settlers from any
place, at home or abroad ; of what wrong can they
complain ? When dispossessed, they have no longer
the Right of present Possession. If they urge the
Riffht of past Possession, how is this a Right, and by
184 POLITY. [book V,
what laws regulated, when the Law of the Land is
rejected ? How have they themselves acknowledged
the Right, either of present or past Possession t
Their ancestors, Saxons, Danes, and Normans,
seized the Land by violence, disregarding both pre-
sent or past Possession. This historical event is a
good foundation for the Right of Property, if we as-
sume as men, in thinking of Rights, always do as-
sume, that a population, organized as a State, have
a Right to the territory which they occupy : for the
imperfect and undecided organization of the English
State, which, in the times of the struggles of the
Saxons, Danes, and Normans, might leave questions
of Right doubtful, has long since passed away. But
if men reject this foundation of Rights, the ancient
Wrongs, from which they derive their claims, will
prevent them from consistently complaining of
Wrongs, if, in modern times, acts of violence be
done to their damage, like the ancient acts of vio-
lence of which they now enjoy the profit. The only
good ground of the complaint of Wrong, when the
Right of landed Property is violated, is the Right of
the State to the Soil of the Country, and the Will of
the State expressed by the Law of the Land.
834. The Principle just referred to ; that a
Community, organized as a State, has a Right to
possess their Territory ; and the Individuals can-
not acquire Property in Land, except by derivation
from a State, is often carried further ; thus showing
how entirely the Principle is accepted. It is main-
tained, for instance, that a Civilized State, on dis-
covering a country of Savages, may take possession
of it ; and that the possession of the Savages must
be regulated according to the Laws of the Civilized
State. But these are questions of International Law,
which we shall not here discuss.
835. Another Right of the State is the Right of
making War on other States. This Right is neces-
CHAP. I-] RIGHTS OF THE STATE. 185
sary to the existence of the State, as a disVinot and
independent agent, which is sovereign over all its
subjects within it, and protects them against all
harm from without. If its subjects be injured, or its
independence assailed, by a foreign State, it has no
resource but remonstrance, which may inevitably
lead to War ; since States have no common tribunal
before which injury done by one to the other can be
inquired into, and redress given.
836. This Right of making War is not a Right
arising from the combination of the Rights of in-
dividuals. England has a right to make war on
France, on due grounds ; but no one or more Eng-
lishmen have a Right to make war on any selected
number of Frenchmen. In the case of a National
War, individuals commit acts, which would be mur-
der and robbery, if they were not committed under
the Authority of the State. It is true, there have
been rude times in Europe (and there may still exist
such in other countries), when the Right of Private
War subsisted. But even in these times, this Right
did not exist as an original Right of individuals ;
but as a Right given by the Law, and limited by the
Law ; and if any one used violence out of the limits
of the Law, he was ti’eated as a malefaictor. The
Right of Private War was especially subordinate
to, and limited by, the Right of National War, So
far as sovereignty had its power, the Sovereign,
when he made War upon another Sovereign, forbade
Private Wars among his Subjects and forbade
Private Treaties of Peace with the Subjects of the
enemy. Thus, even in the times of Private War,
the Right of the State to make National War was
the Fundamental and Paramount Right. But we
must further add, that a State, which recognizes
Private War, is very imperfectly organized. Under
such a State, men possess in a very incomplete de-
gree, the Rights, of Protection from Violence, Se-
x86 POLITY. [book V.
curity in their Property, and the like. As the Nation
more entirely assumes the genuine attributes of a
State, the right of Private War declines, till it is ex-
tinct. But the Right of National War, during this
progress of improvement, undergoes no diminution.
The most completely organized State possesses this
Right at least as fully as the Sovereign of a body
of Feudal Lords ever did. And thus, this Right
belongs to the State, as a State ; and not in virtue
of any mode of composition, by which the State may
be supposed to have assumed its existence.
