No More Learning

10.
Chap. 2, § 31. ] Substance and Causality : Leibniz. 421
stand the mechanism of the cosmic processes as the means and phe nomenal form by which the living content or import of the world realises itself. For this reason he could no longer think " cause " as only "Being," could no longer think God merely as ens perfectissi- mum, could no longer think " substance " as characterised merely by an attribute of unchangeable existence, and could no longer think its states merely as modifications, determinations, or specifications of such a fundamental quality: cosmic processes or change l>ecame again for him active working (Wirken); substances took on the meaning of forces,1 and the philosophical conception of God also had, for its essential characteristic, creative force. This was Leib niz' fundamental thought, that this creative force evinces itself in the mechanical system of motions.
Leibniz attained this dynamical standpoint first in his theory of motion, and in a way which of itself required that the same stand point should be carried over into metaphysics. ' The mechanical
of inertia and the process begun by Galileo of resolving motion into infinitely small impulses, which together formed the starting-point for the authoritative investigations in natural science by Huyghens and Newton, led Leibniz to the principle of the infini tesimal calculus, to his conception of the " vis viva, " and es pecially, to the insight that the essential nature of bodies, in which the ground of motion is to be sought, consists not in extension, nor yet in their mass (impenetrability), but in their capacity to do work, — in force. But if substance is force, it is super-spatial and iwi- materiai. On this account Leibniz finds himself compelled to think even corporeal substance as immaterial force. Bodies are, in their essential nature, force; their spatial form, their property of filling space and their motion are effects of this force. The substance of bodies is metaphysical. 1 In connection with Leibniz' doctrine of
knowledge this purports that rational, clear, and distinct cognition apprehends bodies as force, while sensuous, obscure, and confused cognition apprehends them as spatial structures. Hence, for Leib niz, space is neither identical with bodies (as in Descartes), nor the presupposition for them (as with Newton), but a force-product of substances, a phenomenon bene fundatum, an order of co-existence, —
1 La substance eat un Ctre capable (Taction. Prine. de la Nat. etde la Orttee, L CI. Sgsl. Xouv. 2t. , " Force primitive. "
» Sy*. Nout. 3.
1 With thin the co-ordination of the two attribute*, exunsio and mgitatio, waa again abolished ; the world of consciousness U the truly actual, the world of extension is phenomenon. Leibniz nets the intelligible world of substances over against the phenomena of the senses or material world in a completely Tlalonic fashion (. Vow*. Eu. IV. 3). Cf. J 33 I.
problem
422 The Renaissance : Natural Science Period. [Part IV.
not an absolute reality, but an ens mentale. 1 And the same holds true, mutatis mutandis, of time. From this it follows further, that the laws of mechanics which refer to these spatial manifestations of bodies are not rational, not " geometrical " truths, but truths which relate to matters of fact, and are contingent. They could be thought otherwise [i. e. the opposite is not inconceivable]. Their ground is not logical necessity, but — purposiveness or appropriate ness. They are lois de convenance ; and have their roots in the choix de la sagesse. - God chose them because the purpose of the world would be best fulfilled in the form determined by them. If bodies are machines, they are such in the sense that machines are purpos- ively constructed works. 3
11. Thus again in Leibniz, but in a maturer form than in Neo- Platonism, life becomes the principle for explaining Nature ; his doctrine is vitalism. But life is variety, and at the same time unity. The mechanical theory led Leibniz to the conception of infinitely many individual forces, metaphysical points/ as likewise to the idea of their continuous connection. He had originally leaned toward the atomic theory of Democritus and the nominalistic meta physics ; the Occasionalist movement, and above all, the system of Spinoza, made him familiar with the thought of the All-unity ; and he found the solution, as Nicolaus Cusanus and Giordano Bruno had found it before, in the principle of the identity of the part with the whole. Each force is the world-force, the cosmic force, but in a peculiar phase ; every substance is the world-substance, but in par ticular form. Hence Leibniz gives to the conception of substance just this meaning: it is unity in plurality? This means that every substance in every state " represents " the multitude of other sub stances, and to the nature of " representing " belongs always the unifying of a manifold. '
With these thoughts are united, in the system of Leibniz, the
1 Cf. chiefly the correspondence
8 Princ. 11.
* Syst. Now. 11.
• Leibniz is here served a very good turn (cf. op. cit. ) by the ambiguity in
with des Bosses. • lb. 3.
the word " representation " (which applies also to the German " vorstellen " [and to the English "representation"]), in accordance with which the word means, on the one hand, to supply the place of or serve as a symbol of, and on the other"hand, the function of consciousness. That every substance "repre sents the rest means, therefore, on the one hand, that all is contained in all (Leibniz cites the ancient aviirrota rdvra and also the omnia ubique of the Renaissance), and on the other hand, that each substance "perceives" all the rest. The deeper sense and justification of this ambiguity lies in the fact that we cannot form any clear and distinct idea whatever of the unifying of a manifold, except after the pattern of that kind of connection which we expe rience within ourselves in the function of consciousness ("synthesis" in Kant's phraseology) .
