By the invitation of EQG chads
>no hooves<War of all against all edition<Gunpowder Treason DayKing James VI & I movie:https://www.bitchute.com/video/PPRUFSGdI22n/OP Profile:
>OP?
OP is a monarchist on leftypol.org.
>What kind of Monarchist is Graceposter?
A modern day absolute monarchist & invested in the late 1500s & 1600s kind of absolutism, hereditary rule / dynasties, & the pre-eminent notion of monarchy as opposed to mixed constitutionalism / limited or mixed monarchy, formally called constitutional monarchy & constitutional monarchism.
>What about Medievalism & NeoFeudalism?
OP is ambivalent towards traditionalism, particularly the Medievalist or Neofeudalist style of Royalism, & traditionalists who are solely denoted by high church & sometimes the mixed constitutionalism of the Middle Ages & later periods.
The style of absolutism, concerning Monarchy, OP sees as fundamentally different in certain respects, so OP is ambivalent and wary of Medievalism & Traditionalism.
The Medievalist lacks a certain political forte with regard to Monarchy & the Herodotus Debate that absolutism carries (because the Medievalist is predisposed to ultra-clericalism / ultramontanism). Medievalists usually are strong proponents of mixed constitutionalism (having their roots in Aristotle & his politics) and wields Alexis de Tocqueville & Bertrand de Jouvenel against absolute monarchy.
OP is not that kind of monarchist, albeit invested in both monarchies such as the traditionalist connotation of a king with a Christian crown, but also Caesarism and even secular dictatorships sometimes as modern monarchies or bearing a resemblance to monarchical form.
>Who is Grace?
Grace is the board tan of /monarchy/ and /8flags/ on 8chan / 8moe and a monarchist tan.
Sometimes Grace is just an OC or apolitical (when representing /8flags/ or Graceposter is funposting), but primarily Grace is a monarchist tan (& supports Graceposter's taste, style, & niche of monarchy, tbh; she is not a constitutional monarchist or a staunch ultramontanist, but predisposed to absolutism and JUCHE, lmao, sorry Luce and constitutional monarchists).
Thomas Hobbes laments the prevalence of mixed monarchy / constitutionalism
>Saving only that he [the Earl] was carried away with the stream, in a manner, of the whole nation, to think that England was not an absolute, but a mixed monarchy; not considering that the supreme power must always be absolute, whether it be in the King or in the Parliament.
…
>You may know by the declarations themselves, which are very long and full of quotations of records and of cases formly reported, that the penners of them were either lawyers by profession, or such gentlemen as had the ambition to be thought so.
>Besides, I told you before, that those which were then likeliest to have their counsel asked in this business, were averse to absolute monarchy, as also to absolute democracy or aristocracy; all which governments they esteemed tyranny, and were in love with monarchy which they used to praise by the name of mixed monarchy, though it were indeed nothing else but pure anarchy.
>And those men, whose pens the King most used in these controversies of law and politics, were such, if I have not been misinformed, as having been members of this Parliament, had declaimed against ship-money and other extra-parliamentary taxes, as much as any; but who when they saw the Parliament grow higher in their demands than they thought they would have done, went over to the King's party.
…
>Only that fault, which was generally in the whole nation, which was, that they thought the government of England was not an absolute, but a mixed monarchy; and that if the King should clearly subdue this Parliament, that his power would be what he pleased, and theirs as little as he pleased: which they counted tyranny.
>This opinion, though it did not lessen their endeavour to gain the victory for the King in a battle, when a battle could not be avoided, yet it weakened their endeavour to procure him an absolute victory in the war.
>And for this cause, notwithstanding that they saw that the Parliament was firmly resolved to take all kingly power whatsoever out of his hands, yet their counsel to the King was upon all occasions, to offer propositions to them of treaty and accommodation, and to make and publish declarations; which any man might easily have foreseen would be fruitless; and not only so, but also of great disadvantage to those actions by which the King was to recover his crown and preserve his life.
…
>Sometimes also in the merely civil government there be more than one soul… For although few perceive that such government is not government, but division of the Commonwealth into three factions, and call it mixed monarchy; yet the truth is that it is not one independent Commonwealth, but three independent factions; nor one representative person, but three. In the Kingdom of God there may be three persons independent, without breach of unity in God that reigneth; but where men reign, that be subject to diversity of opinions, it cannot be so.
>To what disease in the natural body of man I may exactly compare this irregularity of a Commonwealth, I know not. But I have seen a man that had another man growing out of his side, with a head, arms, breast, and stomach of his own: if he had had another man growing out of his other side, the comparison might then have been exact.
…
>And if there were a commonwealth, wherein the rights of sovereignty were divided, we must confess with Bodin, Lib. II. chap. I. De Republica, that they are not rightly to be called commonwealths, but the corruption of commonwealths.
>The error concerning mixed government [constitutionalism] has proceeded from want of understanding of what is meant by this word body politic, and how it signifies not the concord, but the union of many men.
Thomas Hobbes / For all Monarchies, and all other States are truly indeed Absolute
>Secondly, they object, That there is no Dominion in the Christian world Absolute; which indeed is not true, for all Monarchies, and all other States, are so; for although they, who have the chief Command, do not all those things they would, and what they know profitable to the City, the reason of that is not the defect of Right in them, but the consideration of their Citizens, who busied about their private interest, and careless of what tends to the public, cannot sometimes be drawn to perform their duties without the hazard of the City. Wherefore princes sometimes forbear the exercise of their Right, and prudently remit somewhat of the act, but nothing of their Right.
William Blackstone / Sir Edward Coke:
<The Absolutism of Parliamentary Sovereignty
>The power and jurisdiction of parliament, says Sir Edward Coke, is so transcendent and absolute, that it cannot be confined, either for causes or persons, within any bounds. And of this high court he adds, it may be truly said "si antiquitatem spectes, est vetustissima; si dignitatem, est honoratissima; di juridictionem, est capacissima." It hath sovereign and uncontrollable authority in making, confirming, enlarging, restranshumanisting, abrogating, repealing, reviving, and expounding of laws, concerning matters of all possible denominations, ecclesiastical, or temporal, civil, military, maritime, or criminal: this being the place where that absolute despotic power, which must in all governments reside somewhere, is entrusted by the constitution of these kingdoms. All mischiefs and grievances, operations and remedies, that transcend the ordinary course of the laws, are within the reach of this extraordinary tribunal. It can regulate or new model the succession to the crown; as was done in the reign of Henry VIII and William III. It can alter the established religion of the land; as was done in a variety of instances, in the reigns of King Henry VIII and his three children. It can change and create afresh even the constitution of the kingdom and of parliaments themselves; as was done by the act of union, and the several statutes for triennial and septennial elections. It can, in short, do every thing that is not naturally impossible; and therefore some have not scrupled to call it's power, by a figure rather too bold, the omnipotence of parliament. True it is, that what they do, no authority upon earth can undo. So that it is a matter most essential to the liberties of this kingdom, that such members be delegated to this important trust, as are most eminent for their probity, their fortitude, and their knowledge; for it was a known apothegm of the great lord treasurer Burleigh, "that England could never be ruined but by a parliament:" and, as sir Matthew Hale observes, this being the highest and greatest court, over which none other can have jurisdiction in the kingdom…"
Francis Theobald on Absolute Power with Cambden & Bracton
>We have, I say, absolute Monarchy, and herein we differ from the Lacedemonian Kings, who were subject to their Ephori, which had a power above them: No, ours agrees with the Persian-Government; for, their King had plenary power in all things, not subject to be called to account by any person whatsoever: and so ours, if you will believe Cambden, a famous Antiquary; who saith, That the King of England, supremam potestatem, & merum imperium habet, He hath supreme power and absolute Command in his Dominions–; and so, Bracton, a sage profound Lawyer, in ancient time, speaks to the same purpose, Omni quidem sub Bege, & ipse sub nullo, sed tantum sub Deo: So that it is an unquestionable truth, that the King is subject to no over-ruling power of man, and that he is free from all humane Coercion and Restranshumanistt, I do rather insist upon this.
Jean Bodin / Majesty or Sovereignty or Pre-eminence
>Sovereignty is the absolute and perpetual power of a commonwealth [La Souveraineté est la puissance absoluë & perpetuelle d’une République], which the Latins call Majestas; the Greeks akra exousia, kurion arche, and kurion politeuma; and the Italians segniora, a word they use for private persons as well as for those who have full control of the state, while the Hebrews call it tomech shévet – that is the highest power of command.
>As for the title of Majesty itself, it sufficiently appears, that it only belongs to him that is a sovereign prince: so that for him that hath no sovereignty to usurp the same, were a very absurd thing: but to arrogate unto himself the addition of most excellent and sacred majesty, is much more absurd the one being a point of lightnes, and the other of impiety: for what more can we give unto the most mighty and immortal God, if we take from him that which is proper unto himself? And albeit that in ancient time neither emperors nor kings used these so great addition or titles: yet the German princes nevertheless have oft times given the title of Sacred Majesty unto the kings of France; aswell as unto their emperor. As I remember my self to have seen the letters of the princes of the empire, written unto the king, for the deliverance of countie Mansfeld, then prisoner in France: wherein there was sixe times V. S. M. that is to say, Vestra, Sacra, Majestas, or Your Sacred Majesty an addition proper unto God, apart from all worldly princes. As for other princes which are not soueraignes some use the addition of His Highnesse, as the dukes of Loraine, Sauoy, Mantua, Ferrara, and Florence: some of Excellency, as the princes of the confines; or else of Serenitie, as the duke of Venice.
>Majesty or Sovereignty is the most high, absolute, and perpetual power over the citizens and subjects in a Commonwealth: Which the Latins call Majestatem, the Italians Segnoria, that is to say, The greatest power to command. For Majesty (as Festus saith) is so called of mightiness.
>For so here it behoveth first to define what Majesty or Sovereignty is, which neither lawyer nor political philosopher hath yet defined: although it be the principal and most necessary point for the understanding of the nature of a Commonweal. And forasmuch as wee have before defined a Commonweal to be the right government of many families, and of things common amongst them, with a most high & perpetual power: it rest to be declared, what is to be understood by the name of a most high and perpetual power.
<We have said that this power ought to be perpetual, for that it may bee, that that absolute power over the subject may be given to one or many, for a short or certain time, which expired, they are no more than subjects themselves: so that whilest they are in their puissant authority, they cannot call themselves Sovereign princes, seeing that they are but men put in trust, and keepers of this sovereign power, until it shall please the people or the prince that gave it them to recall it
>Who always remained ceased thereof.
<For as they which lend or pawn unto another man their goods, remain still the lords and owners thereof: so it is also with them, who give unto others power and authority to judge and command, be it for a certain time limited, or so great and long time as shall please them; they themselves nevertheless continuing still ceased of the power and jurisdiction, which the other exercise but by way of loan or borrowing.
>For otherwise if the high and absolute power granted by a prince to his lieutenant, should of right be called Sovereignty, he might use the same against his prince, to whom nothing was left but the bare name of a prince, standing but for a cipher: so should the subject command his Sovereign, the servant his master, than which nothing could be more absurd: considering that in all power granted unto magistrates, or private men, the person of the prince is always to be excepted; who never gives so much power unto another, but that he always keeps more unto himself; neither is ever to be thought so deprived of his sovereign power, but that he may take unto himself the examination and deciding of such things as he hath committed unto his magistrates or officers, whether it be by the way of prevention, concurrence, or evocation: from whom he may also take the power given them by virtue of their commission or institution, or suffer them to hold it so long as shall please him.
>These grounds thus laid, as the foundations of Sovereignty, wee conclude, that neither the Roman Dictator, nor the Harmoste of Lacedemonia, nor the Esmynaet of Salonick, nor he whom they cal the Archus of Malta, nor the antient Baily of Florence, (when it was gouerned by a popular state) neither the Regents or Viceroyes of kingdoms, nor any other officers or magistrats whatsoeuer, vnto whom the highest, but yet not the perpetual power, is by the princes or peoples grant commit∣ted, can be accounted to have the same in Sovereignty.
>And albeit that the ancient Dictators had all power given them in best sort that might be (which the ancient Latins called Optima Lege) so that from them it was not lawful to appeal and upon whose creation all offices were suspended; until such time as that the Tribunes were ordained as keepers of the peoples liberty, who continued in their charge notwithstanding the creation of the Dictator, who had free power to oppose themselves against him; so that if appeal were made from the Dictator, the Tribunes might assemble the people, appointing the parties to bring forth the causes of their appeal, & the Dictator to stay his judgement; as when Papirius Cursor the Dictator, condemned Fabius Max the first, to death; and Fabius Max the second had in like manner condemned M•…nutius, both Colonels of the horsemen, for that they had fought with the enemy contrary to the command of the Dictator; they were yet both by appeale and judgement of the people acquitted. For so saith Livy, Then the father of Fabius said, I call upon the Tribunes, and appeal unto the people, which can do more than thy Dictatorship whereunto king Tullus Hostilius gave place. Whereby it appears that the Dictator was neither sovereign prince, nor magistrat, as many have supposed; neither had any thing more than a simple commission for the making of war, the repressing of sedition, the reforming of the state on instituting of new officers.
>So that Sovereignty is not limited either in power, charge, or time certain. And namely the ten commissioners established for the reforming of custom and laws; albeit than they had absolute power, from which there was no appeal to be made, and that all offices were suspended, during the time of their commission; yet had they not for all that any Sovereignty; for their commission being fulfilled, their power also expired; as did that of the Dictators.
<"Majesty or Sovereignty is the most high, absolute, and perpetual power over the citizens and subjects in a Commonwealth: Which the Latins call Majestatem, the Italians Segnoria, that is to say, The greatest power to command. For Majesty (as Festus saith) is so called of mightiness."
>And forasmuch as wee have before defined a Commonweal to be the right government of many families, and of things common amongst them, with a most high & perpetual power
<Bodin / The unity of sovereignty
>No otherwise than Theseus his ship, which although it were an hundred times changed by putting in of new planks, yet still retained the old name. But as a ship, if the keel (which strongly bears up the prow, the poup, the ribs, and tacklings) be taken away, is no longer a ship, but an ill favoured houp of wood; even so a Commonwealth, without a sovereignty of power, which unites in one body all members and families of the same is no more a Commonwealth, neither can by and means long endure. And not to depart from our similitude; as a ship may be quite broken up, or altogether consumed with fire; so may also the people into diverse places dispersed, or be utterly destroyed, the City or state yet standing whole; for it is neither the walls, neither the persons, that makes the city, but the union of the people under the same sovereignty of government.
>Now the sovereign prince is exalted above all his subjects, and exempt out of the rank of them: whose majesty suffers no more division than doth the unity itself, which is not set nor accounted among the numbers, howbeit that they all from it take both their force and power…. being indeed about to become much more happy if they had a sovereign prince, which with his authority and power might (as doth the understanding) reconcile all the parts, and so unite and bind them fast in happiness together.
<For that as of unity depends the union of all numbers, which have no power but from it: so also is one sovereign prince in every Commonweale necessary, from the power of whom all others orderly depend
>Wherefore what the unity is in numbers, the understanding in the powers of the soul, and the center in a circle: so likewise in this world that most mighty king, in unity simple, in nature indivisible, in purity most holy, exalted far above the Fabric of the celestial Spheres, joining this elementary world with the celestiall and intelligible heavens
It is of no importance whether the families come together in the same place or live in separate homes and area.
>It is of no importance whether the families come together in the same place or live in separate homes and area. It is said to be no other than the same family even if the father lives apart from children and servants, or these in their turn apart from each other by an interval of space, provided that they are joined together by the legitimate and limited rule of the father. I have said "limited," since this fact chiefly distinguishes the family from the state – that the latter has the final and public authority. The former limited and private rule. So, also, it is still the same government, made up of many families, even if the territories and the settlements are far apart, provided only that they are in the guardianship of the same sovereign power: either one rules all; or all, the individuals; or a few, all. From this it comes about that the state is nothing else than a group of families or fraternities subjected to one and the same rule.
>Cicero's definition of the state as a group of men associated for the sake of living well indicates the best objective, indeed, but not the power and the nature of the institution. This definition applies equally well to the assemblies of the Pythagoreans and of men who also come together for the sake of living well, yet they cannot be called states without great confusion of state and association. Furthermore, there are families of villains, no less than of good men, since a villain is no less a man than a good man is. A similar observation must be made about the governments. Who doubts but that every very great empire was established through violence by robbers? The definition of a state offered by us applies to villages, towns, cities, and principalities, however scattered their lands may be, provided that they are controlled by the same authority. The concept is not conditioned by the limited size of the region or by its great expanse, as the elephant is no more an animal than the ant, since each has the power of movement and perception. So Ragusa or Geneva, whose rule is comprised almost within its walls, ought to be called a state no less than the empire of the Tartars, which was bounded by the same limits as the course of the sun.
<Hobbes / Difference between concord or association and union or bond of a state
>They who compare a City and its Citizens, with a man and his members, almost all say, that he who hath the supreme power in the City, is the relation to the whole City, such as the head is to the whole man. But it appears by what has been already said, that he who is endued with such a power (whether it be a man, or a Court) has a relation to the City, not as that of the head, but of the soul to the body. For it is the soul by which a man has a will, that is, can either will, or nill.
>The other error in this his first argument is that he says the members of every Commonwealth, as of a natural body, depend one of another. It is true they cohere together, but they depend only on the sovereign, which is the soul of the Commonwealth
>The error concerning mixed government has proceeded from want of understanding of what is meant by this word body politic, and how it signifies not the concord, but the union of many men.
Thomas Hobbes Leviathan:
<And of that opinion, the external signs appearing in the Words, and Actions of men, are called Worship; which is one part of that which the Latins understand by the word Cultus:
Hobbes Leviathan:
>For Cultus signifies properly, and constantly, that labour which a man bestows on any thing, with a purpose to make benefit by it.
Hobbes Leviathan
>In the first sense the labour bestowed on the Earth, is called Culture; and the education of Children a Culture of their minds.
>>723247I want to unite with Grace-chan!!
do you still have that image posted in one of the previous threads or maybe also /draw/ of Marx pointing at lassalle's chest and angrily shouting an unfinished poem which is implied ended in you know what
Hereditary Monarchy / dynasty is an extension of the cult of personality (or work of this person on the people).
The original ruler passes, but there is an attempt to extend his person by his offspring in the most natural fashion & proximity to his person and appearance, as if to copy and paste that progenitor – that is another reason why I think the eldest & firstborn is preferred, because of proximity and closeness.
Think of it also like another form of state preservation when the original person is preserved through his offspring… it is presumed the children will have a similar likeness and appearance and character for the most part.
Imagine if Lenin died, but instead of trying to preserve his body through all these techniques – it was decided to preserve Lenin by blood relationship, and find the offspring of Lenin.
Ramses II
>For the sun becomes the champion of his father, like Horus, when he championed his father, forming him that formed him, fashioning him that fashioned him, making to live the name of him that begat him.
>My heart leads me in doing excellent things… I will cause it to be said forever and ever: 'It was his son, who made his name live.' May my father, Osiris, favor me with the long life of his son, Horus, according as I do that which he did; I do excellent things, as he did excellent things, for him who begat me.
It is like what Bossuet says.
I cannot imagine the State as a greater family, if for the ruler's love for his kingdom isn't mixed with the love he has for his family.
If we don't build the State around that ideal of Father & Son.
Aristotle / The Association of Father & Son, the Ideal of Monarchy
>For the association of a father with his sons bears the form of monarchy… it is the ideal of monarchy to be paternal rule.
Bossuet / My Father the King
>Man who, as has been said, saw the image of a kingdom in the union of several families under the leadership of a common father, and who had found gentleness in that life, brought themselves easily to create societies of families under kings who took the place of fathers… it is apparently for that reason that the ancient people's of Palestine called their kings Abimelech, that is to say: my father the king. Subjects took themselves to be children of the Prince: and, each calling him, My father the king.
Understand that hereditary monarchy completes this vision of the State as a greater family for royalists. –It is incomplete without it.
–
Aristotle / Suckled by the same milk, of the same blood
>And this is the reason why Hellenic states were originally governed by kings; …the kingly form of government prevailed because they were of the same blood [and suckled 'with the same milk']
The rulers should be of the same blood & extend that blood relationship to everyone else, so they too can see themselves as of the same blood and family – which makes for a stronger bond of loyalty not only to the prince, but amongst the people themselves.
Hobbes' Leviathan also touches on this subject matter.
Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan on Worship
>But in a larger use of the word Image, is contained also, any Representation of one thing by another. So an earthly Soveraign may be called the Image of God: And an inferiour Magistrate the Image of an earthly Soveraign.
>To be uncovered, before a man of Power and Authority, or before the Throne of a Prince, or in such other places as hee ordaineth to that purpose in his absence, is to Worship that man, or Prince with Civill Worship; as being a signe, not of honoring the stoole, or place, but the Person; and is not Idolatry. But if hee that doth it, should suppose the Soule of the Prince to be in the Stool, or should present a Petition to the Stool, it were Divine Worship, and Idolatry.
>To pray to a King for such things, as hee is able to doe for us, though we prostrate our selves before him, is but Civill Worship; because we acknowledge no other power in him, but humane: But voluntarily to pray unto him for fair weather, or for any thing which God onely can doe for us, is Divine Worship, and Idolatry. On the other side, if a King compell a man to it by the terrour of Death, or other great corporall punishment, it is not Idolatry: For the Worship which the Soveraign commandeth to bee done unto himself by the terrour of his Laws, is not a sign that he that obeyeth him, does inwardly honour him as a God, but that he is desirous to save himselfe from death, or from a miserable life; and that which is not a sign of internall honor, is no Worship; and therefore no Idolatry. Neither can it bee said, that hee that does it, scandalizeth, or layeth any stumbling block before his Brother; because how wise, or learned soever he be that worshippeth in that manner, another man cannot from thence argue, that he approveth it; but that he doth it for fear; and that it is not his act, but the act of the Soveraign.
<Honour And Worship What
>Honour consisteth in the inward thought, and opinion of the Power, and Goodnesse of another: and therefore to Honour God, is to think as Highly of his Power and Goodnesse, as is possible. And of that opinion, the externall signes appearing in the Words, and Actions of men, are called Worship; which is one part of that which the Latines understand by the word Cultus: For Cultus signifieth properly, and constantly, that labour which a man bestowes on any thing, with a purpose to make benefit by it. Now those things whereof we make benefit, are either subject to us, and the profit they yeeld, followeth the labour we bestow upon them, as a naturall effect; or they are not subject to us, but answer our labour, according to their own Wills. In the first sense the labour bestowed on the Earth, is called Culture; and the education of Children a Culture of their mindes. In the second sense, where mens wills are to be wrought to our purpose, not by Force, but by Compleasance, it signifieth as much as Courting, that is, a winning of favour by good offices; as by praises, by acknowledging their Power, and by whatsoever is pleasing to them from whom we look for any benefit. And this is properly Worship: in which sense Publicola, is understood for a Worshipper of the People, and Cultus Dei, for the Worship of God.
<Several Signs of Honour
>From internal Honour, consisting in the opinion of Power and Goodness, arise three Passions; Love, which hath reference to Goodness; and Hope, and Fear, that relate to Power: And three parts of external worship; Praise, Magnifying, and Blessing: The subject of Praise, being Goodness; the subject of Magnifying, and Blessing, being Power, and the effect thereof Felicity. Praise, and Magnifying are significant both by Words, and Actions: By Words, when we say a man is Good, or Great: By Actions, when we thank him for his Bounty, and obey his Power. The opinion of the Happiness of another, can only be expressed by words.
<Worship Natural and Arbitrary
>There be some signs of Honour, (both in Attributes and Actions,) that be Naturally so; as among Attributes, Good, Just, Liberal, and the like; and among Actions, Prayers, Thanks, and Obedience. Others are so by Institution, or Custom of men; and in some times and places are Honourable; in others Dishonourable; in others Indifferent: such as are the Gestures in Salutation, Prayer, and Thanksgiving, in different times and places, differently used. The former is Natural; the later Arbitrary Worship.
<Worship Commanded and Free
>And of Arbitrary Worship, there be two differences: For sometimes it is a Commanded, sometimes Voluntary Worship: Commanded, when it is such as he requireth, who is Worshipped: Free, when it is such as the Worshipper thinks fit. When it is Commanded, not the words, or gestures, but the obedience is the Worship. But when Free, the Worship consists in the opinion of the beholders: for if to them the words, or actions by which we intend honour, seem ridiculous, and tending to contumely; they are not Worship; because a sign is not a sign to him that giveth it, but to him to whom it is made; that is, to the spectator.
<Worship Public and Private
>Again, there is a Public, and a Private Worship. Public, is the Worship that a Commonwealth performs, as one Person. Private, is that which a Private person exhibits. Public, in respect of the whole Commonwealth, is Free; but in respect of Particular men it is not so Private, is in secret Free; but in the sight of the multitude, it is never without some Restranshumanistt either from the Laws, or from the Opinion of men; which is contrary to the nature of Liberty.
<The End of Worship
>The End of Worship among men, is Power. For where a man sees another worshipped supposes him powerful, and is the readier to obey him; which makes his Power greater. But God has no Ends: the worship we do him, proceeds from our duty, and is directed according to capacity, by those rules of Honour, that Reason dictates to be done by the weak to the more potent men, in hope of benefit, for fear of damage, or in thankfulness for good already received from them.
Like where Hobbes is concerned with outward motions and expressive gestures to signify worship and honor as the inward conscious thoughts.
>And of that opinion, the external signs appearing in the Words, and Actions of men, are called Worship; which is one part of that which the Latins understand by the word Cultus: For Cultus signifies properly, and constantly, that labour which a man bestows on any thing, with the purpose to make benefit by it.
>In the first sense the labour bestowed on the Earth, is called Culture; and the education of Children a Culture of their minds.
