GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

SOCIETY. ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN 477
alone is sovereign. His book, the Leviathan, was widely
acclaimed in support of the Stuart doctrine of the Divine
Right of Kings, which it was deliberately written to
sustain.
Although, however, Hobbes is careful to show that the
sovereign power cannot be divided, there is nothing in
his doctrine to preclude it from being vested in a number
of persons, or even in a sovereign body. This possibility
he does not, however, explore and his theory is usually
regarded as a defence of absolute, autocratic government
vested in a single person.
Hbbbes's Theory of Sovereignty and Natural Law.
The foregoing theories cannot but seem to the modern
reader fantastic. Pushing logic to its extreme, they appear
to reach conclusions which no contemporary mind could
possibly accept. A brief reference to historical circumstances
may serve to explain how to Hobbes's generation
they could at least appear plausible, for Hobbes's theory
of the absoluteness of the sovereign was the product of
circumstances and the child of a particular historical
situation. Let us for the moment dbnsider it within the
context of the conditions from which it took its rise.
The form of the Social Contract theory which was current
in the early seventeenth century represented it as a contract
between the people, on the one hand, and the king on
the other. This currently accepted view of the contract
was associated with the theory of natural law. The theory
of natural law asserted that all men, high and low, king
and people alike, were subject to natural law, which was
also divine law. In England natural law was identified
with the Common Law of the land. It was natural
law that provided the necessary moral basis for the
contract which resulted in the formation of society. Once this
contract had been made, the king was obliged to abide
by it no less than the people; if the king violated it, the
people, had a right to rebel. This theory of the contract
underlay the constitutional theory of monarchy which