Rights In Civil Society
Appendix 3. (1895).
The sixteenth century saw the first appearance of authors who were to proliferate a century later. They are aptly called `sophists', a word in wide use today. The external cause influencing the emergence of this kind of wrong-headed writer is the disharmony between the state of civil society (principally its organisation) and the correspondingly excessive intellectual development of its members. Ill-at-ease in society, they have to show their displeasure, but express it indirectly and captiously in their writings and teaching because they are not free to do so openly. Corrupt, they are vexed by the social ills in which they share and which they exaggerate, as though to appease their bitterness. Unable to give free vent to their poison, they become enraged. On the other hand the feeling of deep disgust they have for themselves, for their contemporaries and for public matters is even more confused. They can neither say what they want, nor express their opinions clearly. Their consequent embarrassment increases the exaggeration and acerbity of their claims and of the new systems they dream up every day. Their satirical, mocking style, when carefully examined, is simply a continuous argument ad hominem, a discussion about generally accepted principles from which they deduce absurdities to overthrow principles. Their reasoning is always far removed from what in fact they feel and want; their subtleties are simply an attempt to torment and confuse their contemporaries, to shatter prevalent opinion and the society in which they live. They give no thought to applying themselves seriously to solid doctrine which might substitute something useful and enduring for what they want to destroy.
Hobbes, one of the first sophists, is a perfect example of this type of person. The very title of his book, Leviathan, indicates a satire of unrestrained civil power. The mockery in a book which acknowledges as civil power only an unlimited monarchy, not even restricted by natural justice, is patent to all. For him, tyranny and monarchy do not differ in any way (De Cive, cc. 7 and 10). The absolute monarchy he establishes originates from a contract, but he says:
1. This contract must be made by everyone with everyone, `because no one is
obliged by a pact of which he is not the author' (De Cive, c. 6).
2. The pact is invalid without external signs, which however have no value
per se but only through fear of the harm caused by their violation
(Leviath., pt. 1, c. 14; De Cive., c. 2).
3. A contract in which a person gives to another without receiving anything is
absurd. Hence, the social contract is possible only in so far as those making
it fear death if they do not make it (ibid.).
4. A strong person whom another cannot resist is free to break the pact (De
homine, 14, 15).
5. There is no law except natural law, which consists in doing what is
helpful and avoiding what is harmful. Keeping a pact pertains to natural law
simply because it is useful to keep it, not otherwise (ibid.).
6. In many places Hobbes very clearly satirises rulers whose vices and
exaggerated power he undertakes to justify, for example, in Leviath.,
pt. 1, c. 11, and in the Dedication of De Cive.
Finally he himself advises his readers to use his system by bawling it aloud like the geese who saved the Capitoline with their squawking. This is the clearest expression of his thought: `I can do nothing better than sing the praises of civil power (ITS POSSESSOR desires it to be as great as possible). And I am discussing mere right, not HUMAN RIGHT (note this). I squawk like the GEESE ON THE CAPITOLINE at the sound of the climbers' (Leviath., Dedic.).
It is very strange that this sophist has been understood as a serious teacher. Many have made him their master, others have refuted him. I repeat, there is no system in what he says, simply the appearances of a system, under which he tries to demonstrate the enormous absurdities and wickedness of principles which, in his opinion, reign over or rather undermine society as it was in his country at the time. Rousseau, despite saying the opposite, grasped his spirit and made himself his interpreter. Rousseau, although he saw that Hobbes' principles would have the opposite result to those intended, was deceived by the principles themselves. These were copied (or at least the author thought they were copied) from the fact of existing society, not from the author's mind and persuasion. Rousseau was unable to distance himself from the dialectic artifice of his master and exemplar; at the cost of choking himself he gulped down great chunks as though they were sugar-coated pills. In fact, Rousseau, as I have said elsewhere, cannot be classed among philosophers but among literary critics or satirical poets — call him whatever you please. In this respect his eloquent exaggerations contain something moral, a kind of deposit of virtue (cf. SP, 81-90).