« Monad. 13-16.
Chap. 2, § 81. ] Substance and Causality : Leibniz. 423
postulates which had been current in the metaphysical movement since Descartes; namely, that of the isolation of substances with reference to one another, and that of the correspondence of their functions having its origin in the common world-ground. Both motifs are most perfectly brought out in the Monadology. Leibniz calls his force-substance monad, — an expression which might have come to him along various lines of Renaissance tradition. Each monad is with reference to the rest a perfectly independent being, which can neither experience nor exercise influence. The monads "have no windows," and this " windowlessness " is to a certain extent the expression of their "metaphysical impenetrability. "1 But this quality of being completely closed to outward influence receives first of all a positive expression from Leibniz in his declaration that the monad is a purely internal principle : * substance is hence a force of immanent activity : the monad is not physical, but psychical in its nature. Its states are representations ( Vorstellungen) , and the principle of its activity is desire (appit it ion), the "tendency" to pass over from one representation to another. * "
Each monad is nevertheless, on the other hand, a
world " ; it contains the whole universe as a representation within itself; in this consists the living unity of all things. But each is also an individual, distinct from all others. For there are no two substances in the world alike. 4 If now the monads are not distin guished by the content which they represent, — for this is the same with all,* — their difference can be sought only in their mode of representing this content, and Leibniz declares that the difference between the monads consists only in the different degree of clearness and distinctness with which they " represent " the universe. Descartes' epistemological criterion thus becomes a metaphysical predicate by reason of the fact that Leibniz, like Duns Scotus (cf. p. 331), con ceives of the antithesis of distinct and confused as an antithesis in the force of representation or in intensity. Hence the monad is re garded as active in so far as it represents clearly and distinctly, as passive in so far as it represents obscurely and confusedly :* hence, also, its impulse (appMition) is directed toward passing from obscure
• Monad. 7. Cf. Kmst. Xouv. 14, 17.
• M»*ad. II.
• Lelbnix expressed this as the prineipium idrntitatis inditrerntbilium
i Monad. »).
• Here, to be rare. Leibniz overlooked the fact that no real content in reached
in thin ayatem of mutual representation of aubatanrea. The monad a represents the monad* A, c, d, . . . x. But what ia the monad 6 ? It in in turn the repre sentation of the monads a, c, . x. The same true for c, and so on in imtmilHrn.
Monad 49.
• lb. 15-19.
mirror of the
•
rf,
. .
is
424 The Renaissance : Natural Science Period. [Part IV.
to clear representations, and the "clearing up" of its own content is the goal of its life. To this above-mentioned intensity of the repre sentations Leibniz applies the mechanical principle of infinitely small impulses: he calls these infinitely small constituent parts of the representative life of the monads petite* perceptions,1 and needs this hypothesis to explain the fact, that according to his doctrine the monad evidently has very many more representations than it is con scious of (cf. below, § 33). In the language of to-day the petite* per ceptions would be unconscious mental states ( YorsteUungen).
Of such differences in degree of clearness and distinctness there are infinitely many, and in accordance with the law of continuity — natura non facit saltum — the monads form an uninterrupted graded series, a great system of development, which rises from the "simple" monads to souls and minds. 1 The lowest monads, which represent only obscurely and confusedly, i. e. unconsciously, are therefore only passive ; they form matter. The highest monad, which represents the universe with perfect clearness and distinctness, — just for this reason there is but one such, — and is accordingly pure activity, is called the central monad — God. Inasmuch as each of these monads lives out its own nature, they all harmonise completely with each other at every moment * by virtue of the sameness of their content, and from this arises the appearance of the action of one substance upon others. This relation is the harmonie prikablie des substances — h. doctrine in which the principle of correspondence, introduced by Geulincx and Spinoza for tne relation of the two attributes, appears extended to the totality of all substances. Here as there, however, the principle as carried out involves the uninterrupted determination in the activity of all substances, the strict necessity of all that takes place, and excludes all chance and all freedom in the sense of uncaused action. Leibniz also "rescues the conception of freedom for finite substances only in the ethical meaning of a control of reason over the senses and passions. 4
The pre-established harmony — this relationship of substances in their Being and life — needs, however, a unity as the ground of its explanations, and this can be sought only in the central monad God, who created the finite substances, gave to each its own content
i lb. 21.
1 Princ. 4. In this connection the "soul" is conceived of as the central mi mail of an organism, in that it represents most distinctly the monads consti tuting this, and accordingly only with a lesser degree of distinctness the rest of the universe. Monad. 61
Stint. Now. 14.
