David Hume, “Of the
Origin of Government”
(1752)
¶1 Man, born in a family, is compelled to
maintain society from necessity, from natural inclination, and from habit. The same
creature, in his further progress, is engaged to establish political society,
in order to administer justice, without which there can be no peace among them,
nor safety, nor mutual intercourse. We are, therefore, to look upon all the
vast apparatus of our government, as having ultimately no other object or
purpose but the distribution of justice, or, in other words, the support of the
twelve judges. Kings and parliaments, fleets and armies, officers of the court
and revenue, ambassadors, ministers, and privy counsellors, are all subordinate
in their end to this part of administration. Even the clergy, as their duty
leads them to inculcate morality, may justly be thought, so far as regards this
world, to have no other useful object of their institution.
¶2 All men are sensible of the necessity of
justice to maintain peace and order; and all men are sensible of the necessity
of peace and order for the maintenance of society. Yet, notwithstanding this
strong and obvious necessity, such is the frailty or perverseness of our
nature! it is impossible to keep men faithfully and unerringly in the paths of
justice. Some extraordinary circumstances may happen, in which a man finds his
interests to be more promoted by fraud or rapine, than hurt by the breach which
his injustice makes in the social union. But much more frequently he is seduced
from his great and important, but distant interests, by the allurement of
present, though often very frivolous temptations. This great weakness is
incurable in human nature.
¶3 Men must, therefore, endeavour
to palliate what they cannot cure. They must institute some persons under the
appellation of magistrates, whose peculiar office it is to point out the
decrees of equity, to punish transgressors, to correct fraud and violence, and
to oblige men, however reluctant, to consult their own real and permanent
interests. In a word, obedience is a new duty which must be invented to support
that of justice, and the ties of equity must be corroborated by those of
allegiance.
¶4 But still, viewing matters in an abstract
light, it may be thought that nothing is gained by this alliance, and that the
factitious duty of obedience, from its very nature, lays as feeble a hold of
the human mind, as the primitive and natural duty of justice. Peculiar
interests and present temptations may overcome the one as well as the other.
They are equally exposed to the same inconvenience; and the man who is inclined
to be a bad neighbour, must be led by the same
motives, well or ill understood, to be a bad citizen or subject. Not to
mention, that the magistrate himself may often be negligent, or partial, or
unjust in his administration.
¶5 Experience, however, proves that there is a
great difference between the cases. Order in society, we find, is much better maintained
by means of government; and our duty to the magistrate is more strictly guarded
by the principles of human nature, than our duty to our fellow-citizens. The
love of dominion, is so strong in the breast of man, that many not only submit
to, but court all the dangers, and fatigues, and cares of government; and men,
once raised to that station, though often led astray by private passions, find,
in ordinary cases, a visible interest in the impartial administration of
justice. The persons who first attain this distinction, by the consent, tacit
or express, of the people, must be endowed with superior personal qualities of valour, force, integrity, or prudence, which command
respect and confidence; and, after government is established, a regard to
birth, rank, and station, has a mighty influence over men, and enforces the
decrees of the magistrate. The prince or leader exclaims against every disorder
which disturbs his society. He summons all his partisans and all men of probity
to aid him in correcting and redressing it, and he is readily followed by all
indifferent persons in the execution of his office. He soon acquires the power
of rewarding these services; and in the progress of society, he establishes
subordinate ministers, and often a military force, who find an immediate and a
visible interest in supporting his authority. Habit soon consolidates what
other principles of human nature had imperfectly founded; and men, once
accustomed to obedience, never think of departing from that path, in which they
and their ancestors have constantly trod, and to which they are confined by so
many urgent and visible motives.
¶6 But though this progress of human affairs may
appear certain and inevitable, and though the support which allegiance brings
to justice be founded on obvious principles of human nature, it cannot be
expected that men should beforehand be able to discover them, or foresee their
operation. Government commences more casually and more imperfectly. It is
probable, that the first ascendent of one man over
multitudes began during a state of war; where the superiority of courage and of
genius discovers itself most visibly, where unanimity and concert are most
requisite, and where the pernicious effects of disorder are most sensibly felt.
The long continuance of that state, an incident common among savage tribes,
inured the people to submission; and if the chieftain possessed as much equity
as prudence and valour, he became, even during peace,
the arbiter of all differences, and could gradually, by a mixture of force and
consent, establish his authority. The benefit sensibly felt from his influence,
made it be cherished by the people, at least by the peaceable and well disposed among them; and if his son enjoyed the same
good qualities, government advanced the sooner to maturity and perfection; but
was still in a feeble state, till the further progress of improvement procured
the magistrate a revenue, and enabled him to bestow rewards on the several
instruments of his administration, and to inflict punishments on the refractory
and disobedient.