Hobbes continues with the distinction of civil worship (the external praises and magnifying, actions and expressions to give a sense of honor to the State, such as the use of its emblems in currency and pilgrimages to its sites like Mt. Rushmore):
>To be uncovered, before a man of Power and Authority, or before the Throne of a Prince, or in such other places as hee ordaineth to that purpose in his absence, is to Worship that man, or Prince with Civill Worship; as being a signe, not of honoring the stoole, or place, but the Person; and is not Idolatry.
>To pray to a King for such things, as hee is able to doe for us, though we prostrate our selves before him, is but Civill Worship; because we acknowledge no other power in him, but humane
Hobbes makes the distinction between civil and divine worship: the former any person makes in a way everyday, private and public, for ordinary things, and directed toward civil persons it is with the end of power; the latter is the worship of God, which does not proceed from want of power, but from our natural duty.
<Thomas Hobbes Publique Worship Consisteth In Uniformity
>And this is Publique Worship; the property whereof, is to be Uniforme: For those actions that are done differently, by different men, cannot be said to be a Publique Worship. And therefore, where many sorts of Worship be allowed, proceeding from the different Religions of Private men, it cannot be said there is any Publique Worship, nor that the Common-wealth is of any Religion at all.
This all this from Hobbes reminds me of Plato's Republic.
Among the chief reason Plato wanted to abolish private property was to accomplish a unity of feeling. Where the State should be unified, and people should be united in feeling, in pleasure and pain, private property fractures the State: where others rejoice at their gain, others feel sorrow and loss, pitted against each other, and to the destruction of State.
Although I think Hobbes also has influence from Calvin here? (I might be wrong, but I think so).
Plato on Leader principle:
>The great principle of all is that no one of either sex should be without a commander; nor should the mind of any one be accustomed to do anything, either in jest or earnest, of his own motion, but in war and in peace he should look to and follow his leader, even in the least things being under his guidance; for example, he should stand or move, or exercise, or wash, or take his meals, or get up in the night to keep guard and deliver messages when he is bidden; and in the hour of danger he should not pursue and not retreat except by order of his superior; and in a word, not teach the soul or accustom her to know or understand how to do anything apart from others. Of all soldiers the life should be always and in all things as far as possible in common and together; there neither is nor ever will be a higher, or better, or more scientific principle than this for the attainment of salvation and victory in war. And we ought in time of peace from youth upwards to practise this habit of commanding others, and of being commanded by other.
<Hobbes Leviathan: The Word Person, Whence
>The word Person is latin: instead whereof the Greeks have Prosopon, which signifies the Face, as Persona in latine signifies the Disguise, or Outward Appearance of a man, counterfeited on the Stage; and sometimes more particularly that part of it, which disguises the face, as a Mask or Visard: And from the Stage, has been translated to any Representer of speech and action, as well in Tribunalls, as Theaters. So that a Person, is the same that an Actor is, both on the Stage and in common Conversation; and to Personate, is to Act, or Represent himself, or an other; and he that acts another, is said to bear his Person, or act in his name; (in which sense Cicero uses it where he says, “Unus Sustineo Tres Personas; Mei, Adversarii, & Judicis, I bear three Persons; my own, my Adversaries, and the Judges;”) and is called in diverse occasions, diversely; as a Representer, or Representative, a Lieutenant, a Vicar, an Attorney, a Deputy, a Procurator, an Actor, and the like.
Plato Republic Book 5:
>This, then, Glaucon, is the manner of the community of wives and children among the guardians. That it is consistent with the rest of our polity and by far the best way is the next point that we must get confirmed by the argument. Is not that so?” “It is, indeed,” he said. “Is not the logical first step towards such an agreement to ask ourselves what we could name as the greatest good for the constitution of a state and the proper aim of a lawgiver in his legislation, and what would be the greatest evil, and then to consider whether the proposals we have just set forth fit into the footprints of the good and do not suit those of the evil?” “By all means,” he said.
>“Do we know of any greater evil for a state than the thing that divides it and makes it many instead of one, or a greater good than that which binds it together and makes it one?”
>“We do not.”
>“Is not, then, the community of pleasure and pain the tie that binds, when, so far as may be, all the citizens rejoice and grieve alike at the same births and deaths?”
>“But the individualization of these feelings is a dissolvent, when some grieve exceedingly and others rejoice at the same happenings to the city and its inhabitants?” “Of course.” “And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as ‘mine’ and ‘not mine,’ and similarly with regard to the word ‘alien’?
>“Precisely so.”
>“That city, then, is best ordered in which the greatest number use the expression ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’ of the same things in the same way.”
Plato State Corporatism / Unitary Policy:
State like an individual man (from Republic).
>And the city whose state is most like that of an individual man.
>For example, if the finger of one of us is wounded, the entire community of bodily connections stretching to the soul for ‘integration’
>with the dominant part is made aware, and all of it feels the pain as a whole, though it is a part that suffers, and that is how we come to say that the man has a pain in his finger. And for any other member of the man the same statement holds, alike for a part that labors in pain or is eased by pleasure.”
>“The same,” he said, “and, to return to your question, the best governed state most nearly resembles such an organism.”
>That is the kind of a state, [462e] then, I presume, that, when anyone of the citizens suffers aught of good or evil, will be most likely to speak of the part that suffers as its own and will share the pleasure or the pain as a whole.” “Inevitably,” he said, “if it is well governed.”
>But we further agreed that this unity is the greatest blessing for a state, and we compared a well governed state to the human body in its relation to the pleasure and pain of its parts.”
…
>Then will not law-suits and accusations against one another vanish, one may say, from among them, because they have nothing in private possession but their bodies, but all else in common.
>So that we can count on their being free from the dissensions that arise among men from the possession of property, children, and kin.
…
Plato Laws:
>For there are three forms of government, a first, a second, and a third best, out of which Cleinias has now to choose… The first and highest form of the state and of the government and of the law is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying, that 'Friends have all things in common.'. Whether there is anywhere now, or will ever be, this communion of women and children and of property, in which the private and individual is altogether banished from life, and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and in some way see and hear and act in common, and all men express praise and blame and feel joy and sorrow on the same occasions, and whatever laws there are unite the city to the utmost —whether all this is possible or not, I say that no man, acting upon any other principle, will ever constitute a state which will be truer or better or more exalted in virtue. Whether such a state is governed by Gods or sons of Gods, one, or more than one, happy are the men who, living after this manner, dwell there; and therefore to this we are to look for the pattern of the state, and to cling to this, and to seek with all our might for one which is like this. The state which we have now in hand, when created, will be nearest to immortality and the only one which takes the second place; and after that, by the grace of God, we will complete the third one. And we will begin by speaking of the nature and origin of the second.
…
>Inasmuch as our citizens are not fitted either by nature or education to receive the saying, Friends have all things in common, let them retain their houses and private property, but use them in the service of their country, who is their God and parent, and of the Gods and demigods of the land.
>Their first care should be to preserve the number of their lots. This may be secured in the following manner: when the possessor of a lot dies, he shall leave his lot to his best-beloved child, who will become the heir of all duties and interests, and will minister to the Gods and to the family, to the living and to the dead.
>Of the remaining children, the females must be given in marriage according to the law to be hereafter enacted; the males may be assigned to citizens who have no children of their own.
>How to equalize families and allotments will be one of the chief cares of the guardians of the laws.
…
>Wherefore we will thus address our citizens:—Good friends, honour order and equality, and above all the number 5040.
>Secondly, respect the original division of the lots, which must not be infringed by buying and selling, for the law says that the land which a man has is sacred and is given to him by God.
#2:
2. Unitary / State Corporatism: All men as one man.
Hobbes
>The error concerning mixed government [constitutionalism] has proceeded from want of understanding of what is meant by this word body politic, and how it signifies not the concord, but the union of many men.
And also from Hobbes:
>And in him consisteth the Essence of the Common-wealth; which (to define it,) is "One Person, of whose Acts a great Multitude, by mutuall Covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the Author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their Peace and Common Defence.”
Now compare with Plato Republic:
>And the city whose state is most like that of an individual man.
&
>“The same,” he said, “and, to return to your question, the best governed state most nearly resembles such an organism.”
&
>But we further agreed that this unity is the greatest blessing for a state, and we compared a well governed state to the human body in its relation to the pleasure and pain of its parts.”
&
>That the other citizens too must be sent to the task for which their natures were fitted, one man to one work, in order that each of them fulfilling his own function may be not many men, but one, and so the entire city may come to be not a multiplicity but a unity.
&
Plato Laws:
>That all men are, so far as possible, unanimous in the praise and blame they bestow, rejoicing and grieving at the same things, and that they honor with all their heart those laws which render the State as unified as possible
Bossuet on All of Israel Went Out as One Man:
>It is by the sole authority of government that union is established among men. This effect of legitimate command is marked to us by these words, so often repeated in the Scriptures: at the command of Saul, and of the legitimate authority "all Israel went out as one man. All the multitudes as one man, were forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty. Behold, such is the unity of a people, when each one renouncing his own will, transfers and reunites it to that of the prince and the magistrate. Otherwise there is no union; the people become wanderers, like a flock dispersed. "May the Lord, the God of spirits of all flesh, provide a man that may be over this multitude, and may go out and in before them, or bring them in: lest the people of the Lord be as sheep without a shepherd."
#4
Political & Economical no different.
I believe this is also maintained.
…
<Hobbes / That a Family is a little City
>"Propriety receiv'd its beginning, What's objected by some, That the propriety of goods, even before the constitution of Cities, was found in the Fathers of Families, that objection is vain, because I have already declar'd, That a Family is a little City. For the Sons of a Family have propriety of their goods granted them by their Father, distinguisht indeed from the rest of the Sons of the same Family, but not from the propriety of the Father himself; but the Fathers of diverse Families, who are subject neither to any common Father, nor Lord, have a common Right in all things."
Thomas Hobbes
>And though in the charters of subordinate corporations, a corporation be declared to be one person in law, yet the same has not been taken notice of in the body of a commonwealth [state] or city, nor have any of those innumerable writers of politics observed any such union
&
>A great Family if it be not part of some Commonwealth, is of it self, as to the Rights of Sovereignty, a little Monarchy; whether that Family consist of a man and his children; or of a man and his servants; or of a man, and his children, and servants together: wherein the Father or Master is the Sovereign.
&
>And as small Familyes did then; so now do Cities and Kingdomes which are but greater Families
<Plato / There won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household & the bulk of a small city
>Visitor: Well then, surely there won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household, on the one hand, and the bulk of a small city on the other? – Young Socrates: None. – It's clear that there is one sort of expert knowledge concerned with all these things; whether someone gives this the name of kingship, or statesmanship, or household management, let's not pick any quarrel with him.
This is different from Aristotle's verdict, who opposes Monarchy to a political constitution as a household unit only and not proper for political rule (so mixed constitutionalists like the Windsorites deny monarchical rule of politics because of this teaching).
Aristotle writes in Politics,
>Now there is an erroneous opinion that a statesman, king, householder, and a master are the same, and that they differ, not in kind, but only in the number of their subjects. For example, the ruler over a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still larger number, a statesman or king, as if there were no difference between a great household and a small state.
Aristotle:
>For some are of opinion that the rule of a master is a science, and that the management of a household, and the mastership of slaves, and the political and royal rule, as I was saying at the outset, are all the same
Aristotle:
>The rule of a household is a monarchy, for every house is under one head:
>whereas constitutional rule is a government of freemen and equals.
#5:
In Hobbes Leviathan, there is a Sword and Crosier in one body, and the sovereign is also a pastor.
King James VI & I:
>As your office is likewise mixed, betwixt the Ecclesiastical and Civil estate: for a King is not mere laicus, as both the Papists and Anabaptists would have him, to the which error also the Puritans incline over far.
In Plato's Laws, religious and civil offices are aligned for cultivate civic virtue.
In Plato Statesmen:
>…In Egypt, the King himself is not allowed to reign, unless he have priestly powers, and if he should be of another class and has thrust himself in, he must get enrolled in the priesthood. In many parts of Hellas, the duty of offering the most solemn propitiatory sacrifices is assigned to the highest magistrates, and here, at Athens, the most solemn and national of the ancient sacrifices are supposed to be celebrated by him who has been chosen by lot to be the King Archon.
#6:
Jean Bodin testifies Plato having a composition of a Tyrannical & Popular estate (which he later goes on to deny any mixed constitutionalism whatsoever and say it was purely popular).
>Plato having presupposed the best form of a Commonwealth, to be that which was composed of a Tyrannical and Popular estate: in framing the same, is contrary unto himself, having established a Commonwealth not only Popular, but altogether also Popularly governed;
…
Looking at Leviathan, it's exactly that: Hobbes isn't a mixed constitutionalist, but Leviathan is a composition of Monarchy and the People:
>The People is somewhat that is one, having one will, and to whom one action may be attributed; none of these can properly be said of a Multitude. The People rules in all Governments, for even in Monarchies the People Commands; for the People wills by the will of one man; but the Multitude are citizens, that is to say, Subjects…
>And in a Monarchy, the Subjects are the Multitude, and (however it seem a Paradox) the King is the People.
#7:
Beginning with the constitution of individuals and some families at odds – & later deference to an arbiter to hash out their differences and establish peace.
<Hobbes: The Sixteenth, Of Submission To Arbitrement; [OR, the NECESSITY of an arbitrary power]
>And because, though men be never so willing to observe these Laws, there may nevertheless arise questions concerning a mans action; First, whether it were done, or not done; Secondly (if done) whether against the Law, or not against the Law; the former whereof, is called a question Of Fact; the later a question Of Right; therefore unless the parties to the question, Covenant mutually to stand to the sentence of another, they are as far from Peace as ever. This other, to whose Sentence they submit, is called an ARBITRATOR. And therefore it is of the Law of Nature, "That they that are at controversy, submit their Right to the judgement of an Arbitrator."
…
This is a theme in Hobbes, and in Plato there is also a turn of deference of some Arbiter because of conflicting laws / customs of private families: these are in conflict, Plato establishes, but the unity of some Arbiter(s) takes what laws the private families have and decides which are best to keep from the families altogether… Which aligns with the absolutist agenda for deference to some arbiter to bring unity… in Hobbes case it is by virtue of fear (and I believe compulsion, but also a bit of persuasion through education), but for the Classics it is generally love of justice and laws and virtue… and persuasion over compulsion (which I can imagine with some very powerful music or eloquence to bring people together?)
…
Anyways, what I would point to is in Plato's Laws:
Plato Laws
>Athenian: And every man surely likes his own laws best, and the laws of others not so well.
–This right here is really the basis of what Hobbes gets at with a war of all against all – but more importantly, at this point, there is a failure to have a concord of hosts / partnership of clans, it is futile… every man will have the extent of his laws and boundaries in another man's boundaries, interceding and conflicting…. there must be deference to an Arbiter.
>Athenian: The next step will be that these persons who have met together, will select some arbiters, who will review the laws of all of them, and will publicly present such as they approve to the chiefs who lead the tribes, and who are in a manner their kings, allowing them to choose those which they think best. These persons will themselves be called legislators, and will appoint the magistrates, framing some sort of aristocracy, or perhaps monarchy, out of the dynasties or lordships, and in this altered state of the government they will live.
…
IN the same way, King James VI & I talks about this process above and being an arbiter:
King James VI & I
>This I must say for Scotland, and I may truly vaunt it; Here I sit and govern it with my Pen, I write and it is done, and by a Clerk of the Councell I govern Scotland now.
>Of this I can best resolve you: for I am the eldest Parliament man in Scotland, and have sit in more Parliaments than any of my Predecessors. I can assure you, that the form of Parliament there, is nothing inclined to popularity.
>About a twenty days or such a time before the Parliament, Proclamation is made throughout the Kingdom, to deliver in to the King's Clerk of Register (whom you here call the Master of the Rolles) all Bills to be exhibited that Session before a certain day. Then they are brought unto the King, and perused and considered by him, and only such as I allow of are put into the Chancellor's hands to be propounded to the Parliament, and none others: And if any man in Parliament speak of any other matter then is in this form first allowed by me, The Chancellor tells him there is no such Bill allowed by the King.
>Besides, when they have passed them for laws, they are presented unto me, and I with my Scepter put into my hand by the Chancellor, must say, I ratify and approve all things done in this present Parliament. And if there be any thing that I dislike, they raze it out before. If this may be called a negative voice, then I have one I am sure in that Parliament.
#8:
Persuasion.
While fear and compulsion are predominate factors for Hobbes, he did take note of persuasion too.
People are entitled to their private conscience and opinion even, but publicly show obedience and worship and conformity.
Plato advocates persuasion numerous times over compulsion: like a freeman's doctor or a slave's doctor (the freeman's doctor persuades his patient before acting, but a slave's doctor just does it anyways). And recommended a preamble for the laws (persuading people).
Hobbes: Public instruction
>I conclude therefore, that in the instruction of the people in the Essentiall Rights (which are the Naturall, and Fundamentall Lawes) of Sovereignty, there is no difficulty, (whilest a Sovereign has his Power entire,) but what proceeds from his own fault, or the fault of those whom he trusteth in the administration of the Common-wealth; and consequently, it is his Duty, to cause them so to be instructed; and not onely his Duty, but his Benefit also, and Security, against the danger that may arrive to himself in his naturall Person, from Rebellion.
#9:
Community of pleasures and pains through a Cult of Personality.
If there is one innovation here every monarchist should consider, it is the advent of the Cult of Personality, or work of One Person on the multitude.
Plato Republic
>And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as ‘mine’ and ‘not mine,’
Plato Republic - Community of Pleasures & Pains
>And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains–where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow?
>No doubt.
>Yes; and where there is no common but only private feeling a State is disorganized
This is a controversial point, but Hobbes first talks about appetites (pleasures) and aversions (pains) of the private persons, then consolidates all the persons into One Personhood.
…
Not only does this come to a State where by a plurality of voices, as if they all said YES but also that condition from Plato:
>And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as ‘mine’ and ‘not mine,’
<Thomas Hobbes The Generation Of A Common-wealth
>The only way to erect such a Common Power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of Foreigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their own industry, and by the fruits of the Earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is, to confer all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will:
&
>This is more than Consent, or Concord; it is a reall Unitie of them all, in one and the same Person, made by Covenant of every man with every man, in such manner, as if every man should say to every man, “I Authorise and give up my Right of Governing my selfe, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actions in like manner.”
&
>This done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a COMMON-WEALTH, in latine CIVITAS. This is the Generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently) of that Mortall God, to which wee owe under the Immortall God, our peace and defence.
…
This (in)famous picture of ᴉuᴉlossnW with a plurality of Si, si, si, si, si, si behind his personage represents this unity of the representer and a cult of personality.
Imagine every Si behind ᴉuᴉlossnW as "Mine" and "Thine" like Plato says – it seems like the condition is met where all citizens utter in a unanimous voice "mine" and "thine" – without abolishing private property, but I'll talk about that soon.
…
Consider the Community of Pleasures and Pains, this is cultivated in Hobbes' Leviathan and private appetites and private aversions are not allowed to override the Leviathan:
>But in a Common-wealth this measure is false: Not the Appetite of Private men, but the Law, which is the Will and Appetite of the State is the measure.
…
Now, considering private property: Hobbes allows the distribution of private property, but it is limited by the popular consent, the distribution from the Sovereign is also in accord with unanimous "mine" and "thine" in a way.
<Hobbes: Propriety Of A Subject Excludes Not The Dominion Of The Sovereign, But Only Of Another Subject
>From whence we may collect, that the Propriety which a subject hath in his lands, consists in a right to exclude all other subjects from the use of them; and not to exclude their Sovereign, be it an Assembly, or a Monarch. For seeing the Sovereign, that is to say, the Common-wealth (whose Person he represents,) is understood to do nothing but in order to the common Peace and Security, this Distribution of lands, is to be understood as done in order to the same: And consequently, whatsoever Distribution he shall make in prejudice thereof, is contrary to the will of every subject, that committed his Peace, and safety to his discretion, and conscience; and therefore by the will of every one of them, is to be reputed voyd.
So particular subjects are limited in their estate, all property is limited by an absolute power – as well as subordinate corporations – by a sovereign, who has in his cult of personality "thine" and "mine" of every subject in a plurality of voices brought unto one voice.
>>723279>Would you agree that a revolutionary organisation requires a chairman? Yes, I support any ideology that has a one-party state like ML / Juche on the Far Left and Fascism: My conviction is State Corporatist ideologies naturally play into a monarchical cult of personality or Leader principle, because their notion of a State being like one personhood leads to being more formidable behind the leadership of one actual person.
…
The only difference between a chairman like this and a royal monarch in some instances is simply the high church regalia of a monarch: in other ways, I see modern dictators as modern caesars like modern monarchs, and I support Caesarism/Bonapartism/Whatever you call it as a suitable case for monarchy in the modern world if High Churchism cannot compete.
>>723296I love Michael, I miss Michael.
>>723255no it was a very good drawing someone made. Marx is pointing at Lassalle's chest. They both look very black in the drawing for added irony.
Absolutism was wasted on Anglo people.
I cannot think of a more undeserving people that chance fell onto.
It is just like Carl Schmitt says in The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol:
>Hobbes' important theory of the State did not materialize in England and among the English people but on the European continent by the land powers. It found its manifestation in the French and Prussian states that were in many respects distinct expressions of classical perfection. The English People decided against such a State.
>For several years in the middle of the seventeenth century, it appeared as if Cromwell's dictatorship would lead England to become both a centralized State and a great sea power. The image of the sea monster Leviathan as a symbol of the English State held for a brief historical moment, and it is a curious coincidence that the Leviathan appeared in 1651, the year in which the Acts of Navigation were published… The energies of sea power stood on the side of the revolution. The English nation became its master and grew into the position of a world power without using the forms and means of State Absolutism. The English Leviathan did not become a State.
>But Hobbes' Leviathan has, however, taken the opposite direction: A big fish became a symbol connected with the typical continental process of State building of European land powers. The English Isle and its world-conquering seafaring needed no absolute monarchy, no standing land army, no state bureaucracy, no legal system of a law state such as became the characteristic of continental states.
>The decisionism of absolutist thinking is foreign to the English spirit. The concept of the sovereignty of the absolute State in a conceptually "clean" form, that is, one that shuns mixing and balancing with other State forms, has found no echo in the public power of England. The English constitution, on the contrary, was elevated to an ideal example of a "mixed constitution", a "mixed government."
>Hobbes' theory of the State was thus perceived by its own people as an unnatural deviation and his image of the Leviathan was regarded as the symbol of a monstrosity. What could have been a grand signal of restoration of the vital energy and political unity began to be perceived in a ghostly light and became a grotesque horror picture.
>For Hobbes it was relevant for the State to overcome the anarchy of the feudal estates' and the Church's right of resistance and confront Medieval pluralism with the rational unity of a rational centralized State.
Poem The Ewige Anglo
Beady eyes, Anglo lies
Muffled Aryan Women’s cries
Aryan Children, big and small
Bomber Harris kills them all.
…
Left right, right left, Anglo sows the seeds of death
Not a Stone is left to stand
When Anglo flies across the land.
…
After starting world war 1,
The Anglo’s work was still not done!
So joining with the Pole and Jew,
He made a new one
World war 2.
To sate his thirst for Aryan blood,
That he wanted, that he got.
Now Dresden is devoid of cheer
Hans have fear, The Anglo is here
(another version)
Beady eyes, ANGLO lies.
Muffled Aryan women's cries.
Aryan children, big and small.
Bomber Harris kills them all.
Left right, right left.
ANGLO sows the seeds of death.
Not a stone is left to stand when ANGLO flies across the land.
After starting World War One the ANGLO's work was not yet done.
So joining with the Pole and Jew he made a new one: World War Two.
To sate his thirst for Aryan blood.
That he wanted, that he got.
Now Dresden is devoid of cheer.
Hans have fear, the ANGLO is here.
nuke servia
bump
It is kind of dumb I have to make this image, but fr.
Monarchist legitimatists are dumb.
>No, it's illegitimate!
I don't care for Bourbonists, Orléanist, or Bonapartists.
These dynasties are all long gone.
It was injustice for the Romanovs to be killed, but Nature is also cruel. Empires rise and fall. These monarchies weren't going to last forever; naturally, like with any lifeform, you'd persist and seek to maintain its longevity as much as possible (when it is a truly living regime).
Yet if it been more than 2+ generations and over 100+ years, time to bury the axe and quit.
It would be better to expect to establish a new bloodline or dynasty at this point.
Defecting to
>muh constitution
Isn't going to bring these old dynasties back, and that might as well be the Law of Nature as far as any regimes go (however decent you think they might be, their ruin is inevitable).
After a certain point, after 2+ generations of able-bodied fighters or intrigue for 100+ years, that is more than generous amount of time to seriously take a restoration effort (I know of no restoration happening after 70+ years max, so 100+ years is a generous amount of time as far as I know).
The most stupid part is these same exact people are just as eager to overthrow any said monarch in life as they are to most stupidly and most stubbornly insist upon clinging to and restoring a monarchy or dynasty in death… (If only they were as loyal when they were alive (you know, when loyalty to a regime actually truly matters) rather than when they were finally dead, but go figure).
I will never understand why people who reject monarchy still make the pretense of constitutional monarchy. Far from rejecting monarchy, they become like most monarchists in general (because most are constitutional monarchists). I'd rather see people who reject monarchy move on a leader or dictator figure.
It is the lamest, most trite hoary, uninspired old Victorian 19th century anachronistic fad of Monarchy imaginable.
It isn't as if mixed constitutionalism is an innovation. I'd agree it has been the default mode throughout the Middle Ages and so on, and like Jean Bodin says since the days of Aristotle and even before Aristotle to the time of Herodotus.
I understand the appeal to universal suffrage, but even the politicians people vote for nobody settles to have as a mere figurehead – rather they expect genuine leadership and governance. This prospect mustn't block off the Sun or the longing for leadership.
I guess because Hegel liked "constitutional monarchy" but again it was a fad of the Victorian era and to be frank a very insipid fad that never really engaged with monarchy.