Ko magis est libertas quo magi* agitur ex ratione, etc. Leibniz, De Libert. {Op. , Erd. e<l. , 669).
4»
ft.
Chap. 2, § 32. J Natural Right. 425
in a particular grade of representative intensity, and thereby so arranged all the monads that they should harmonise throughout.
And in this necessary process in which their life unfolds, realise the end of the creative Universal Spirit in the whole mechanical determination of the series of their representations. This relation of mechanism to teleology makes its way finally, also, into the epistemological principles of Leibniz. The deity and the other monads sustain the same relation to each other as the infinite and finite substances sustain in the system of Descartes. But for the rationalistic conception of things, only the infinite is a necessity of thought, while the finite, on the contrary, is something " contin gent," in the sense that it might also be thought otherwise, that the opposite contains no contradiction (cf. above, § 30, 7). Thus the antithesis of eternal and necessary truths takes on metaphysical significance : only God's Being is an eternal truth; he exists, accord ing to the principle of contradiction, with logical or absolute necessity. Finite things, however, are contingent ; they exist only in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, by virtue of their determina tion by another; the world and all that belongs to it has only conditioned, hypothetical necessity. This contingency of the world,
Leibniz, in agreement with Duns Scotus,1 traces back to the will of God. The world might have been otherwise ; that it is as it is, it
owes to the choice which God made between the many ]>ossibilities. ' Thus in Leibniz all threads of the old and the new metaphysics run together. With the aid of the conceptions formed in the school
of mechanics he formulated the presages of the philosophy of the Renaissance into a systematic structure, where the ideas of Greece found their home in the midst of the knowledge acquired by modern investigation.
§ 32. Natural Bight
The Philosophy of Right of the Renaissance was also dependent, on the one hand, upon the stimulus of Humanism, and on the other, upon the needs of modern life. The former element is shown not only in the dependence upon ancient literature, but also in the re vival of the ancient conception of the state, and in the attachment to its traditions; the latter make their appearance as a theoreti cal generalisation of those interests, in connection with which the
1 The relations of Leibniz to the greatest of the Scholastics are to be recog nized not only In this point, but also in many others ; though as yet they have unfortunately not found the consideration or treatment that they deserve.
* Cf„ however, in addition, below, ) 35.
they
426 The Renaissance : Natural Science Period. [Part IV.
secular states during this period took on the form of autonomous life.
1. All these motives show themselves first in MacchiaveUi. In his admiration of Borne, the Italian national feeling speaks imme diately, and it was from the study of ancient history that he gained his theory of the modern state, at least as regards its negative side. He demanded the complete independence of the state from the Church, and carried Dante's Ghibelline doctrine of the state to its farthest consequence. He combats the temporal sovereignty of the Papacy as the permanent obstacle to an Italian national state, and so that separation between the spiritual and the secular, which is common to all the beginnings of modern thought, is completed for the practical field in his system, as it had been before with Occam and Marsilius of Padua (cf. p. 328). The consequence of this, however, as with the Nominalists just mentioned, was that the state was conceived not teleologically, but in purely naturalistic fashion as a product of needs and interests. From this fact is explained the singleness of aim and regardlessness with which MacchiaveUi carried out his theory of the acquisition and preservation of princely power, and with which he treated politics solely from the point of view of the warfare of interests.
The relation of church and state, moreover, excited an especial interest in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, because it played a part that was always important and often decisive in the conflicts and shiftings of confessional oppositions. Here an interesting exchange of conceptions came about. The Protestant view of the world, which in accordance with its first principle changed the medieval distinction in value between the spiritual and the secular, and removed the ban of the "profane" from the secular spheres of life, saw in the state also a divine order; and the Reformation Philosophy of Right, under the lead of Melancthon, limited the right of the state more by the right of the invisible, than by the claims of the visible Church ; indeed, the divine mission of the magistrates afforded a valuable support for the Protestant State-church. Much less could the Catholic Church feel itself under obligation to the modern state; and although it thereby departed from Thomism. it allowed itself to be pleased by such theories as those of Bellarmio and Mariana, in which the state was conceived of as a work of human composition or as a compact. For with this theory the state lost its higher authority, and to a certain extent its metaphysical root ; it appeared capable of abolition ; the human will which had created it might dissolve it again, and even its supreme head was deprived of his absolute inviolability. While the Protestants re
Chai\ 2, § 32. ] Natural Right : Macchiavelli, Reformers. 427
garded the state as an immediate divine order, for the Catholics, as being a human arrangement, it needed the sanction of the Church and ought not to be regarded as valid where this was lacking ; but it should retain this sanction only when it placed itself at the service of the Church. So Campanella taught that the Spanish Empire
(monarchia) had as its task to place the treasures of foreign parts of the world at the disposal of the Church for her contest with the heretics.