¶7 Before that period, each exertion of his
influence must have been particular, and founded on
the peculiar circumstances of the case. After it, submission was no longer a
matter of choice in the bulk of the community, but was
rigorously exacted by the authority of the supreme magistrate.
¶8 In all governments, there is a perpetual
intestine struggle, open or secret, between Authority and Liberty, and neither
of them can ever absolutely prevail in the contest. A great sacrifice of
liberty must necessarily be made in every government; yet even the authority,
which confines liberty, can never, and perhaps ought never, in any
constitution, to become quite entire and uncontrollable. The sultan is master
of the life and fortune of any individual; but will not be permitted to impose
new taxes on his subjects: a French monarch can impose taxes at pleasure; but
would find it dangerous to attempt the lives and fortunes of individuals.
Religion also, in most countries, is commonly found to be a very intractable
principle; and other principles or prejudices frequently resist all the
authority of the civil magistrate; whose power, being founded on opinion, can
never subvert other opinions equally rooted with that of his title to dominion.
The government, which, in common appellation, receives the appellation of free,
is that which admits of a partition of power among several members, whose
united authority is no less, or is commonly greater, than that of any monarch;
but who, in the usual course of administration, must act by general and equal
laws, that are previously known to all the members, and to all their subjects.
In this sense, it must be owned, that liberty is the perfection of civil
society; but still authority must be acknowledged essential to its very
existence: and in those contests which so often take place between the one and
the other, the latter may, on that account, challenge the preference. Unless
perhaps one may say (and it may be said with some reason) that a circumstance,
which is essential to the existence of civil society, must always support
itself, and needs be guarded with less jealousy, than one that contributes only
to its perfection, which the indolence of men is so apt to neglect, or their
ignorance to overlook.
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DAVID HUME, “OF THE
ORIGINAL CONTRACT”
(1752)
¶1 As no party, in the present age, can well
support itself without a philosophical or speculative system of principles
annexed to its political or practical one, we accordingly find, that each of
the factions into which this nation is divided has reared up a fabric of the
former kind, in order to protect and cover that scheme of actions which it
pursues. The people being commonly very rude builders, especially in this
speculative way, and more especially still when actuated by party-zeal, it is
natural to imagine that their workmanship must be a little unshapely, and
discover evident marks of that violence and hurry in which it was raised. The
one party, by tracing up government to the Deity, endeavoured
to render it so sacred and inviolate, that it must be little less than
sacrilege, however, tyrannical it may become, to touch or invade it in the
smallest article. The other party, by founding government altogether on the
consent of the people, suppose that there is a kind of original
contract, by which the subjects have tacitly reserved the power of
resisting their sovereign, whenever they find themselves aggrieved by that
authority, with which they have, for certain purposes, voluntarily intrusted him. These are the speculative principles of the
two parties, and these, too, are the practical consequences deduced from them.
¶2 I shall venture to affirm, That both
these systems of speculative principles are just; though not
in the sense intended by the parties: and, That both the schemes of
practical consequences are prudent; though not in the extremes to which each
party, in opposition to the other, has commonly endeavoured
to carry them.
¶3 That the Deity is the ultimate author of all
government, will never be denied by any, who admit a general providence, and
allow, that all events in the universe are conducted by an uniform plan, and
directed to wise purposes. As it is impossible for the human race to subsist,
at least in any comfortable or secure state, without the protection of
government, this institution must certainly have been intended by that
beneficent Being, who means the good of all his creatures: and as it has
universally, in fact, taken place, in all countries, and all ages, we may
conclude, with still greater certainty, that it was intended by that omniscient
Being who can never be deceived by any event or operation. But since he gave
rise to it, not by any particular or miraculous interposition, but by his
concealed and universal efficacy, a sovereign cannot, properly speaking, be
called his vicegerent in any other sense than every power or force, being
derived from him, may be said to act by his commission. Whatever actually
happens is comprehended in the general plan or intention of Providence; nor has
the greatest and most lawful prince any more reason, upon that account, to
plead a peculiar sacredness or inviolable authority, than an inferior
magistrate, or even an usurper, or even a robber and a pirate. The same Divine
Superintendent, who, for wise purposes, invested a Titus or a Trajan with
authority, did also, for purposes no doubt equally wise, though unknown, bestow
power on a Borgia or an Angria. The same causes, which gave rise to the
sovereign power in every state, established likewise every petty jurisdiction
in it, and every limited authority. A constable, therefore, no less than a
king, acts by a divine commission, and possesses an indefeasible right.