I anticipate when people settle for constitutional monarchy, it is their own disbelief in the institution of monarchy itself: when people truly believe, the sky is the limit and they anticipate they can move mountains with the rulers. It is a lack of confidence in institutional Christianity and High Churchism and a also a lack of confidence in the idea of royalty in general, that makes people republicans for royalty (not trusting them to ride a horse) and rather the most avid monarchists for their great statesmen instead, treating them as prophets. That is all. (Not that people were ever shy to embrace an Absolutism of their own; that was never the case). It is just that embracing constitutional monarchy means rejecting monarchical preeminence entirely.
I cannot wait for the hegemony of this idea
constitutional monarchy to face its next setback or be challenged again, but for now it continues to pervade.
Out of all the socialists I have encountered (& in contempt of the Windsorite r/monarchosocialism), I have to express that Ferdinand Lassalle is the only Western socialist who has seen the light and had the balls to renounce mixed constitutionalism (in spite of denouncing absolutism throughout his political career like in his speech
No Compromise which details his contempt for pseudo-constitutionalism which he took as a victory of absolutism).
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lassalle/revolt/8-no-compromise.html…
Ferdinand Lassalle:>I have never found anything as ridiculous, corrupt, and in the long run impossible as constitutionalism … I have come to the conviction that nothing could have a greater future or a more beneficent role than the monarchy, if it could only make up its mind to become a social monarchy. In that case I would passionately bear its banner, and the constitutional theories would be quickly enough thrown into the lumber roomSocialists need to be more like Ferdinand Lassalle…
The Melancholy and Lamentations of Emo Grace
<"…Saving only that he [the Earl] was carried away with the stream, in a manner, of the whole nation, to think that England was not an absolute, but a mixed monarchy; not considering that the supreme power must always be absolute, whether it be in the King or in the Parliament…"
<"…Besides, I told you before, that those which were then likeliest to have their counsel asked in this business, were averse to absolute monarchy, as also to absolute democracy or aristocracy; all which governments they esteemed tyranny, and were in love with monarchy which they used to praise by the name of mixed monarchy, though it were indeed nothing else but pure anarchy…"
<"…Only that fault, which was generally in the whole nation, which was, that they thought the government of England was not an absolute, but a mixed monarchy; and that if the King should clearly subdue this Parliament, that his power would be what he pleased, and theirs as little as he pleased: which they counted tyranny…"
Emo Grace recites Hobbes verbatim and sulks at anon
>>729716>Feel like a monarchy is an inherently supra-national enterprise.It can be, but it also cannot be.
Depends on which monarch/dynasty.
I am not supra-national.
Christianity & Habsburgs are known for this than others.
There are cosmopolitan tier monarchists.
Most try to pass monarchy off as strictly only being cosmopolitan enterprise. (I think this is a byproduct of Christianity and a certain partiality for certain dynasties, like I said, Habsburgism & Habsburg fanboys).
Japan itself is evidence to the contrary (Japan was isolationist place for a time).
(I personally am not a cosmopolitan–I prefer insular & closed off style of monarchy).
>>729755Actually umm yes
>Eat the Rich& what is the far leftist solution to anti-sectarianism? corporatism basically.
Look at bourgeois multi-party democracies; all they do is tell people to vote against their own people, like tides smashing against each other in a pool, so you see just that without all that basically deferring to corporatism which is a monarchism of the state.
November is over, time to look at her Grace
(Note: I did not draw these, but they are an array of clothes I have to consider).
>>732219She just went to the toilet a minute ago, but Alunya is already missing her, how sweet!
>>732219>Where did Grace go?Hopefully for her sake not the Guillotine.
>Why does Alunya drink milk from a bowl?Do you think I can read minds or something?!?!
>>732176>>732219I really like this old disney kind of style.
>>732245Thanks Anon! It’s called “Rubber hose” and it is really easy to draw.
>>731983RWBY V8 Stream Update!
>>>/anime/29559 From Samuel Johnson's Taxation No Tyranny
>The Colonies of England differ no otherwise from those of other nations, than as the English constitution differs from theirs. All Government is ultimately and essentially absolute, but subordinate societies may have more immunities, or individuals greater liberty, as the operations of Government are differently conducted. An Englishman in the common course of life and action feels restraint. An English Colony has very liberal powers of regulating its own manners and adjusting its own affairs. But an English individual may by the supreme authority be deprived of liberty, and a Colony divested of its powers, for reasons of which that authority is the only judge.
>In sovereignty there are no gradations. There may be limited royalty, there may be limited consulship; but there can be no limited government. There must in every society be some power or other from which there is no appeal, which admits no restrictions, which pervades the whole mass of the community, regulates and adjusts all subordination, enacts laws or repeals them, erects or annuls judicatures, extends or contracts privileges, exempt itself from question or control, and bounded only by physical necessity.
>By this power, wherever it subsists, all legislation and jurisdiction is animated and maintained. From this all legal rights are emanations, which, whether equitably or not, may be legally recalled. It is not infallible, for it may do wrong; but it is irresistible, for it can be resisted only by rebellion, by an act which makes it questionable what shall be thenceforward the supreme power.
>An English Colony is a number of persons, to whom the King grants a Charter permitting them to settle in some distant country, and enabling them to constitute a Corporation, enjoying such powers as the Charter grants, to be administrated in such forms as the Charter prescribes. As a Corporation they make laws for themselves, but as a Corporation subsisting by a grant from higher authority, to the control of that authority they continue subject.
Samuel Johnson continued
>A COLONY is to the Mother-country as a member to the body, deriving its action and its strength from the general principle of vitality; receiving from the body, and communicating to it, all the benefits and evils of health and disease; liable in dangerous maladies to sharp applications, of which the body however must partake the pain; and exposed, if incurably tainted, to amputation, by which the body likewise will be mutilated.
>The Mother-country always considers the Colonies thus connected, as parts of itself; the prosperity or unhappiness of either is the prosperity or unhappiness of both; not perhaps of both in the same degree, for the body may subsist, though less commodiously, without a limb, but the limb must perish if it be parted from the body.
>Our Colonies therefore, however distant, have been hitherto treated as constituent parts of the British Empire. The inhabitants incorporated by English Charters, are entitled to all the rights of Englishmen. They are governed by English laws, entitled to English dignities, regulated by English counsels, and protected by English arms; and it seems to follow by consequence not easily avoided, that they are subject to English government, and chargeable by English taxation.
>To him that considers the nature, the original, the progress, and the constitution of the Colonies, who remembers the first discoverers had commissions from the Crown, that the first settlers owe to a Charter their civil forms and regular magistracy, and that all personal immunities and legal securities, by which the condition of the subject has been from time to time improved, have been extended to the Colonists, it will not be doubted but the Parliament of England has a right to bind them by statutes, and to bind them in all cases whatsoever, and has therefore a natural and constitutional power of laying upon them any tax or impost, whether external or internal, upon the product of land, or the manufactures of industry, in the exigencies of war, or in the time of profound peace, for the defence of America, for the purpose of raising a revenue, or for any other end beneficial to the Empire.
Archibald Kennedy
>There is, in every Family, a Sort of Government without any fixed Rules; and indeed it is impossible, even in a little Family, to form Rules for every Circumstance; and therefore it is better conceived than expressed; but perfectly understood by every Individual belonging to the Family. The Study of the Father or Master, is for the Good of the Whole; all Appeals are to him; he has a Power, from the Reason and Nature of Things, to check the Insolent, or Indolent, and to encourage the Industrious: In short, the whole Affairs of the Family are immediately under the Care or Direction of the Father or Master; and this is a natural Prerogative, known and acknowledged by every Man living, who has ever had a Family, or been any Ways concerned in a Family, in all Ages and in all Places. His Majesty, as he is our political Father, his political Prerogative, from the like Circumstances and Reasons, is equally necessary. And this political Authority has been allowed the supreme Director, in all States, in all Ages, and in all Places; and without it, there would be a Failure of Justice.
Robert Filmer / Directive Power
>The first Father had not only simply power, but power monarchical, as he was a Father, immediately from God. For by the appointment of God, as soon as Adam was created he was monarch of the world, though he had no subjects; for though there could not be actual government until there were subjects, yet by the right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity: though not in act, yet at least in habit. Adam was a King from his creation: and in the state of innocency he had been governor of his children; for the integrity or excellency of the subjects doth not take away the order or eminency of the governor.
>but as for directive power, the condition of human nature requires it, since civil society cannot be imagined without power of government: for although as long as men continued in the state of innocency they might not need the direction of Adam in those things which were necessarily and morally to be done; yet things indifferent, that depended merely on their free will, might be directed by the power of Adam's command.
Death to all royalists and monarchists
>>738004I did sort of modify the picture, but gracefag pics are generally commissions/requests and not a drawfag.
Merry Christmas, Grace-poster!
>>738921Oh, she's lovebombing her!
>>738921Wow! nice Christmas present.
Let's open your gift
right now! Alunya!
>>738804Merry Xmas.
>>736767Forgot to post that the JLxRWBY stream happened last week.
Also
>>>/anime/29650 Plato Republic:
>That the other citizens too must be sent to the task for which their natures were fitted, one man to one work, in order that each of them fulfilling his own function may be not many men, but one, and so the entire city may come to be not a multiplicity but a unity.
Plato Republic:
>For factions… are the outcome of injustice, and hatreds and internecine conflicts, but justice brings oneness of mind and love.
Plato Laws:
>That all men are, so far as possible, unanimous in the praise and blame they bestow, rejoicing and grieving at the same things, and that they honor with all their heart those laws which render the State as unified as possible
Thomas Hobbes
>The error concerning mixed government [constitutionalism] has proceeded from want of understanding of what is meant by this word body politic, and how it signifies not the concord, but the union of many men.
<With Aristotle's Politics:
Aristotle / Since the nature of a State is to be a plurality
>Further, as a means to the end which he ascribes to the State, the scheme, taken literally is impracticable, and how we are to interpret it is nowhere precisely stated. I am speaking of the premise from which the argument of Socrates proceeds, "That the greater the unity of the State the better." Is it not obvious that a state at length attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a State? since the nature of a State is to be plurality, and in tending to greater unity, from being a State, it becomes a Family, and from being a Family, an Individual; for the Family may be said to be more than the State, and the Individual than the family. So that we ought not to attain this greatest unity even if we could, for it would be the destruction of the State. Again, a State is not made up only of so many men, but of different kinds of men.
Aristotle / state is a partnership of families and of clans in living well, and its object is a full and independent life.
And a state is the partnership of clans and villages in a full and independent life, which in our view constitutes a happy and noble life;
>These are necessary preconditions of a state's existence, yet nevertheless, even if all these conditions are present, that does not therefore make a state, but a state is a partnership of families and of clans in living well, and its object is a full and independent life. At the same time this will not be realized unless the partners do inhabit one and the same locality and practise intermarriage; this indeed is the reason why family relationships have arisen throughout the states, and brotherhoods and clubs for sacrificial rites and social recreations. But such organization is produced by the feeling of friendship, for friendship is the motive of social life; therefore, while the object of a state is the good life, these things are means to that end. And a state is the partnership of clans and villages in a full and independent life, which in our view constitutes a happy and noble life; the political fellowship must therefore be deemed to exist for the sake of noble actions, not merely for living in common. Hence those who contribute most to such fellowship have a larger part in the state than those who are their equals or superiors in freedom and birth but not their equals in civic virtue, or than those who surpass them in wealth but are surpassed by them in virtue.
Aristotle Politics / Anti-State Corporatism / Anti-Absolute Monarchy
>For the people becomes a monarch, and is many in one; and the many have the power in their hands, not as individuals, but collectively. Homer says that ‘it is not good to have a rule of many,’ but whether he means this corporate rule, or the rule of many individuals, is uncertain. At all events this sort of democracy, which is now a monarch and no longer under the control of law, seeks to exercise monarchical sway, and grows into a despot; the flatterer is held in honor; this sort of democracy being relatively to other democracies what tyranny is to other forms of monarchy. The spirit of both is the same, and they alike exercise a despotic rule over the better citizens.
Aristotle writes in Politics,
>Now there is an erroneous opinion that a statesman, king, householder, and a master are the same, and that they differ, not in kind, but only in the number of their subjects. For example, the ruler over a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still larger number, a statesman or king, as if there were no difference between a great household and a small state.
Aristotle:
>The rule of a household is a monarchy, for every house is under one head:
>whereas constitutional rule is a government of freemen and equals.
<Plato / There won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household & the bulk of a small city
>Visitor: Well then, surely there won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household, on the one hand, and the bulk of a small city on the other? – Young Socrates: None. – It's clear that there is one sort of expert knowledge concerned with all these things; whether someone gives this the name of kingship, or statesmanship, or household management, let's not pick any quarrel with him.
State Corporatism is a unitary politics with the State as one personhood, a living organism, a higher personality and being; not to be confused with a collection of private corporations.
The ideology of State Corporatism traces its lineage back to Plato's Republic, Hobbes' Leviathan, and the formation of one-party States and Fascism.
In Plato's Republic is State Corporatism:
>That the other citizens too must be sent to the task for which their natures were fitted, one man to one work, in order that each of them fulfilling his own function may be not many men, but one, and so the entire city may come to be not a multiplicity but a unity.
In Hobbes' Leviathan is State Corporatism:
>And in him consisteth the Essence of the Common-wealth; which (to define it,) is "One Person, of whose Acts a great Multitude, by mutuall Covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the Author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their Peace and Common Defence.”
In Italian Fascism is State Corporatism:
Gentile
>It is the State that possesses a concrete will & must be considered a person.
Giuseppe Bottai
>However, in speaking of the corporative State, it must not be understood as meaning only all that which pertains to the relations between employers and workers – relations based on a principle of collaboration rather than upon a struggle of classes. Fascism with its new arrangements aims at a more complex end. This, summed up in a few words, is "to reassert the sovereignty of the State over those syndicates, which, whether of an economic or social kind, when left to themselves broke out at one time against the State, subjecting the will of the individual to their own arbitrary decision, almost musing the rise of judicial provisions alien to the legal order of the State, opposing their own right to the right of the State, subordinating to their own interests the defenceless classes, and even the general interest, of which the State is naturally the judge, champion and avenger."
A brief disclaimer: this is the what the corporatism of Fascism is, State Corporatism, and not to be mistaken with the corporative system itself which act as internal organs of this higher personality. Those corporate bodies are limited and are organs, and that kind of corporatism is more analogous to guilds, the primary corporatism of Fascism is State Corporatism, these are corporations are organs and limited internally in relation to "The State" (which in this connotation refers to State Corporatism especially).
Mario Palmieri:
>To make this discipline possible, and the sovereignty effective in practice as well as in theory, Fascism has devised the “Corporazione,” an instrument of social life destined to exercise the most far-reaching influence upon the economic development of Fascist States. (The Italian word “Corporazione” which is currently translated into English by the apparently analogous word “Corporation,” means, more exactly in the Italian language, what the word “Guild” means in English; that is: associations of persons engaged in kindred pursuits. We shall nevertheless follow the general usage to obviate the danger of misunderstandings.)
>Within the Corporations the interests of producers and consumers, employers and employees, individuals and associations are interlocked and integrated in a unique and univocal way, while all types of interests are brought under the aegis of the State.
Fausto Pitigliani
>That the Corporation has no legal independent personality but is an organ of the State Administration.
>To these organs, which take the name of Corporations and link the various productive activities of the country as members of one body
>The Corporations constitute the unitary organisation of the forces of production and represent all their interests.
>In virtue of this integral representation, and in view of the fact that the interests of production are the interests of the Nation, the law recognises the Corporations as State organs.
For clarity, Hobbes Leviathan also takes this stance on the limitation of subordinate corporations and the sovereign relationship of the state corporation:
>Of Regular, some are Absolute, and Independent, subject to none but their own Representative: such are only Common-wealths [or States]; Of which I have spoken already in the 5. last preceding chapters. Others are Dependent; that is to say, Subordinate to some Soveraign Power, to which every one, as also their Representative is Subject.
>Of Systemes subordinate, some are Politicall, and some Private. Politicall (otherwise Called Bodies Politique, and Persons In Law,) are those, which are made by authority from the Soveraign Power of the Common-wealth. Private, are those, which are constituted by Subjects amongst themselves, or by authoritie from a stranger. For no authority derived from forraign power, within the Dominion of another, is Publique there, but Private.
>In All Bodies Politique [Any Corporation under the State] The Power of The Representative is Limited.
>In Bodies Politique, the power of the Representative is always Limited: And that which prescribes the limits thereof, is the Power Sovereign. For Power Unlimited, is absolute Sovereignty. And the Sovereign, in every Commonwealth, is the absolute Representative of all the Subjects.
Jean Bodin also adds.
>Provided that they [the family] are joined together by the legitimate and limited rule of the father.
>I have said "limited", since this fact chiefly distinguishes the Family from the State.
>That the latter [The State] has the final and public authority.
>The former [The Family or Household] limited and private rule.
State Corporatism is anything but Aristotelian.
Where Plato praises it, Aristotle condemns it.
Aristotle Politics
>For the people becomes a monarch, and is many in one; and the many have the power in their hands, not as individuals, but collectively. Homer says that ‘it is not good to have a rule of many,’ but whether he means this corporate rule, or the rule of many individuals, is uncertain. At all events this sort of democracy, which is now a monarch and no longer under the control of law, seeks to exercise monarchical sway, and grows into a despot; the flatterer is held in honor; this sort of democracy being relatively to other democracies what tyranny is to other forms of monarchy. The spirit of both is the same, and they alike exercise a despotic rule over the better citizens.
Contrast this with Plato again.
>That the other citizens too must be sent to the task for which their natures were fitted, one man to one work, in order that each of them fulfilling his own function may be not many men, but one, and so the entire city may come to be not a multiplicity but a unity.
As you can see, Plato supports many in one, but Aristotle condemns it.
The taboo in the West against one-party States (for leftist vanguardism AND fascism) originates with Aristotle, and Aristotle condemns it for the same reason Aristotle condemns an absolute monarchy: it is seen as a tyranny over constitutionalism and the multi-parties and estates.
Benito ᴉuᴉlossnW:
Speech of the Ascension, May 26, 1927
The Unitary State
>But in the meantime I come to an essential point of my speech: perhaps the most important. What have we Fascists done in these last five years? We did something huge, monumental, centuries in the making. What have we made? We have created the Italian Unitary State. Consider that from the time of the Empire onward, Italy was no longer a unitary State. Here we solemnly reaffirm our doctrine concerning the State; here I reaffirm my formula in the speech I delivered at La Scala in Milan: "Everything within the State, nothing against the State". I do not even think anyone in the 20th century can live outside the State, unless they are in a state of barbarism, a state of savagery.
>It is only the State that gives people a consciousness of itself. If the people are not organized, if the people are not a State, they are simply a population that will be at the mercy of the first group of internal adventurers or external invaders. Because, dear gentlemen, only the State with its juridical organization, with its military force, prepared at all times, can defend the national collectivity; but if the human collectivity is broken up and reduced to the mere nucleus of the family, a few hundred Normans will suffice to conquer Puglia.
>What was the State – that State which we took over as it was breathing its last breath, gnawed by constitutional crises, debased by its organic impotence? The State which we conquered at the time of the March on Rome was the one which has been handed down from 1850 onward. It was not a State, but a system of badly organized prefectures, in which the prefect had but one preoccupation: that of being an efficient electoral errand boy.
Fascism and Democracy
>In that State, until 1922, the proletariat – what shall I say? the entire people – was absent, refractory, hostile. Today we announce to the world the creation of the powerful Unitary Italian State from the Alps to Sicily. And this State expresses itself in a centralized, organized, unitary democracy in which the people move about at ease, because, gentlemen, either you place the people within the citadel of the State, and they will defend it, or they will be outside, and they will assault it.
Hobbes Elements of Lawhttp://www.public-library.uk/ebooks/31/91.pdf>And as this union into a city or body politic, is instituted with common power over all the particular persons, or members thereof, to the common good of them all; so also may there be amongst a multitude of those members, instituted a subordinate union of certain men, for certain common actions to be done by those men for some common benefit of theirs, or of the whole city; as for subordinate government, for counsel, for trade, and the like. And these subordinate bodies politic are usually called CORPORATIONS; and their power such over the particulars of their own society, as the whole city whereof they are members have allowed them.
>In all cities or bodies politic not subordinate, but independent, that one man or one council, to whom the particular members have given that common power, is called their SOVEREIGN, and his power the sovereign power. which consisteth in the power and the strength that every of the members have transferred to him from themselves, by covenant. And because it is impossible for any man really to transfer his own strength to another, or for that other to receive it; it is to be understood: that to transfer a man's power and strength, is no more but to lay by or relinquish his own right of resisting him to whom he so transferreth it. And every member of the body politic, is called a SUBJECT, (viz.) to the sovereign…
>The error concerning mixed government has proceeded from want of understanding of what is meant by this word body politic, and how it signifies not the concord, but the union of many men.>The other error in this his first argument is that he says the members of every Commonwealth, as of a natural body, depend one of another. It is true they cohere together, but they depend only on the sovereign, which is the soul of the Commonwealth
>And though in the charters of subordinate corporations, a corporation be declared to be one person in law, yet the same hath not been taken notice of in the body of a commonwealth or city, nor have any of those innumerable writers of politics observed any such union. Alfredo Rocco in The Political Doctrine of Fascism also makes out a historical outlook sympathetic to monarchical absolutism:
>This innovating trend is not and cannot be a return to the Middle Ages. It is a common but an erroneous belief that the movement started by the Reformation and heightened by the French Revolution was directed against mediaeval ideas and institutions. Rather than as a negation, this movement should be looked upon as the development and fulfillment of the doctrines and practices of the Middle Ages. Socially and politically considered, the Middle Ages wrought disintegration and anarchy; they were characterized by the gradual weakening and ultimate extinction of the State, embodied in the Roman Empire, driven first to the East, then back to France, thence to Germany, a shadow of its former self; they were marked by the steady advance of the forces of usurpation, destructive of the State and reciprocally obnoxious; they bore the imprints of a triumphant particularism. Therefore the individualistic and anti-social movement of the 17th and 18th centuries was not directed against the Middle Ages, but rather against the restoration of the State by great national monarchies. If this movement destroyed mediaeval institutions that had survived the Middle Ages and had been grafted upon the new states, it was in consequence of the struggle primarily waged against the State. The spirit of the movement was decidedly mediaeval. The novelty consisted in the social surroundings in which it operated and in its relation to new economic developments. The individualism of the feudal lords, the particularism of the cities and of the corporations had been replaced by the individualism and the particularism of the bourgeoisie and of the popular classes.
Many traditionalists too prefer constitutionalism on the basis that it had precedence in the Middle Ages contrary to absolutism of the early modernity starting in the late 1500s. & ancaps today repeat the Tocquevillist mantra and see Medievalism and the Holy Roman Empire as an anarchy and decentralization they admire.
Alfredo Rocco brings up Dante Alighieri's De Monarchia & Aquinas De Regno:
>It was therefore natural that St. Thomas Aquinas the greatest political writer of the Middle Ages should emphasize the necessity of unity in the political field, the harm of plurality of rulers, the dangers and damaging effects of demagogy. The good of the State, says St. Thomas Aquinas, is unity. And who can procure unity more fittingly than he who is himself one? Moreover the government must follow, as far as possible, the course of nature and in nature power is always one. In the physical body only one organ is dominant—the heart; in the spirit only one faculty has sway—reason. Bees have one sole ruler; and the entire universe one sole sovereign—God. Experience shows that the countries, which are ruled by many, perish because of disc0rd while those that are ruled over by one enjoy peace, justice, and plenty. The states which are not ruled by one are troubled by dissensions, and toil unceasingly. On the contrary the states which are ruled over by one king enjoy peace, thrive in justice and are gladdened by affluence.
>Italy in the Middle Ages presented a curious phenomenon: while in practice the authority of the State was being dissolved into a multiplicity of competing sovereignties, the theory of State unity and authority was kept alive in the minds of thinkers by the memories of the Roman Imperial tradition. It was this memory that supported for centuries the fiction of the universal Roman Empire when in reality it existed no longer. Dante's De Monarchia deduced the theory of this empire conceived as the unity of a strong State. "Quod potest fieri per unum melius est per unum fieri quam plura," he says in the 14th chapter of the first book, and further on, considering the citizen as an instrument for the attainment of the ends of the State, he concludes that the individual must sacrifice himself for his country. "Si pars debet se exponere pro salute totius, cum homo siti pars quaedam civitatis … homo pro patria debet exponere se ipsum." (lib. II. 8).
The Tocquevillist Slander
Personally, I'm convinced it the decentralization / centralization babble in essence goes back to Plato and Aristotle.
Aristotle disagreed with Plato, stating contrary to Plato that economical and political do have a contrary character, whereas Plato confers that they are no different and aren't of a contrary character.
Because Aristotle asserts that political rule is the rule of constitutional freemen, and that democracy is freedom; but also that monarchy is the rule of a household, and monarchy is only concerned with staying in power – Aristotle sets the record that monarchy is despotism over constitutional freemen and ought to be one among equals or always to stay with popular convention of freemen and not like a master.
Prior to the 1700s, there wasn't much talk of decentralization vs centralization like with left or right politics that's a staple of our more contemporary political lexicon–albeit we know the rudiments for this discussion in the past and how they came to be. Of course there was party politics and divisions of land and their concentration and separation. But after the colonization and constitutional debates between Americans over their colonial territory, after the French Revolution, & about the time of Alexis de Tocqueville and Bastiat, the terms decentralization and centralization were introduced with much more gravity and weight. They are words with no bearing on the concept of sovereignty.
Imo, the pretense of decentralization has always been that: the independent rule of freemen, as Aristotle puts it, contrary to Plato: the idea that political and economical are of contrary characters, and that we must respect the political estate differently. That independent heads of houses are set apart from the city itself as freemen: but in this context it's not heads of households as freemen, but autonomous regions making the pretense against the notion of states and any wider authority.
This is why Alexis de Tocqueville in the pretext of his work on the Old Regime sets it apart as the pretense of Liberty vs Despotism: that Liberty must prevail of Despotism. And despotism is the idea that the character of the political and economical are no different, like we say, back to Plato.