837. We may remark further, that the Right
of the State to the National Territory, of which we
have already spoken, necessarily carries with it the
Right of making War, when the National Territory
is infringed, if no redress or defence can be had in
any other Way. The Right of each man to his
Property, is realized and enforced by the power of
the State ; but the Right of each State to its Terri-
tory, if contest arise, can be realized and enforced
only by Treaty ; or if that fail, by the power of the
Sword. And thus, a State has, as one of its charac-
teristic attributes, the Right of making War on Other
States, on due occasions.
8.38. Another Right peculiarly a State Right,
not derivable from any supposable Rights of indi-
viduals, is the Right of Bodily Punishment, and
especially the Right of Capital Punishment. In ex-
ercising the Right of War, the State necessarily as-
sumes a Right to put in peril, and to expose to de-
struction, the lives of its subjects, who serve it as
soldiers. But in that case, it is not that the State
inflicts the blow, but that it cannot avert it, under
^he circumstances. In the case of Capital Punish-
ment, the State itself takes away the Life of its sub-
ject, inflicting a sudden and violent death. Tha
Right of doing this is universally assumed in States.
And it is assumed necessarily. Without the exer.
CHAP. I.] RIGHTS OF THE STATE. 187
cise of this Right, the State could not discharge its
office. Its business is, to give reality lo the Rights
of men in Society. But Rights cannot have reality,
except they be as real as the other springs of human
action. In order that Rights may be real for me,
the Rights of another man must be as real in my
eyes as the Objects of Desire. To each man, the
Obligations of other men must be realities, as well
as his own Appetite, Anger, Avarice, or Ambition ;
the former must influence his hopes and fears in the
same manner, stimulate and restrain him in the same
manner, as the latter. But the highest and most
real of the objects of men’s hopes and fears are
Life and Death, accompanied with Honour and
Shame. A violent and ignominious Death fills the
full measure of the object of man’s fear. The force
of Desire, Appetite, Anger, and the like, is fully ex-
pressed, when a man loves objects as his life, and
dreads them as such a death ; but it is not fully ex-
pressed by anything short of this. Hence, Rights
and Oligations will not be real in Society, to the
same extent as other objects of action are real, if
they be not sanctioned by the prospect of Life and
Death, as depending upon the observance or violeu
tion of Obligations. If the sanctions of Rights stop
short of this, there will be some region of human
action, in which the lawless springs of action are not
balanced : some province of human nature, in which
the extreme forms of passion, appetite, anger, and
the like, are not governed by any efficient authority.
839. The necessity of the Right of Capital
Punishment being vested in the State, will also ap-
pear from the following considerations. If the State
do not possess this Right, such a Right may be as-
sumed by another body of persons, who by that very
assumption become more powerful than the State,
and may seize all the powers of the State. If there
were no Capital Punishment for Treason, and the
188 POLITY. [bock V.
like crimes ; an association of men might arm them-
selves, and, making death the punishment for oppos
ing them, might compel the citizens to obey them,
and to disobey the legal authorities. For what
would other inferior punishments avail, to avert such
a result ? Who will be found ready, unarmed, to
inflict imprisonment or exile on a body of armed
and resolute men ? It is plain, therefore, that, in
extreme cases at least. Capital Punishments are ne-
cessary to the existence of the State : and therefore,
the right of inflicting such Punishments must belong
to the State.
840. The Right of Capital Punishment is a
special and original State Right, and does not arise
from any combination of individual Rights. This
Right cannot be conceived to be a Right arising
from a common consent, and given to the State by
an understood compact between it and individuals ;
each person conveying to the State a Right over his
own life, in case of his committing a capital crime.
For, in the first place, the assumption that man, as
an individual, has such a Right, is contrary to com-
mon Morality. If a man have a Right over his own
life, he may cast off” life when he pleases, and Sui-
cide is no sin. And even if it were allowed that a
man has a Right over his own life ; the further as-
sumption, that he has transferred this Right to the
State, by a transaction of which he was unconscious,
and in which he had no choice, is so extravagant,
that it cannot afford a satisfactory basis for Rights.
Thus, we reject the notion of this Right arising from
consent or compact, and consider it as a special and
original State Right.
