Harrington’s Oceana. 81. England, thrown at the commencement of this period upon the resources of her own invention to replace an ancient monarchy by something new, and rich at that time in reflecting as well as learned men, with an unshackled press, and a growing disdain of authority as opposed to argument, was the natural soil of political theory. The earliest fruit was Sir James Harrington’s Oceana, published in 1656. This once famous book is a political allegory, partly suggested, perhaps, by the Dodona’s Grove of Howell, or by Barclay’s Argenis, and a few other fictions of the preceding age. His Oceana represents England, the history of which is shadowed out with fictitious names. But this is preliminary to the great object, the scheme of a new commonwealth, which, under the auspices of Olphaus Megaletor, the lord Archon, meaning, of course, Cromwell, not as he was, but as he ought to have been, the author feigns to have been established. The various laws and constitutions of this polity occupy the whole work.
82. The leading principle of Harrington is that power depends on property; denying the common saying, that knowledge or prudence is power. But this property must be in land, “because, as to property producing empire, it is required that it should have some certain root or foot-hold, which, except in land, it cannot have, being otherwise, as it were, upon the wing. Nevertheless, in such cities as subsist mostly by trade, and have little or no land, as Holland and Genoa, the balance of treasure may be equal to that of land.”[945] The law fixing the balance of lands is called by him agrarian, and without an agrarian law, he holds that no government, whether monarchical, aristocratic, or popular, has any long duration; this is rather paradoxical; but his distribution of lands varies according to the form of the commonwealth. In one best constituted the possession of lands is limited to £2,000 a year; which, of course, in his time, was a much greater estate than at present.
[945] P. 38, edit. 1771.
83. Harrington’s general scheme of a good government is one “established upon an equal agrarian arising into the superstructure, or three orders, the senate debating and proposing, the people resolving, and the magistracy executing by an equal rotation through the suffrage of the people given by the ballot.” His more particular form of polity, devised for his Oceana, it would be tedious to give in detail: the result is a moderate aristocracy; property, though under the control of his agrarian, which prevents its excess, having so great a share in the elections that it must predominate. But it is an aristocracy of what we should call the middle ranks, and might not be unfit for a small state. In general, it may be said of Harrington, that he is prolix, dull, pedantic, yet seldom profound; but sometimes redeems himself by just observations. Like most theoretical politicians of that age he had an excessive admiration for the republic of Venice.[946] His other political writings are in the same spirit as the Oceana, but still less interesting.
[946] “If I be worthy to give advice to a man that would study politics, let him understand Venice; he that understands Venice right, shall go nearest to judge, notwithstanding the difference that is in every policy, right of any government in the world.” Harrington’s Works, p. 292.
Patriarcha of Filmer. 84. The manly republicanism of Harrington, though sometimes visionary and, perhaps, impracticable, shines by comparison with a very opposite theory, which, having been countenanced in the early part of the century by our clergy, revived with additional favour after the Restoration. This was maintained in the Patriarcha of Sir Robert Filmer, written, as it appears, in the reign of Charles I., but not published till 1680, at a time when very high notions of royal prerogative were as well received by one faction as they were indignantly rejected by another. The object, as the author declares, was to prove that the first kings were fathers of families; that it is unnatural for the people to govern or to choose governors; that positive laws do not infringe the natural and fatherly power of kings. He refers the tenet of natural liberty and the popular origin of government to the schoolmen, allowing that all papists and the reformed divines have imbibed it, but denying that it is found in the fathers. He seems, indeed, to claim the credit of an original hypothesis; those who have vindicated the rights of kings in most points not having thought of this, but with one consent admitted the natural liberty and equality of mankind. It is certain, nevertheless, that the patriarchal theory of government as the basis of actual right was laid down as explicitly as by himself in what is called Bishop Overall’s Convocation Book, at the beginning of the reign of James I. But this book had not been published when Filmer wrote. His arguments are singularly insufficient; he quotes nothing but a few irrelevant texts from Genesis; he seems not to have known at all the strength, whatever it may be, of his own case, and it is hardly possible to find a more trifling and feeble work. It had, however, the advantage of opportunity to be received by a party with approbation.
Sydney’s Discourses on Government. 85. Algernon Sydney was the first who devoted his time to a refutation of this patriarchal theory, propounded as it was, not as a plausible hypothesis to explain the origin of civil communities, but as a paramount title, by virtue of which all actual sovereigns, who were not manifest usurpers, were to reign with an unmitigated despotism. Sydney’s Discourses on Government, not published till 1698, are a diffuse reply to Filmer. They contain, indeed, many chapters full of historical learning and judicious reflection; yet the constant anxiety to refute that which needs no refutation renders them a little tedious. Sydney does not condemn a limited monarchy like the English, but his partiality is for a form of republic which would be deemed too aristocratical for our popular theories.
Locke on Government. 86. Locke, immediately after the revolution, attacked the Patriarcha with more brevity, and laid down his own celebrated theory of government. The fundamental principle of Filmer is, that paternal authority is naturally absolute. Adam received it from God, exercised it over his own children, and transmitted it to the eldest born for ever. This assumption Locke combats rather too diffusely, according to our notions. Filmer had not only to show this absolute monarchy of a lineal ancestor, but his power of transmitting it in course of primogeniture. Locke denies that there is any natural right of this kind, maintaining the equality of children. The incapacity of Filmer renders his discomfiture not difficult. Locke, as will be seen, acknowledges a certain de facto authority in fathers of families, and, possibly, he might have found, as, indeed, he seems to admit, considerable traces of a regard to primogeniture in the early ages of the world. It is the question of natural right with which he is here concerned; and, as no proof of this had been offered, he had nothing to answer.
87. In the second part of Locke’s Treatise on Civil Government, he proceeds to lay down what he holds to be the true principles upon which society is founded. A state of nature is a state of perfect freedom and equality; but within the bounds of the law of nature, which obliges every one, and renders a state of liberty no state of licence. And the execution of this law, in such a state, is put into everyone’s hands, so that he may punish transgressors against it, not merely by way of reparation for his own wrongs, but for those of others. “Every offence that can be committed in the state of nature may, in the state of nature, be punished equally, and as far forth, as it may in a commonwealth.” And not only independent communities, but all men, as he thinks, till they voluntarily enter into some society, are in a state of nature.[947]
[947] L. ii., c. 2.