it as the image and law of God, nay, God himself. In such intelligence and the longing and hope corresponding to it, man passes into God and "becomes all as he is all." In so doing he becomes the Good, which is precisely the One, King, the Divine. Evil is relatively non-existent, — is mere defect and opposition, finitude, not-being in being. To become evil is merely to fall away from God. Only as good does the soul find true joy in itself and its environment. Goodness is, first of all, truth, since truth is just that One which is in and above all things. In truth and goodness, thought and action are united and become love, which is their consummation. He who is filled with love is filled with God, who is precisely Love, which pours itself forth on all things, and towards which all things struggle.

Result. In the doctrine of Bruno, the nature-philosophy of the First Period reaches its highest form; in it there is manifested a fuller conception of the presuppositions, method, and results of a philosophy of nature, whether speculative or empirical, than in any ese systems we have contemplated before it. By his conception of nature as the sum and unity of all possible determinations, Bruno holds the position of forerunner of Spinoza; by his conception of the monad that of forerunner of Leibnitz. The philosophy of Bruno stands almost entirely alone among the systems of this First Period as being wholly "non-Christian" in principle and result: it is simply Platonism, or NeoPlatonism, purified of medieval accretions, and blended with the widest truths of nature as known to the science of the age of Bruno, or as divined by a mind gifted with high poetico-philosophical insight. The kernel of it is, doubtless, the conception of the unity of opposites, a conception which has played (and is playing) a vast role in modern speculative thought. as we shall have abundant occasion to see.

33.

(2) Ethical Philosophers (chiefly Political). — The names which occur here are those of Nicolò Macchiavelli,

Thomas More, Johannes Oldendorp, Nicolaus Hemming, Jean Bodin, Albericus Gentilis, Benedict Winckler, Hugo Grotius, Richard Hooker.

§ 34.

Nicolò Macchiavelli (1469-1527), the Italian statesman, in his two works, "Il Principe" (The Prince), (1513, pub. 1532), and "Discorsi sul Primo Libro delle Deche di Tito Livio" (Discourses on the First Book of the Decades of Titus Livius), (1520?), gives not so much a theory of the State as such, as a theory of a State under conditions like those existing in Italy in his own day. He separates political methods entirely from moral and religious, and upholds the maxim that the "end justifies the means."

§ 35

Thomas More (1478-1535).- More, the well-known Lord Chancellor of King Henry VIII. of England, in a philosophical romance, "Utopia" (Latin, 1516; English translation by Ralph Robinson, 1551), portrays an "ideal commonwealth," agricultural in basis, in which community of property is the universal rule, the form of government is republican, transgression of the laws (which are but few) is punished by degradation to a condition of slavery, the sciences are assiduously cultivated, education is compulsory, religious toleration prevails except towards those denying the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and of a divine providence, and the priesthood (numerically small) enjoys special respect and is irresponsible.

§ 36.

Johannes Oldendorp (d. 1561). - Oldendorp, professor at Marburg, whose "Juris Naturalis Gentium et Civilis elraywyń" (1539) has been called the "first attempt to establish a system of natural law,"1 based natural right on universal reason, but held that Revelation (i. e., the Deca

1 See Erdmann, § 252, 4.

logue) was the only "reliable authority for the same." Civil right, or law, is a species of natural right, but is based on probabilities, and depends upon the constitution of the State.

§ 37.

Nicolaus Hemming (1518-1600). - Hemming, at one time professor at Copenhagen, having previously been five years a personal pupil of Melancthon, aims to derive natural law purely from the reason implanted in man by God. In his "Lege Naturæ apodictica Methodus Concinnata" (1577), he maintains assuming that the end of the practical life is threefold; viz., economical, political, and spiritual - that the political end is ultimately identical with the spiritual, which is the knowledge, fear, and love of God. Immediately, the political end is repose and peace; it is mediated by the four (Platonic) virtues, - prudence, moderation, courage, and justice. Governments differ according to circumstances, but only those sorts of law are justifiable which can be proved to flow from the axioms of nature.1

§ 38.