The followers of Tocqueville and his political legacy, like Hoppe and De Jouvenel, tend to be aristocratic apologists.
Alexis de Tocqueville in his study of the Ancien Regime brings up, however, that his study of the Middle Ages in search of the Old European Constitution is related largely to Germany / HRE (which, as we all know, muh border gore). It's what Ancaps and neofeuds always appeal to.
Jean Bodin classifies the HRE / Germany to be an Aristocracy or kind of Oligarchy, so while Alexis de Tocqueville starts his analysis for the Old Constitution of Europe and his appeal to decentralization – it's important to note how it begins with a form of state that had been recognized as aristocratic or oligarchical. Because Alexis de Tocqueville's big blurt is about centralization and decentralization: his entire critique is standing upon this chair, and if you kick this chair from beneath the feat of Alexis de Tocqueville – he will collapse and break his bones.
Alexis de Tocqueville notes in his work how any centralization is a move away from Aristocracy (Oligarchy/few), and decentralization only possible by Aristocracy (Oligarchy/few)
Which is important to see how this is related to his study of Germany and the Prussian influence.
Now I would babble about how these words decentralization / centralization are anathema to sovereignty and our political understanding, but suffice to say, that this pretense begins with Aristotle saying that the economy has a different character from the political will suffice enough, esp. when it comes to his idea of freemen (which Hobbes criticizes duly). A lot we see with American exceptionalism and democracy in terms of freedom and constitutionalism goes back to Aristotle. For a mixed constitution, it is largely attributed to Aristotle and Polybius, particularly Aristotle since Aristotle views whatever is whole to be a composite.
The doctrine of absolutism that Tocqueville slanders as the mother of all modern socialism has been acknowledged beforehand numerous times. He only begrudgingly admits that it had origins in the feudal system and his only pretense is the courts never admitted it – but if you read there's plenty of testimony behind the doctrine. – What I hate about Tocqueville here is the appeal to the Middle Ages and making a huff about how medieval royalism was different to renaissance and early modern royalism kinda originates with him and ancaps and anarcho-monarchists annoy me with it like Tocqueville does.
Alexander Hamilton, for instance, says this:
Alexander Hamilton
>Were there any room to doubt, that the sole right of the territories in America was vested in the crown, a convincing argument might be drawn from the principle of English tenure… By means of the feudal system, the King became, and still continues to be, in a legal sense, the original proprietor, or lord paramount, of all the lands in England.*—Agreeable to this rule, he must have been the original proprietor of all the lands in America, and was, therefore, authorized to dispose of them in what manner he thought proper.
>When a nation abolishes aristocracy, centralization follows as a matter of course.
-Alexis de Tocqueville
How do I see Tocqueville's political legacy today?
Tocqueville & Bastiat -→ De Jouvenel & Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn -→ Hans-Hermann Hoppe
A big influence on right libertarians w/ these names.
There is a fine line between having a Monarchy with a Nobility and having an Aristocracy or Oligarchy with a petty king involved.
<Jean Bodin / Lacedemonians and cities of Gauls - Oligarchy
>"So also might we say of the state of Lacedemonians, which was a pure Oligarchy, wherein were two kings, without any sovereignty at all, being indeed nothing but Captains and Generals for the managing of their wars: and for that cause were by the other magistrates of the state, sometimes for their faults condemned to fines… And such were in ancient times the kings of the cities of the Gauls, whom Caesar for this cause oftentimes called Regulos, that is to say little kings: being themselves subjects, and justiciable unto the Nobility, who had all the sovereignty.
Every movement away from Nobility / Aristocracy, Tocqueville calls centralization; every movement towards Nobility / Aristocracy, – decentralization. (The latter is where is stress is – so the Nobility is stressed above Monarchy and Democracy to achieve this aim, but not stressed on Monarchy itself which he dubs centralization).
…
De Jouvenel also stressed, following the lead of De Tocqueville, "Liberty's Aristocratic Roots" & against Caesarism (Monarchy) which he linked with Monarchy itself.
Following Tocqueville's lead, De Jouvenel placed all liberty and appeals to the Nobility and rule of a few.
<De Jouvenel / Monarchical vs Senatorial
>According to which of these two hypotheses is adopted, the conclusion is reached that the "natural" government is either the monarchical or the senatorial. But from the time that Locke utterly smashed up Filmer's fragile structure, the earliest political authority was considere to be the senate composed of fathers of families, using the word "families" in the widest sense.
>Society must, therefore, have presented two degrees of authority, which were quite different in kind.
<On the one hand is the head of the family, exercising the most imperious sway over all who were within the family circle.
>On the other are the heads of families in council, taking decisions in concert, tied to each other only by consent, submitting only to what has been determined in common, and assembling their retainers, who have outside themselves, neither law nor master, to execute their will.
As you see here, De Jouvenel takes the Aristotelian view that political & economical differ with his distinction here^
…
<De Jouvenel / Securitarian vs Libertarian
>The conclusion is that there never was a time in any society whatsoever when some individuals did not feel themselves to be insufficiently protected, and others did not feel themselves to be insufficiently free. The former I call "securitarians" and the latter "libertarians".
De Jouvenel also tackled the issues I pointed out earlier about Plato (& where the more unitary vs pluralistic views of State come into being – Aristotle, for his part, is more senatorial and many of the like appeals De Jouvenel makes are found in Aristotle's City, which is the senatorial kind of assemblage of heads of estates and of families – the political constitution stresses the estates of the city rather than the unity of the city itself under one head like a family – I touched on this issue with the doctrine that political and economical don't differ).
In my sincere opinion, De Jouvenel obviously appeals to the "old republic" and those senatorial ideals – it doesn't matter if it be a landed, hereditary nobility with their estates OR a bunch of senators in one room – we are simply adjusting the scale from Aristotle's City projected onto nobles and their estates spread apart like in Aristotle's City the various estates of the city converging.
–So this is why I look at Tocquevillism with immense annoyance when so many monarchists, be it constitutional monarchists and right libertarians and ancaps, spurn absolute monarchy in order to achieve "decentralization" and "liberty" as ascribed here, because it bears that stamp of the heads of the estates which are always few and resemble an oligarchical form.
Why is this like rocket science to explain to other monarchists? I don't think, but I believe it is because they don't take Monarchy seriously or believe what Darius says in the Herodotus Debate or Homer's monarchist maxim in the Iliad. They've been collectively taught to embrace the Nobility as opposed to Absolute Monarchy on these grounds of decentralization and libertarian ideals… this sentiment permeates the monarchist community so thoroughly and is everywhere and is unanimous for these monarchists whether constitutionalist or libertarian, but it's very popular with traditionalists.
>De Jouvenel covering Plato's politics
>…Hegel turned it to good account: recalling that Plato in his Republic had rigorously stressed the importance of the citizens remaining undifferentiated and had seen in that the essential condition of social unity, Hegel asserted that the characteristic of the modern state was, contrarywise, to allow a process of differentiation, by which an ever growing diversity could be rangedd within an ever richer unity.
>But there would be grave dangers in so avowedly normative an approach as this. It would in the first place build an ivory tower which was so remote from reality that advice issuing from it would be unable to influence the citizens of the real world: so it was with Plato's Republic, which was built on just these foundations. Worse still, the attraction exercised by pretty pictures of this kind lures men into importing them into reality and leads them on to tyrannical actions to achieve their ideals: there is a tyranny in the womb of every Utopia.
>(Footnotes): For a denunciation of the oppressive character of the institutions conceived by Plato, see my Power, Book III, ch. VII. Almost simultaneously there appeared in London a work of vast erudition and great intellectual vigour by Professor Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies. The ideas developed in the present chapter often join hands with those of Professor Popper's fine book.
While it's true that we are critical of Plato ourselves, we do have this view of the State as a unitary being (which Plato calls in his organicism of all members of society acting like one man) and that political and economical don't differ. You've seen how De Jouvenel is opposed to these unitary views. And when it comes to Monarchy itself, the stress on the chiefs and senatorial view is akin to Aristotle's City and notion of Politics. You could say, however, that I am misrepresenting De Jouvenel and I'd be fine if anyone would say so, but the overall sentiment I feel from the Tocquevillists (De Jouvenel & Alexis de Tocqueville) is this stress on the Nobility and for all the aforementioned reasons I disapprove of it and wish monarchists would stop with their Tocquevillism and with the influx of right libertarians and constitutional monarchists in agreement with those right libertarians and all this flirtation with the traditionalists about the clerical estate, have turned themselves into a hate train against absolute monarchy. I deal with their snubbing way too often and can't stand the majority of the monarchist community because they're drunk with it. The same with NeoAbsolutists who formed a cult around De Jouvenel with their blogs (but thankfully died down when Von Hallerism took over). I swear the monarchist community is so stupid.
De Jouvenel - Republic of Old
>The republic of old had no state apparatus. It needed no machinery for imposing the public will on all the citizens, who would have had none of such a thing. The citizens, with their own wills and their own resources – these latter small at first but continuously growing – decide by adjusting their wills and execute by pooling their resources.
>We do not find anywhere in the ancient republic a directing will so armed with its own weapons that it can use force. There were the consults, I may be told. But to start with there were two of them, and it was an essential feature of the office that they could block one another's activities.
>Only those decisions were possible on which there was general agreement, and, in the absence of any state apparatus, their execution depended solely on the cooperation of the public. The army was but the people in arms, and the revenues were but the sums gifted by the citizens, which could not have been raised except by voluntary subscriptions. There was not, to come down to the essential point, an administrative corps.
>In the city of old, no public office is found filled by a member of a permanent staff who holds his place from Power; the method of appointment is election for a short period, usually a year, and often by the drawing of lots, which was called by Aristotle the true democratic method.
>It thus appears that the rulers do not form, as in our modern society, a coherent body which, from the minister of state down to the policeman, moves as one piece. On the contrary, the magistrates, great and small, discharge their duties in a way which verges on independence….
>How was a regime of this kind able to function at all? Only be great moral cohesion and the inter-availability of private citizens for public office….
…So De Jouvenel espouses anti-monarchical, Aristotelian political pluralism against state corporatism / absolute monarchy, just like Aristotle did…
Like Aristotle, along with rejecting the rule of a wise man like Plato's philosopher kings, also counterpoised a strong middle class and that an oligarchy would invite the poor into assembly to help preserve the oligarchy and pass any conflicts, but keeping the main advantage.
Tocqueville thought the same with a middle class.
Aristotle also acknowledged the advent of the middle class as the decline of monarchies and that is where that meme comes from… like in that interview with the Shah of Iran asking him about whether there are other hereditary monarchies in the world and how he expects to rule when people get wealthier.
<De Jouvenel on Middle Class
<How can men whose authority rests on Power's guarantee oppose to it the proud independence which honourably distinguished the ancient aristocracy? Lacking now all strength of their own, they no longer uphold Power; no longer upholding Power, they have become incapable of limiting it. The notions of aristocracy and liberty have parted company.
>The heirs of their libertarian aspirations are the middle class. We will define the middle class, if we must, as composed of those who have enough social strength to stand in no need of any special protection and to desire the largest measure of liberty, but have on the other hand not enough strength to make their liberties oppressive to others.
De Jouvenel on chiefs of clans
>However it may be with these conjectures, it is a certain point of historical development we meet with the ambitious king who aims at extending his own prerogative at the expense of the chiefs of clans –"the absolute monarchs of their families," as Vico calls them–and is jealous of their independence.
Rather, Aristotle paints the other picture around – of a usurping middle class and oligarchy not standing the pre-eminence of one person like an absolute monarch.
Aristotle – No longer bearing the pre-eminence of one
>The first governments were kingships, probably for this reason, because of old, when cities were small, men of eminent virtue were few. Further, they were made kings because they were benefactors, and benefits can only be bestowed by good men.
>But when many persons equal in merit arose, no longer enduring the pre-eminence of one, they desired to have a commonwealth, and set up a constitution.
And this Aristotle reins in as the inevitable decline of monarchy with chiefs of equal merit wanting a constitution and aristocracy.
Now remember De Jouvenel is famous for his HLvM (Monarchy + Democracy vs Aristocracy) where Power advances by this conflict of the High meeting with the Low to screw over the Middle. This is the paradigm that many in the right libertarian circles see: and De Jouvenel himself goes along with the narrative that Marx has that absolute monarchy merged with the bourgeois to institute itself. So be mindful of that.
This is something we see in the advent of NRx terms like BioLeninism: where those in power usurp the superiors with the degenerates for their slave loyalty.
<De Jouvenel - Absolutist work of Monarchy vs libertarian work of Aristocracy
>Will historians, in their passion for libertarian and anti-absolutist institutions, admire the resistance of aristocracy to the formation of absolutism? Sismondi, for instance, states that in the Middle Ages "all the real advances made in independence of character, in the safeguarding of rights, and in the limitations forced by discussion on the caprices and vices of absolute Power, were due to the hereditary aristocracy."
<De Jouvenel – The only thing Caesarism fears, right libertarians
>In this way is removed the only obstacle that Caesarism has to fear–a movement of libertarian resistance, emanating from a people with subjective rights to defend and under the natural leadership of eminent men whom their credit qualifies and whom the insolence of wealth does not disqualify.
De Jouvenel - Monarchy First Instituted Power
>We see then that the monarchical period established in the body of society a distinct organ: this was Power, which has its own life, its own interests, its own characteristics, its own ends. It needs studying under this aspect.
(I believe this was after De Jouvenel's talk of the old republic).
<Louis XIV on HRE
>An on this subject, my son, lest they should try to impress you sometimes with the wonderful names of Roman Empire, of Caesar, of Imperial Majesty, of successor to the great emperors from whom we derive our origin, I feel obliged to indicate to you how far the emperors of today are removed from the greatness of the titles that they affect.
>When these titles were introduced into our house, it reigned all at once over France, the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, and most of Spain, which it had distributed among various individual lords, while preserving sovereignty over it. The bloody defeats of many peoples issuing from the north and from the south for the ruin of Christendom had made the French name the terror of the whole earth. Charlemagne, finally, seeing no king in all Europe, nor, to tell the truth, anywhere else in the world, whose fortunes could compare with his, this title seemed henceforth unsuitable either for them or for him. He had risen to this high point of glory not by the choice of some prince, but by courage and by victories, which are the choice and the votes of Heaven Itself when It has resolved to subordinate the other powers to a single one. And there had not been any dominion as extensive as his except for the four famous monarchies to which the empire of the entire world is attributed, although they had never conquered nor possessed any more than a small part of it, yet important and well known in the world. That of the Romans was the last, entirely extinct in the West and with only some feeble remnants in the East, miserable and languishing.
>However, as if the Roman Empire had recovered its strength and begun to revive in our climes, which was not the case at all, this the greatest title then in the memory of man alone seemed capable of defining and designation the extraordinary loftiness of Charlemagne, and even though this loftiness itself, which he derived only from God and from his sword, gave him every right to assume whatever title he would have wanted, the Pope, who along with the entire Church was extremely indebted to him, was most pleased to contribute whatever he could to his glory and to render this capacity of emperor more authentic to him through a solemn coronation, which, like the consecration, even though it does not give us royalty, proclaims it to the people and renders it more august, more inviolable, and more sacred in us. But this greatness of Charlemagne, which was so fit to establish the title of emperor or even more magnificent ones if there had been any, did not long survive him; diminished first by the partitions that were made then among the sons of France, then by the weakness and by the lack of dedication of his descendants, particularly of the branch that had established itself on this side of the Rhine; for empires, my son, are preserved only as they are acquired, that is, by vigor, by vigilance, and by work.
>The Germans, excluding the princes of our blood, soon thereafter appropriated this dignity, or rather, substituted another in its place that had nothing in common either with the old Roman Empire nor with the new empire of our ancestors, by which they tried, as in all great changes, to arrange that everyone would find his advantage and thus not oppose it. The people and the individual states entered into it owing to the great privileges that were given to them in the name of liberty, the princes of Germany because this dignity was made elective instead of hereditary and they thereby acquired the right to appoint to it, to claim it, or both; the popes, finally, because one always professes to derive it from their authority and, basically, a great and true Roman protector. In this sense, the kings of Spain still titled themselves, only a few years ago, advocates of some of the cities that I have conquered in Flanders, that country being almost entirely divided into different advocates or protectorates of this type.
>But to return to the emperors of today, you can easily, my son, understand from this entire discussion that they are in no way comparable to the old Roman emperors, nor to Charlemagne and his first successors. For, to give them their due, they can be considered merely as heads, or captains-general, of a German republic, rather new by comparison with many other states, and which is neither so great nor so powerful that it should claim any superiority over neighboring nations. Their most important decisions are subject to the deliberations of the Estates of the Empire. One imposes whatever conditions one wants upon them at their election. Most of the members of the republic, that is, the princes and the free cities of Germany, defer to their orders only when they please. In their capacity as emperors they have very little revenue, and if they did not possess other hereditary domains of their own, they would be reduced to residing, out of all the Empire, in the sole city of Bamberg, which the bishop who is its sovereign lord would be obliged to cede to them. Thus many princes who might have attained to this dignity by election have rejected it, believing it to be more a burden than of an honor. An the Elector of Bavaria could have been emperor in my time if he had not refused to appoint himself, as the law permits, by combining his vote with those that I had secured for him in the electoral college.
>I fail to see, therefore, my son, for what reason the kings of France, hereditary kings who can boast that there isn't either a better house, nor greater power, nor more absolute authority than theirs anywhere else in the world today, should rank below these elective princes. It cannot be denied, nonetheless, that the popes, as a consequence of what they had done, have gradually given precedence at the court of Rome to the ambassadors of the Emperor over all the others and most of the courts in Christendom have imitated this example without our predecessors having made any effort to prevent it.
>In short, my son, while I have not believed I should ask for anything new in Christendom on this matter, I have believed even less that, in my position, I should in any way tolerate anything new by which these princes might affect to assume the least superiority over me; and I counsel you to do the same, noting, however, how much virtue is to be esteemed, since, after such a long time, that of the Romans, that of the first Caesars, and that of Charlemagne still secure, without adequate reason, more honor than is due to the empty name and to the empty shadow of their empire.
Louis XIV memoir here–end–
<Jean Bodin, like Voltaire, on the HRE
>The way in which the Germans define a monarchy is absurd, that is, according to the interpretation of Philip Melanchthon, as the most powerful of all states. It is even more absurd that they think they hold the empire of the Romans, which of course would seem laughable to all who have well in mind the map of the world. The empire of the Romans was most flourishing under Trajan.
>The Germans, however, hold no part of the Roman Empire except Noricum and Vindelicia. Germany is bounded by the Rhine, the Danube, the Vistula, the Carpathian Mountains, and the ocean, but all authority ends at the foothills of the Alps in the south; by the Rhine and a few cities this side of the Rhine in the west; by Silesia, in turn, on the east; by the Baltic regions on the north. How much truer it is of the king of the Turks, who took Byzantium, the capital of the empire, from the Christians, the region of Babylon, which is discussed in the book of Daniel, from the Persians, and joined a great part of his dominion beyond the Danube, up to the mouth of the Dnieper, to the old Roman provinces? Now, if we identify monarchy with force of arms, or with great wealth, or with fertility of areas, or with the number of victories, or with the size of population, or with etymology of the name, or with the fatherland of Daniel, or with the seat of the Babylonian empire, or with the amplitude of sway, it will be more appropriate, certainly, to interpret the prophecy of Daniel as applied to the sultan of the Turks."Turning to foreign nations, what has Germany to oppose to the sultan of the Turks? Or which state can more aptly be called a monarchy? This fact is obvious to everyone–If there is anywhere in the world any majesty of empire and of true monarchy, it must radiate from the Sultan. He owns the richest parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, and he rules far and wide over the entire Mediterranean and all but a few of its islands. Moreover, in armed forces and strength he is such that he alone is the equal of almost all the princes, since he drove the armies of the Persians and the Muscovites far beyond the boundaries of the empire. But he seized provinces of the Christians and the empire of the Greeks by force of arms, and even devastated the lands of the Germans. I shall not discuss the prince of Ethiopia, called by his people Jochan Bellul, that is, precious gem, whose empire is little less than all Europe. What of the emperor of the Tartars, who rules tribes barbarous in their savagery, countless in number, unconquered in strength? If you compare Germany with these, you compare a fly to an elephant.
…
>Finally, all the peoples of the earth except Germans, Swiss with their allies, Venetians, Ragusans, Lucchese, and Genoese, who are ruled by the power of Optimates or have Popular governments. But if so many people are uncivilized because they have hereditary kings, oh, where will be the abode of culture? The fact that Aristotle thought it disastrous, however, seems to me much more absurd. For in the first place an interregnum is clearly dangerous, since the State, like a ship, without a pilot, is tossed about by the waves of sedition and often sinks. This happened after the death of Emperor Frederick II. The country, in a state of anarchy, was without an emperor for eighteen years on account of the civil war among the princes.
…
<Jean Bodin: Indigenous, Native People of America Retain Royal Power & Marvel at Rule of Optimates like Germany & Venice
>Moreover, from earliest memory the people of America always have retained the royal power. They do not do this because they have been taught, but from custom. They were not trained by Aristotle, but shaped by their leader, nature. Furthermore, when they hear that the rule of optimates exists in some corners of Italy or Germany, they marvel that this can be.
<Alexis de Tocqueville: The mother of modern socialism, – Royal Despotism
>Long before, Louis XIV. had publicly promulgated in his edicts the theory that all the lands in the Kingdom had been in the origin conditionally granted by the State, which was therefore the only real landowner – the actual holders having mere possessory rights, and an imperfect and questionable title. This doctrine sprang out of the feudal system, but it was never openly professed in France till that system was on the point of death; courts of justice never admitted it. It was the mother of modern socialism, which thus, strange to say, seems to have been the offspring of Royal Despotism.
<Admiration of China
>I do not exaggerate when I affirm that every one of them wrote in some place or other an emphatic eulogium on China. One is sure to find at least that in their books; and as China is very imperfectly known even in our day, their statements on its subjects are generally pure nonsense. They wanted all the nations of the world to set up exact copies of that barbarous and imbecile government, which a handful of Europeans master whenever they please. China was for them what England, and afterwards America, became for all Frenchmen. They were filled with emotion and delight at the contemplation of a government wielded by an absolute but unprejudiced Sovereign, who honored the useful arts by plowing once a year with his own hands; of a nation whose only religion was philosophy, whose only aristocracy were men of letters, whose public offices were awarded to the victors at literary tournaments.
>It is generally believed that the destructive theories known by the name of socialism are of modern origin. This is an error. These theories are coeval with the earliest economists. While some of them wanted to use the absolute power they desired to establish to change the forms of society, others proposed to employ it in ruining its fundamental basis.
>Read the Code de la Nature by Morelly; you will find therein, together with the economist doctrines regarding the omnipotence and the boundless rights of the State, several of those political theories which have terrified France of late years, and whose origin we fancy we have seen – community of property, rights of labor, absolute equality, universal uniformity, mechanical regularity of individual movements, tyrannical regulations on all subjects, and the total absorption of the individual into the Body Politic.
<Jean Bodin – HRE & Aristotle & Hereditary Kings
>Finally, all the peoples of the earth except Germans, Swiss with their allies, Venetians, Ragusans, Lucchese, and Genoese, who are ruled by the power of Optimates or have Popular governments. But if so many people are uncivilized because they have hereditary kings, oh, where will be the abode of culture? The fact that Aristotle thought it disastrous, however, seems to me much more absurd. For in the first place an interregnum is clearly dangerous, since the State, like a ship, without a pilot, is tossed about by the waves of sedition and often sinks. This happened after the death of Emperor Frederick II. The country, in a state of anarchy, was without an emperor for eighteen years on account of the civil war among the princes.
<Sir Robert Filmer – Slavish Royalty of the Oligarchies
>We do hear a great rumour in this age, of moderated and limited Kings; Poland, Sweden, and Denmark are talked of for such; and in these kingdoms, nowhere, is such a moderated government, as our Observator means, to be found. A little inquiry would be made into the manner of the government of these kingdoms: for these northern people, as Bodin observeth, breathe after liberty.
>First, for Poland, Boterus saith, that the government of it is elective altogether, and representeth rather an aristocracy than a kingdom: the nobility, who have great authority in the diets, choosing the King, and limiting his authority, making his sovereignty but a slavish royalty: these diminutions of regality began first by default of King Lewis, and Jagello, who to gain the succession in the kingdom contrary to the laws, one for his daughter, and the other for his son, departed with many of his royalties and prerogatives, to buy the voices of the nobility. The French author of the book called The Estates of the World, doth inform us that the princes' authority was more free, not being subject to any laws, and having absolute power, not only of their estates, but also of life and death.
Jean Bodin – Not a fictitious image, like the doge of Venice & the Oligarchy
>Yet this is directed by the rule of one, who presents, not a fictitious image, like the doge of Venice, but the true picture of a king.
King James VI & I - True Law of Free Monarchies
>I mean always of such free Monarchies as our king is, and not of elective kings, and much less of such sort of governors, as the dukes of Venice are, whose Aristocratic (Oligarchic) and limited government, is nothing like to free Monarchies; although the malice of some writers has not been ashamed to mis-know any difference to be betwixt them.
Jean Bodin - All Honours, but no power - the device of Oligarchic & Popular Estates to Subdue Monarchy
>Wherefore in well ordered Aristocratic (Oligarchic) and Popular Commonwealthes (States), the greatest honours are granted without power of command, and the greatest powers to command are not granted without a companion therein.
>But the manner of well governed Aristocratic (Oligarchic) states, is to grant unto him the least power to whom they give the greatest honour: and sometimes also least honour unto them that be of most power: as of all others the Venetians in the ordering and government of their Commonweal best know how to use that matter.
>And so oftentimes it happens that they which have the greatest honours, are yet destitute of all power and command: as amongst the Venetians the Chancellor is created out of the people, which is with them the greatest honour; and yet without any power. So the Procurators of S. Mark, are also (with them) highly honoured, and in all Commonwealths the counsellors of estate, Embassadours, Bishops, and prelates, who have no command, and yet are more respected, than the other little Provosts, and diverse other judges, which have power to command, and jurisdiction to decide controversies, with administration of justice both high and low.