2. But in time these oppositions in the philosophy of rights yielded to confessional indifferentism, which had attained the mas tery in theoretical science also, and since the state was regarded as essentially an order of earthly things, the relation of man to God fell outside its sphere of action. Philosophy demanded for the citizen the right which she claimed for herself, the right of a free, individual attitude toward the religious authorities of the time, and became thereby the champion of toleration. The state has not to trouble itself about the religious opinion of individuals, the right of the citizen is independent of his adherence to this or that confes sion : this demand was the necessary result of the confessional controversies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which had heaved and tossed so passionately to and fro. In this view unbe lieving indifference, and positive conviction which had to defend
itself against political authority of the opposite creed, came to an agreement
In this spirit Macchiavelli had already written against the sole authority of the Roman Church ; but it was by Thomas More that the principle of toleration was first proclaimed in its completeness. The inhabitants of his happy island belong to the most varied con fessions, which all live peacefully side by side without any polit ical importance being attributed to the variety of their religious views. They have even united upon a common worship, which each party interprets in its own sense, and supplements by special forms of worship. So, too, Jean Bodin, m his Heptaplomeres, makes highly educated typical representatives, not only of the Christian confessions, but also of Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Heathen dom, find a form of worshipping God, which is equally satisfactory to all. Finally, in a more abstract manner, Hugo Orotius com pletely separated divine and human right in the sharp distinctness with which he presented the principles of the philosophical science of rights, bating divine right upon revelation and human right upon reason ; demanding at the same time, however, an equally sharp and thoroughgoing separation of the spheres of life to which they apply.
428 The Rewsinmmee: Hktmrsi Sdemem Peri—L (Tazt IV.
Bit the classical ~Doon5. iiy Book ~ for the toleration movement was Spi»aza* TkextojiayfoLxicni. Tractate, which went to the root of the mo^a-treated matter. Utilising many thooghss and examples from the elder Jewish literature Laaaenced by Averroism. this work demonstrated that religion, and e»;:*ciAlly the religious documents.
hare neither the province nor the design of teaching theoretical truths, and ihat the essence of religion consists not in the recogni tion of particular dogmas, but in the disposition and the will and action determined by it. From this it follows incontestably that the state has still less ground or right to trouble itself about the assent of its citizens to particular dogmas, and that it should rather by virtue of its real authority restrain erery attempt toward a con straining of the conscience, which may proceed from any of the ecclesiastically organised forms of religious life. The mystically profound religious nature of Spinoza alienated him from the dog matic government of the churches and from belief in the literal statements of their historical documents. He asserted the principle
that religious books, like all other phenomena of literature, must be historically explained as to their theoretical import, that is. must be understood from the point of view of the intellectual condition of their authors, and that this historical criticism takes away from those former theoretical views their binding and normative signifi cance for a later time.
3. With the political and churchly political interests became associated the social. 2so one gave them a more eloquent expression than Thomas More. After a thrilling portrayal of the misery of the masses the first book of the Utopia comes to the conclusion that society would do better if instead of the Draconian justice with which she punishes the violation of her laws, she should stop the sources of crime. The author maintains that the greater part of the guilt for the wrong-doing of the individual is due to the perverted arrange ment of the whole. This latter consists in the inequality ofproperty brought about by the use of money, for this inequality gives occasion to all the aberrations of passion, of envy, and of hatred. The ideal picture of the perfect state of society upon the island of Utopia, which More sketches in contrast to the present condition, is in its main features an imitation of the ideal state of Plato. This human istic revival however, distinguished from its prototype in manner characteristic for modern socialism, by its abolition of class- ilistinctions, which seemed necessary to the ancient thinker in conse quence of his reflection upon the actually given difference in the intellectual and moral status of individuals. In an abstraction that was prototype for the succeeding development More proceeded
a
is,
a
Chap. 2, § 32. ] Natural Right : Spinoza, More, Bacon. 429
from the thought of the equality of all citizens before the law, and changed into an equality of claim or title for all citizens those forms of community which Plato had demanded of the ruling classes as a renunciation of the natural impulses toward an individual sphere of interests. With Plato the preferred classes were to renounce all private property in order to devote themselves entirely to the gen eral weal : with More the abolition of private property is demanded as the surest means for doing away with crime, and is based upon the equality of title which all have to the common possession. But at the same time the English Chancellor still holds fast to the ideal model of the ancient philosopher, in so far as to treat this entire equality in the division of material interests, as the indispensable basis for makiug it possible to all citizens to enjoy in like measure the ideal goods of society, science, and art. A normal working day of six hours for all members of society will be enough, he thinks, to satisfy all external needs of the community : the remaining time should remain free for every one for nobler employment. With these characteristics the programme for all the higher forms of modern socialism grows in the thought of More out of the Platonic project.