Jean Bodin (1530-1597). -Bodin, who took a degree in law at Toulouse, and afterwards lectured there on jurisprudence, and who was one of the earliest of modern political economists as well as modern writers on jurisprudence, undertakes, in a work entitled "Six Libres de République " (1597), to erect a theory of society on a historico-empirical basis as regards method. The State, according to Bodin, is a community of families regulated by authority and reason; it arises by "force and violence from a patriarchal state of society." Citizenship in a true State is the "acknowledgment of the sovereign by his free subject, and the protection of the sovereign towards the subject." The State reposes on a real or imaginary contract.

1 See Noack.

The sov

2 See Hallam, Lit. of Europe, Part II., pp. 150-164.

ereign power of the State is the legislature: it is a power that is perpetual, absolute, and subject to no law. The forms of government are three, and three only: democracy (in which the sovereignty rests with the majority of the citizens), monarchy (which is the "rule of one man according to the law of nature, who maintains the liberties and properties of others as much as his own"), aristocracy (a government in which a "smaller body of the citizens governs the greater"). Resistance to the commands of the sovereign is a thing to be avoided except in cases where those commands indubitably conflict with the "law of God." Slavery is undesirable. Revolution best takes place by a voluntary cession of power. The supreme law of the State is public safety. Climate, the surface of the land, soil, and physical conditions generally (a subject that has hitherto been neglected) must be considered: the laws of "Nature will not bend to the fancy of man." Religious tolerance should be the rule, since men give assent “voluntarily, not by force." The best form of government is an agnate monarchy. Bodin may, profitably, be compared with Aristotle, on the one hand, and Montesquieu, on the other.

§ 39.

Albericus Gentilis, or Alberico Gentili (1552-1608), an Italian who was driven from his native country by religious persecution, and who, settling in England, became Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, rejects both the historicoempirical and the theological views of the basis of natural law, which he finds solely in the science of human nature. Man is by nature a social being. Right exists only in society, and only between individuals, so that the ordinary distinction of right into jus naturæ and jus gentium is untenable. War is justifiable only for the sake of peace. Atheists have no rights. To all persons, except atheists, toleration should be shown. Gentilis' chief work is entitled "De Jure Belli Libri Tres" (1598). To this work of Gen

tilis the corresponding famous work of Grotius is said to be largely indebted.

§ 40.

Benedict Winckler1 (d. 1648), professor of jurisprudence at Leipsic, whose "Principiorum Libri Quinque" (1615) has been called the "most important treatise on natural right prior to Grotius," derives all right ultimately from a divine source, which is most purely revealed in the Scriptures, particularly the Decalogue. He distinguishes a jus naturæ prius by which man was governed prior to the "fall," and a jus naturæ posterius, sive jus gentium, the natural law of man since the "fall." The jus naturæ prius is indispensable and binding. Civil law is merely a means of upholding obedience to jus naturale and jus gentium. It changes with circumstances. Society is, ultimately,

founded on the social nature of man.

§ 41.

Hugo Grotius, or Huig van Groot (1583-1645).— Grotius, the commonly reputed founder of the science of international law, was a prodigy in learning even when a youth; very early took a degree in law at the University of Leyden; at the age of twenty received the appointment (unsolicited by him) of historiographer of the United Provinces of Holland; was afterwards advocate-general of the fisc for the provinces of Holland and Zealand; fiscal-general at Rotterdam; ambassador to London, etc. Imprisoned for life (as was intended) because of a part in theologico-political disturbances (Grotius was a "Remonstrant "), he managed, by the shrewdness of his wife, who was allowed to share in his imprisonment, to escape to Paris. At Paris he acted as ambassador for the Swedish Crown. He accepted an invitation from the Crown of Sweden to go to Stockholm to reside. He is almost uni1 Zeller, Erdmann.