>[They are contenting themselves with the title of Highness, which is not Majesty or the mark of Sovereignty or monarchical pre-eminence]: and the duke of Venice with the addition of his Serenity, who (to speak properly) is but a very prince, that is to say, the first, for he is nothing else but the first of the gentlemen of Venice: and has no more above the rest of the Senators, than the chief place and dignity of the State or Commonwealth in all their assemblies, wherein he sits as chief; and the concluding voice into what corporation or college he come, if there be any question of voices.
A great policy of Aristocratic / Oligarchic estates
>A great policy in Aristocratical estates to give unto him least power to whom they give the most honour.
Bodin on Principality – or First Among Equals or Equal among the Estates or One Among Equals; or, the concordant power of the estates (Aristotle) opposed to majesty of sovereignty of a monarch
>The other reason was, for that the Roman emperours at the first had not any sovereign power, but were only called princes, that is to say, the chief men in the Commonwealth; which form of a Commonwealth or State – is called a principality, and not a Monarchy: but a principality is called a certain form of an Aristocracy (Oligarchy), wherein one is in honour, dignity and place, above the rest: as amongst the Venetians: For the Roman emperour or prince, at the first was in honour above the rest, but not in power: howbeit that in truth the greatest part of the Roman emperors were indeed tyrannical monarchs [who usurped the Roman republic].
<Jean Bodin: The Analogy of Three Cities with Different Forms of Commonwealth (or State) Mixing together: The Three Forms of State are of Contrary Natures:
>"So as if the mixture of things of diverse and contrary natures, arises a third all together differing form the things so together mixed. But that State which is made of the mixture of the three kinds of Commonweales differs in deed nothing from a mean popular State (democracy); For if three cites, whereof one of them is governed by a King, and so a Monarchy (One); the second by an Optimacy, and so an Oligarchy (Few); the third by the People, and so a Democracy (Many); should be confounded, and so thrust together into one and the same form of a Commonweale (State), and so the chief power and Sovereignty communicated unto all; who is there that can doubt but that that State shall be altogether a State popular (Democracy)? except the Sovereignty should by turns be given; first to the King, then to the Nobility, and afterwards to the People; As in the vacancy of the Roman Kingdom, the King being dead, the Senators ruled by turns: yet must they need again fall unto one of these three kinds of a Commonweale which we have spoken of: neither could this alternative manner of government be of any long continuance, either yet more profitable to the Commonwealth, then as if in an evil governed family, the wife should first command the husband; then the children them both; and the servants after them to domineer over all."
<Jean Bodin: Mixed Constitutonalism. An Opinion Not Only Absurd… but Treasonable
>"There are those who say, and have published in writing, that the constituton of France is a mixture of the three pure types, the Parlement representing Oligarchy (few), the Estates-General representing Democracy (many), and the King representing Monarchy (one). But this is an opinion not only absurd but treasonable. It is treasonable to exalt the subjects to be the equals and colleagues of their Sovereign Monarch."
>For otherwise if the King should be subject unto the assemblies and decrees of the People, he should neither be King nor Sovereign; and the Commonwealth not a Monarchical State, but a mere Oligarchy of many Lords in power equal, where the greater part commands the less in general, and every one in particular: and wherein the edicts and laws are not to be published in the name of him that rules, but in the name and authority of the states, as in an Aristocratical Seignorie, where he that is chief has no power, but owes obedience unto the commandments of the seignorie: unto whom they all and every one of them feign themselves to owe their faith and obedience: which are all things so absurd, as hard it is to say which is furthest from reason. SO when Charles the Eight, the French king, [being but so young], held a parliament at Tours, although the power of the parliament was never before so great as in those times, yet Relli, then speaker for the people, turning himself unto the King, thus begins his oration, which is yet in print. Most high, most mighty, and most Christian King, our natural and onely Lord, we your humble and obedient subjects, &c. Which are come hither by your command, in all HUMILITY, REVERENCE, and SUBJECTION present ourselves before you, &c. And have given me in charge from all this noble assembly, to declare unto you the good will and hartie desire they have with a most firm resolution and purpose to SERVE, OBEY, and AID you in all your affairs, commandments, and pleasures. In brief, all that his oration and speech is nothing else but a declaration of all their good wills towards the King, and of their humble obedience and loyalty.
John Cook / Aristotle's King>…And whereas it is called a Human Ordinance, 1 Peter. 2. 13. ''Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake whether it be to the King as supreme; that is either to be intended of a King that is guided and directed by his Parliaments or Counsells who in cases of Competition must yield to them with such power as a Duke of Venice or Geneva may have, or else it is an agreement and constitution of Irrational people, a nation delighting rather in servitude than freeddome; and those ancient Scholasticks & Philosophers which made such learned arguments of the best kind of Government, whether Monarchy, Aristocracy or Democracy, were to be preferred, many holding that Monarchy ought to have the preeminence, specifically where Kings were good men; Certainly they did not intend it of absolute unaccountable Monarchs, for Aristotle's King, was no more than a Duke of Venice, greater than any one, but less than all; the Prince of Orange had two votes in Counsell, which yet was more than right reason allows;Monarchy, no creature of Gods making, &c. wherein is proved by Scripture and reason, that monarchicall government is against the minde of God, and that the execution of the late king [King Charles I] was one of the fattest sacrifices that ever Queen Iustice had … / by Iohn Cookehttps://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A34420.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext;q1=Monarchy Aristotle Politics
>Let us first speak of master and slave, looking to the needs of practical life and also seeking to attain some better theory of their relation than exists at present. For some are of opinion that the rule of a master is a science, and that the management of a household, and the mastership of slaves, and the political and royal rule, as I was saying at the outset, are all the same. Others affirm that the rule of a master over slaves is contrary to nature, and that the distinction between slave and freeman exists by law only, and not by nature; and being an interference with nature is therefore unjust.
Aristotle writes in Politics,
>Now there is an erroneous opinion that a statesman, king, householder, and a master are the same, and that they differ, not in kind, but only in the number of their subjects. For example, the ruler over a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still larger number, a statesman or king, as if there were no difference between a great household and a small state.
Aristotle:
>The rule of a household is a monarchy, for every house is under one head:
>whereas constitutional rule is a government of freemen and equals.
<Plato / There won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household & the bulk of a small city
>Visitor: Well then, surely there won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household, on the one hand, and the bulk of a small city on the other? – Young Socrates: None. – It's clear that there is one sort of expert knowledge concerned with all these things; whether someone gives this the name of kingship, or statesmanship, or household management, let's not pick any quarrel with him.
<Plato / There won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household & the bulk of a small city
>Visitor: Well then, surely there won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household, on the one hand, and the bulk of a small city on the other? – Young Socrates: None. – It's clear that there is one sort of expert knowledge concerned with all these things; whether someone gives this the name of kingship, or statesmanship, or household management, let's not pick any quarrel with him.
<Bodin / A household or family, the true model of a Commonwealth
>So that Aristotle following Xenophon, seems to me without any probable cause, to have divided the Economical government from the Political, and a City from a Family; which can no otherwise be done, than if we should pull the members from the body; or go about to build a City without houses… Wherefore as a family well and wisely ordered, is the true image of a City, and the domestical government, in sort, like unto the sovereignty in a Commonwealth: so also is the manner of the government of a house or family, the true model for the government of a Commonwealth… And whilest every particular member of the body does his duty, we live in good and perfect health; so also where every family is kept in order, the whole city shall be well and peaceably governed.
<Filmer / Political & Economic, No Different
>Aristotle gives the lie to Plato, and those that say that political and economical societies are all one, and do not differ specie, but only multitudine et paucitate, as if there were 'no difference betwixt a great house and a little city'. All the argument I find he brings against them is this: 'The community of man and wife differs from the community of master and servant, because they have several ends. The intention of nature, by conjunction of male and female, is generation. But the scope of master and servant is only preservation, so that a wife and a servant are by nature distinguished. Because nature does not work like the cutlers at Delphos, for she makes but one thing for one use.' If we allow this argument to be sound, nothing doth follow but only this, that conjugal and despotical [lordly / master] communities do differ. But it is no consequence that therefore economical and political societies do the like. For, though it prove a family to consist of two distinct communities, yet it follows not that a family and a commonwealth are distinct, because, as well in the commonweal as in the family, both these communities are found.
>Suarez proceeds, and tells us that 'in process of time Adam had complete economical power'. I know not what he means by this complete economical power, nor how or in what it doth really and essentially differ from political. If Adam did or might exercise in his family the same jurisdiction which a King doth now in a commonweal, then the kinds of power are not distinct. And though they may receive an accidental difference by the amplitude or extent of the bounds of the one beyond the other, yet since the like difference is also found in political estates, it follows that economical and political power differ no otherwise than a little commonweal differs from a great one. Next, saith Suarez, 'community did not begin at the creation of Adam'. It is true, because he had nobody to communicate with. Yet community did presently follow his creation, and that by his will alone, for it was in his power only, who was lord of all, to appoint what his sons have in proper and what in common. So propriety and community of goods did follow originally from him, and it is the duty of a Father to provide as well for the common good of his children as for their particular.
<Hobbes / That a Family is a little City
>"Propriety receiv'd its beginning, What's objected by some, That the propriety of goods, even before the constitution of Cities, was found in the Fathers of Families, that objection is vain, because I have already declar'd, That a Family is a little City. For the Sons of a Family have propriety of their goods granted them by their Father, distinguisht indeed from the rest of the Sons of the same Family, but not from the propriety of the Father himself; but the Fathers of diverse Families, who are subject neither to any common Father, nor Lord, have a common Right in all things."
Thomas Hobbes
>And though in the charters of subordinate corporations, a corporation be declared to be one person in law, yet the same has not been taken notice of in the body of a commonwealth [state] or city, nor have any of those innumerable writers of politics observed any such union
&
>A great Family if it be not part of some Commonwealth, is of it self, as to the Rights of Sovereignty, a little Monarchy; whether that Family consist of a man and his children; or of a man and his servants; or of a man, and his children, and servants together: wherein the Father or Master is the Sovereign.
&
>And as small Familyes did then; so now do Cities and Kingdomes which are but greater Families
<Rousseau / Royalist political writing likens civil government to domestic government
>Royalist political writing likens civil government to domestic government… With the help of this supposition, it is easy to make out that royal government is preferable to all others, because it is unquestionably the strongest; and in addition to that, all it needs to be the best but doesn't have – is a corporate will that is more in conformity with the general will.
<Giuseppe Bottai
>All modern history, that is, all contemporaneous life, leads to the corporative conception of the State with the inclusion of Economics within the State or the identification of Economics with Politics.
<Kim Il Sung Aphorism - Family & Nation
>If a family is to manage its household affairs well only one member of the family should control its finances. Likewise, if a nation is to manage its economic life properly it must use its finances on the principle of a single management system.
<Louis XIV's disdain for & roast of so-called "constitutional monarchy":
>For there is no doubt that this subjection that makes it necessary for a sovereign to take orders from his people is the worst calamity that can befall a man of our rank.
-Louis XIV Quote #1
>It is perverting the order of things to attribute decisions to the subjects and deference to the sovereign, and if I have described to you elsewhere the miserable condition of princes who commit their people and their dignity to the conduct of a prime minister, I have good cause to portray to you here the misery of those who are abandoned to the indiscretion of a popular assembly.
-Louis XIV Quote #2
>I fail to see, therefore, my son, for what reason the kings of France, hereditary kings who can boast that there isn't either a better house, nor greater power, nor more absolute authority than theirs anywhere else in the world today, should rank below these elective princes.
-Louis XIV Quote #3
>It is the essential fault of this monarchy that the Prince may not levy any extraordinary taxes without the Parliament nor keep the Parliament in session without gradually losing his authority, which is sometimes left shattered, as the example of the previous King [Charles I] had sufficiently demonstrated.
-Louis XIV Quote #4
>As to the persons who were to support me in my work, I resolved above all not to have a prime minister, and if you and all your successors take my advice, my son, the name will forever be abolished in France, there being nothing more shameful than to see on the one hand all the functions and on the other the mere title of a king.
-Louis XIV Quote #5
Jean Bodin on Aristotle & Monarchy
>[Aristotle], who defines a King to be him, who chosen by the people, reigns according to the desire of them his subjects: from whose will (as he in another place says) if he never so little depart, he becomes a TYRANT. Which his description is not only without reason, but also dangerous: for that sovereign power which he said to be most proper unto a King, must so needs fail, if the King could nothing command against the liking and good will of his subjects; but must to the contrary be constrained to receive laws of them – in brief it should be lawful for the people to do all things; and the most just and best Kings should be so accounted for TYRANTS: neither were a King to be reputed of anything else, than of a mean magistrate, unto whom power were to be given, and again taken away at the people's pleasure.
<Which are all things impossible, and no less absurd also, than is that which the same Aristotle says, That they are barbarous people, where their kings come by succession. When as yet his own King and Scholar Alexander the Great, was one of them which descended in right line from the blood of Hercules, and by right succession came to the kingdom of Macedon. The Lacedemonians should also be barbarous, who from the same stock of the Heraclides, had had their Kings about a thousand years. The people of Asia also, the Persians, and Egyptians, should all be barbarous: in whom not only rested, but from whom all humanity, courtesy, learning, knowledge, and the whole source and fountain of good laws and Commonwealths have sprung: and so at last none but Aristotle with some handful of Greeks should be free from barbarism.
>Whereas indeed nothing can be devised more dangerous unto the State of a Commonwealth, than to commit the election of Kings unto the suffrages of the people; as shall in due place be hereafter declared. Although Aristotle be in that also deceived, where he says, That there be three sorts of Kings; & yet having in his discourse reckoned up four, in casting up the account he finds out a fifth.
>The first he calls Voluntary Kings, as reigning by the will and good liking of the people, such as were the Kings come by the will and good liking of the people, such as were the Kings of Heroic times, whom he supposes to have been Captains, Judges, and Priests.
>The 2nd he says, are proper unto the barbarous nations, where Kings come by succession.
>The 3rd are made by election.
>The 4th was proper to the Lacedemonians, whom he says to have been perpetual generals in their wars; the son still succeeding his father.
>The 5th and last kind, is of them which having themselves got the Lordly sovereignty, use their subjects, as does the Master of the household his slaves.
>As for the first sort of Kings, we find, that they indeed executed the offices of Judges, Captains, and Priests, yet none of them are found to have ruled at the will and pleasure of the people, neither to have received their authority from the people, before Pitacus King of Corinth, and Timondas King of Nigropont: but to the contrary, Plutarch writes, That the first princes had no other honor before their eyes, then to force men, and to keep them in subjection as slaves; whereof the Holy Scripture also certifies us of the first Lordly Monarchy Nimrod; leaving the sovereignty to their children, in right of succession; as says Thucydides. Which has also been well confirmed by the succession of a great number of Kings of the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Indians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Lacedemonians, Macedonians, Sicyonians, Epirots, Athenians: and their lines failing, the people in part proceeded to make choice of their Kings by way of election, some others invaded the State by force, other some maintained themselves in Aristocratic and popular seigneury; as witnesses Herodotus, Thucydides, Josephus, Berosus, Plutarch, Xenophon, and other most ancient historiographers of the Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins, sufficient to convince the opinion of Aristotle of untruth in those things that he has writ concerning Kings.
Aristotle & Tyranny, even the slightest bit contrary to the will of the people
>What Aristotle said that the king becomes a tyrant when he governs even to a minor degree contrary to the wishes of the people – is not true, for by this system there would be no kings. Moses himself, a most just and wise leader, would be judged the greatest tyrant of all, because he ordered and forbade almost all things contrary to the will of the people. Anyway, it is popular power, not royal, when the state is governed by the king according to the will of the people, since in this case the government depends upon the people. Therefore, when Aristotle upheld this definition, he was forced to confess that there never were any king.
Jean Bodin / The native people of America retained royal power, shaped by their Leader – Nature – they were not trained by Aristotle
>Moreover, from earliest memory the people of America always have retained the royal power. They do not do this because they have been taught, but from custom. They were not trained by Aristotle, but shaped by their leader, nature. Furthermore, when they hear that the rule of optimates exists in some corners of Italy or Germany, they marvel that this can be.
Jean Bodin - Aristotle & hereditary kings
>Finally, all the peoples of the earth except Germans, Swiss with their allies, Venetians, Ragusans, Lucchese, and Genoese, who are ruled by the power of Optimates or have Popular governments. But if so many people are uncivilized because they have hereditary kings, oh, where will be the abode of culture? The fact that Aristotle thought it disastrous, however, seems to me much more absurd. For in the first place an interregnum is clearly dangerous, since the State, like a ship, without a pilot, is tossed about by the waves of sedition and often sinks. This happened after the death of Emperor Frederick II. The country, in a state of anarchy, was without an emperor for eighteen years on account of the civil war among the princes.
Jean Bodin on Aristotle & Monarchy Continued
>For even Aristotle himself is of opinion, That Monarchs should be created by election, calling the people barbarous, which have their Kings by right of succession. And for which cause he deemed the Carthaginians more happy than the Lacedemonians, for that these had their Kings by succession from the fathers to the the sons in the stock and line of Hercules, whereas the others still had them by election and choice. But so he might call the Assyrians barbarous, the Medes, the Persians, the Egyptians, the people of Asia, the Parthians, the Armenians, the Indians, the Africans, the Turks, the Tartars, the Arabians, the Muscovites, the Celts, the Englishmen, the Scots, the Frenchmen, the Spaniards, the Peruvians, the Numidians the Ethiopians; and an infinite number of other people, who still have, and always before had, their Kings by right of succession. Yea and we find in Greece (the country of Aristotle himself) that the Athenians, the Lacedemonians, Sicyonians, the Corinthians, the Thebans, the Epirots, the Macedonians, had more than by the space of six hundred years, had their Kings by right of lawful succession, before that ambition had blinded them to change their Monarchies into Democracies and Aristocracies. Which had likewise taken place in Italy also, whereas the Hetruscians and Latins for many worlds of years had their Kings still descending from the fathers to the sons.
<Now if so many people and nations were all barbarous, where then should humanity and civility have place? It should be only in Poland, in Denmark, and in Sweden; for that almost these people alone have their Kings by election: and yet of them none, but such as were themselves also royally descended.
>Cicero says, humanity and courtesy to have taken beginning in the lesser Asia, and from thence to have been divided unto all the other parts of the world: and yet for all that the people of Asia had no other kings, but by succession from the father to the son, or some other the nearest of kin.
>And of all the ancient kings of Greece, we find none but Timondas, who was chosen King of Corinth, and Pittacus of Nigropont. And at such time as the royal name and line sailed, oftentimes the strongest or the mightest carried it away as it chanced after the death of Alexander the Great, who was in right line descended from Hercules, and the Kings of Macedon, who had continued above five hundred years: whose lieutenants afterwards made themselves Kings, Antipater of Macedon, Antigonus of Asia the less, Nicanor of the upper Asia, Lysimachus of Thracia: So that there is not one to be found among them, which was made King by election. So that even Greece itself (the nurse of learning & knowledge) should by this reason, in the judgement of Aristotle, be deemed barbarous. Howbeit that the word Barbarous, was in ancient time no word of disgrace, but attributed unto them which spoke a strange language and not the natural language of the country. For so the Hebrews called also the ancient Egyptians, then of all nations the most courteous and learned, Barbarous–
Thomas Hobbes
>To conclude there is nothing so absurd, that the old Philosophers (as Cicero saith, who was one of them) have not some of them maintained. And I beleeve that scarce any thing can be more absurdly said in naturall Philosophy, than that which now is called Aristotles Metaphysiques, nor more repugnant to Government, than much of that hee hath said in his Politiques; nor more ignorantly, than a great part of his Ethiques.
Jean Bodin
>"Moreover, from earliest memory the people of America always have retained the royal power. They do not do this because they have been taught, but from custom. They were not trained by Aristotle, but shaped by their leader, nature. Furthermore, when they hear that the rule of optimates exists in some corners of Italy or Germany, they marvel that this can be."
>"What Aristotle said that the king becomes a tyrant when he governs even to a minor degree contrary to the wishes of the people – is not true, for by this system there would be no kings. Moses himself, a most just and wise leader, would be judged the greatest tyrant of all, because he ordered and forbade almost all things contrary to the will of the people. Anyway, it is popular power, not royal, when the state is governed by the king according to the will of the people, since in this case the government depends upon the people. Therefore, when Aristotle upheld this definition, he was forced to confess that there never were any king"
<Thomas Hobbes on monarchomachists & pro-regicides
>From the reading, I say, of such books, men have undertaken to kill their Kings, because the Greek and Latin writers, in their books, and discourses of Policy, make it lawfull, and laudable, for any man so to do; provided before he do it, he call him Tyrant. For they say not Regicide, that is, killing of a King, but Tyrannicide, that is, killing of a Tyrant is lawfull.
<Hobbes / From the same books (like Aristotle's Politics), they think in Democracies they are all freemen, but under Monarchies, all slaves
>From the same books, they that live under a Monarch conceive an opinion, that the Subjects in a Popular Common-wealth enjoy Liberty; but that in a Monarchy they are all Slaves. I say, they that live under a Monarchy conceive such an opinion; not they that live under a Popular Government; for they find no such matter.
<Anti-Monarchy writers, they're like Rabid Dogs
<Like rabid dogs won't drink water & have a rabid hydrophobia, rabid democratical writers have a rabid tyrannophobia;
<A monarchy bitten by rabid, snarling democratical writers wants nothing more than a strong, mean Monarch
<Once there is that Strong Monarch, it is a self-fulfilling prophesy & they abhor their Tyrant
>In sum, I cannot imagine, how anything can be more prejudicial to a Monarchy, than the allowing of such books to be publicly read, without present applying such correctives of discreet Masters, as are fit to take away their Venom; Which Venom I will not doubt to compare to the biting of a mad Dog, which is a disease the Physicians call Hydrophobia, or Fear Of Water. For as he that is so bitten, has a continual torment of thirst, and yet abhors water; and is in such an estate, as if the poison endeavoured to convert him into a Dog: So when a Monarchy is once bitten to the quick, by those Democraticall writers, that continually snarl at that estate; it wants nothing more than a strong Monarch, which nevertheless out of a certain Tyrannophobia, or fear of being strongly governed, when they have him, they abhor.
<From Aristotle, they learned to call anything but mixed constitutionalism / representative, Western multi-party democracy – Tyranny
>From Aristotle's Civil Philosophy, they have learned, to call all manner of Commonwealths but the Popular, (such as was at that time the state of Athens,) Tyranny. All Kings they called Tyrants… A Tyrant originally signified no more simply, but a Monarch: But when afterwards in most parts of Greece that kind of government was abolished, the name began to signify, not only the thing it did before, but with it, the hatred which the Popular States bare towards it: As also the name of King became odious after the deposing of the Kings in Rome, as being a thing natural to all men, to conceive some great Fault to be signified in any Attribute, that is given in despight, and to a great Enemy. And when the same men shall be displeased with those that have the administration of the Democracy, or Aristocracy, they are not to seek for disgraceful names to express their anger in; but call readily the one Anarchy, and the other Oligarchy.
Hobbes' Nominalism & the arbitrary, petty Namecalling of the political arena
<Tyranny and Oligarchy, But Different Names of Monarchy, and Aristocracy
>There be other names of Government, in the Histories, and books of Policy; as Tyranny, and Oligarchy: But they are not the names of other Forms of Government, but of the same Forms misliked. For they that are discontented under Monarchy, call it Tyranny; and they that are displeased with Aristocracy, call it Oligarchy: so also, they which find themselves grieved under a Democracy, call it Anarchy, (which signifies want of Government;) and yet I think no man believes, that want of Government, is any new kind of Government: nor by the same reason ought they to believe, that the Government is of one kind, when they like it, and another, when they mislike it, or are oppressed by the Governours.
<Thomas Hobbes / The toleration of a professed hatred of Tyranny, is a toleration of a hatred of Commonwealth in general, & another evil seed
>And because the name of Tyranny, signifies nothing more, nor less, than the name of Sovereignty, be it in one, or many men, saving that they that use the former word, are understood to be angry with them they call Tyrants; I think the toleration of a professed hatred of Tyranny, is a Toleration of hatred to Commonwealth in general, and another evil seed, not differing much from the former.
<Bodin's Anti-Regicide Remarks
>But when I perceived on every side that subjects were arming themselves against their princes; that books were being brought out openly, like firebands to set Commonweals ablaze, in which we are taught that princes sent by providence to the human race must be thrust out of their kingdoms under the pretense of tyranny, and that kings must be chosen not by their lineage, but by the will of the people; and finally that these doctrines were weakening the foundations not only of this realm only but of all states, then I denied that it was the function of a good man or of a good citizen to offer violence to his prince for any reason, however great a tyrant he might be; and contended that it was necessary to leave this punishment to God, and to other princes. And I have supported this by divine and human laws and authorities, and most of all by reason which compel assent.
>But if it be so that the soldier which had only broken the vine truncheon of his Captain, beating him by right or wrong, was by the law of arms to be put to death: then what punishment deserves the son which lays hand upon his father?