¶4 When we consider how nearly equal all men are
in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, till
cultivated by education, we must necessarily allow that nothing but their own
consent could at first associate them together and subject them to any
authority. The people, if we trace government to its first origin in the woods
and deserts, are the source of all power and jurisdiction, and voluntarily, for
the sake of peace and order, abandoned their native liberty and received laws
from their equal and companion. The conditions upon which they were willing to
submit were either expressed or were so clear and obvious that it might well be
esteemed superfluous to express them. If this, then, be meant by the original
contract, it cannot be denied that all government is, at first, founded on
a contract and that the most ancient rude combinations of mankind were formed
chiefly by that principle. In vain are we asked in what records this charter of
our liberties is registered. It was not written on parchment, nor yet on leaves
or barks of trees. It preceded the use of writing and all the other civilized
arts of life. But we trace it plainly in the nature of man and in the equality,
or something approaching equality, which we find in all the individuals of that
species. The force which now prevails, and which is founded on fleets and
armies, is plainly political and derived from authority, the effect of
established government. A man’s natural force consists only in the vigor of his
limbs and the firmness of his courage, which could never subject multitudes to
the command of one. Nothing but their own consent and their sense of the
advantages resulting from peace and order could have had that influence.
¶5 Yet even this consent was long very imperfect
and could not be the basis of a regular administration. The chieftain, who had
probably acquired his influence during the continuance of war, ruled more by
persuasion than command; and till he could employ force to reduce the
refractory and disobedient, the society could scarcely be said to have attained
a state of civil government. No compact or agreement, it is evident, was
expressly formed for general submission, an idea far beyond the comprehension of
savages. Each exertion of authority in the chieftain must have been particular and called forth by the present exigencies of the
case. The sensible utility resulting from his interposition made these
exertions become daily more frequent; and their frequency gradually produced a
habitual and, if you please to call it so, a voluntary and therefore precarious
acquiescence in the people.
¶6 But philosophers who have embraced a party—if
that be not a contradiction in terms—are not content with these concessions.
They assert not only that government in its earliest infancy arose from
consent, or rather the voluntary acquiescence of the people, but also that,
even at present, when it has attained its full maturity, it rests on no other
foundation. They affirm that all men are still born equal and owe allegiance to
no prince or government unless bound by the obligation and sanction of a promise.
And as no man, without some equivalent, would forego the advantages of his
native liberty and subject himself to the will of another, this promise is
always understood to be conditional and imposes on him no obligation, unless he
meet with justice and protection from his sovereign. These advantages the
sovereign promises him in return; and if he fail in
the execution, he has broken on his part the articles of engagement, and has
thereby freed his subject from all obligations to allegiance. Such, according
to these philosophers, is the foundation of authority in every government, and
such the right of resistance possessed by every subject.
¶7 But would these reasoners look abroad into
the world, they would meet with nothing that in the least corresponds to their ideas
or can warrant so refined and philosophical a system. On the contrary, we find
everywhere princes who claim their subjects as their property and assert their
independent right of sovereignty from conquest or succession. We find also
everywhere subjects who acknowledge this right in their prince and suppose
themselves born under obligations of obedience to a certain sovereign, as much
as under the ties of reverence and duty to certain parents. These connections
are always conceived to be equally independent of our consent, in Persia and
China, in France and Spain, and even in Holland and England, wherever the
doctrines above mentioned have not been carefully inculcated. Obedience or
subjection becomes so familiar that most men never make any inquiry about its
origin or cause, more than about the principle of gravity, resistance, or the
most universal laws of nature. Or if curiosity ever move them, as soon as they
learn that they themselves and their ancestors have, for several ages, or from
time immemorial, been subject to such a form of government or such a family,
they immediately acquiesce and acknowledge their obligation to allegiance. Were
you to preach, in most parts of the world, that political connections are
founded altogether on voluntary consent or a mutual promise, the magistrate
would soon imprison you as seditious for loosening the ties of obedience, if
your friends did not before shut you up as delirious for advancing such
absurdities. It is strange that an act of the mind which every individual is
supposed to have formed, and after he came to the use of reason too—otherwise
it could have no authority—that this act, I say, should be so much unknown to
all of them that over the face of the whole earth there scarcely remain any
traces or memory of it.
¶8 But the contract on which government is
founded is said to be the original contract, and consequently may
be supposed too old to fall under the knowledge of the present generation. If
the agreement by which savage men first associated and conjoined their force be
here meant, this is acknowledged to be real; but being so ancient and being
obliterated by a thousand changes of government and princes, it cannot now be
supposed to retain any authority. If we would say anything to the purpose, we
must assert that every particular government which is lawful
and which imposes any duty of allegiance on the subject was at first founded on
consent and a voluntary compact. But besides that this supposes the consent of
the fathers to bind the children, even to the most remote generations—which
republican writers4 will never allow—besides this, I say, it is not
justified by history or experience in any age or country of the world.
