While the world was full of maxims setting forth with the utmost positiveness the claims of kings to implicit obedience -- maxims which pretended to have had their origin in the New Testament, but which were really derived from indelible recollections of the Cesarian despotism -- the consciousness of correlative rights possessed by the governed would have been entirely without the means of expression if the Roman law of Obligation had not supplied a language capable of shadowing forth an idea which was as yet imperfectly developed. The antagonism between the privileges of kings and their duties to their subjects was never, I believe, lost sight of since Western history began, but it had interest for few except speculative writers so long as feudalism continued in vigour, for feudalism effectually controlled by express customs the exorbitant theoretical pretensions of most European sovereigns. It is notorious, however, that as soon as the decay of the Feudal System had thrown the medieval constitutions out of working order, and when the Reformation had discredited the authority of the Pope, the doctrine of the divine right of Kings rose immediately into an importance which had never before attended it. The vogue which it obtained entailed still more constant resort to the phraseology of Roman law, and a controversy which had originally worn a theological aspect assumed more and more the air of a legal disputation. Aphenomenon then appeared which has repeatedly shown itself in the history of opinion. Just when the argument for monarchical authority rounded itself into the definite doctrine of Filmer, the phraseology, borrowed from the Law of Contract, which had been used in defence of the rights of subjects, crystallised into the theory of an actual original compact between king and people, a theory which, first in English and afterwards, and more particularly, in French hands, expanded into a comprehensive explanation of all the phenomena of society and law. But the only real connection between political and legal science had consisted in the last giving to the first the benefit of its peculiarly plastic terminology. The Roman jurisprudence of Contract had performed for the relation of sovereign and subject precisely the same service which, in a humbler sphere, it rendered to the relation of person bound together by an obligation of "quasi-contract." It had furnished a body of words and phrases which approximated with sufficient accuracy to the ideas which then were from time to time forming on the subject of political obligation. The doctrine of an Original Compact can never be put higher than it is placed by Dr. Whewell, when he suggests that, though unsound, "it may be a convenient form for the expression of moral truths."The extensive employment of legal language on political subjects previously to the invention of the Original Compact, and the powerful influence which that assumption has exercised subsequently, amply account for the plentifulness in political science of words and conceptions, which were the exclusive creation of Roman jurisprudence. Of their plentifulness in Moral Philosophy a rather different explanation must be given, inasmuch as ethical writings have laid Roman law under contribution much more directly than political speculations, and their authors have been much more conscious of the extent of their obligation. In speaking of moral philosophy as extraordinarily indebted to Roman jurisprudence, I must be understood to intend moral philosophy as understood previously to the break in its history effected by Kant, that is, as the science of the rules governing human conduct, of their proper interpretation and of the limitations to which they are subject. Since the rise of the Critical Philosophy, moral science has almost wholly lost its older meaning, and, except where it is preserved under a debased form in the casuistry still cultivated by Roman Catholic theologians, it seems to be regarded nearly universally as a branch of ontological inquiry. I do not know that there is a single contemporary English writer, with the exception of Dr. Whewell, who understands moral philosophy as it was understood before it was absorbed by metaphysics and before the groundwork of its rules came to be a more important consideration than the rules themselves. So long, however, as ethical science had to do with the practical regimen of conduct, it was more or less saturated with Roman law. Like all the great subjects of modern thought, it was originally incorporated with theology. The science of Moral Theology, as it was at first called, and as it is still designated by the Roman Catholic divines, was undoubtedly constructed, to the full knowledge of its authors, by takin principles of conduct from the system of the Church, and by using the language and methods of jurisprudence for their expression and expansion. While this process went on, it was inevitable that jurisprudence, though merely intended to be the vehicle of thought, should communicate its colour to the thought itself. The tinge received through contact with legal conceptions is perfectly perceptible in the earliest ethical literature of the modern world, and it is evident, I think, that the Law of Contract, based as it is on the complete reciprocity and indissoluble connection of rights and duties, has acted as a wholesome corrective to the predispositions of writers who, if left to themselves, might have exclusively viewed a moral obligation as the public duty of a citizen in the Civitas Dei.
同类推荐
热门推荐
心心相印:欢喜小冤家
夏心儿与林星宇是青梅竹马,两人从小互相看不顺眼,摩擦不断,终于,在两人六岁时,夏心儿随父母去了韩国。即使如此,两人也时常关注对方的行动。十二年后,夏心儿被作为韩国交换生三个月,进入了心宇学院,从此两人再续孽缘,火花不断……慢慢的两人的感情升温了,却害怕告诉对方…直到三月到期……女尊之路:女汉子如何炼成
月依原本是帝国大将军的掌上明珠,因为一场刺杀意外的遇见了夜风。原本以为是美满幸福的一生,却因为夜风那神秘的身世变得坎坷。从此化身为女汉子。“你太弱了,还不配作我儿的正妻,如果你能证道成圣,我会允许他纳你为妾。”“总有一天我会站在你的眼前,堂堂正正的打败你,带回我的丈夫。堵上我的一切再次立誓,绝对没有任何人可以阻挡我的路,就算你是他的父亲也一样挡不住我的道!”谁说女子修仙不如男,且看月依如何渡生死,踏轮回,证道成圣,明道为尊,化身为道,破道成神。冷魅校草恋上酷拽校花
“今生今世,我要和你在一起”小女孩和小男孩在海边许下美丽的誓言并埋下贝壳作为见证。但因家族关系,两人最终分路扬镳……10年后再次相遇,却因隐藏身份而改变身份,知道两人一起挖出贝壳,才发现“是你”两人异口同声,原来那个他(她)就在身边……