…
>But if the prince be an absolute Sovereign, as are the true Monarchies of France, of Spain, of England; Scotland, Turkey, Muscovy, Tartarie, Persia, Ethiopia, India, and of almost all the kingdoms of Africa, and Asia, where the kings themselves have the sovereignty without all doubt or question; not divided with their subjects: in this case it is NOT lawful for any one of the subjects in particular, or all of them in general, to attempt any thing either by way of fact, or of justice against the honour, life, or dignity of the Sovereign: albeit that he had committed all the wickedness, impiety, and cruelty that could be spoken; for as to proceed against him by way of justice, the subject has no such jurisdiction over his Sovereign prince: of whom depends all power and authority to command: and who may not only revoke all the power of his Magistrates; but even in whose presence the power of all Magistrates, Corporations, Colleges, Estates, and Communities cease, as we have said, and shall yet more fully in due place say. Now if it be not lawful for the subject by way of justice to proceed against his prince; the vassal against his lord; nor the slave against his master; and in brief, if it not be lawful, by way and course of justice to proceed against a king, how should it then be lawful to proceed against him by way of fact, or force. For question is not here, what men are able to do by strength and force, but what they ought of right to do: as not whether the subjects have power and strength, but whether they have lawful power to condemn their Sovereign prince. Now the subject is not only guilty of treason of the highest degree, who has slain his Sovereign prince, but even he also which has attempted the same; who has given counsel or consent thereunto; yea if he have concealed the same, or but so much as thought it… And albeit that the laws inflict no punishment upon the evil thoughts of men; but on those only which by word or deed break out into some enormity: yet if any man shall so much as conceit a thought for the violating of the person of his Sovereign prince, although he have attempted nothing, they have yet judged this same thought worthy of death, notwithstanding what repentance soever he have had thereof. As in proof it fell out with a gentleman of Normandy, who confessed himself unto a Franciscan Friar, to have had a purpose in himself to have slain Francis the first, the French king: of which evil purpose and intent he repenting himself, received of the frier absolution, who yet afterward told the king thereof, who sending for the gentleman, and he confessing the fact, turned him over to the parliament of Paris for his trial, where he was by the decree of that high court condemned to death, and so afterwards executed.
Jean Bodin continued…
>One must not however label as evidence of tyranny the executions, banishments, confiscations, and other deeds of violence that mark a restoration [or transition] in a commonwealth. Such changes are necessarily violent, as was illustrated by what happened at the establishment of the Triumvirate in Rome, and at the election of many of the Emperors. It is not proper, either, to call Cosimo de Medici a tyrant for building a citadel, surrounding himself with foreign guards, and taxing his subjects heavily for their upkeep, after the assassination of Alessandro, Duke of Florence. Such medicine was necessary to a commonwealth ravaged by so many seditions and insurrections, and for a licentious and unruly populace, everlastingly plotting against the new duke, though he was accounted one of the wisest and most virtuous princes of his age.
>Not only is the subject guilty of high treason who kills his prince, but so also is he who has merely attempted it, counselled it, wished it or even considered it… We read that the most holy doctors that the Jews ever knew, those who were known as the Essenes or experts in the law of God, held that Sovereign princes, of whatever character, should be regarded by their subjects as sacred and inviolable, and given of God. One cannot doubt that David, king and prophet, was informed by the spirit of God if ever man was, having always before his eyes the law of God. It was he who said, "Slander not the Prince, nor speak evil of the magistrate." Nothing is more insisted on in the Holy Writ than the wickedness of compassing the death of the prince, or any responsible magistrate, or even making any attempt against their life or honour, even though, adds the Scripture, they be evil men.
<O how many Tyrants should there be:
>O how many Tyrants should there be, if it should be lawful for Subjects to kill Tyrants? How many good and innocent Princes should be as Tyrants perished by the conspiracy of their subjects against them? He that should of his subjects but exact subsidies, should be then, as the vulgar people esteem him, a Tyrant: He that should rule and command contrary to the good licking of the people, should be a Tyrant: He that should keep strong guard and garrisons for the safety of his person, should be a Tyrant: He that should put to death traitors and conspirators against his State, should be also counted a Tyrant. How should good Princes be assured of their lives, if under colour of Tyranny they might be slain by their subjects, by whom they ought to be defended?
>And in this, the princes much deceive themselves [and namely they which give reward to them that have slain Tyrants, to make them a way unto the sovereignty]. For they shall never assure themselves of their own lives, if they severely punish not the conspirators against their own prince and murderers of him, although he was never so great a Tyrant. As most wisely did Severus the emperour, who put to death all them which had any part in the murder of the emperour Pertinax: which was the cause (as says Herodian) that there was no man which durst attempt his life. So also Vitelliu the emperour put to death all the murderers and conspirators against Galba, who had presented requests signed with their own hands unto the emperour Otho, to have had of him reward for their disloyalty. And Theophilus emperour of Constantinople caused them all to be called together, who had made his father emperour, after they had slain Leo the Armenian, as if he would have well recompensed them for so great a turn: who being come together with many other, who though not partakers of the murder, were yet desirous to be partakers of the reward; he caused them altogether to be slain. And that more is, the emperour Domitian put to death Epaphroditus, Nero his servant, and secretary to the state, for having helped Nero to kill himself, who most instantly requested him so to do, being thereby delievered from the executioner's hands, and cruel exemplary death. And these things we read not only Tyrants, but even good kings also to have done, not so much in regard of their own safety, as of the dignity of them who were slain. As David did unto him who in hope of reward brought him his father in law's head cut off, but slain by his enemies. And Alexander the Great caused cruelly to be put to death him who had murdered king Darius, abhorring the subject which durst to lay hand upon his king: although Alexander himself by lawful war sought after his life and state, as being his lawful enemy.
The same, I'll add, happened to a notable conspirator against Caligula, Cassius Chaerea.
Jean Bodin / An infinite labyrinth of errors
>But here happily some man will say, that none but myself is of this opinion, and that not one of the ancient and much less of the modern writers which intreat of matters of State or Commonwealths, have once touched this point. True it is that I cannot deny the same; yet this distinction nevertheless seems unto me more than necessary, for the good understanding of the state of every commonweal; if a man will not cast himself head long into an infinite labyrinth of errors, where into we see Aristotle himself to have fallen: mistaking the popular Commonwealth for the Aristocratic: and so contrarywise, contrary to the common received opinion, yea and contrary to common sense also: For these principles evil grounded, nothing that is firm and sure can possibly be thereon built. From this error likewise is sprung the opinion of them which have forged a form of a Commonwealth mingled of all three, which we have for good reasons before rejected.
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Jean Bodin:
>Wherefore let us firmly set down and resolve there are but three forms of Commonweals, and no more, and those simple also, and without any confused mixture of the with another, albiet that the government be sometimes contrary to the state. As a Monarchy is contrary to a Democracy or popular estate; and yet nevertheless the sovereignty may be in one only prince, who may popularly govern his estate, as I have before said; and yet it shall not be for that a confusion of the popular estate with a Monarchy, which are states of themselves incompatible, but is well (as it were) combining of a Monarchy with a popular government, the most assured Monarchy that is
…
<As a Monarchy is contrary to a Democracy or popular estate; and yet nevertheless the sovereignty may be in one only prince, who may popularly govern his estate, as I have before said; and yet it shall not be for that a confusion of the popular estate with a Monarchy, which are states of themselves incompatible, but is well (as it were) combining of a Monarchy with a popular government, the most assured Monarchy that is
But three Commonwealths or forms of State
>Forasmuch as we have before sufficiently spoken of Sovereignty, and of the rights and marks thereof; now it behooves us to consider who they be which in every Commonweal hold that Sovereignty; thereby to judge what the estate is: as if the Sovereignty consist in one only prince, we call it a Monarchy: but if all the people be therein interested, we call it a Democracy, or Popular estate: So if but some part of the people have the Sovereign command, we account that state to be an Aristocracy [Or, in more proper wording, Oligarchy]. Which words we will use, to avoid the obscurity and confusion which might otherwise arise, by the variety of governours good or bad: which has given occasion unto many, to make more sorts of Commonwealths than three. But if that opinion should take place, and that we should by the foot of virtues and vices, measure the estate of Commonwealths; we should find a world of them, and them in number infinite. Now it is certain, that to attain unto the true definitions and resolutions of all things, we must not rest upon the external accidents which are innumerable, but rather upon the essential and formal differences: for otherwise a man might fall into an infinite and exctricable labyrinth, whereof no knowledge is to be had, or certain precept to be given. For so a man should forge and fashion infinite numbers of Commonwealths, not only according to the diversity of virtues and vices; but even according to the variety of things indifferent also. As if a Monarch were to be chosen for his strength, or for his beauty, for his stature, or for his nobility, or riches, which are all things indifferent; or for his martial disposition, or for that he is more given to peace, for his gravity, or for his justice, for his beauty, or for his wisdom, for his sobriety, or his humility, for his simplicity, or his chastity; and so for all other qualities, a man should so make an infinity of Monarchies: and in like sort in the Aristocratic state, if some few of many should have the sovereignty above the rest, such as excelled others in riches, nobility, wisdom, justice, martial prowess, or other like virtues, or vices, or things indifferent, there should thereof arise infinite forms of Commonwealths: a thing most absurd, and so by consequent the opinion whereof such an absurdity arises, is to be rejected. Seeing therefore that the accidental quality changes not the nature of things: let us say that there are but three estates or sorts of Commonwealths.
Whether the prince is unjust or worthy, nevertheless the state is still a monarchy
>There can be no forth, and indeed none can be conceived, for virtue and viciousness do not create a type of rule. Whether the prince is unjust or worthy, nevertheless the state is still a monarchy. The same thing must be said about oligarchy and the rule of the people, who, while they have no powers but the creation of magistrates, still have the sovereignty, and on them the form of government necessarily depends. We shall then call the form one of optimates, or else popular, (let us use these words in order that we may not rather often be forced to use the names aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy, ochlocracy, according to the type of virtue or vice).
Rejection of a mixed State or mixed Constitution
>All the ancients agree that there are at least three types of commonwealth. Some have added a fourth composed of a mixture of the other three. Plato added a fourth type, or rule of the wise. But this, properly speaking, is only the purest form that aristocracy can take. He did not accept a mixed state as a fourth type. Aristotle accepted both Plato's fourth type and the mixed state, making five in all. Polybius distinguished seven, three good, three bad, and one composed of a mixture of the three good. Dionysius Halicarnassus only admitted four, the three pure types, and a mixture of them. Cicero, and following his example, Sir Thomas More in his Commonwealth, Contarini, Machiavelli, and many others have held the same opinion. This view has the dignity of antiquity. It was not new when propounded by Polybius, who is generally credited with its invention, nor by Aristotle. It goes back four hundred years earlier to Herodotus. He said that many thought that the mixed was the best type, but for his part he thought there were only three types, and all others were imperfect forms. I should have been convinced by the authority of such great names, but that reason and common sense compels me to hold the opposing view. One must show then not only why these views are erroneous but why the arguments and examples they rely on do not really prove their point.
Jean Bodin on Herodotus:
>It goes back four hundred years earlier to Herodotus. He said that many thought that the mixed was the best type, but for his part he thought there were only three types, and all the others were imperfect forms
>Let us therefore conclude, never any Commonwealth to have been made of an Oligarchy and popular estate; and so much less of the three states of Commonweals, and that there are not indeed but three estates of Commonweales, as Herodotus first most truly said amongst the Greeks, whom Tacitus amongst the Latins imitating, saith, The people, the nobility, or one alone, do rule all nations and cities.
>Wherefore such states as wherein the rights of sovereignty are divided, are not rightly to be called Commonweales, but rather the corruption of Commonweales, as Herodotus hath most briefly, but most truly written.
This is where the stress on 3 forms of State originates w/ absolute monarchists.
The Herodotus Debate
Between Otanes (Democracy), Megabyzus (Oligarchy), & Darius (Monarchy)
As told by the Father of /his/tory, Herodotus
Among the oldest sources of Monarchist politics there is, next to Homer's monarchist maxim: Let there be One Lord, One King
Jean Bodin revives the spirit of Herodotus in our political discourse in maintaining 3 forms of State only, denying a mixed State, but only a govt to be mixed.
Others imitated Herodotus such as Josephus, Cassius Dio, & Philostratus, to follow the discourse between one, few, many.
Otanes (Democracy)
>Otanes was for giving the government to the whole body of the Persian people. "I hold," he said, "that we must make an end of monarchy; there is no pleasure or advantage in it. You have seen to what lengths went the insolence of Cambyses, and you have borne your share of the insolence of the Magian. What right order is there to be found in monarchy, when the ruler can do what he will, nor be held to account for it? Give this power to the best man on earth, and his wonted mind must leave him. The advantage which he holds breeds insolence, and nature makes all men jealous. This double cause is the root of all evil in him; he will do many wicked deeds, some from the insolence which is born of satiety, some from jealousy. For whereas an absolute ruler, as having all that heart can desire, should rightly be jealous of no man, yet it is contrariwise with him in his dealing with his countrymen; he is jealous of the safety of the good, and glad of the safety of the evil; and no man is so ready to believe calumny. Nor is any so hard to please; accord him but just honour, and he is displeased that you make him not your first care; make him such, and he damns for a flatterer. But I have yet worse to say of him than that; he turns the laws of the land upside down, he rapes women, he puts high and low to death. But the virtue of a multitude's rule lies first in its excellent name, which signifies equality before the law; and secondly, in that its acts are not the acts of the monarch. All offices are assigned by lot, and the holders are accountable for what they do therein; and the general assembly arbitrates on all counsels. Therefore I declare my opinion, that we make an end of monarchy and increase the power of the multitude, seeing that all good lies in the many."
Megabyzus (Oligarchy)
>Megabyzus' counsel was to make a ruling oligarchy. "I agree," said he, "to all that Otanes says against the rule of one; but when he bids you give the power to the multitude, his judgment falls short of the best. Nothing is more foolish and violent than a useless mob; to save ourselves from the insolence of a despot by changing it for the insolence of the unbridled commonalty — that were unbearable indeed. Whatever the despot does, he does with knowledge; but the people have not even that; how can they have knowledge, who have neither learnt nor for themselves seen what is best, but ever rush headlong and drive blindly onward, like a river in spate? Let those stand for democracy who wish ill to Persia; but let us choose a company of the best men and invest these with the power. For we ourselves shall be of that company; and where we have the best men, there 'tis like that we shall the best counsels.
Darius (Monarchy)
>Darius was the third to declare his opinion. "Methinks," said he, "Megabyzus speaks rightly concerning democracy, but not so concerning oligarchy. For the choice lying between these three, and each of them, democracy, oligarchy and monarchy being supposed to be the best of its kind, I hold that monarchy is by far the most excellent. Nothing can be found better than the rule of the one best man; his judgment being like to himself, he will govern the multitude with perfect wisdom, and best conceal plans made for the defeat of enemies. But in an oligarchy, the desire of many to do the state good service sometimes engenders bitter enmity among them; for each one wishing to be chief of all and to make his counsels prevail, violent enmity is the outcome, enmity brings faction and faction bloodshed; and the end of bloodshed is monarchy; whereby it is shown that this fashion of government is the best. Again, the rule of the commonalty must of necessity engender evil-mindedness; and when evil-mindedness in public matters is engendered, bad men are not divided by enmity but united by close friendship; for they that would do evil to the commonwealth conspire together to do it. This continues till someone rises to champion the people's cause and makes an end of such evil-doing. He therefore becomes the people's idol, and being their idol is made their monarch; so his case also proves that monarchy is the best government. But (to conclude the whole matter in one word) tell me, whence and by whose gift came our freedom — from the commonalty or an oligarchy or a single ruler? I hold therefore, that as the rule of one man gave us freedom, so that rule we should preserve; and, moreover, that we should not repeal the good laws of our fathers; that were ill done."
Hobbes' Behemoth recounts the history and causes of the English Civil Wars.
He starts BEHEMOTH (the anti-Leviathan) in recounting the factions involved.
Hobbes' pessimism is my pessimism.
The seducers were of diverse sorts…
1st faction: The Presbyterians
>One sort were ministers; ministers, as they called themselves, of Christ; and sometimes, in their sermons to the people, God's ambassadors; pretending to have a right from God to govern every one his parish, and their assembly the whole nation.
2nd faction: The Papists / Catholics
>Secondly, there were a very great number, though not comparable to the other, which notwithstanding that the Pope's power in England, both temporal and ecclesiastical, had been by Act of Parliament abolished, did still retain a belief that we ought to be governed by the Pope, whom they pretended to be the vicar of Christ, and, in the right of Christ, to be the governor of all Christian people. And these were known by the name of Papists; as the ministers I mentioned before, were commonly called Presbyterians.
3rd faction: Fifth monarchy men & other low church protestants
>Thirdly, there were not a few, who in the beginning of the troubles were not only discovered, but shortly after declared themselves for a liberty in religion, and those of different opinions one from another. Some of them because they would have all congregations free and independent upon one another, were called Independents. Others that held baptism to infants, and such understood not into what they are baptized, to be ineffectual, were called therefore Anabaptists. Others that held that Christ's kingdom was at this time to begin upon the earth, were called Fifth-monarchy-men; besides diverse other sects, as Quakers, Adamites, etc, whose names and peculiar doctrines I do not well remember. And these were the enemies which arose against his Majesty from the private interpretation of the Scripture, exposed to every man's scanning in his mother-tongue.
4th faction: The Intellectuals / School-men / Educated Elite & Parliamentarians
>Fourthly, there were an exceeding great number of men of the better sort, that had been so educated, as that in their youth having read the books written by famous men of the ancient Grecian and Roman commonwealths concerning their polity and great actions; in which books the popular government was extolled by that glorious name of Liberty, and monarchy disgraced by the name of Tyranny; they became thereby in love with their forms of government. And out of these men were chosen the greatest part of the House of Commons, or if they were not the greatest part, yet by advantage of their eloquence, were always able to sway the rest.
5th faction: Londoners & Other Urbanites
>Fifthly, the city of London and other great towns of trade, having in admiration the prosperity of the Low Countries after they had revolted from their monarch, the King of Spain, were inclined to think that the like change of government here, would to them produce the like prosperity.
6th faction: The Grifters / Lumpenproles
>Sixthly, there were a very great number that had either wasted their fortunes, or thought them too mean for the good parts they thought were in themselves; and more there were, that had able bodies, but saw no means how honestly to get their bread. These longed for a war, and hoped to maintain themselves hereafter by the lucky choosing of a party to side with, and consequently did for the most part serve under them that had the greatest plenty of money.
Lastly, the people in general were so ignorant & didn't care
>Lastly, the people in general were so ignorant of their duty, as that not one perhaps of ten thousand knew what right any man had to command him, or what necessity there was of King or Commonwealth, for which he was to part with his money against his will; but thought of himself to be so much master of whatsoever he possessed, that it could not be taken from him upon any pretence of common safety without his own consent. King, they thought, was but a title of the highest honour, which gentleman, knight, baron, earl, duke, were but steps to ascend to, with the help of riches; they had no rule of equity, but precdents and custom; and he was thought wisest and fittest to be chosen for a Parliament, that was most averse to the granting of subsidies or other public payments.
Thomas Hobbes adequately sums up his own pessimism with a remark which sums up my own feelings as well towards the monarchist community
<In such a constitution of people, methinks, the King is already ousted of his government.
…
>In such a constitution of people, methinks, the King is already ousted of his government, so as they need not have taken arms for it. For I cannot imagine how the King should come by any means to resist them.
Hobbes / Greeks & Romans, the Universities, Schoolmen, & Parliament Men
>Fourthly, there were an exceeding great number of men of the better sort, that had been so educated, as that in their youth having read the books written by famous men of the ancient Grecian and Roman commonwealths concerning their polity and great actions; in which books the popular government was extolled by that glorious name of Liberty, and monarchy disgraced by that name of Tyranny; they became thereby in love with their forms of government. And out of these men were chosen the greatest part of the House of Commons, or if they were not the greatest part, yet by advantage of their eloquence, were always able to sway the rest, especially the great haranguers, and such as pretended to learning.
For who can be a good subject in a Monarchy…
<For who can be a good subject in a Monarchy, whose principles are taken from the enemies of Monarchy, such as were Cicero, Seneca, Cato, and other politicians of Rome, and Aristotle of Athens, who seldom spake of Kings but as of wolves and other ravenous beasts?
>You may perhaps think a man has need of nothing else but to know the duty he owes his governor, and what right he has to order him, but a good natural wit; but it is otherwise. For it is a science, and built upon sure and clear principles, and to be learned by deep and careful study, or from masters that have deeply studied it. And who was there in the Parliament or in the nation, that could find out those evident principles, and derive from them the necessary rules of justice, and the necessary connection of justice and peace? The people have one day in seven the leisure to hear instruction, and there are ministers appointed to teach them their duty.
>But how have those ministers performed their office? A great part of them, namely, the Presbyterian ministers, throughout the whole war, instigated the people against the King; so did also the Independents and other fanatic ministers. The rest, contented with their livings, preached in their parishes points of controversy, to religion impertinent, but to the breach of charity among themselves very effectual; or else eloquent things, which the people either understood not, or thought themselves not concerned in. But this sort of preachers, sad they did little good, so they did little hurt. The mischief proceeded wholly from the Presbyterian preachers, who, by a long practised histrionic faculty, preached up the rebellion powerfully.
Thomas Hobbes' anti-scholasticism / Universities
Needless Factionalism
>All the Presbyterians were of the same mind with Gomar: but a very great many others not; and those were called here Arminians, who, because the doctrine of free-will had been exploded as a Papistical doctrine, and because the Presbyterians were far the greater number, and already in favour with the people, were generally hated. It was easy, therefore, for the Parliament to make that calumny pass currently with the people, when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Laud, was for Arminius, and had a little before, by his power ecclesiastical, forbidden all his ministers to preach to the people of predestination; and when all ministers that were gracious with him, and hoped for Church preferment, fell to preaching and writing for free-will, to the uttermost of their power, as a proof of their ability and merit. Besides, they gave out, some of them, that the Archbishop was in heart a Papist; and in case he could effect a toleration here of the Roman religion, was to have a cardinal's hat: which was not only false, but also without any ground at all for a suspicion.
>It is a strange thing, that scholars, obscure men that could receive no clarity but from the flame of the state, should be suffered to bring their unnecessary disputes, and together with them their quarrels, out of the universities into the commonwealth; and more strange, that the state should engage in their parties, and not rather put them both to silence [Presbyterians & Arminians]
They must punish then the most of those that have had their breeding in the Universities
>They must punish then the most of those that have had their breeding in the Universities. For such curious questions in divinity are first started in the Universities, and so are all those politic questions concerning the rights of civil and ecclesiastic government; and there they are furnished with arguments for liberty out of the works of Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, and out of the histories of Rome and Greece, for their disputation against the necessary power of their sovereigns.
>Therefore I despair of any lasting peace amongst ourselves, till the Universities here shall bend and direct their studies to the settling of it, that is, to the teaching of absolute obedience to the laws of the King, and to his public edicts under the Great Seal of England. For I make no doubt, but that solid reason, backed with the authority of so many learned men, will more prevail for the keeping of us in peace within ourselves, than any victory can do over the rebels. But I am afraid that it is impossible to bring the Universities to such a compliance with the actions of state, as is necessary for the business.
The core of rebellion – the Universities
>The core of rebellion, as you have seen by this, and read of other rebellions, are the Universities; which nevertheless are not to be cast away, but to be better disciplined: that is to say, that the politics there taught be made to be, as true politics should be, such as are fit to make men know, that it is their duty to obey all laws whatsoever that shall by the authority of the King be enacted, till by the same authority they shall be repealed; such as are fit to make men understand, that the civil laws are God’s laws, as they that make them are by God appointed to make them and to make men know, that the people and the Church are one thing, and have but one head, the King; and that no man has title to govern under him, that has it not from him; that the King owes his crown to God only, and to no man, ecclesiastic or other; and that the religion they teach there, be a quiet waiting for the coming again of our blessed Saviour, and in the mean time a resolution to obey the King’s laws, which also are God’s laws
The Pastorall Authority Of Soveraigns Only Is De Jure Divino, That Of Other Pastors Is Jure Civili
>If a man therefore should ask a Pastor, in the execution of his Office, as the chief Priests and Elders of the people (Mat. 21.23.) asked our Saviour, “By what authority dost thou these things, and who gave thee this authority:” he can make no other just Answer, but that he doth it by the Authority of the Common-wealth, given him by the King, or Assembly that representeth it. All Pastors, except the Supreme, execute their charges in the Right, that is by the Authority of the Civill Soveraign, that is, Jure Civili. But the King, and every other Soveraign executeth his Office of Supreme Pastor, by immediate Authority from God, that is to say, In Gods Right, or Jure Divino. And therefore none but Kings can put into their Titles (a mark of their submission to God onely ) Dei Gratia Rex, &c. Bishops ought to say in the beginning of their Mandates, “By the favour of the Kings Majesty, Bishop of such a Diocesse;” or as Civill Ministers, “In his Majesties Name.” For in saying, Divina Providentia, which is the same with Dei Gratia, though disguised, they deny to have received their authority from the Civill State; and sliely slip off the Collar of their Civill Subjection, contrary to the unity and defence of the Common-wealth.
>So that where a stranger hath authority to appoint Teachers, it is given him by the Soveraign in whose Dominions he teacheth. Christian Doctors are our Schoolmasters to Christianity; But Kings are Fathers of Families, and may receive Schoolmasters for their Subjects from the recommendation of a stranger, but not from the command; especially when the ill teaching them shall redound to the great and manifest profit of him that recommends them: nor can they be obliged to retain them, longer than it is for the Publique good; the care of which they stand so long charged withall, as they retain any other essentiall Right of the Soveraignty.
>And therefore the second Conclusion, concerning the best form of Government of the Church, is nothing to the question of the Popes Power without his own Dominions: For in all other Common-wealths his Power (if hee have any at all) is that of the Schoolmaster onely, and not of the Master of the Family.
>The third place, is John 21.16. “Feed my sheep;” which is not a Power to make Laws, but a command to Teach. Making Laws belongs to the Lord of the Family; who by his owne discretion chooseth his Chaplain, as also a Schoolmaster to Teach his children.
The Universities… Again
>Seeing the Universities have heretofore from time to time maintained the authority of the Pope, contrary to all laws divine, civil, and natural, against the right of our Kings, why can they not as well, when they have all manner of laws and equity on their side, maintain the rights of him that is both sovereign of the kingdom, and head of the Church?
<Why then were they not in all points for the King’s power, presently after that King Henry VIII was in Parliament declared head of the Church, as much as they were before for the authority of the Pope?