[4“’Republican writers’ were the political theorists who favored the
sovereignty of Parliament. They were not necessarily anti-monarchical. The
foremost representatives of this group were, among others, Milton, Harrington,
Algernon Sidney, Halifax, and Locke.” Footnote in Hendel edition]
¶9 Almost all the governments which exist at
present, or of which there remains any record in story, have been founded
originally either on usurpation or conquest or both, without any pretense of a
fair consent or voluntary subjection of the people. When an artful and bold man
is placed at the head of an army or faction, it is often easy for him, by
employing sometimes violence, sometimes false pretenses, to establish his
dominion over a people a hundred times more numerous than his partisans. He
allows no such open communication that his enemies can know with certainty
their number or force. He gives them no leisure to assemble
together in a body to oppose him. Even all those who are the instruments
of his usurpation may wish his fall, but their ignorance of each other’s
intention keeps them in awe and is the sole cause of his security. By such arts
as these many governments have been established, and this is all the original
contract which they have to boast of.
¶10 The face of the earth is continually
changing by the increase of small kingdoms into great empires, by the
dissolution of great empires into smaller kingdoms, by the planting of
colonies, by the migration of tribes. Is there anything discoverable in all
these events but force and violence? Where is the mutual agreement or voluntary
association so much talked of?
¶11 Even the smoothest way by which a nation may
receive a foreign master, by marriage or a will, is not extremely honorable for
the people, but supposes them to be disposed of like a dowry or a legacy,
according to the pleasure or interest of their rulers.
¶12But where no force interposes and election
takes place, what is this election so highly vaunted? It is either the
combination of a few great men who decide for the whole and will allow of no
opposition or it is the fury of a multitude that follow a seditious ringleader
who is not known, perhaps, to a dozen among them and who owes his advancement
merely to his own impudence or to the momentary caprice of his fellows.
¶13 Are these disorderly elections, which are
rare too, of such mighty authority as to be the only lawful foundation of all
government and allegiance?
¶14 In reality there is not a more terrible
event than a total dissolution of government, which gives liberty to the
multitude and makes the determination or choice of a new establishment depend
upon a number which nearly approaches to that of the body of the people. For it
never comes entirely to the whole body of them. Every wise man, then, wishes to
see at the head of a powerful and obedient army a general who may speedily
seize the prize and give to the people a master which they are so unfit to
choose for themselves—so little correspondent is fact and reality to those
philosophical notions.
¶15 Let not the establishment at the Revolution
deceive us or make us so much in love with a philosophical origin to government
as to imagine all others monstrous and irregular. Even that event was far from
corresponding to these refined ideas. It was only the succession, and that only
in the regal part of the government, which was then changed. And it was only
the majority of seven hundred who determined that change for near ten millions. I doubt not, indeed, but the bulk of those ten millions acquiesced willingly in the determination. But was
the matter left in the least to their choice? Was it not justly supposed to be
from that moment decided and every man punished who refused to submit to the
new sovereign? How otherwise could the matter have ever been brought to any
issue or conclusion?
¶16 The republic of Athens was, I believe, the
most extensive democracy that we read of in history: yet if we make the
requisite allowances for the women, the slaves, and the strangers, we shall
find, that that establishment was not at first made, nor any law ever voted, by
a tenth part of those who were bound to pay obedience to it; not to mention the
islands and foreign dominions, which the Athenians claimed as theirs by right
of conquest. And as it is well known that popular assemblies in that city were
always full of license and disorder, not withstanding
the institutions and laws by which they were checked; how much more disorderly
must they prove, where they form not the established constitution, but meet
tumultuously on the dissolution of the ancient government, in order to give
rise to a new one? How chimerical must it be to talk of a choice in such
circumstances?
¶17 The Achæans
enjoyed the freest and most perfect democracy of all antiquity; yet they
employed force to oblige some cities to enter into
their league, as we learn from Polybius.
¶18 Harry the IVth and
Harry the VIIth of England, had really no title to
the throne but a parliamentary election; yet they never would acknowledge it,
lest they should thereby weaken their authority. Strange, if the only real
foundation of all authority be consent and promise?
¶19 It is in vain to say that all governments
are or should be at first founded on popular consent as much as the necessity
of human affairs will admit. This favors entirely my pretension. I maintain
that human affairs will never admit of this consent, seldom of the appearance
of it; but that conquest or usurpation—that is, in plain terms, force—by
dissolving the ancient governments, is the origin of almost all the new ones
which were ever established in the world. And that in the few cases where
consent may seem to have taken place, it was commonly so irregular, so
confined, or so much intermixed either with fraud or violence that it cannot
have any great authority.