But the spirit of the Renaissance was animated by much more worldly interests. Stimulated by the magic of discoveries, dazzled by the glitter of inventions, it set itself the task of transforming
its new insights the whole outer condition of human society as related to the natural conditions of life, and saw before itself an ideal of comfort for human life, which should develop from com plete and systematic use of the knowledge and control of Nature made possible by science. All social injuries will be healed by raising human society, by means of the scientific advancement of external civilisation, beyond all the cares and all the need which now vex it few inventions like the compass, the art of printing,
and gunpowder, says Bacon, have sufficed to give human life new motion, greater dimensions, mightier development. What trans formations stand before us when invention once becomes an intel ligently exercised art The social problem thus transferred to an improvement of the material condition of society.
In Bacon's New Atlantis1 a happy island-people in carefully guarded seclusion brought before us, which by skilful regula tions receives information of the progress in civilisation made by all other peoples, and at the same time, by the systematic prosecu tion of research, discovery, and invention, raises to the highest
Tbe title of this I'lopia and much elue in rtminiacence of Plato'i fragment. Critiat (113 f. ).
1
il
in a
is
is
!
A
a
liy
430 The Renautanee : Natural Sciemee Period. [Past IV.
point the control of Nature for the practical interests of human life. All kinds of possible and impossible inventions are related in fan tastic prophecy,1 and the whole activity of the - House of Solomon " is directed toward improving the material state of society, while the portrayal of the political relations is only superficial and unim portant.
In Campanella's State of the Sun, on the other hand, in which the after-effects of More's Utopia are very noticeable, we come to a com plete project of the socialistic future Mate, which is even pedanti cally ordered down to all of its minor relations. This state does not shrink in any direction from the most extreme violence to the free dom of the individual's life. From the mathematically delineated plan of the imperial city to the division of hours for daily work and enjoyment, the determination of professions, the pairing of the men and women, the astrologically predetermined hour for sexual unions, —all takes place here from an arrangement by the state for the welfare of the whole, and an extended, carefully worked out system of bureaucracy (in which there is an admixture of metaphys ical motives)* is built up upon the graded knowledge of the citizens. The more any one knows, the more power he ought to have in the state, in order to rule and improve by his knowledge the course of Nature. The points of view in this improvement look essentially toward external civilisation in Campanella's system also. With
him, indeed, four hours of daily labour should suffice on the average to assure the good cheer of society, and upon this prosperity all should have a like claim.
4. In spite of all that is fantastic and whimsical,' the thought nevertheless asserts itself in Campanella's State of the Sun, still more than in More's Utopia, that the state should be an artificial product of human insight for the removal of social injuries. Neither writer desired to set up a mere creation of fancy, any more than did Plato ; they believe in the possibility of realising " the best political constitution " by rational reflection upon an order of social relations
1 In addition to the microscope and the telescope, the microphone and tele phone are not wanting ; there are giant explosive materials, flying-machines, all sorts of engines with air and water power, and even "some kinds" of perpetual motion ! But the author lays special value upon the fact that by better culture of plants and animals, by unsuspected chemical discoveries, by baths and air-cures, diseases are to be banished and life prolonged ; experiments on animals are also introduced in the interest of medicine.
* Beneath the supreme ruler, — Sol or Metaphysicus, — who must embody all knowledge within himself, stand first of all three princes, whose spheres of activity correspond to the three " primalities " of Being, Power, Wisdom and Love (cf. § 29, 3), etc.
* Fantastic is especially the strong element of astrological and magical super stition ; whimsical, his monkish rude treatment of the sexual relations.
Chap. 2, § 32. ] Natural Right : Campanella, Grotiut. 431
that shall he in accordance with Nature. In this, to be sure, they encountered much opposition. Cardanus combated Utopias on principle, and in their stead commended to science the task of comprehending the necessity with which the actual states of history develop in their special definite nature, out of the character, the relations of life, and the experiences of peoples ; he would have them regarded as natural products like organisms, and would apply to their conditions the medical categories of health and disease. In a larger way, and free from the Pythagorean astrology in which the mathematician Cardanus indulged, but with a strongly con structive fancy, the practical statesman Bodin attempted to under stand the manifold character of historical reality as manifested in political life.
But the tendency of the time was much more toward seeking a right founded in Nature for all times and relations alike, and to be recog nised by reason alone : although a man like Albericus Gentilis desired to reduce the principles of private right to physical laws by analogies of childlike crudeness. A firmer and more fruitful ground was gained when human nature, instead of general " Nature," was taken as a starting-point. This was done by Hugo Grotius. Like Thomas Aquinas, he found the fundamental principle of natural right in the social need, and found the method for its development in logical deduction. That which reason recognises as agreeing with man's social nature and following therefrom — in this consists the ju* maturate' — that cannot be changed by any historical mutation. The thought of such an absolute right, which exists only by its foundation in reason, and which exists independently of the politi cal power and rather as the ultimate ground of this power, was brought home to Grotius by the analogy of international law with which his investigation was primarily concerned. On the other hand, however, by virtue of this material principle, private right be came the authoritative presupposition for political right also. The satisfaction of individual interests, protection of life and property, ap|wared as the essential pnd to l>e subserved by the ordering of
rights. Formally and methodically, on the contrary, this philo sophical system of rights was entirely deductive; it aimed only to draw the logical consequences of the principle of society. In like manner Hnbbe* also regarded the corpus politieum as a machine capable of being deduced from the conception of its end by pure intellectual activity, and the philosophical doctrine of rights as a perfect demonstrable science. At the same time this field seemed
> De Jure Bell, et Puc I. 1. 10.