>Because the clergy in the Universities, by whom all things there are governed, and the clergy without the Universities, as well biships as inferior clerks, did think that the pulling down of the Pope was the setting up of them, as to England, in his place, and made no question, the greatest part of them, but that their spiritual power did depend not upon the authority of the King, but of Christ himself, derived to them by a successive imposition of hands from bishop to bishop; notwithstanding they knew that this derivation passed through the hands of popes and bishops whose authority they had cast off. For though they were content that the divine right, which the Pope pretended to in England, should be denied him, yet they thought it not so fit to be taken from the Church of England, whom they now supposed themselves to represent.
<Kim Jong Il & KCU (Children's Union) / Education of the Youth, like clean sheets of paper
>Childhood is a very important period when young people's outlook on the world begins to form.
>As the Leader has stated, the minds of the children in this period are as clean as a sheet of blank paper and perceive given phenomena just as a camera does. Therefore, depending on their education in this period, they can become red, yellow, or black.
Hobbes / Instruction of the Subjects
<And To Have Days Set Apart To Learn Their Duty, like such is done every Sunday
>Seeing people cannot be taught this, nor when ’tis taught, remember it, nor after one generation past, so much as know in whom the Sovereign Power is placed, without setting a part from their ordinary labour, some certain times, in which they may attend those that are appointed to instruct them; It is necessary that some such times be determined, wherein they may assemble together, and (after prayers and praises given to God, the Sovereign of Sovereigns) hear those their Duties told them, and the Positive Laws, such as generally concern them all, read and expounded, and be put in mind of the Authority that makes them Laws.
<Thomas Hobbes on Instruction / Propaganda (basically)
>Another thing necessary, is rooting out from the consciences of men all those opinions which seem to justify, and give pretense of right to rebellious actions… that there is a body of the people without him or them that have the sovereign power… and because opinions which are gotten by education, and in length of time are made habitual, cannot be taken away by force, and upon the sudden: they must therefore be taken away also, by time and education. And seeing the said opinions have proceeded from private and public teaching, and those teachers have received from grounds and principles, which they have learned in the Universities…
>Instruction of the people in the essential rights which are the natural and fundamental laws of sovereignty… it is his duty to cause them [his subjects] to be instructed; and not only his duty, but his benefit also.
Ordinary people's minds are like clean paper, fit to receive whatever the Sovereign shall imprint upon them
>Whereas the common people's minds, unless they be tainted with dependence on the potent, or scribbled over with the opinions of their doctors, are like clean paper, fit to receive whatsoever the public authority shall be imprinted in them.
Subjects Are To Be Taught, Not To Affect Change Of Government
>And, to descend to particulars, the people are to be taught, first, that they ought not to be in love with any form of government that they see in their neighbor nations, more than with their own, nor, whatsoever present prosperity they behold in nations that are otherwise governed than they, to desire change. For the prosperity of a people ruled by an oligarchical or democratical assembly comes not from Oligarchy, nor from Democracy, but from the obedience and concord of the subjects: nor do the people flourish in Monarchy because one man the has right to rule them, but because they obey him. Take away in any kind of state the obedience, and consequently the concord of the people, and they shall not flourish, but in short time be dissolved. And they that go about by disobedience to do no more than reform the Commonwealth shall find they do thereby destroy it; like the foolish daughters of Peleus, in the fable, which desiring to renew the youth of their decrepit father, did by the counsel of Medea cut him in pieces and boil him, together with strange herbs, but made not of him a new man. This desire of change is like the breach of the first of God's Commandments: for there God says, Non habebis Deos alienos: "Thou shalt not have the Gods of other nations," and in another place concerning kings, that they are gods.
Keep the means of sovereignty to maintain the end thereof
>For he that deserts the Means, deserts the Ends; and he deserts the Means, that being the Sovereign, acknowledges himself subject to the Civil Laws; and renounces the Power of Supreme Judicature; or of making War, or Peace by his own Authority; or of Judging of the Necessities of the Common-wealth; or of levying Mony, and Soldiers, when, and as much as in his own conscience he shall judge necessary; or of making Officers, and Ministers both of War, and Peace; or of appointing Teachers, and examining what Doctrines are conformable, or contrary to the Defence, Peace, and Good of the people. Secondly, it is against his duty, to let the people be ignorant, or misinformed of the grounds, and reasons of those his essentiall Rights; because thereby men are easy to be seduced, and drawn to resist him, when the Common-wealth shall require their use and exercise.
>I conclude therefore, that in the instruction of the people in the Essentiall Rights (which are the Naturall, and Fundamentall Lawes) of Sovereignty, there is no difficulty, (whilest a Sovereign has his Power entire,) but what proceeds from his own fault, or the fault of those whom he trusteth in the administration of the Common-wealth; and consequently, it is his Duty, to cause them so to be instructed; and not onely his Duty, but his Benefit also, and Security, against the danger that may arrive to himself in his naturall Person, from Rebellion.
<The Use of Universities
>As for the Means, and Conduits, by which the people may receive this Instruction, wee are to search, by what means so may Opinions, contrary to the peace of Man-kind, upon weak and false Principles, have neverthelesse been so deeply rooted in them… It is therefore manifest, that the Instruction of the people, depends wholly, on the right teaching of Youth in the Universities.
>"It is his Duty, to cause them to be so instructed; and not only his Duty, but his Benefit also, and Security…"
Though he reserved for fathers to educate their children as they like.
<And because the first instruction of children depends on the care of their parents, it is necessary that they should be obedient to them while they are under their tuition; and not only so, but that also afterwards, as gratitude requires, they acknowledge the benefit of their education by external signs of honour. To which end they are to be taught that originally the the father of every man was also his sovereign lord, with power over him of life and death; and that the fathers of families, when by instituting a Commonwealth they resigned that absolute power, yet it was never intended that they should lose the honour due unto them for their education. For to relinquish such right was not necessary to the institution of sovereign power; nor would there be any reason why any man should desire to have children, or take the care to nourish and instruct them, if they were afterwards to have no other benefit from them than from other men. And this accords with the fifth Commandment.
Hobbes, like Xenophon, also puts a great stress on obedience:
<Take away in any kind of state the obedience, and consequently the concord of the people, and they shall not flourish, but in short time be dissolved. And they that go about by disobedience to do no more than reform the Commonwealth shall find they do thereby destroy it
<A Person, what?
>A PERSON, is he “whose words or actions are considered, either as his own, or as representing the words or actions of an other man, or of any other thing to whom they are attributed, whether Truly or by Fiction.
<The Word Person, Whence
>The word Person is latin: instead whereof the Greeks have Prosopon, which signifies the Face, as Persona in latine signifies the Disguise, or Outward Appearance of a man, counterfeited on the Stage; and sometimes more particularly that part of it, which disguises the face, as a Mask or Visard: And from the Stage, has been translated to any Representer of speech and action, as well in Tribunalls, as Theaters. So that a Person, is the same that an Actor is, both on the Stage and in common Conversation; and to Personate, is to Act, or Represent himself, or an other; and he that acts another, is said to bear his Person, or act in his name; (in which sense Cicero uses it where he says, “Unus Sustineo Tres Personas; Mei, Adversarii, & Judicis, I bear three Persons; my own, my Adversaries, and the Judges;”) and is called in diverse occasions, diversely; as a Representer, or Representative, a Lieutenant, a Vicar, an Attorney, a Deputy, a Procurator, an Actor, and the like.
>Actor, Author; Authority
>Of Persons Artificiall, some have their words and actions Owned by those whom they represent. And then the Person is the Actor; and he that owns his words and actions, is the AUTHOR: In which case the Actor acts by Authority. For that which in speaking of goods and possessions, is called an Owner, and in latine Dominus, in Greeke Kurios; speaking of Actions, is called Author. And as the Right of possession, is called Dominion; so the Right of doing any Action, is called AUTHORITY. So that by Authority, is always understood a Right of doing any act: and Done By Authority, done by Commission, or License from him whose right it is.
<Covenants By Authority, Bind The Author
>From hence it follows, that when the Actor makes a Covenant by Authority, he binds thereby the Author, no less than if he had made it himself; and no less subjects him to all the consequences of the same. And therefore all that hath been said formerly, (Chap. 14) of the nature of Covenants between man and man in their naturall capacity, is true also when they are made by their Actors, Representers, or Procurators, that have authority from them, so far-forth as is in their Commission, but no farther.
<And therefore he that maketh a Covenant with the Actor, or Representer, not knowing the Authority he hath, doth it at his own perill. For no man is obliged by a Covenant, whereof he is not Author; nor consequently by a Covenant made against, or beside the Authority he gave.
<But Not The Actor
>When the Actor doth any thing against the Law of Nature by command of the Author, if he be obliged by former Covenant to obey him, not he, but the Author breaks the Law of Nature: for though the Action be against the Law of Nature; yet it is not his: but contrarily; to refuse to do it, is against the Law of Nature, that forbids breach of Covenant.
<A Multitude Of Men, How One Person
>A Multitude of men, are made One Person, when they are by one man, or one Person, Represented; so that it be done with the consent of every one of that Multitude in particular. For it is the Unity of the Representer, not the Unity of the Represented, that makes the Person One. And it is the Representer that bears the Person, and but one Person: And Unity, cannot otherwise be understood in Multitude.
<Every One Is Author
>And because the Multitude naturally is not One, but Many; they cannot be understood for one; but many Authors, of every thing their Representative faith, or doth in their name; Every man giving their common Representer, Authority from himself in particular; and owning all the actions the Representer doth, in case they give him Authority without stint: Otherwise, when they limit him in what, and how far he shall represent them, none of them owns more, than they gave him commission to Act.
<An Actor May Be Many Men Made One By Plurality Of Voices [Or Majority Vote]
>And if the Representative consist of many men, the voice of the greater number, must be considered as the voice of them all. For if the lesser number pronounce (for example) in the Affirmative, and the greater in the Negative, there will be Negatives more than enough to destroy the Affirmatives; and thereby the excess of Negatives, standing uncontradicted, are the only voice the Representative has.
<Nor From A Great Multitude [Which leads to Factionalism], Unless Directed By One Judgement
>And be there never so great a Multitude; yet if their actions be directed according to their particular judgements, and particular appetites, they can expect thereby no defence, nor protection, neither against a Common enemy, nor against the injuries of one another. For being distracted in opinions concerning the best use and application of their strength, they do not help, but hinder one another [in their factionalism]; and reduce their strength by mutuall opposition to nothing: whereby they are easily, not only subdued by a very few that agree together; but also when there is no common enemy, they make war upon each other, for their particular interests. For if we could suppose a great Multitude of men to consent in the observation of Justice, and other Laws of Nature, without a common Power to keep them all in awe; we might as well suppose all Mankind to do the same; and then there neither would be nor need to be any Civil Government, or Common-wealth at all; because there would be Peace without subjection.
(Note: I like to think this is Hobbes' objection to Aristotle on "Too Much Unity" & "Atomization" in objecting to Plato's Republic – Where Aristotle suggests that the State goes & shrinks from the State, to the Family, & finally to the Individual, & is destroy, then Hobbes suggests to this & the idea that people are political animals by nature, that Mankind might as well have one world government and have peace without subjection).
<The Generation Of A Common-wealth
>The only way to erect such a Common Power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of Foreigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their own industry, and by the fruits of the Earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is, to confer all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will: which is as much as to say, to appoint one man, or Assembly of men, to bear their Person; and every one to own, and acknowledge himself to be Author of whatsoever he that so bears their Person, shall Act, or cause to be Acted, in those things which concern the Common Peace and Safety; and therein to submit their Wills, every one to his Will, and their Judgements, to his Judgment.
<This is more than Consent, or Concord; it is a real Unity of them all, in one and the same Person, made by Covenant of every man with every man, in such manner, as if every man should say to every man, “I Authorize and give up my Right of Governing my self, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorize all his Actions in like manner.”
>This done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a COMMONWEALTH, in latin CIVITAS. This is the Generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speak more reverently) of that Mortall God, to which we owe under the Immortall God, our peace and defence. For by this Authority, given him by every particular man in the Commonwealth, he hath the use of so much Power and Strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to Peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad.
<The Definition Of A Common-wealth
>And in him consists the Essence of the Common-wealth; which (to define it,) is “One Person, of whose Acts a great Multitude, by mutuall Covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the Author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their Peace and Common Defence.”
<Sovereign, And Subject, What
>And he that carries this Person, is called SOVEREIGN, and said to have Sovereign Power; and every one besides, his SUBJECT.
<The Act Of Instituting A Common-wealth, What
>A Common-wealth is said to be Instituted, when a Multitude of men do Agree, and Covenant, Every One With Every One, that to whatsoever Man, or Assembly Of Men, shall be given by the major part, the Right to Present the Person of them all, (that is to say, to be their Representative;) every one, as well he that Voted For It, as [well as] he that Voted Against It, shall Authorize all the Actions and Judgements, of that Man, or Assembly of men, in the same manner, as if they were his own, to the end, to live peaceably amongst themselves, and be protected against other men.
(Note: It is interesting that this also includes those who vote against it thereby are said to consent to it – I assume by Hobbes' definition of consent by inference; aka, that they yet still participate & accept this system & don't actively resist or go somewhere else).
(For reference: Signs of Contract by Express & Signs of Contract by Inference)
<Signs Of Contract Express
>Signs of Contract, are either Express, or By Inference. Express, are words spoken with understanding of what they signify; And such words are either of the time Present, or Past; as, I Give, I Grant, I Have Given, I Have Granted, I Will That This Be Yours: Or of the future; as, I Will Give, I Will Grant; which words of the future, are called Promise.
<Signs Of Contract By Inference
>Signs by Inference, are sometimes the consequence of Words; sometimes the consequence of Silence; sometimes the consequence of Actions; sometimes the consequence of Forbearing an Action: and generally a sign by Inference, of any Contract, is whatsoever sufficiently argues the will of the Contractor.
(Later, Hobbes sufficiently says, that this can be said for people who live under any government, but dislike it)
<3. No Man Can Without Injustice Protest Against The Institution Of The Sovereign Declared By The Major Part.
>Thirdly, because the major part has by consenting voices declared a Sovereign; he that dissented must now consent with the rest; that is, be contented to avow all the actions he shall do, or else justly be destroyed by the rest. For if he voluntarily entered into the Congregation of them that were assembled, he sufficiently declared thereby his will (and therefore tacitly covenanted) to stand to what the major part should ordain: and therefore if he refuse to stand thereto, or make Protestation against any of their Decrees, he does contrary to his Covenant, and therefore unjustly. And whether he be of the Congregation, or not; and whether his consent be asked, or not, he must either submit to their decrees, or be left in the condition of warre he was in before; wherein he might without injustice be destroyed by any man whatsoever.
(This applies to really anyone who passively partakes in society; if you partake in voting, but lose the election – that you partook in voting is also a sign of contract by inference; that you used any of the public services or even took citizenship, that is also enough to be understood as a sign of contract by inference; that you aren't going ape shit right now and passively accepting everything, maybe that is also a sign of contract by inference).
Compare Jean Bodin also to what Hobbes is saying (which, btw, Hobbes also read his work)–
<Jean Bodin / The citizens in particular & the people in general
>It is one thing to bind all together, and to bind every one in particular: for so all the citizens particularly swore to the observation of the laws, but not all together for that every one of them in particular was bound unto the power of them all in general. But an oath could not be given by them all: for why, the people in general is a certain universal body, in power and nature divided from every man in particular. Then again to say truly, an oath cannot be made but by a lesser to the greater, but in a popular estate nothing can be greater than the whole body of the people themselves.
>But in a monarchy it is otherwise, where every one in particular, and all the people in general, and (as it were) in one body, must swear to the observation of the laws, and their faithful allegiance to one sovereign monarch; who next unto God (of whom he holds his scepter & power) is bound to no man. For an oath carries always with it reverence unto whom, or in whose name it is made, as still given unto a superiour.
By Absolute Sovereignty, there are some cases, Jean Bodin talks of an absolute sovereignty & majesty, where the Sovereignty is a simple unity just as a dot or a center in a circle is indivisible in geometry, and so sovereignty has the capacity to govern the State, by drawing the boundaries and limits of things, like a point and compass in geometry, I assume – (& Absolute Sovereignty in Monarchy is not understood to be a mixed, composite kind of State / mixed constitution, limited or mixed monarchy, where the limitation is understoo either to the monarch's estate, or as a part of the whole, or by limitation of term or rotational government – since that kind of constitutional monarchy sees, as Aristotle does, the monarch as a part in relation to the whole, it is an inferior & thereby limited monarchy, but with Absolute Sovereignty it is a superior relationship, and does in a way have the relationship of the whole to the part) – & King James VI & I also describes it as a Free Monarchy (Free, signifying Absolute Sovereignty, so Absolute Monarchy) – Hobbes also understood it the same way as King James VI & I, stating that the liberty is to be the liberty of commonwealths or artificial persons (for Hobbes, what really we call freedom in a Commonwealth is more of a sign of honor, such as the honor a parent has for his children and their status).
…
It is critical, that the Author is bound by covenant, but the Actor is not, – if I understand it correctly – for the justification for an Absolute Sovereignty in Hobbes' Leviathan.
<2. Sovereign Power Cannot Be Forfeited
>Because the Right of bearing the Person of them all, is given to him they make Sovereign, by Covenant only of one to another, and not of him to any of them; there can happen no breach of Covenant on the part of the Sovereign; and consequently none of his Subjects, by any pretense of forfeiture, can be freed from his Subjection.
(Now, Bossuet explains basically what Hobbes will say for why an absolute sovereignty & the actor not bound; there cannot be a sovereignty before sovereignty, or a government before government; like Joseph de Maistre suggests, Sovereignty is either before or consists with the creation of a People, so there is no People before the institution of Sovereignty to set conditions on it)
Bossuet:
<To imagine now, with M. Jurieu, in the people considered to be in this condition, a sovereignty, which is already a species of government, is to insist on a government before all government, and to contradict oneself. Far from the people being sovereign in this condition, there is not even a people in this state. There may be families, as ill-governed as they are ill-secured; there may well be a troop, a mass of people, a confused multitude; but there can be no people, because people supposes something which already brings together some regulated conduct and some establshed law – something which happens only to those who have already begun to leave this unhappy condition, that is to say, that of anarchy.
He that is Sovereign makes no covenant beforehand; like Bossuet says, would assume to have government before government
>That he which is made Sovereign makes no Covenant with his Subjects beforehand, is manifest; because either he must make it with the whole multitude, as one party to the Covenant; or he must make a severall Covenant with every man. With the whole, as one party, it is impossible; because as yet they are not one Person: and if he make so many severall Covenants as there be men, those Covenants after he has the Sovereignty are void, because what act soever can be pretended by any one of them for breach thereof, is the act both of himself, and of all the rest, because done in the Person, and by the Right of every one of them in particular.
>Besides, if any one, or more of them, pretend a breach of the Covenant made by the Sovereign at his Institution; and others, or one other of his Subjects, or himself alone, pretend there was no such breach, there is in this case, no Judge to decide the controversy: it returns therefore to the Sword again; and every man recovers the right of Protecting himself by his own strength, contrary to the design they had in the Institution.
>It is therefore in vain to grant Sovereignty by way of precedent Covenant. The opinion that any Monarch receives his Power by Covenant, that is to say on Condition, proceeds from want of understanding this easy truth, that Covenants being but words, and breath, have no force to oblige, contain, constrain, or protect any man, but what it has from the public Sword; that is, from the untied hands of that Man, or Assembly of men that hath the Sovereignty, and whose actions are avouched by them all, and performed by the strength of them all, in him united. But when an Assembly of men is made Sovereign; then no man imagines any such Covenant to have past in the Institution; for no man is so dull as to say, for example, the People of Rome, made a Covenant with the Romans, to hold the Sovereignty on such or such conditions; which not performed, the Romans might lawfully depose the Roman People. That men see not the reason to be alike in a Monarchy, and in a Popular Government, proceeds from the ambition of some, that are kinder to the government of an Assembly, whereof they may hope to participate, than of Monarchy, which they despair to enjoy.
Now Hobbes also says, that those who limit, or seek to limit, will themselves become like the center in a circle, and take the point & compass to draw the limits, becoming the absolute power:
>And whosoever thinking Soveraign Power too great, will seek to make it lesse; must subject himselfe, to the Power, that can limit it; that is to say, to a greater.
For all States, Hobbes believes they are simple & absolute:
>I have already sufficiently proved (chapt. 18.) that all Governments which men are bound to obey, are Simple, and Absolute.
If it is limited (outside of just the fundamental laws, natural & divine, that is), then another must be sovereign, and another form of state:
>Secondly, that King whose power is limited, is not superiour to him, or them that have the power to limit it; and he that is not superiour, is not supreme; that is to say not Sovereign. The Sovereignty therefore was always in that Assembly which had the Right to Limit him; and by consequence the government not Monarchy, but either Democracy, or Aristocracy; as of old time in Sparta; where the Kings had a privilege to lead their Armies; but the Sovereignty was in the Ephori.
–
It is also important to consider, for the 17th law of Nature, Hobbes states
The Seventeenth, No Man Is His Own Judge
>And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause: and if he were never so fit; yet Equity allowing to each party equall benefit, if one be admitted to be Judge, the other is to be admitted also; & so the controversy, that is, the cause of War, remains, against the Law of Nature.
In the same sense, Jean Bodin states a Sovereign cannot bind his own hand, appealing to as the Canonists are supposed to have said, that neither could the Pope.
And lastly, Hobbes states again:
–
<Subjecting The Sovereign Power To Civill Laws
<A fourth opinion, repugnant to the nature of a Common-wealth, is this, “That he that hath the Sovereign Power, is subject to the Civill Laws.” It is true, that Sovereigns are all subjects to the Laws of Nature; because such laws be Divine, and cannot by any man, or Common-wealth be abrogated.
>But to those Laws which the Sovereign himself, that is, which the Common-wealth makes, he is not subject. For to be subject to Laws, is to be subject to the Commonwealth, that is to the Sovereign Representative, that is to himself; which is not subjection, but freedome from the Laws. Which errour, because it sets the Laws above the Sovereign, sets also a Judge above him, and a Power to punish him; which is to make a new Sovereign; and again for the same reason a third, to punish the second; and so continually without end, to the Confusion, and Dissolution of the Common-wealth.
John Cook writes here
>Greater than any one, but less than all
This is a reference to Aristotle's food argument against the rule of a wise man, but a preeminent monarchy is in relation of the whole to the part–and has the capacity of every individual and all collectively–which Hobbes tackles.
Francis Theobald
>That the King is greater than any particular single man, but less than the whole body of men in a nation.
>If there be any force in this way of arguing, by the same reason it will follow, that a flock of sheep are more excellent than a man, because the shepherd is found out for the sheep, and not the sheep for the shepherd; for if there were no flocks of sheep, there would be no need of a shepherd.
Thomas Hobbes' answer to this dilemma, how to start with one person and end with one person in monarchical pre-eminence on par with the strength of the people and indivisible from them is part of his genius.
Thomas Hobbes
>This great Authority being indivisible, and inseparably annexed to the Sovereignty, there is little ground for the opinion of them, that say of Sovereign Kings, though they be Singulis Majores, of greater Power than every one of their Subjects, yet they be Universis Minores, of less power than them all together. For if by All Together, they mean not the collective body as one person, then All Together, and Every One, signify the same; and the speech is absurd. But if by All Together, they understand them as one Person (which person the Sovereign appears,) then the power of all together, is the same with the Sovereign's power; and so again the speech is absurd; which absurdity they see well enough, when the Sovereignty is in an Assembly of the people; but in a Monarch they see it not; and yet the power of Sovereignty is the same in whomsoever it be placed.
<Thomas Hobbes: The Multitude vs the People
<In the last place, it's a great hindrance to Civill Government, especially Monarchicall, that men distinguish not enough between a People and a Multitude. The People is somewhat that is one, having one will, and to whom one action may be attributed; none of these can properly be said of a Multitude. The People rules in all Governments, for even in Monarchies the People Commands; for the People wills by the will of one man; but the Multitude are Citizens, that is to say, Subjects. In a Democraty, and Aristocraty, the Citizens are the Multitude, but the Court is the People. And in a Monarchy, the Subjects are the Multitude, and (however it seeme a Paradox) the King is the People.
>The common sort of men, and others who little consider these truthes, do alwayes speak of a great number of men, as of the People, that is to say, the City; they say that the City hath rebelled against the King (which is impossible) and that the People will, and nill, what murmuring and discontented Subjects would have, or would not have, under pretence of the People, stirring up the Citizens against the City, that is to say, the Multitude against the People.
<The Fundamental Rights of Sovereignty, according to Thomas Hobbes
>1. The Subjects Cannot Change The Form Of Government (The form of Government is a fundamental law)
>2. Soveraigne Power Cannot Be Forfeited
>3. No Man Can Without Injustice Protest Against The Institution Of The Soveraigne Declared By The Major Part.
>4. The Soveraigns Actions Cannot Be Justly Accused By The Subject
>5. What Soever The Soveraigne Doth, Is Unpunishable By The Subject
>6. The Soveraigne Is Judge Of What Is Necessary For The Peace And Defence Of His Subjects (And Judge Of What Doctrines Are Fit To Be Taught Them)
>7. The Right of making Rules, whereby the Subject may every man know what is so his owne, as no other Subject can without injustice take it from him
>8. To Him Also Belongeth The Right Of All Judicature And Decision Of Controversies:
>9. And Of Making War, And Peace, As He Shall Think Best:
>10. And Of Choosing All Counsellours, And Ministers, Both Of Peace, And Warre:
>11. And Of Rewarding, And Punishing, And That (Where No Former Law hath Determined The Measure Of It) Arbitrary:
>12. And Of Honour And Order
And finally, Thomas Hobbes adds, with his 12 marks of Sovereignty (as Jean Bodin would have it):
<These Rights Are Indivisible
Making it an indivisible sovereignty.
…
Hobbes adds to the the notion of monarchical preeminence/majesty/sovereignty with this:
>Non est potestas Super Terram quae Comparetur ei. Iob. 41 . 24,
>There is no power on earth to be compared to him
…
This is what Thomas Hobbes wants you people to be indoctrinated about, so I'll honor him and perform the civil worship of teaching /leftypol/ & /siberia/ all about this.