¶20 My intention here is not to exclude the
consent of the people from being one just foundation of government. Where it
has place, it is surely the best and most sacred of any. I only contend that it
has very seldom had place in any degree, and never almost in its full extent,
and that, therefore, some other foundation of government must also be admitted.
¶21 Were all men possessed of so inflexible a
regard to justice that of themselves they would totally abstain from the
properties of others, they had forever remained in a state of absolute liberty,
without subjection to any magistrate or political society. But this is a state
of perfection of which human nature is justly deemed incapable. Again, were all
men possessed of so perfect an understanding as always to know their own
interests, no form of government had ever been submitted to but what was
established on consent and was fully canvassed by every member of the society.
But this state of perfection is likewise much superior to human nature. Reason,
history, and experience show us that all political societies have had an origin
much less accurate and regular; and were one to choose a period of time when
the people’s consent was the least regarded in public transactions, it would be
precisely on the establishment of a new government. In a settled constitution
their inclinations are often consulted, but during the fury of revolutions,
conquests, and public convulsions, military force or political craft usually
decides the controversy.
¶22 When a new government is established, by
whatever means, the people are commonly dissatisfied with it and pay obedience
more from fear and necessity than from any idea of allegiance or of moral
obligation. The prince is watchful and jealous, and
must carefully guard against every beginning or appearance of insurrection.
Time, by degrees, removes all these difficulties and accustoms the nation to
regard as their lawful or native princes that family which at first they considered as usurpers or foreign conquerors. In
order to found this opinion, they have no recourse to
any notion of voluntary consent or promise which, they know, never was in this
case either expected or demanded. The original establishment was formed by
violence and submitted to from necessity. The subsequent administration is also
supported by power and acquiesced in by the people, not as a matter of choice
but of obligation. They imagine not that their consent gives their prince a
title. But they willingly consent because they think that, from long
possession, he has acquired a title independent of their choice or inclination.
¶23 Should it be said that, by living under the
dominion of a prince which one might leave, every individual has given a tacit consent
to his authority and promised him obedience, it may be answered that such an
implied consent can only have place where a man imagines that the matter
depends on his choice. But where he thinks—as all mankind do who are born under
established governments—that by his birth he owes allegiance to a certain
prince or certain form of government, it would be absurd to infer a consent or
choice which he expressly in this case renounces and disclaims.
¶24 Can we seriously say,
that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country, when he
knows no foreign language or manners, and lives, from day to day, by the small
wages which he acquires? We may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a
vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on
board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean and perish, the moment he
leaves her.
¶25 What if the prince forbid his subjects to
quit his dominions; as in Tiberius's time, it was regarded as a crime in a
Roman knight that he had attempted to fly to the Parthians, in order to escape
the tyranny of that emperor? Or as the ancient Muscovites prohibited all
travelling under pain of death? And did a prince observe, that many of his
subjects were seized with the frenzy of migrating to foreign countries, he
would, doubtless, with great reason and justice, restrain them, in order to
prevent the depopulation of his own kingdom. Would he forfeit the allegiance of
all his subjects by so wise and reasonable a law? Yet the freedom of their
choice is surely, in that case, ravished from them.
¶26 A company of men, who should leave their
native country, in order to people some uninhabited region, might dream of
recovering their native freedom; but they would soon find, that their prince
still laid claim to them, and called them his subjects, even in their new
settlement. And in this he would but act conformably to the common ideas of
mankind.
¶27The truest tacit consent of
this kind that is ever observed, is when a foreigner settles in any country,
and is beforehand acquainted with the prince, and government, and laws, to
which he must submit: yet is his allegiance, though more voluntary, much less
expected or depended on, than that of a natural born subject. On the contrary,
his native prince still asserts a claim to him. And if he punish not the
renegade, where he seizes him in war with his new prince's commission; this clemency
is not founded on the municipal law, which in all countries condemns the
prisoner; but on the consent of princes, who have agreed to this indulgence, in
order to prevent reprisals.
¶28 Did one generation of men go off the stage
at once and another succeed, as is the case with silkworms and butterflies, the
new race, if they had sense enough to choose their government, which surely is
never the case with men, might voluntarily and by general consent establish
their own form of civil polity without any regard to the laws or precedents
which prevailed among their ancestors. But as human society is in perpetual
flux, one man every hour going out of the world, another coming into it, it is
necessary in order to preserve stability in government that the new brood
should conform themselves to the established constitution and nearly follow the
path which their fathers, treading in the footsteps of theirs, had marked out
to them. Some innovations must necessarily have place in every human
institution; and it is happy where the enlightened genius of the age give these
a direction to the side of reason, liberty, and justice. But violent
innovations no individual is entitled to make. They are even dangerous to be
attempted by the legislature. More ill than good is ever to be expected from
them. And if history affords examples to the contrary, they are not to be drawn
into precedent and are only to be regarded as proofs that the science of
politics affords few rules which will not admit of some exception and which may
not sometimes be controlled by fortune and accident. The violent innovations in
the reign of Henry VIII proceeded from an imperious monarch seconded by the
appearance of legislative authority; those in the reign of Charles I were
derived from faction and fanaticism; and both of them
have proved happy in the issue. But even the former were long the source of
many disorders, and still more dangers; and if the measures of allegiance were
to be taken from the latter, a total anarchy must have place in human society
and a final period at once be put to every government.
