[900] C. 3.
39. Law alone creates obligation; no one can be obliged except towards a superior. But to compel and to oblige being different things, it is required for this latter that we should have received some great good at the hands of a superior, or have voluntarily submitted to his will. This seems to involve an antecedent moral right, which Puffendorf’s general theory denies.[901] Barbeyrac, his able and watchful commentator, derives obligation from our natural dependence on the supreme authority of God, who can punish the disobedient and reward others. In order to make laws obligatory, it is necessary, according to Puffendorf, that we should know both the law and the lawgiver’s authority. Actions are good or evil, as they conform more or less to law. And, coming to consider the peculiar qualities of moral actions, he introduces the distinction of perfect and imperfect rights, objecting to that of Grotius and the Roman lawyers, expletive and distributive justice.[902] This first book of Puffendorf is very diffuse; and some chapters are wholly omitted in the abridgment.
[901] C. 6.
[902] C. 7.
40. The natural state of man, such as in theory we may suppose, is one in which he was never placed, “thrown into the world at a venture, and then left entirely to himself, with no larger endowments of body or mind than such as we now discover in men.” This, however, he seems to think physically possible to have been, which I should incline to question. Man, in a state of nature, is subject to no earthly superior; but we must not infer thence that he is incapable of law, and has a right to everything that is profitable to himself. But, after discussing the position of Hobbes that a state of nature is a state of war, he ends by admitting that the desire of peace is too weak and uncertain a security for its preservation among mankind.[903]
[903] L. ii. c. 2.
41. The law of nature he derives not from consent of nations, nor from personal utility, but from the condition of man. It is discoverable by reason; its obligation is from God. He denies that it is founded on the intrinsic honesty or turpitude of actions. It was free to God whether he would create an animal to whom the present law of nature should be applicable. But supposing all things human to remain constant, the law of nature, though owing its institution to the free will of God, remains unalterable. He therefore neither agrees wholly with those who deem this law as one arbitrary and mutable at God’s pleasure, or those who look upon it as an image of his essential holiness and justice. For he doubts whether the law of nature is altogether conformed to the divine attributes as to a type; since we cannot acquire a right with respect to God; so that his justice must be of a different kind from ours. Common consent, again, is an insufficient basis of natural law, few men having searched into the foundations of their assent, even if we could find a more general consent than is the case. And here he expatiates, in the style of Montaigne’s school, on the variety of moral opinions.[904] Puffendorf next attacks those who resolve right into self-interest. But, unfortunately, he only proves that men often mistake their interest. “It is a great mistake to fancy it will be profitable to you to take away, either by fraud or violence, what another man has acquired by his labour; since others have not only the power of resisting you, but of taking the same freedom with your goods and possessions.” This is evidently no answer to Hobbes or Spinosa.
[904] C. 3.
42. The nature of man, his wants, his powers of doing mischief to others, his means of mutual assistance, show that he cannot be supported in things necessary and convenient to him without society, so that others may promote his interests. Hence, sociableness is a primary law of nature, and all actions tending towards it are commanded, as the opposite are forbidden by that law. In this he agrees with Grotius; and, after he had become acquainted with Cumberland’s work, observes that the fundamental law of that writer, to live for the common good, and show benevolence towards all men, does not differ from his own. He partly explains, and partly answers, the theory of Hobbes. From Grotius he dissents in denying that the law of nature would be binding without religion, but does not think the soul’s immortality essential to it.[905] The best division of natural law is into duties towards ourselves and towards others. But in the abridged work, the Duties of a Man and a Citizen, he adds those towards God.
[905] C. 8.