Chapter 7

He doth not think the Church of England so narrowly calculated, that it cannot fall in with any regular species of government; nor does he think any one regular species of government more acceptable to God than another. The three generally received in the schools have all of them their several perfections, and are subject to their several depravations. However, few states are ruined by any defect in their institution, but generally by the corruption of manners, against which the best institution is no long security, and without which a very ill one may subsist and flourish: Whereof there are two pregnant instances now in Europe. The first is the aristocracy of Venice, which founded upon the wisest maxims, and digested by a great length of time, hath in our age admitted so many abuses through the degeneracy of the nobles, that the period of its duration seems to approach. The other is the united republics of the States-general, where a vein of temperance, industry, parsimony, and a public spirit, running through the whole body of the people, hath preserved an infant commonwealth of an untimely birth and sickly constitution, for above an hundred years, through so many dangers and difficulties, as a much more healthy one could never have struggled against, without those advantages.

Where security of person and property are preserved by laws which none but the Whole can repeal, there the great ends of government are provided for whether the administration be in the hands of One, or of Many. Where any one person or body of men, who do not represent the Whole, seize into their hands the power in the last resort, there is properly no longer a government, but what Aristotle and his followers call the abuse and corruption of one. This distinction excludes arbitrary power in whatever numbers; which notwithstanding all that Hobbes, Filmer[10] and others have said to its advantage, I look upon as a greater evil than anarchy itself; as much as a savage is in a happier state of life than a slave at the oar.

[Footnote 10: Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679), the English philosopher, and author of "De Cive" (1642), "Treatise on Human Nature" (1650), "De Corpore Politico" (1650), "Leviathan" (1651), and other works. Swift is here combating Hobbes's advocacy for a sovereign power, as vested in a single person.

Filmer, Sir Robert (died 1647), author of "The Anarchy of a limited and mixed Monarchy," "Patriarcha," and "The Freeholder's Grand Inquest." In the "Patriarcha" Filmer attempted to prove that absolute government by a monarch was a patriarchal institution. Locke replied to this work in his "Two Treatises on Government." [T.S.]]

It is reckoned ill manners, as well as unreasonable, for men to quarrel upon difference in opinion; because that is usually supposed to be a thing which no man can help in himself; which however I do not conceive to be an universal infallible maxim, except in those cases where the question is pretty equally disputed among the learned and the wise; where it is otherwise, a man of tolerable reason, small experience, and willing to be instructed, may apprehend he is got into a wrong opinion, though the whole course of his mind and inclination would persuade him to believe it true: He may be convinced that he is in error though he does not see where it lies, by the bad effects of it in the common conduct of his life, and by observing those persons for whose wisdom and goodness he has the greatest deference, to be of a contrary sentiment. According to Hobbes's comparison of reasoning with casting up accounts, whoever finds a mistake in the sum total, must allow himself out, though, after repeated trials he may not see in which article he has misreckoned. I will instance in one opinion, which I look upon every man obliged in conscience to quit, or in prudence to conceal; I mean, that whoever argues in defence of absolute power in a single person, though he offers the old plausible plea, that, _it is his opinion, which he cannot help unless he be convinced_, ought, in all free states to be treated as the common enemy of mankind. Yet this is laid as a heavy charge upon the clergy of the two reigns before the Revolution, who under the terms of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance are said to have preached up the unlimited power of the prince, because they found it a doctrine that pleased the Court, and made way for their preferment. And I believe there may be truth enough in this accusation, to convince us, that human frailty will too often interpose itself among persons of the holiest function. However, it may be offered in excuse for the clergy, that in the best societies there are some ill members, which a corrupted court and ministry will industriously find out and introduce. Besides, it is manifest that the greater number of those who held and preached this doctrine, were misguided by equivocal terms, and by perfect ignorance in the principles of government, which they had not made any part of their study. The question originally put, and as I remember to have heard it disputed in public schools, was this; _whether under any pretence whatsoever it may be lawful to resist the supreme magistrate?_ which was held in the negative; and this is certainly the right opinion. But many of the clergy, and other learned men, deceived by dubious expression, mistook the object to which passive obedience was due. By the supreme magistrate is properly understood the legislative power, which in all government must be absolute and unlimited. But the word magistrate seeming to denote a single person, and to express the executive power, it came to pass, that the obedience due to the legislature was for want of knowing or considering this easy distinction, misapplied to the administration. Neither is it any wonder, that the clergy or other well-meaning people should fall into this error, which deceived Hobbes himself so far, as to be the foundation of all the political mistakes in his book, where he perpetually confounds the executive with the legislative power, though all well-instituted states have ever placed them in different hands, as may be obvious to those who know anything of Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and other republics of Greece, as well as the greater ones of Carthage and Rome.

Besides, it is to be considered that when these doctrines began to be preached among us, the kingdom had not quite worn out the memory of that unhappy rebellion, under the consequences of which it had groaned almost twenty years. And a weak prince in conjunction with a succession of most prostitute ministers, began again to dispose the people to new attempts, which it was, no doubt, the clergy's duty to endeavour to prevent, if some of them had not for want of knowledge in temporal affairs, and others perhaps from a worse principle, proceeded upon a topic that strictly followed would enslave all mankind.

Among other theological arguments made use of in those times, in praise of monarchy, and justification of absolute obedience to a prince, there seemed to be one of a singular nature: It was urged that Heaven was governed by a monarch, who had none to control his power, but was absolutely obeyed: Then it followed, that earthly governments were the more perfect, the nearer they imitated the government in Heaven. All which I look upon as the strongest argument against despotic power that ever was offered; since no reason can possibly be assigned why it is best for the world that God Almighty hath such a power, which doth not directly prove that no mortal man should ever have the like.