¶29 Suppose that a usurper, after having
banished his lawful prince and royal family, should establish his dominion for
ten or a dozen years in any country and should preserve so exact a discipline
in his troops and so regular a disposition in his garrisons that no
insurrection had ever been raised or even murmur heard against his
administration. Can it be asserted that the people, who in their hearts abhor
his treason, have tacitly consented to his authority and promised him
allegiance merely because, from necessity, they live under his dominion?
Suppose again their native prince restored by means of an army which he levies
in foreign countries. They receive him with joy and exultation,
and show plainly with what reluctance they had submitted to any other
yoke. I may now ask upon what foundation the prince’s title stands? Not on
popular consent surely; for though the people
willingly acquiesce in his authority, they never imagine that their consent
made him sovereign. They consent because they apprehend him to be already, by
birth, their lawful sovereign. And as to tacit consent, which may now be
inferred from their living under his dominion, this is no more than what they
formerly gave to the tyrant and usurper.
¶30 When we assert, that all lawful government
arises from the consent of the people, we certainly do them a great deal more honour than they deserve, or even expect and desire from
us. After the Roman dominions became too unwieldy for the republic to govern
them, the people over the whole known world were extremely grateful to Augustus
for that authority which, by violence, he had established over them; and they
shewed an equal disposition to submit to the successor whom he left them by his
last will and testament. It was afterwards their misfortune, that there never
was, in one family, any long regular succession; but that their line of princes
was continually broken, either by private assassinations or public rebellions.
The prætorian bands, on the failure
of every family, set up one emperor; the legions in the East a second; those in
Germany, perhaps a third; and the sword alone could decide the controversy. The
condition of the people in that mighty monarchy was to be lamented, not because
the choice of the emperor was never left to them, for that was impracticable,
but because they never fell under any succession of masters who might regularly
follow each other. As to the violence, and wars, and bloodshed, occasioned by
every new settlement, these were not blameable
because they were inevitable.
¶31 The house of Lancaster ruled in this island
about sixty years; yet the partisans of the white rose seemed daily to multiply
in England. The present establishment has taken place during a still longer
period. Have all views of right in another family been utterly extinguished,
even though scarce any man now alive had arrived at the years of discretion
when it was expelled, or could have consented to its dominion, or have promised
it allegiance? -- a sufficient indication, surely, of the general sentiment of
mankind on this head. For we blame not the partisans of the abdicated family
merely on account of the long time during which they have preserved their
imaginary loyalty. We blame them for adhering to a family which we affirm has
been justly expelled, and which, from the moment the new settlement took place,
had forfeited all title to authority.
¶32 But would we have a more regular, at least a
more philosophical, refutation of this principle of an original contract or
popular consent, perhaps the following observations may suffice.
¶33 All moral duties may be
divided into two kinds. The first are those to which men are
impelled by a natural instinct or immediate propensity
which operates on them, independent of all ideas of obligation and of all views
either to public or private utility. Of this nature are love of children,
gratitude to benefactors, pity to the unfortunate. When we reflect on the
advantage which results to society from such humane instincts, we pay them the
just tribute of moral approbation and esteem. But the person actuated by them
feels their power and influence antecedent to any such reflection.
¶34 The second kind of moral duties
are such as are not supported by any original instinct of nature, but are
performed entirely from a sense of obligation, when we consider the necessities
of human society and the impossibility of supporting it if these duties were
neglected. It is thus justice, or a regard to the property of
others, fidelity, or the observance of promises, become obligatory
and acquire an authority over mankind. For as it is evident that every man
loves himself better than any other person, he is naturally impelled to extend
his acquisitions as much as possible; and nothing can restrain him in this
propensity but reflection and experience, by which he learns the pernicious
effects of that license and the total dissolution of society which must ensue
from it. His original inclination, therefore, or instinct, is here checked and
restrained by a subsequent judgment or observation.
¶35 The case is precisely the same with the
political or civil duty of allegiance as with the natural
duties of justice and fidelity. Our primary instincts lead us either to indulge
ourselves in unlimited freedom or to seek dominion over others; and it is
reflection only which engages us to sacrifice such strong passions to the
interests of peace and public order. A small degree of experience and
observation suffices to teach us that society cannot possibly be maintained
without the authority of magistrates, and that this authority must soon fall
into contempt where exact obedience is not paid to it. The observation of these
general and obvious interests is the source of all allegiance and of that moral
obligation which we attribute to it.
