Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 426, 6 April 1892 — SOCIAL SCIENCE. [ARTICLE]

SOCIAL SCIENCE.

€ITILBOCIBTY. (Continued.) Por a century and a half tbe human mind sat d<mn ob«tinately in froot of the problem of Uie origin Civil Boek&y Aiid sovmment. Ho6bee, Loeke, Filmer, Koeeeauall «nqaire ioto it, &nd ilie first two aa well ae Ro»eau base Uie upon an original covenant or eoeial contract. AU Ihree discusB likewiee the best lom of political Con--Btitutio c; whieh Hobbes finds to be an Abfo)ute ll«iArcby, Loeke a Conetitutional Monarchy and Hoe»eau a Democracy. Hobbee contends that men were first ied to civil society through tbeir terror of anarchy and its experienced evUs in a state of Nature, their original state; —in whieh state there is ceaselees strife, there are no arts, no learning, no inventions, no commerce, and the life of man is u soiitary, poor, nasty, brutieh and ahoH.' 1 Men weary of this state of misery are nrged to get out of it bv their fears, aad being rational ( 'reāSon suggeeteth <»nvenient arUdes of peaoe," whieh in hrief were, that they sbould all fotego mutual aggresaions, and hand over their pow«8 to a singltj person u one man or <me body" who shoold maint&in peaoe and justice, and delend them against outeide enemiee. Tbis one is sovereign. hxs voice is law, u the sp9ecb of him thāt is of rigbt commands," Hobbes believed that an abso!ute moDnr«;tiy, tb? monarch geverning accordinjs to the law of nature, or natural morali tv, is tbe best form of government for the whole people, und especially for tbe masBes. Ii i the monareh is wise and good so mueh tbe better; if not, Hobbes contends. 4 'he »houid still be obeyed, rt heeauee the remedv, revolntion, involving dvil war and anareby would be a worse evil. Better to bear the illa we have than fiy to worao -"to anarcby and its horrors, to get out of wbidb was the original oauee of the aoeial ocmtract and tbe trmaaler of pow«r to the sover--B«eb in brief is the theory of HoMm the author ©f u Leviathan" «rbo fn itDdttiblidly an original i&d idbpndeßt thinker on morai» and poliKoa and whoee writings win epoch-caaking m both. The stu<bnt <.( U>-dav oan discern the errure upoe whioh Hobbes' u|oments wen* He wrote on the preeumptioiy that man is at all tlmet «aine; that ru<k primiliwniuM mSßtny,oflheßune pnneiplee of acticm as civilised mm. He did not allow for the fact nf *voluti«>n; that the eoul of tbe civiliaed man ie as mueh expanded Vyoi d that of the primitiv ōian. as :bat of the*rown man ie beyoiid Uint oi the child; conse9uetitiy hie v, uoant of tbe mot i\Vtr tbet iiret urp*Hl mm inlo societv v . and regulat*d tbeir evly inter- | GOuree on tht eeoie both of psycbo-1 * , -A

! lc«v &nd hi»tofy. K<v«thlkK lhcre remains a certain aioeuni ot force in hi* th*oiy aml reatooingt. | Loeke iikewiae baeed Cml Socieiy on a sociai contracU But 1 «rith Loeke there ie a 00 both sides, on the governed that •h?\ i■. obey p:ovided that the K».*-r .gn wiil govern according to certain fundamenUl pnneiplee, | The obtdience ie not to be unlimite<! or puaaire; in other words the, |y. vf reign« power ehould not be ab- | »i>iute. Loeke founded tbe righte of J pro|»ertv on labor, not on law. . ! I To be ContiDoed. • I