432 The Renaissance : Natural Science Period. [Part IV.
adapted in a pre-eminent degree to the application of the geometri cal method, and Puffendorf introduced the whole apparatus of this method by combining Grotius and Hobbes, and developing the whole system synthetically from the thought that the individual's instinct toward self-preservation could be rationally and successfully fulfilled only by satisfying his social need. In this form natural right per sisted as the ideal of a "geometrical" science until far on into the eighteenth century (Thomasius, Wolff, indeed, even to Fichte and Schelling), and survived the general decline of the Cartesian principle.
5. Looking now at the contents rather than at the form, we find that the ultimate ground of public life and of social coherence was placed in the interests of individuals : the mechanics of the state found in the character of the impulses of the individual man that self-intelligible and simple element,1 out of which the complex structures of life viewed as a subject of law and rights (Rechtslebens) might be explained in accordance with the Galilean principle. With this the doctrine of the state also went back to the Epicurean theory of social atomism 2 (cf. pp. 174 f. ), and the synthetic principle by which the origin of the state was to be understood was the contract. From Occam and Marsilius down to Rousseau, Kant, and Fichte, this con tract theory was dominant in political philosophy. Grotius and Hobbes devoted themselves to carrying it out in the most careful manner. To the political contract by which the individuals unite themselves to a community of interests, is attached the contract of sovereignty or subjection, by means of which the individuals hand over their rights and authority to the magistracy. This proved to be a general frame in which the most varied political theories fitted.
While Grotius, and likewise Spinoza, found the interests of the citizens to be best guaranteed by an aristocratic republican constitu tion, Hobbes could deduce from the same presupposition his theory of a purely secular absolutism, according to which the political power should be inviolably united in one personality, the universal will in the individual will of the sovereign.
In closest connection with the contract theory appears the devel opment of the conception of sovereignty. The source of all power, according to this theory, is the popular will, from which the politi cal contract and the contract of submission have proceeded; the proper bearer of the sovereignty is the people. Meanwhile the con-
1 The term "conatus" applies in this sense to both domains, the physical and the psychical, with Hobbes and Spinoza.
3 As in the theoretical domain, so also in the practical, the principle of Democritus and Epicurus obtains with great efforts a late victory.
Chap.
32. ] Natural Right Contract Theory. 438
tract and the transfer of right and power completed thereby, are regarded by some writers as irrevocable, and by others as capable
of recall. So Bodin, in spite of his doctrine of popular sovereignty, maintains the unlimited character and unconditional authority of the royal power, the inviolability of the ruler and the unjustifia- bility of all opposition against him with Hobbes the sovereignty
of the people still more completely absorbed into that of the monarch, whose will here stands quite in the sense of the Vitat c'est moi as the sole source of rights in the positive political life. In oppo sition to this view, and decidedly more consistent in view of their presupposition, the " monarchomachischen [opposed to an absolute
theories," whose chief representative besides Buchanan (1506-1582) and Languet (1518-1581) was Althus of Lower Sax
ony, maintained that the governmental contract becomes liable to dissolution as soon as the sovereign ceases to rule rightly, i. e. in the interest and according to the will of the people. If the contract broken on one side, no longer binding for the other party; in this situation the sovereignty returns again to its original bearers.
If man has made the state with purpose and under reflection, then he abolishes again when becomes evident that has failed to fulfil its purpose. Thus the Renaissance already providing in advance the theory of revolution. 1
All these theories, however, received their especial colouring from motives growing out of the particular relations of church and Mate, — a colouring which depended upon the question whether the unre stricted |»ower of the ruler was felt as dangerous or as beneficial in consequence of his relation to the Confessions. The most radical
monarchy]
in real politics was taken by Hobbes by virtue of his religious indifferentism religion private opinion, and only that opinion which the sovereign professes has political standing or value. No other religion or Confession can be tolerated in public life.