¶36 What necessity, therefore, is there to found
the duty of allegiance or obedience to magistrates on that
of fidelity or a regard to promises, and to suppose, that it
is the consent of each individual which subjects him to government, when it
appears that both allegiance and fidelity stand precisely on the same
foundation, and are both submitted to by mankind, on account of the apparent
interests and necessities of human society? We are bound to obey our sovereign,
it is said, because we have given a tacit promise to that purpose. But why are
we bound to observe our promise? It must here be asserted, that the commerce
and intercourse of mankind, which are of such mighty advantage, can have no
security where men pay no regard to their engagements. In like manner, may it
be said that men could not live at all in society, at least in a civilized
society, without laws, and magistrates, and judges, to prevent the encroachments
of the strong upon the weak, of the violent upon the just and equitable. The
obligation to allegiance being of like force and authority with the obligation
to fidelity, we gain nothing by resolving the one into the other. The general
interests or necessities of society are sufficient to
establish both.
¶37 If the reason be asked of that obedience,
which we are bound to pay to government, I readily answer, Because society could not otherwise subsist; and
this answer is clear and intelligible to all mankind. Your answer is, Because we should keep our word. But
besides, that no body, till trained in a philosophical system, can either
comprehend or relish this answer; besides this, I say, you find yourself
embarrassed when it is asked, Why we are bound to keep our word? Nor
can you give any answer but what would, immediately, without any circuit, have
accounted for our obligation to allegiance.
¶38 But to whom is allegiance due? And
who is our lawful sovereign? This question is often the most difficult
of any, and liable to infinite discussions. When people are so happy that they
can answer,Our present sovereign, who inherits,
in a direct line, from ancestors that have governed us for many ages, this
answer admits of no reply, even though historians, in tracing up to the
remotest antiquity the origin of that royal family, may find, as commonly
happens, that its first authority was derived from usurpation and violence. It
is confessed that private justice, or the abstinence from the properties of
others, is a most cardinal virtue. Yet reason tells us that there is no
property in durable objects, such as lands or houses, when carefully examined
in passing from hand to hand, but must, in some period, have been founded on
fraud and injustice. The necessities of human society, neither in private nor
public life, will allow of such an accurate inquiry; and there is no virtue or
moral duty but what may, with facility, be refined away, if we indulge a false
philosophy in sifting and scrutinizing it, by every captious rule of logic, in
every light or position in which it may be placed.
¶39 The questions with regard to private property
have filled infinite volumes of law and philosophy, if in both we add the
commentators to the original text; and in the end, we may safely pronounce,
that many of the rules there established are uncertain, ambiguous, and
arbitrary. The like opinion may be formed with regard to
the succession and rights of princes, and forms of government. Several cases no
doubt occur, especially in the infancy of any constitution, which admit of no
determination from the laws of justice and equity; and our historian Rapin pretends, that the controversy between Edward the
Third and Philip de Valois was of this nature, and could be decided only by an
appeal to heaven, that is, by war and violence.
¶40 Who shall tell me whether Germanicus or
Drusus ought to have succeeded to Tiberius, had he died while they were both
alive without naming any of them for his successor? Ought the right of adoption
to be received as equivalent to that of blood in a nation where it had the same
effect in private families and had already, in two instances, taken place in
the public? Ought Germanicus to be esteemed the elder son because he was born
before Drusus, or the younger because he was adopted after the birth of his
brother? Ought the right of the elder to be regarded in a nation where he had
no advantage in the succession of private families? Ought the Roman Empire at
that time to be deemed hereditary because of two examples; or ought it, even so
early, to be regarded as belonging to the stronger or to the present possessor,
as being founded on so recent a usurpation?
¶41
Commodus mounted the throne after a pretty long succession of excellent
emperors who had acquired their title, not by birth or public election, but by
the fictitious rite of adoption. The bloody debauche
being murdered by a conspiracy suddenly formed between his wench and her
gallant, who happened at that time to be a praetorian praefect,
these immediately deliberated about vhoosing a master
to human kind, to speak in the style of those ages, and they cast their eyes on
Pertinax. Before the tyrant’s death was known, the praefect went secretly to that senator who, on the
appearance of the soldiers, imagined that his execution had been ordered by
Commodus. He was immediately saluted emperor by the officer and his attendants,
cheerfully proclaimed by the populace, unwillingly submitted to by the guards,
formally recognized by the senate, and passively received by the provinces and
armies of the empire.