841. Again, there is another Right which is
exercised by all States ; the Right of imposing
Oaths ; for instance. Oaths of Testimony, and Daths
of Office. This Right, also, is necessarily exer-
cised by States. Such Oaths identify the Citizen’s
CHAP. I.] RIGHTS OP THE STATE. 189
Obligations with his Duties. As a Witness, to
give true testimony ; as a Judge, to administer
justice ; are always Duties. By means of Oaths,
these Duties become Obligations imposed by a dis-
tinct Contract, and accepted by a solemn Engage-
ment. And if there be not this identity of Duty
and Obligation in general, the State cannot subsist.
For the State consists of men, who are moral be-
ings ; and who cannot, without an intolerable viola-
tion of their nature, go on continually discharging
Obligations, which have no connexion with their
Duties. The essential part of the business of the
State must be regarded with the solemnity which be-
longs to moral acts ; otherwise, the State itself can-
not be a permanent reality, in the minds of moral
men. And, as we have already said (677), tho
natural way of acknowledging and marking thiia
moi’al solemnity, among religious men, is by acting,
and declaring that we will act, as in the presence
of God ; that is, by taking an Oath to act rightly.
The thoughtlessness of men, and the excuses which,
in common life, they make for falsehood, deceit, in-
justice, partiality, inconsistency, passion, and the
like, are such, that it is requisite, for the essential
business of a State, to demand of them another
frame of mind than that which is usual in their com-
mon intercourse. If the Witness were to give his
Evidence, the Jury, their Verdict, the Judge, his
Sentence, with the carelessness and perversion of
truth and right, which men often allow themselves
in common conversation ; the administration of jus-
tice would be impossible. If the Witness told his
tale, and the Judge gave his opinion, with the levity
which prevails at a convivial meeting, how could a
moral citizen bear a part in a court of Justice ? On
such occasions, then, men must be grave, must be
thoughtful, and must engage to be so. The occa-
sion and the acts must be marked as solemn ; and
J 90 POLTTY. [book V.
this, as we have s’iii, is necessarily done, among re*
ligious men, by the Witness narrating, and the Judge
deciding, as in the presence of God. And the occa-
sion is marked as solemn, by each person declaring
that he does this ; that is, by the Oaths of the Wit-
ness, and of the Jurymen, taken at the time of the
trial ; and by the Oath of Office, which the Judge
has previously taken.
842. The necessit}” of the Right of adminis-
tering Oaths being vested in the State, will also ap-
pear from the following considerations. If the State
do not exercise this Right, a body of the Citizens,
bound together by their common belief in God and
in his Judgments, may administer, to each other,
Oaths to co-operate in their common purposes ; and
may thus, when their purposes become inconsistent
with, or hostile to, the existing Government, over-
throw the Government, and take the Authority of the
State into their own hands. For a State, not claim-
ing a moral reality for its acts, by means of religious
solemnities, could not stand against a great body of
citizens bound together by religion. If such fiitizens
be brought before the tribunals for hostility to the
government ; the witnesses, the jury, the judf^e, may
be of the religious party ; and, not being bound to
their official act by religion, they will act so as no^
to be the effective agents of laws which they deerx”
unjust and cruel. And if the laws be still enforce^*
by the agency of citizens acting without any ac
knowledged tie of religion, the laws must soon cease
to be regarded as just ; for morality cannot long
subsist in men’s minds without religion. When this
has taken place, and the laws are no longer support-
ed by an opinion of their general justice, the empire
of the law becomes the empire of mere force, which
the moral nature of man will not allow to continue
long among men.
Thus the ground of the necessity of Oaths in a
CHAP. I.] RIGHTS OF THE STATE. 191
State is, that Morality cannot long subsist in men’s
minds without Religion; that for the efRcacy of re-
ligion, a recognition of it by the State is requisite ;
and that this recognition is especiaFly requisite on
certain solemn occasions, such as judicial proceed-
ings, the assumption of important State offices, and
the like.
843. If it be said that Religion may be effica-
cious in making iTien true and just on solemn occa-
sions, without being publicly recognized and refer-
red to ; we reply, that though this may be so with
some persons, the State can never know which per-
sons are, and which are not, of this number, without
the use of some Formula referring to Religion : nor
can it be known, without the use of some such For-
mula, whether any particular person considers the
occasion a solemn one or not.