Hoblies gave the philosophical theory for the historical aijus regio illius religio. And Spinoza attached himself to him in this. He stood for freedom of thought and against all compulsion of con science, but for him religion was only matter of knowledge and disposition; for the public manifestation of religious feeling in the church and in public worship, was in the interest of order and peace that only the form fixed by the magistracy should obtain. In a more positive sense the Protestant Philosophy of Right declared for
These principle* were defended with special application to"the English con ditions of the seventeenth century, and to the right of the Revolution" of that time by the poet . Inhn Milton Defentio pro Populo Anglican**, 1661), and by Algernon Sidney {Discount* of Government, 1083).
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434 The Renaissance : Natural Science Period. [Part IV.
the sovereignty in church and state of the kingdom existing by the grace of God ; while in this school, also, as for example in the case of Althns, the sovereignty of the people was defended as over against a magistracy holding another creed. The same motive was decisive where the Jesuits maintained that the magistracy might be removed and that the assassination of the prince was excusable
(cf. above).
6. In the case of Hobbes the rationale of the contract theory
rested on more general motives. If the social and political life was to be comprehended from the point of view of " human nature," the English philosopher found the fundamental, all-determining charac teristic of human nature in the impulse toward self-preservation or egoism, the simple, self-evident principle for explaining the entire volitional life. Here his materialistic metaphysics and sensualistic psychology (cf. § 31) made it appear that this instinct toward self- preservation, in its original essence, was directed only toward the preservation and furtherance of the sensuous existence of the indi vidual. All other objects of the will could serve only as means to bring about that supreme end. Agreeably to this principle, also, there was no other norm of judgment for man as a natural being than that of furtherance or hindrance, of profit or of harm : the distinction of good and evil, of right and wrong, is not possible upon the standpoint of the individual, but only upon the social standpoint, where the common interest instead of the individual's interest forms the standard. So egoism became the principle of all practical philosophy; for if the individual's instinct toward self- preservation was to be restricted and corrected by the command of the state, yet this state itself was regarded as the most ingenious and perfect of all the contrivances which egoism had hit upon to attain and secure its satisfaction. The state of nature, in which the egoism of each stands originally opposed to the egoism of every other, is a war of all against all: to escape this the state was founded as a contract for the mutual warrant of self-preservation. The social need is not original : it only results necessarily as the most efficient and certain means for the satisfaction of egoism.
Spinoza adopted this doctrine, but gave it a more ideal signifi cance by introducing it into his metaphysics. " Suum esse con- servare " is for him also the quintessence and fundamental motive or all willing. But since every finite mode belongs equally to both attributes, its impulse toward self-preservation is directed as well toward its conscious activity, i. e. its knowledge, as toward its main tenance in the corporeal world, i. e. its power. This individual striving, interpreted along the lines of the Baconian identity of
Chap. 2, § :fci. ] Natural Right : Hobbes, Cambridge Men. 435
knowledge and power, forms for Spinoza the ground of explanation for the empirical life of the state, in accordance with the principle that each one's right extends as far as his power. In this process of explanation Spinoza moves mainly in the lines of Hobbes, and deviates from him only, as noticed above, in his view as to the best form of constitution. This same complication of conceptions, how ever, presents itself to Spinoza as affording also a starting-point for his mystico-religious ethics. For since the true "esse" of every finite thing is the deity, the only perfect satisfaction of the impulse toward self-preservation is to be found in "love to God. " That Malebranche, who spoke so vehemently of the "atheistical Jew," taught the same in slightly different words — "unit ein bischen anderen Wbrten" — has already been mentioned (§ 31, 4).
7. Hobbes' theory of egoism — the " selfish system," as it was later termed for the most part — found vigorous opposition among his countrymen. 1 The reduction of all activities of the will, without any exception, to the impulse toward self-preservation excited both ethical revolt and the theoretical contradiction of psychological expe rience. The warfare against Hobbes was undertaken
primarily by the Neo-Platonist school of Cambridge, whose chief literary repre sentatives were Ralph Cudworth and Henry More. In this contro
versy the antithesis of </>wm and 6i<nt developed after the ancient prototype. For Hobbes, right and moral order arose from social institution; for his opponents they were original and immediately certain demands of Nature. Both parties opposed the lex naturalis to the theological dogmatic grounding of practical philosophy : but for Hobbes natural law was the demonstrable consequence of intel ligent egoism ; for the " Platonists " it was an immediate certainty, innate in the human mind.
Cumberland proceeded against Hobbes in the same line. He would have man's social nature regarded as being as original as his egoism : the " benevolent " altruistic inclinations, whose actual ex istence is not to be doubted, are objects of direct self-perception which have an original independence of their own ; the social need is not the refined product of a shrewd self-seeking, but — as Hugo Grotius had conceived of it — a primary, constitutive characteristic of human nature. While egoism is directed toward one's own private weal, the altruistic motives are directed toward the uni versal weal, without which private weal is not possible. This connection between the welfare of the individual and that of the
■ Ct. J. Tulluch, Hatiunal Theology and Christian I'hilotophy in England in l*« 17th Vent. (I<ond. 1872).
