The question recurs-how is this superiour constituted by human authority? Is he constituted by a law? If he is, that law, at least, must be made without a superiour; for by that law the superiour is constituted. If there can be no law without a superiour, then the institution of a superiour, by human authority, must be made in some other manner than by a law. In what other manner can human authority be exerted? Shall we say, that it may be exerted in a covenant or an engagement? Let us say, for we may say justly, that it may. Let us suppose the authority to be exerted, and the covenant or engagement to be made. Still the question recurs-can this authority so exerted, can this covenant or engagement so made, produce a superiour?

If he is now entitled to that appellation, he must be so by virtue of some thing, which he has received. But has he received more than was given? Could more be given than those, who gave it, possessed?

We can form clear conceptions of authority, original and derived, entire and divided into parts; but we have no clear conceptions how the parts can become greater than the whole; nor how authority, that is derived, can become superiour to that authority, from which the derivation is made.

If these observations are well founded; it will be difficult-perhaps we may say, impossible-to account for the institution of a superiour by human authority.

Is there any other human source, from which superiority can spring? 'Tis thought there is: 'tis thought that human submission can effectuate a purpose, for the

accomplishment of which human authority has been found to be unavailing.

And is it come to this! Must submission to an equal be the yoke, under which we must pass, before we can diffuse the mild power, or participate in the benign influence of law? If such is, indeed, our fate, let resignation be our aim but before we resign ourselves, let us examine whether our fate be so hard.

That I may be able to convey a just and full representation of opinions, which have been entertained on this subject, I shall give an abstract of the manner, in which Puffendorff has reasoned concerning it, in his chapter on the generation of civil sovereignty.

His object is," to examine whence that sovereignty or supreme command, which appears in every state, and which, as a kind of soul, informs, enlivens, and moves the publick body, is immediately produced."

In this inquiry, he supposes that civil authority requires natural strength and a title. "Both these requisites," says he, "immediately flow from those pacts, by which the state is united and subsists." With regard to the former-natural strength-he observes, “ that since all the members of the state, in submitting their wills to the will of a single director; did, at the same time, thereby oblige themselves to nonresistance, or to obey him in all his desires and endeavours of applying their strength and wealth to the good of the publick; it appears that he, who holds the sovereign rule, is possessed of sufficient force to compel the discharge of the injunctions, which he lays."

"So, likewise," adds he, "the same covenant affords a full and easy title, by which the sovereignty appears to be established, not upon violence, but in a lawful manner, upon the voluntary consent and subjection of the respective members."

"This, then," continues he, "is the nearest and immediate cause, from which sovereign authority, as a moral quality, doth result. For if we suppose submission in one party, and, in another, the acceptance of that submission; there accrues, presently, to the latter, a right of imposing commands on the former; which is what we term sovereignty or rule. And as, by private contract, the right of any thing which we possess, so, by submission, the right to dispose of our strength and our liberty of acting, may be conveyed to another."

He illustrates this immediate cause of sovereign authority, by the following instance. "If any person should voluntarily and upon covenant deliver himself to me in servitude, he thereby really confers on me the power of a master." "Against which way of arguing, to object the vulgar maxim, quod quis non habet, non potest in alterum transferre, is but a piece of trifling ignor

ance.'

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b Puff. b. 7. c. 3. s. 1. p. 654. 655.

All this, it is true, has been done, in fact. This act of legal suicide has been often perpetrated; and, in the history of some periods, we find the prescribed form, by which liberty was extinguished-a form truly congenial with the transaction-a form expressed in terms the most disgraceful to the dignity of man. "Licentiam habeatis, mihi qualemcunque volueritis disciplinam ponere, vel venumdare, aut quod vobis placuerit de me facere." (6. Gibbon

Shall we, for a moment, suppose all this to be done? What is left to the people? Nothing. What are they? Slaves. What will be their portion? That of the beasts -instinct, compliance, and punishment. So true it is, that in the attempt to make one person more than man, millions must be made less.

We

We now see the price, at which law must be purchased; for we see the terms, on which a superiour, of such absolute necessity to a law, is constituted, according to the hypothesis, of which I have given an account. see the covenants which must be entered into, the consent which must be given, the submission which must be made, the subjection which must be undergone, the state, analogous to servitude, which must be supposed, before this system of superiority can be completed. Has this been always done-must this be always done, in every state, where law is known or felt?

Without examining its incongruity with reason, with freedom, and with fact; without insisting on the incoherence of the parts, and the unsoundness of the whole, I shall, again, for a moment, take it all for granted: and, on that supposition, I shall put the question-Is even all this sufficient to constitute a superiour? Is it in the power of the meanest to prostitute, any more than it is in the power of the greatest to delegate, what he does not

361. cites Marculf. Formul.) But these periods were the periods which introduced and established the feudal law. "The majesty of the Roman law protected the liberty of the citizen against his own distress or despair." 6. Gibbon. 360.

possess?d The arguments, therefore, which we used with regard to the appointment of a superiour by human authority, will equally apply to his appointment by human submission. The manner may be different: the result will be the same.

Indeed, the author of this system betrays a secret consciousness, that it is too weak and too disjointed to stand without an extrinsick support. "Yet still," says he, "to procure to the supreme command an especial efficacy, and a sacred respect, there is need of another additional principle, besides the submission of the subjects. And therefore he who affirms sovereignty to result immediately from compact, doth not, in the least, detract from the sacred character of civil government; or maintain that princes bear rule, by human right only, and not by divine." e

It deserves remark, that, in this passage, Puffendorff assumes the divine right of princes to bear rule, as an admitted principle; and seems only solicitous to show, that the account, which he has given, of the origin of sovereignty, is not inconsistent with their sacred character.

d Let individuals, in any number whatever, become severally and successively subject to one man, they are all, in that case, nothing more than master and slaves; they are not a people governed by their chief; they are an aggregate, if you will; but they do not form an association; there subsists among them neither commonwealth nor body politick. Such a superiour, though he should become master of half the world, would be still a private person, and his interest, separate and distinct from that of his people, would be still no more than a private interest. Rousseau's Orig. Comp. 17. 18.

VOL. I.

e Puff. 655. b. 7. c. 3. s. 1.-2. Burl. 39.

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