844. The State, therefore, necessarily has the
Right of administering Oaths of Testimony, of Office,
and the like. And this State Right, like the others,
is a special and original Right of the StPtP, not de-
rived from any Combination of individual Rights.
For though men, in a Contract or other tivrsaction,
may be willing to accept Oaths from one another ;
no one man can be conceived as having any Right to
impose an Oath upon another man. If there be any
difficulty in ascribing to the State a Right to ques-
tion or limit a man’s actions on account of his reli-
o-ious belief or religious sentiments, there must be «
much greater difficulty in ascribing such a Right tf
any individual. And as no individual could havf
any portion of such a Right, no collection of Indi
viduals could have the Right : and the State Right tc
impose Oaths cannot arise from the combination of
the Rights of the Individuals, of whom the State
consists.
845. It may perhaps be said, that an assemblage
of religious individuals, associating themselves for
192 POLITY. [book V.
their mutual advantage, might exclude from their
body, all who would not, upon due occasions, make
certain religious declarations. And this might be so ;
but we cannot conceive this as the origin of the
R-ight of the State to impose Oaths. For to imagine
this, would be to suppose the State to be, not only a
voluntary association of individuals ; but of individu-
als in whose minds religious belief and religious
sentiments were already established, and who were
drawn together by their religious sympathies. But
this is an impossible supposition : for we cannot con-
ceive Religion without Morality, or Morality without
Society already established. We know that the
State does not derive its religious belief from the
spontaneous religious sympathies of individuals ; but
that individuals derive their religious sentiments, in a
great measure, from the Society in which they are
born and live. Men bind themselves by Oaths,
under the direction of the State, not as” if it were
part of a social contract that they should do so ; but
looking upon the State as a Divine appointment, and
a channel through which the forms of the most so-
lemn engagements must necessarily be derived.
846. We are thus led to reckon, as Rights of
States, besides the general Rights of Govei’nment,
these four : the Right to the National Territory ; the
Right of War and Peace ; the Right of Capital
Punishment ; and the Right of imposing Oaths.
These Rights are all necessary to the continued ex-
istence of States ; and, as we have seen, they are
not derivative or cumulative attributes, but original
and peculiar. We have called them State Rights,
in order to distinguish them from Individual Rights.
To Individual Rights correspond Obligations ; and
it may be asked whether the State has any Obliga-
tions corresponding to its Rights. The answer to
this Question will occupy the next Chapter.
CHAP. 11.] OBLIGATIONS OF THE STATE. 193
CHAPTER II.
THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE STATE.
847. The State is, as we have said, the Source
of Law and of Authority, and the Realizer of indi-
vidual Rights. The State Rights exist, in order that
the State may discharge this its office. And hence,
the Obligation corresponding to the State Rights is, that the State shall he the State ; that it shall deliver and administer Laws, and thus realize Rights. And
this it must do, not for a short time merely ; not for one generation only ; but permanently, and with a
prospect of permanence. Hence, to provide for this
permanence is an Obligation of the State. This we may describe as the Obligation of Self-preservation. 848. We more frequently hear the Duty of Self-preservation ascribed to the State : but we shall, in general, use the term Obligation in speaking of this subject : not only because Obligation is the term corresponding to Right ; but also, because this Obligation is enforced by a real Sanction, as individual obligations are : for if the State do not fulfil this Obligation of Self-preservation, it will not be preserved, but will be dissolved, and will cease to be a State.
If, however, we wish to retain the term Duty in this case, we may speak of the Duty of Self-preservation
as the Lower Duty of a State, in comparison with
other Ducies, such as the Duty of rendering its sub-
jects moral and intelligent, which are its Higher
Duties.
849. This State Obligation of Self-preservation divides itself into several branches ; related in some measure to the different State Rights of which we have spoken. Those Rights are assigned to the State for certain purposes ; and the State is under Obligations to employ them for those purposes.
194 POLITY. [book V.