…
Let's include Jean Bodin's marks of Sovereignty, while we're at it:
<Jean Bodin's Marks of Sovereignty:
>1. Make laws
>2. Declare war / peace
>3. Appoint magistrates
>4. Hear last appeals
>5. Give pardons
>6. Receive fealty & homage
>7. Coining of money
>8. Regulation of weights & measures
>9. Impose taxes
>10. The power of life & death; condemn or save, reward or punish
Jean Bodin
>So also is it proper unto sovereign majesty, to receive the subjects appeals, and the greatest magistrates, to place and displace officers, charge or exempt the subjects from taxes and subsidies, to grant pardons and dispensations against the rigor of the law, to have power of life and death, to increase or diminish the value and weight of the coin, to give it title, name, and figure: to cause all subjects and liegemen to swear for the keeping of their fidelity without exception, unto him to whom such oath is due: which are the true marks of sovereignty, comprised under the power of being able to give law to all in general, and to every one in particular, and not receive any law or command from any other
>Now let us prosecute the other part of our propounded definition, and show what these words, Absolute power, signify. For we said that unto Majesty, or Sovereignty, belongeth an absolute power, not subject to any law.
>It behooves him that is sovereign not to be in any sort subject to the command of another: whose office it is to give laws unto his subjects, to abrogate laws unprofitable, & in their stead to establish other: which he cannot do that is himself subject laws or others
In an older work, he lists them again.
>I see the sovereignty of state involved in five functions.
>One, and it is the principal one, is creating the most important magistrates and defining the office of each one; the second, proclaiming and annulling laws; the third, declaring war and peace; the fourth, receiving appeal from all magistrates; the last, the power of life and death when the law itself leaves no room for extenuation or grace.
Lastly, about the unitary nature of Sovereignty, I won't repeat, since I mentioned it enough.
Jean Bodin also states, Sovereignty is perpetual
& Hobbes also stresses a continual maintenance of a sovereign & coercive power.
The words Sovereignty, Majesty, & Pre-eminence are altogether synonymous with this notion of Monarchy.
& what Aristotle calls the qualities of a pre-eminent Monarch:
Aristotle - Qualities of a Pre-eminent Monarch:
>1. Agreeable to that ground of right which of the great founders of States
>2. It would not be right to kill, or ostracize, or exile such a person
>3. [We should not] require that he should take his turn in being governed
>4. He who has this pre-eminence is in the relation of the Whole to a part
>5. He should have the supreme power and subjects' obedience
>6. Is like a demigod among men
Aristotle went on to say.
>Any would be ridiculous who attempted to make laws for them: they would probably retort what, in the fable of Antisthenes, the lions said to the hares.
>For surely it would not be right to kill, or ostracize, or exile such a person, or… require that he should take his turn in being governed–the whole is naturally superior to the part, and he who has this pre-eminence is in the relation of the whole to the part. But if so the only alternative is that he should have the supreme power, and that mankind should obey him, not in turn, but always.
>Such an one may truly be deemed a god among men. Hence we see that legislation is necessarily concerned only with those who are equal in birth and in capacity; and for men of pre-eminent virtue there is no law–they are themselves a law (living law).
Gryffith Williams / A Kingdom = Great Family
>A family being nothing else but a small Kingdom, wherein the paterfamilias had Regal power… and a Kingdom being nothing else but a great family.
Jean Bodin / The best prince, the best father
>The best Prince is the best Father.
>The Prince, whom you may justly call the Father of the Country, ought to be to every man Dearer and more Reverend than any Father, as one Ordained and Sent unto us by God.
Robert Filmer / Kings are the Fathers of their People
>It may seem absurd to maintain, that Kings now are the Fathers of their People, since Experience shews the contrary. It is true, all Kings be not the Natural Parents of their Subjects, yet they all either are, or are to be reputed the next Heirs to those first Progenitors, who were at first the Natural Parents of the whole People, and in their Right succeed to the Exercise of Supreme Jurisdiction.
>If we compare the Natural Rights of a Father with those of a King, we find them all one, without any difference but only in the Latitude and Extent of them: as the Father over one Family, so the King as Father over many Families extends his care to preserve, feed, cloth, instruct and defend the whole Commonwealth. His War, his Peace, his Courts of Justice, and all his Acts of Sovereignty tend only to preserve and distribute to every subordinate and inferior Father, and to their Children, their Rights and Privileges; so that all the Duties of a King are summed up in an Universal Fatherly Care of his People.
Thomas Hobbes / Kings are the fathers of families
>To which end they are to be taught, that originally the Father of every man was also his Sovereign Lord, with power over him of life and death.
>But Kings are the Fathers of Families… [the Public Good / education of subjects], the care of which they stand so long charged withal, as they retain any other essential Right of the Sovereignty.
King James VI & I / For a King is truly Parens Patriae
>Kings are also compared to Fathers of families: for a King is truly Parens patriae, the politique father of his People.
Bossuet / My Father the King
>Man who, as has been said, saw the image of a kingdom in the union of several families under the leadership of a common father, and who had found gentleness in that life, brought themselves easily to create societies of families under kings who took the place of fathers… it is apparently for that reason that the ancient people's of Palestine called their kings Abimelech, that is to say: my father the king. Subjects took themselves to be children of the Prince: and, each calling him, My father the king.
Aristotle / The Association of Father & Son, the Ideal of Monarchy
>For the association of a father with his sons bears the form of monarchy… it is the ideal of monarchy to be paternal rule.
Ramses II / Speech for his Father
>For the son becomes the champion of his father, like Horus, when he championed his father, forming him that formed him, fashioning him that fashioned him, making to live the name of him that begat him.
>My heart leads me in doing excellent things… I will cause it to be said forever and ever: 'It was his son, who made his name live.' May my father, Osiris, favor me with the long life of his son, Horus, according as I do that which he did; I do excellent things, as he did excellent things, for him who begat me.
<Robert Filmer: That the First Kings were Fathers of Families
>It may seem absurd to maintain, that Kings now are the Fathers of their People, since Experience shows the contrary. It is true, all Kings be not the Natural Parents of their Subjects, yet they all either are, or are to be reputed the next Hers to those first Progenitors, who were at first the Natural Parents of the whole People, and in their Right succeed to the Supreme Jurisdiction; and such Heirs are not only Lords of their own Children, but also of their Brethren, and all others that were subject to their Fathers: And therefore we find, that God told Cain of his Brother Abel, His Desires shall be subject unto thee, and thou shalt rule over him. Accordingly, when Jacob bought his Brother's Birth-right, Isaac blessed him thus, Be Lord over thy Brethren, and let the Sons of thy Mother bow before thee. [Gen. 27. 29.]
>It is confessed, that in the Infancy of the World, the Paternal Government was Monarchical… That the paternal Power cannot be lost… The Right of Fatherly Government was ordained by God, for the preservation of Mankind… All Power on Earth is either derived or usurped from the Fatherly power, there being no other original to be found on any Power whatsoever… Even the Power which God himself exerciseth over Mankind is by Right of Fatherhood; he is both the King and Father of us all; as God hath exalted the Dignity of Earthly Kings, by communicating to them his own Title, by saying they are gods; so on the other side, he hath been pleased as it were to humble himself, by assuming the Title of a King, to express his Power, and not the Title of any popular Government.
>Father and King are not so diverse; it is confessed, that at first they were all one, for there is confessed Paternum imperium & haereditarium, and this Fatherly Empire, as t was of itself hereditary, so it was alienable by Patent, and seizable by an Usurper, as other goods are: and thus every King now is, hath a Paternal Empire, either by inheritance, or by Translation, or Usurpation; so a Father and a King may be all one.
>As long as the first Fathers of Families lived, the name of the Patriarchs did aptly belong unto them: but after a few Descents, when the true Fatherhood it self was extinct, and only the Right of the Father descends to the true Heir, then the Title of Prince or King was more significant, to express the Power of him who succeeds only to the Right of that Fatherhood which his Ancestors did Naturally enjoy; by this means it comes to pass, that many a Child, by succeeding a King, hath the Right of a Father over many a Gray-headed Multitude, and hath the Title of Pater Patriae.
>It may be demanded what becomes the Right of Fatherhood, in Case the Crown does esheat for want of an Heir? Whether doth it not then Dissolve to the People? The Answer is, It is but the Negligence or Ignorance of the People to lose the Knowledge of the true Heir: For an Heir there always is. If Adam himself were still living, and now ready to die, it is certain that there is One Man, and but One in the World who is next Heir, although the Knowledge who should be that One Man is quite lost.
>In all Kingdoms or Commonwealths in the World, whether the Prince be the Supreme Father of the People, or but the true Heir of such a Father, or whether he come to the Crown by Usurpation, or by Election of the Nobles, or of the People, or by any other way whatsoever; or whether some Few or a Multitude Govern the Commonwealth: Yet still the Authority that is in any one, or in many, or in all these, is the only Right and natural Authority of a Supreme Father. There is, and always shall be continued to the end of the World, a Natural Right of a Supreme Father over every Multitude, although by the secret Will of God, many at first do most unjustly obtain the Exercise of it.
>If we compare the Natural Rights of a Father with those of a King, we find them all one, without any difference at all but only in the Latitude or Extent of them: as the Father over one Family, so the King as Father over many Families extends his care to preserve, feed, cloth, instruct and defend the whole Commonwealth. His War, his Peace, his Courts of Justice, and all his Acts of Sovereignty tend only to preserve and distribute to every subordinate and inferiour Father, and to their Children, their Rights and Privileges; so that all the Duties of a King are summed up in an Universal Fatherly Care of his People.
>According to that of Aristotle, A Monarchy or Kingdom will be a fatherly government.
<Dante on Aeneas as father of the Roman People
>That the father of the Roman people was Aeneas, the famous king; and Titius Livus, illustrious writer of Roman deeds, confirms this testimony in the first part of his volume which begins with the capture of Troy. So great was the nobleness of this man, our ancestor most invincible and most pious, nobleness not only of his own considerable virtue, but that of his progenitors and consorts, which was transferred to him by hereditary right, that I cannot unfold it in detail, "I can but trace the main outlines of truth."
>He [Aeneas] was in the empyrean heaven chosen for father of Rome our parent and her empire.
<Giambattista Vico's New Science on Pater Familias
>Axioms 67-76, and particularly the corollary to 69, show us that fathers in the family state must have exercised monarchical power which was subject to God alone. This power extended over the persons and property of their children, and to a greater extent over those of the family servants, famuli, who had sought refuge on their lands. This made them the first monarchs of the world. (We must interpret the Bible as referring to such men when it calls them patriarchs, which means "ruling fathers".) Throughout the Roman republic, their monarchical rights were guaranteed by the Law of the Twelve Tables, which says, "The family father shall have the right of life and death over his children". And it adds that "Whatever a son acquires, he acquires for his father".
King James VI & I
>The King towards his people is rightly compared to a father of children, and to a head of a body composed of diverse members.
>The style of Pater patriae was ever, and is commonly used to Kings. And the proper office of a King towards his Subjects, agrees very well with the office of the head towards the body, and all the members thereof: For from the head, being the seat of Judgement, proceeds the care and foresight of guiding, and preventing all evil that may come to the body or any part thereof.
>The head cares for the body, so does the King for his people. As the discourse and direction flows from the head.
For if the King wants, the State wants
>And though it in a sort this may seem to be my particular; yet it cannot be divided from the general good of the Commonwealth;
>For the King that is Parens Patriae, tells you of his wants. Nay, Patria ispa by him speaks unto you.
>For if the King want, the State wants, and therefore the strengthening of the King is the preservation and standing of the State;
>And woe be to him that divides the weal of the King from the weal of the Kingdom.
King James VI & I Speech
>I am the husband, and all the whole isle is my lawful wife; I am the head, and it is my body; I am the shepherd, and it is my flock.
>So my Sovereignty obliges me to yield to you love, government and protection: Neither did I ever wish any happiness to myself, which was not conjoined with the happiness of my people. I desire a perfect Union of Laws and persons, and such a naturalizing as may make one body of both Kingdoms under me your King, That I and my posterity (if it so please God) may rule over you to the world's end; Such an Union as was of the Scots and Picts in Scotland, and of the Heptarchy in England. And for Scotland I avow such an Union, as if you had got it by Conquest, but such a Conquest as may be cemented by love, the only sure bond of subjection or friendship:
>That as there is over both but unus Rex, so there may be in both but unus Grex & una Lex
My descent, the loins of Henry VII
>First, by my descent lineally out of the lions of Henry the seventh, is reunited and confirmed in me the Union of the two Princely Roses of the two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke, whereof that King of happy memory was the first Uniter, as he was also the first groundlayer of the other Peace.
King James VI & I speech
>This I must say for Scotland, and I may truly vaunt it; Here I sit and govern it with my Pen, I write and it is done, and by a Clerk of the Councell I govern Scotland now, which others could not do by the sword. And for their averseness in their heart against the Union, it is true indeed, I protest they did never crave this Union of me, nor sought it either in private, or the State by letters, not ever once did any of that Nation press me forward or wish me to accelerate that business.
>But on the other part, they offered always to obey me when it should come to them, and all honest men that desire my greatness have been thus minded, for the personal reverence and regard they bear unto my Person, and any of my reasonable and just desires.
Negative voice
>It has likewise been objected as an other impediment, that in the Parliament of Scotland the King has not a negative voice, but must pass all the Laws agreed on by the Lords and Commons.
>Of this I can best resolve you: for I am the eldest Parliament man in Scotland, and have sit in more Parliaments than any of my Predecessors. I can assure you, that the form of Parliament there, is nothing inclined to popularity.
>About a twenty days or such a time before the Parliament, Proclamation is made throughout the Kingdom, to deliver in to the King's Clerk of Register (whom you here call the Master of the Rolles) all Bills to be exhibited that Session before a certain day. Then they are brought unto the King, and perused and considered by him, and only such as I allow of are put into the Chancellor's hands to be propounded to the Parliament, and none others: And if any man in Parliament speak of any other matter then is in this form first allowed by me, The Chancellor tells him there is no such Bill allowed by the King.
>Besides, when they have passed them for laws, they are presented unto me, and I with my Scepter put into my hand by the Chancellor, must say, I ratify and approve all things done in this present Parliament. And if there be any thing that I dislike, they raze it out before. If this may be called a negative voice, then I have one I am sure in that Parliament.
<God and the King: - by Richard Mocket, printed & compiled by James VI & I's command
Philalethes:
>Somewhat. I heard this Evening-Prayer from our Pastor in his Catechistical Expositions upon the fifth Commandment, Honor thy Father, and thy Mother: who taught, that under these pious and reverent appellations of Father and Mother are comprised not only our natural Parents, but likewise all higher Powers; and especially such as have Sovereign Authority, as the Kings and Princes of Earth.
Theodidactus:
<Is this Doctrine so strange unto you, as to make you muse thereat?
Philalethes:
>God forbid; for I am well assured of the truth thereof, both out of the Word of God, and from the Light of Reason. The Sacred Scriptures do style Kings and Princes the nursing Fathers of the Church, and therefore the nursing Fathers also of the Commonweal: these two Societies having so mutual a dependence, that the welfare of the one is the prosperity of the other.
>And the Evidence of Reason teaches, that there is a stronger and higher bond of Duty between Children and the Father of their Country, than the Fathers of private Families. These procure the good only of a few, and not without the assistance and protection of the other, who are the common Foster-fathers of Families, of whole Nations and Kingdoms, that they may live under them an honest and peaceable life.
Jean Bodin - Quotes on absolutism
>If this is true [what Plato and Aristotle say], it seems to apply, not to princes, or to those who have the highest power in the state, but to the magistrates. For those who decree law ought to be above it, that they may repeal it, take from it, invalidate it, or add to it, or even if circumstances demand, allow it to become obsolete. These things cannot be done if the man who makes legislation if held by it.
>Indeed, it is a fine sentiment that the man who decrees law ought to be above the laws, for the reasons we have given; but once the measure has been passed and approved by the common assent of everyone, why should not the prince be held by the law which he has made?
>If it is just that a man shall be held by whatever he decrees for another, how much more just is it that the prince or the people shall be held by their own laws?
>Nay, not even the Roman pontiffs were willing to be held by any laws, and to use their own words, they were never tied their own hands.
>Now let us prosecute the other part of our propounded definition, and show what these words, Absolute power, signify. For we said that unto Majesty, or Sovereignty, belongs an absolute power, not subject to any law.
>It behoves him that is sovereign not to be in any sort subject to the command of another: whose office it is to give laws unto his subjects, to abrogate laws unprofitable, & in their stead to establish others: which he cannot do that is himself subject to laws or others.
>The attributes of sovereignty are therefore peculiar to the sovereign prince, for if communicable to the subject, they cannot be called attributes of sovereignty… Just as Almighty God cannot create another God equal with Himself, since He is infinite and two infinites cannot co-exist, so the sovereign prince, who is the image of God, cannot make a subject equal with himself without self-destruction.
>It behoves him that is sovereign not to be in any sort subject to the command of another: whose office it is to give laws unto his subjects, to abrogate laws unprofitable, & in their stead to establish others: which he cannot do that is himself subject to laws or others.
>The attributes of sovereignty are therefore peculiar to the sovereign prince, for if communicable to the subject, they cannot be called attributes of sovereignty… Just as Almighty God cannot create another God equal with Himself, since He is infinite and two infinites cannot co-exist, so the sovereign prince, who is the image of God, cannot make a subject equal with himself without self-destruction.
>Majesty or Sovereignty is the most high, absolute, and perpetual power over the citizens and subjects in a Commonwealth: Which the Latins call Majestatem, the Italians Segnoria, that is to say, The greatest power to command. For Majesty (As Fetus says) is so called of mightiness.
>And to manifest this point, we must presuppose that this word Law, without any other addition, signifies The right command of him or them, which have sovereign power above others, without exception of person: be it that such commandment concern the subjects in general, or in particular: except him or them which have given the law. Howbeit to speak more properly, A law is the command of a Sovereign concerning all his subjects in general: or else concerning general things, as says Festus Pompelus.
>And as the Pope can never bind his own hands (as the Canonists say;) so neither can a sovereign prince bind his own hands, albeit that he would. We see also in the end of all edits and laws, these words, -Quia sic nobis placuit, Because it has so pleased us; - to give us to understand, that the laws of the sovereign prince, although they be grounded upon good and lively reason, depend nevertheless upon nothing but his mere and frank good will. But as for the laws of God and nature, all princes and people of the world are unto them subject: neither is it in their power to impugne them, if will not be guilty of high treason to the divine majesty, making war against God; under the greatness of whom all monarchs of the world ought to bear the yoke, and to bow their heads in fear and reverence. Wherefore in that we say the sovereign power in a Commonwealth be free from all laws, concerns nothing the laws of God and nature.
>For right certain it is, the first Commonwealths were by sovereign power governed without law, the prince's work, beck, and will, serving instead of all laws, who both in time of peace and war, by commissions gave out charge to whom they pleased; and again at their pleasure revoked the same, all depending of their full and absolute power, being themselves not bound to any laws or customs at all. And that is it for which Pomponius writes, the Roman commonwealth to have been at the first governed by regal power, without use of any law. And Josephus the histriographer, in his second against Appian, desirous to show the most honorable antiquity of the Hebrews, and of their laws, says, That Moses of all others was the first that ever write laws. And that in five hundred years after, the word Law was never heard of. Alleging in proof thereof, That Homer in so many books as were by him written never used this word.
>But it behoveth him that is a sovereign not to be in any sort subject to the command of another: which thing Tiberius wisely meaning in these words, reasoned in the Senate concerning the right of sovereignty, saying that – "The reason of his doings were no otherwise to be manifested, than in that it was to be given to none" -; whose office it is to give laws unto his subjects, to abrogate laws unprofitable, and in their stead to establish others: which he cannot do that is himself subject unto laws, or to others which have command over him. And that is it for which the laws says, That the prince is acquitted from the power of the laws; and this word the Law, in Latin imports the commandment of him which has the sovereignty. We also see that unto all edicts and decrees there is annexed this clause, "-Notwithstanding all edicts and ordinances whereunto we have derogated, and do derogate by these presents:" -a clause which has always been joined unto the ancient laws, were the law published by the present prince, or by his predecessors."
Jean Bodin elaborates on this point.
>Of the first kind are the kings who once upon a time without any laws governed empires most justly by prerogative. Such the kings of ancient Greeks are said to have been before Lycurgus and Draco, that is, before any laws had been made binding. Such, also, the ancients remember the rule of the kings in Italy. At that time no laws were promulgated by kings or by private citizens, but the whole state and the rights of citizens depended upon the will of the prince. The Latins were governed by the royal power, as Pomponius wrote, without any definite system of laws. Josephus inferred that Moses was the most ancient legislator, because Homer, in his long work, never used the word "law." Although afterwards statutes were introduced, yet they were bought forward by private citizens, not by kings; until somewhat late the princes were not willing to be bound by these regulations. Indeed, not even when the kings were driven from the city did the consuls allow their own authority and power to be limited legally.
>For right certain it is, the first Commonwealths were by sovereign power governed without law, the prince's work, beck, and will, serving instead of all laws, who both in time of peace and war, by commissions gave out charge to whom they pleased; and again at their pleasure revoked the same, all depending of their full and absolute power, being themselves not bound to any laws or customs at all. And that is it for which Pomponius writes, the Roman commonwealth to have been at the first governed by regal power, without use of any law. And Josephus the histriographer, in his second against Appian, desirous to show the most honorable antiquity of the Hebrews, and of their laws, says, That Moses of all others was the first that ever write laws. And that in five hundred years after, the word Law was never heard of. Alleging in proof thereof, That Homer in so many books as were by him written never used this word.
>So Ulysses, whose kingdom was contained within the rock of Ithaca, is of Homer as well called a King, as Agamemnon: for a great kingdom (as says Cassidorus) is no other thing than a great Commonwealth or Republic or State, under the government of one chief sovereign: wherefore if of three families, one of the chief of the families has sovereign power over the other two, or two of them together over the third, or all three jointly and at once exercise power and authority over the people of the three families; it shall as well be called a Commonwealth or Republic or State, as if it in itself comprehended an infinite multitude of citizens.
Jean Bodin on fundamental law
>But touching the laws which concern the state of the realm, and the establishing thereof; foreasmuch as they are annexed and united to the crown, the prince cannot derogate from them, such as is the law Salic: & albeit that he so do, the successor may always disanull that which has been one unto the prejudice of the laws royal; upon which the sovereign majesty is stayed & grounded.
Hobbes A Fundamentall Law What
>For a Fundamentall Law in every Common-wealth is that, which being taken away, the Common-wealth faileth, and is utterly dissolved; as a building whose Foundation is destroyed. And therefore a Fundamentall Law is that, by which Subjects are bound to uphold whatsoever power is given to the Soveraign, whether a Monarch, or a Soveraign Assembly, without which the Common-wealth cannot stand, such as is the power of War and Peace, of Judicature, of Election of Officers, and of doing whatsoever he shall think necessary for the Publique good. Not Fundamentall is that the abrogating whereof, draweth not with it the dissolution of the Common-Wealth; such as are the Lawes Concerning Controversies between subject and subject. Thus much of the Division of Lawes.
This is important to note: what absolute monarchs consider a fundamental law is sovereignty and its attributes, the form of state is fundamental, and the succession – those are considered the fundamental laws – (even if Plato think maintaining the form of state is kind of maintaining the 'might is right' policy of a party and not the whole constitution, this is the opinion of others and I agree with them).
The Pre-eminence of King Charles II:
>His comely presence, meekness, majesty,
>Do Adamantine lustre far out-vie;
>If to be highly born it is great bliss,
>What Prince for Birth may you compare with his?
…
>Behold your King then thousands more tall
>In Grace, Power, Virtues, higher than you all
>When Kingship, Persons, Virtues thus you see
>All meet in one, happy's that Monarchy
>Not Solomon in Glory may compare
- P. Dormer's Monarchia Triumphans, 1666.
THE GREAT FOUNDER / PRE-EMINENT MONARCHY
As explained by Aristotle in Politics
>Further, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual since the whole is of necessity prior to the part… The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore he is like a part in relation to the Whole. But He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because He is sufficient for himself, must either be a Beast or a God! A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature.
<& yet he who first FOUNDED the state was the GREATEST of benefactors!
>But when a whole family or some individual, happens to be so pre-eminent in virtue as to surpass all others, then it is just that they should the royal family and supreme over all, or that this one citizen should be king of the whole nation. For, as I said before, to give them authority is not only agreeable to that ground of right which the FOUNDER of all states… are accustomed to put forward … but accords with the principle already laid down. For surely it would not be right to kill, or ostracize, or exile such a person, or… require that he should take his turn in being governed. The Whole is naturally superior to the part, and he who has this pre-eminence is in the relation of the Whole [the State] to a part. But if so, the only alternative is that he should have the supreme power, and that mankind should obey him, not in turn, but always!
Of course, Aristotle after setting the bar this high (& increasing my suspicion of him as a monarchist) said that this was unattainable, and left it not to Greek kings but the kings of the East.
–
>Now, if some men excelled others in the same degree in which gods and heroes are supposed to excel mankind in general (having in the first place a great advantage even in their bodies, and secondly in their minds), so that the superiority of the governors was undisputed and patent to their subjects, it would clearly be better that once for an the one class should rule and the other serve. But since this is unattainable, and kings have no marked superiority over their subjects, such as Scylax affirms to be found among the Indians, it is obviously necessary on many grounds that all the citizens alike should take their turn of governing and being governed
Thomas Hobbes, I think, refers to it as a state of awe
<Non est potestas Super Terram quae Comparetur ei. Iob. 41 . 24" (There is no power on earth to be compared to him. Job 41 . 24)
<and therefore it is no wonder if there be somewhat else required (besides Covenant) to make their Agreement constant and lasting; which is a Common Power, to keep them in awe, and to direct their actions to the Common Benefit.
<Againe, men have no pleasure, (but on the contrary a great deale of griefe) in keeping company, where there is no power able to over-awe them all.
>>744509>>744508Jill is black now.
Unique IPs: 23