436 The Renausancc : Natural Science Period. [Part IV.
public, which in Hobbes appeared as due to the shrewd insight of man, is regarded by Cumberland as a provision of God, whose commandment is hence considered to be the authoritative principle for obeying those demands which express themselves in the benevo lent inclinations.
To the side of this natural morality of reason, which was thus defeuded against orthodoxy on the one hand and sensualism on the other, came the natural religion of reason, which had been set up by Herbert of Cherbury in opposition to these same two positions. Religion also shall be based neither upon historical revelation nor upon human institution ; it belongs to the inborn possession of the human mind. The consensus gentium — so argues Herbert in the manner of the ancient Stoics — proves that belief in the deity is a necessary constituent of the human world of ideas, a demand of reason ; but on this account that only which corresponds to those demands of the reason can stand as true content of religion, as contrasted with the dogmas of religions.
Thus the questions of practical philosophy which appear in English literature in the very lively discussion excited by Hobbes, gradually became transferred to the psychological realm. What is the origin of right, morals, and religion in the human mind? — so runs the problem. With this, however, the movements of the philosophy of the Enlightenment are introduced.
PART V.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT.
In addition to the literature cited on p. 348, cf.
Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the 18th Cent. Lond. 1876.
J. Mackintosh, On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy during the 17th and
18th Centuries. Edin. 1872.
Ph. Damiron, Memoires pour strvir a VHistoire de la Philosophie au 18" Steele.
3 vols. , l'aria 1858-64.
K. Zeller, (iesehichte der dentschen Philosophie seit Leibniz. MUnohen, 1873. Also II. Hettner, Litteraturgesrhichte des 18. Jahr. 3 parts.
The natural rhythm of intellectual life brought with it the result that in the modern as in the Greek philosophy a first cosmologico- metaphysical period was followed by a period of an essentially anthropological character, and that thus once more the newly awakened, purely theoretical efforts of philosophy must yield to a practical conception of philosophy as " icorld-ifisdom. " In fact, all features of the Oreek sophistic movement are found again with ripened fulness of thought, with broadened variety, with deepened content, and, therefore, also, with added energy in their antitheses in the Philosophy of the Enlightenment, which coincides approxi mately in time with the eighteenth century. In the place of Athens now appears the whole breadth of the intellectual movement among European civilised peoples, and scientific tradition counts now as many thousands of years as it then counted centuries; but the tendency as a whole and the objects of thought, the points of view and the results of the philosophising, show an instructive similarity and kinship in these two periods so widely separated in time and so different in the civilisations which formed their background. There prevails in lx>th the same turning of thought toward the subject's inner nature, the same turning away from metaphysical subtlety with doubt and disgust, the same preference for an em
pirical genetic consideration of the human psychical life, the same inquiry as to the possibility and the limits of scientific knowledge, 437
438 Philosophy of the Enlightenment. [Part V.
and the same passionate interest in the discussion of the prob lems of life and society. No less characteristic, lastly, for both periods is the penetration of philosophy into the broad circles of general culture and the fusion of the scientific with the literary movement.
But the basis for the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century was given in the general features of a secular view of life, as they had been worked out during the Renaissance by the fresh move ments in art, religion, politics, and natural research. While these had found their metaphysical formulation in the seventeenth cen tury, the question now came again into the foreground, how man should conceive, in the setting of the new Weltanschauung, his own nature and his own position : and in the presence of the value set upon this question, the interest in the various metaphysical concep tions in which the new Weltanschauung had been embodied, retreated more and more decidedly into the background. Men contented themselves with the general outlines of metaphysical theories, in order to employ themselves the more thoroughly with the questions of human life ; and all the doctrines of the Enlightenment which offer such a vehement polemic against speculation are, in truth, working from the beginning with a metaphysics of the " sound com mon sense " which at last raised its voice so high, and which ulti mately only assumed as self-evident truth that which had fallen to it from the achievements of the labour of preceding centuries.
The beginnings of the philosophy of the Enlightenment are to be sought in England, where, in connection with the well-ordered con ditions which followed the close of the period of the revolution, a powerful upward movement of literary life claimed philosophy also in the interests of general culture. From England this literature was transplanted to France. Here, however, the opposition of the ideals which it brought with it to the social and political status, worked in such a way that not only was the presentation of the thoughts more excited and vehement from the outset, but the thoughts themselves also take on a sharper point, and turn their negative energy more powerfully against the existing conditions in Church and state. At first from France, and then from the direct influence of England,1 also, Germany received the ideas of the Enlightenment, for which it had already received an independent preparation in a more theoretical manner: and here these ideas found their last deepening, and a purification and ennobling as well,
1 Cf. G. Zart, Der Einjluss der englischen Philosophen auf die deutsche Philos. de. i 18. Jahrh. (Berlin, 1881).