登陆注册
15298200000002

第2章

But are we never to have an explanation of this phrase? Force is a physical power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have.To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will ?at the most, an act of prudence.

In what sense can it be a duty?

Suppose for a moment that this so-called "right" exists.I maintain that the sole result is a mass of inexplicable nonsense.For, if force creates right, the effect changes with the cause: every force that is greater than the first succeeds to its right.As soon as it is possible to disobey with impunity, disobedience is legitimate; and, the strongest being always in the right, the only thing that matters is to act so as to become the strongest.But what kind of right is that which perishes when force fails?

If we must obey perforce, there is no need to obey because we ought; and if we are not forced to obey, we are under no obligation to do so.Clearly, the word "right" adds nothing to force: in this connection, it means absolutely nothing.

Obey the powers that be.If this means yield to force, it is a good precept, but superfluous: I can answer for its never being violated.All power comes from God, I admit; but so does all sickness: does that mean that we are forbidden to call in the doctor? A brigand surprises me at the edge of a wood: must I not merely surrender my purse on compulsion;but, even if I could withhold it, am I in conscience bound to give it up?

For certainly the pistol he holds is also a power.

Let us then admit that force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only legitimate powers.In that case, my original question recurs.4.SLAVERY S INCE no man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men.

If an individual, says Grotius, can alienate his liberty and make himself the slave of a master, why could not a whole people do the same and make itself subject to a king? There are in this passage plenty of ambiguous words which would need explaining; but let us confine ourselves to the word alienate.To alienate is to give or to sell.Now, a man who becomes the slave of another does not give himself; he sells himself, at the least for his subsistence: but for what does a people sell itself?

A king is so far from furnishing his subjects with their subsistence that he gets his own only from them; and, according to Rabelais, kings do not live on nothing.Do subjects then give their persons on condition that the king takes their goods also? I fail to see what they have left to preserve.

It will be said that the despot assures his subjects civil tranquillity.

Granted; but what do they gain, if the wars his ambition brings down upon them, his insatiable avidity, and the vexations conduct of his ministers press harder on them than their own dissensions would have done? What do they gain, if the very tranquillity they enjoy is one of their miseries?

Tranquillity is found also in dungeons; but is that enough to make them desirable places to live in? The Greeks imprisoned in the cave of the Cyclops lived there very tranquilly, while they were awaiting their turn to be devoured.

To say that a man gives himself gratuitously, is to say what is absurd and inconceivable; such an act is null and illegitimate, from the mere fact that he who does it is out of his mind.To say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness creates no right.

Even if each man could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children:

they are born men and free; their liberty belongs to them, and no one but they has the right to dispose of it.Before they come to years of discretion, the father can, in their name, lay down conditions for their preservation and well-being, but he cannot give them irrevocably and without conditions:

such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature, and exceeds the rights of paternity.It would therefore be necessary, in order to legitimise an arbitrary government, that in every generation the people should be in a position to accept or reject it; but, were this so, the government would be no longer arbitrary.

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible.Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.

Finally, it is an empty and contradictory convention that sets up, on the one side, absolute authority, and, on the other, unlimited obedience.Is it not clear that we can be under no obligation to a person from whom we have the right to exact everything? Does not this condition alone, in the absence of equivalence or exchange, in itself involve the nullity of the act? For what right can my slave have against me, when all that he has belongs to me, and, his right being mine, this right of mine against myself is a phrase devoid of meaning?

Grotius and the rest find in war another origin for the so-called right of slavery.The victor having, as they hold, the right of killing the vanquished, the latter can buy back his life at the price of his liberty; and this convention is the more legitimate because it is to the advantage of both parties.

But it is clear that this supposed right to kill the conquered is by no means deducible from the state of war.Men, from the mere fact that, while they are living in their primitive independence, they have no mutual relations stable enough to constitute either the state of peace or the state of war, cannot be naturally enemies.War is constituted by a relation between things, and not between persons; and, as the state of war cannot arise out of simple personal relations, but only out of real relations, private war, or war of man with man, can exist neither in the state of nature, where there is no constant property, nor in the social state, where everything is under the authority of the laws.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 冷眸公主的千年冰山

    冷眸公主的千年冰山

    昨晚竟梦见了你可笑的是即使是梦你也不敢面对我好像从来没有过我没事反正我也不爱你了
  • 刀塔二之梦境与现实

    刀塔二之梦境与现实

    我是初中生杨逸,一次匹配,意外地来到了真实的DOTA2世界,一阵亮光让我失去了知觉,醒来之后身边居然站着冰妹妹,而我居然变成了影魔。。。。。。。色不异空,空不异色。色即是空,空即是色。
  • 多源的打牌之旅

    多源的打牌之旅

    说起决斗这件事,我一开始是拒绝的。-----草明多源
  • 快穿之最强攻略

    快穿之最强攻略

    萧红玉觉得自己一定是入了魔,总是梦见一个陈庆之的男人,梦见他身穿铠甲浑身是血的抱着自己跳入万丈悬崖。直到她真的悲了催的发生了车祸,有个冰冷的声音问自己想不想知道陈庆之是谁!当然想!死要做个明白鬼,于是,萧红玉就穿梭在各个时空去拯救那些痴男怨女,顺道找回自己的记忆……(本文架空,有关历史人物什么的不会完全按照历史来写,我的小说我做主,还请考据党勿喷!)
  • 疯狂二十年

    疯狂二十年

    皇甫少华重生94年,但他有一个每隔十年就病发一次的遗传病!预知到自己只有二十年,甚至十年可活后,他做出一个决定,这一生一定要活得精彩,活得疯狂!!!“今天做什么”“拳打衙内?脚踢打脸高富帅?……泡女明星?还有极品校花?皇甫少华一巴掌拍在那个出主意的帮闲的脑门上,“整天都是这个,你他玛德就不能有点创意的……创意、创意明白么?再想想”帮闲有些委屈,但是闻言也不得不抓耳挠腮的开始思考,旁边还有几个呢,总不能让别人抢了头彩!
  • 侦情

    侦情

    一场大火中的灭门惨案,谁是凶手?地下毒品交易,谁在背后操控?真假身份,她到底是谁?层层迷雾,一层层揭开,用热血浇灌正义,只为将你绳之于法。当所有谜团揭开,我们又该何去何从?陆桑,你是我唯一的执着!
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 快穿:攻略病娇,系统我不干啦

    快穿:攻略病娇,系统我不干啦

    看后文。男主病娇偏执有精神病不喜勿入感谢点击
  • 二次元席卷全球

    二次元席卷全球

    这个时代,各种科教片横行,千遍一律的教育育人,没有《海贼王》没有宫崎骏这个人,更没有二次元的概念,没有宅男。作为2016新一代宅男,程学决定将打造二次元,将动漫带给世界。
  • 嚣张王妃:王爷哪里逃

    嚣张王妃:王爷哪里逃

    她是华夏的穿越而来之魂,可是这些人是怎么就觉得他水冰月是废物,他们哪只眼睛看到她是废物,就让它们看看废物变天才,既然你们说我是废物,行我就让我这个废物阴死你们。他是蓝月国的王爷,在一次招到自己最亲的人追杀,命悬一线之时突然以为穿着蓝色裙装的女子出现,喂,笨蛋龙椅上的那个人根本就不是你的亲生父亲,你确定还不能下手杀了他吗。原来所谓亲人竟然就是杀父母之仇,既然老天要让我成魔我又何必强求成佛,笨蛋如果你成魔我会陪着你,只是一切不够就是命中注定,命中所安排。