¶42 The
discontent of the praetorian bands broke out in a sudden sedition, which
occasioned the murder of that excellent prince; and the world being now without
a master and without government, the guards thought proper to set the empire
formally to sale. Julian, the purchaser, was proclaimed by the soldiers,
recognized by the senate, and submitted to by the people; and must also have
been submitted to the provinces had not the envy of the legions
begotten opposition and resistance. Pescennius Niger
of Syria elected himself emperor, gained the tumultuary consent of the army,
and was attended with the secret good will of the senate and the people of
Rome. Albinus in Britain found an equal right to set up his claim, but Severus,
who governed Pannonia, prevailed in the end above both of
them. That able politician and warrior, finding his own birth and
dignity too much inferior to the imperial crown, professed at first an
intention only of revenging the death of Pertinax. He
marched as general into Italy, defeated Julian, and without our being able to
fix any precise commencement even of the soldiers’ consent he was from
necessity acknowledged emperor by the senate and people, and fully established
in his violent authority by subduing Niger and Albinus.
¶43 “Inter
haec Gordianus Caesar,”
says Capitolinus, speaking of another period, “sublatus a militibus. Imperator est appellatus, quia non erat alius in praesenti.” It
is to be remarked that Gordian was a boy of fourteen years of age. [“In the
midst of these events Gordian Caesar was acclaimed by the army. He was declared
‘imperator,’ because there was no other ‘imperator’ at the
moment.” Footnote in Hendel edition.]
¶44 Frequent instances of a like nature occur in
the history of the emperors; in that of Alexander's successors; and of many
other countries: nor can any thing be more unhappy than
a despotic government of this kind; where the succession is disjointed and
irregular, and must be determined, on every vacancy, by force or election. In a
free government, the matter is often unavoidable, and is also much less
dangerous. The interests of liberty may there frequently lead the people, in
their own defence, to alter the succession of the
crown. And the constitution, being compounded of parts, may still maintain a sufficient stability, by resting on the aristocratical or democratical members, though the monarchical be altered,
from time to time, in order to accommodate it to the former.
¶45 In an absolute government, when there is no
legal prince who has a title to the throne, it may safely be determined to
belong to the first occupant. Instances of this kind are but too frequent,
especially in the eastern monarchies. When any race of princes expires, the
will or destination of the last sovereign will be regarded as a title. Thus the edict of Louis the XIVth,
who called the bastard princes to the succession in case of the failure of all
the legitimate princes, would, in such an event, have some authority. Thus the will of Charles the Second disposed of the whole
Spanish monarchy. The cession of the ancient proprietor, especially when joined
to conquest, is likewise deemed a good title. The general obligation, which
binds us to government, is the interest and necessities of society; and this
obligation is very strong. The determination of it to this or that particular prince, or form of government, is frequently more
uncertain and dubious. Present possession has considerable authority in these
cases, and greater than in private property; because of the disorders which
attend all revolutions and changes of government.
¶46 We shall only observe, before we conclude,
that though an appeal to general opinion may justly, in the speculative
sciences of metaphysics, natural philosophy, or astronomy, be deemed unfair and
inconclusive, yet in all questions with regard to morals, as well as criticism,
there is really no other standard, by which any controversy can ever be
decided. And nothing is a clearer proof, that a theory of this kind is
erroneous, than to find, that it leads to paradoxes repugnant to the common
sentiments of mankind, and to the practice and opinion of all nations and all
ages. The doctrine, which founds all lawful government on an original
contract, or consent of the people, is plainly of this kind; nor has
the most noted of its partisans, in prosecution of it, scrupled to
affirm, that absolute monarchy is inconsistent with civil society, and
so can be no form of civil government at all; and that the
supreme power in a state cannot take from any man, by taxes and impositions,
any part of his property, without his own consent or that of his
representatives. What authority any moral reasoning can have, which
leads into opinions so wide of the general practice of mankind, in every place
but this single kingdom, it is easy to determine.
¶47 The only passage I meet with in antiquity,
where the obligation of obedience to government is ascribed to a promise, is in
Plato's Crito; where Socrates refuses to escape from prison,
because he had tacitly promised to obey the laws. Thus
he builds a Tory consequence of passive obedience on a Whig foundation
of the original contract.
¶48 New discoveries are not to be expected
in these matters. If scarce any man, till very lately, ever imagined that
government was founded on compact, it is certain that it cannot, in general,
have any such foundation.
¶49 The crime of rebellion among the ancients
was commonly expressed by the terms νεοτεριζειν,
νουας ρες μολιρι.
This edition of “Of the Original Contract” was
pieced together from the following sources: TeachingAmericanHistory.org; Jon
Roland @ http://rocket.csusb.edu/~tmoody/hume%20-of%20the%20original%20contract-.html;
David Hume’s Political Essays, ed.
Charles W. Hendel (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953)