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

47 8
'
POLITICS
was challenged by the Stuart doctrine of the Divine Right
of Kings.
Hobbes dissented from this theory on the ground that
there must be a sovereign in society, that sovereignty implies
being above the law, and that, so long as the king is
regarded as being subject to the law of nature and as
being himself, therefore, bound by a contract formed on
the basis of the law of nature, the king could not be
sovereign. In other words, so long as the theory of natural
law binding on king and people alike is accepted, there
can be no real sovereignty in the State. The Stuarts
sought to overcome this difficulty by the theory
of the
Divine Right of Kings ; but Hobbes was a secularist, and was
concerned to find his justification for absolute sovereignty
in this world and not the next. This he does by introducing
modifications into the existing theory of the Social Contract.
Dispensing with the idea of natural law and of
natural justice, he implies that law and justice arise only
in the State. They are not the presupposition of the con-
tract; they are its consequences. This being so, no contract
between king and people is possible, since there is no
external standard b$ reference to which to determine
when the contract is being kept, and when it is being
violated. Consequently the contract, as Hobbes conceives
it, is one which is made between the various individuals
who compose society, and not between individuals and
king. The king, then, is outside the contract; the king,
therefore, is sovereign, and, as sovereign, he is outside
and above the law which he creates and enforces. It is
on these lines that Hobbes is led to endow the sovereign
with the absolute powers which appear to us excessive
and unjustified.
Criticism of Hobbes
(i) ON HOBBES'S PREMISES THE CONTRACT
COULD NOT HAVE BEEN FORMED. The Criticisms
to which Hobbes's political philosophy is exposed are
in part those which apply to any form of Social