But though a Church of England man thinks every species of government equally lawful, he does not think them equally expedient; or for every country indifferently. There may be something in the climate, naturally disposing men toward one sort of obedience, as is manifest all over Asia, where we never read of any commonwealth, except some small ones on the western coasts established by the Greeks. There may be a great deal in the situation of a country, and in the present genius of the people. It hath been observed, that the temperate climates usually run into moderate governments, and the extremes into despotic power. 'Tis a remark of Hobbes, that the youth of England are corrupted in their principles of government, by reading the authors of Greece and Rome who writ under commonwealths. But it might have been more fairly offered for the honour of liberty, that while the rest of the known world was overrun with the arbitrary government of single persons; arts and sciences took their rise, and flourished only in those few small territories were the people were free. And though learning may continue after liberty is lost, as it did in Rome, for a while, upon the foundations laid under the commonwealth, and the particular patronage of some emperors; yet it hardly ever began under a tyranny in any nation: Because slavery is of all things the greatest clog and obstacle to speculation. And indeed, arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy or the savage life; the adjusting of power and freedom being an effect and consequence of maturer thinking: And this is nowhere so duly regulated as in a limited monarchy: Because I believe it may pass for a maxim in state, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many. Now in this material point, the constitution of the English government far exceeds all others at this time on the earth, to which the present establishment of the Church doth so happily agree, that I think, whoever is an enemy to either, must of necessity be so to both.

He thinks, as our monarchy is constituted, a hereditary right is much to be preferred before election. Because the government here, especially by some late amendments, is so regularly disposed in all its parts, that it almost executes itself. And therefore upon the death of a prince among us, the administration goes on without any rub or interruption. For the same reasons we have little to apprehend from the weakness or fury of our monarchs, who have such wise councils to guide the first, and laws to restrain the other. And therefore this hereditary right should be kept so sacred, as never to break the succession, unless where the preserving of it may endanger the constitution; which is not from any intrinsic merit, or unalienable right in a particular family, but to avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of competitors, to which elective kingdoms are exposed; and which is the only obstacle to hinder them from arriving at the greatest perfection that government can possibly reach. Hence appears the absurdity of that distinction between a king _de facto_, and one _de jure_, with respect to us. For every limited monarch is a king _de jure_, because he governs by the consent of the whole, which is authority sufficient to abolish all precedent right. If a king come in by conquest, he is no longer a limited monarch, if he afterward consent to limitations, he becomes immediately king _de jure_ for the same reason.

The great advocates for succession, who affirm it ought not to be violated upon any regard or consideration whatsoever, do insist much upon one argument that seems to carry little weight. They would have it, that a crown is a prince's birthright, and ought at least to be as well secured to him and his posterity as the inheritance of any private man: In short, that he has the same title to his kingdom which every individual has to his property. Now the consequence of this doctrine must be, that as a man may find several ways to waste, misspend, or abuse his patrimony, without being answerable to the laws; so a king may in like manner do what he will with his own, that is, he may squander and misapply his revenues, and even alienate the crown, without being called to an account by his subjects. They allow such a prince to be guilty indeed of much folly and wickedness, but for those he is to answer to God, as every private man must do that is guilty of mismanagement in his own concerns. Now the folly of this reasoning will best appear, by applying it in a parallel case. Should any man argue, that a physician is supposed to understand his own art best; that the law protects and encourages his profession; and therefore although he should manifestly prescribe poison to all his patients, whereof they should immediately die, he cannot be justly punished, but is answerable only to God: Or should the same be offered in behalf of a divine, who would preach against religion and moral duties; in either of these two cases everybody would find out the sophistry, and presently answer, that although common men are not exactly skilled in the composition or application of medicines, or in prescribing the limits of duty; yet the difference between poisons and remedies is easily known by their effects, and common reason soon distinguishes between virtue and vice: And it must be necessary to forbid both these the further practice of their professions, because their crimes are not purely personal to the physician or the divine, but destructive to the public. All which is infinitely stronger in respect to a prince, with whose good or ill conduct the happiness or misery of a whole nation is included; whereas it is of small consequence to the public, farther than examples, how any private person manages his property.

But granting that the right of a lineal successor to a crown were upon the same foot with the property of a subject, still It may at any time be transferred by the legislative power, as other properties frequently are. The supreme power in a state can do no wrong, because whatever that doth, is the action of all; and when the lawyers apply this maxim to the king, they must understand it only in that sense as he is administrator of the supreme power, otherwise it is not universally true, but may be controlled in several instances easy to produce.

And these are the topics we must proceed upon to justify our exclusion of the young Pretender in France; that of his suspected birth being merely popular, and therefore not made use of as I remember, since the Revolution in any speech, vote, or proclamation where there was occasion to mention him.

As to the abdication of King James, which the advocates on that side look upon to have been forcible and unjust, and consequently void in itself, I think a man may observe every article of the English Church, without being in much pain about it. 'Tis not unlikely that all doors were laid open for his departure, and perhaps not without the privity of the Prince of Orange, as reasonably concluding that the kingdom might be settled in his absence: But to affirm he had any cause to apprehend the same treatment with his father, is an improbable scandal flung upon the nation by a few bigotted French scribblers, or the invidious assertion of a ruined party at home, in the bitterness of their souls: Not one material circumstance agreeing with those in 1648; and the greatest part of the nation having preserved the utmost horror for that ignominious murder: But whether his removal were caused by his own fears or other men's artifices, 'tis manifest to me, that supposing the throne to be vacant, which was the foot they went upon, the body of the people were thereupon left at liberty, to choose what form of government they pleased, by themselves or their representatives.

The only difficulty of any weight against the proceedings at the Revolution, is an obvious objection, to which the writers upon that subject have not yet given a direct or sufficient answer, as if they were in pain at some consequences which they apprehend those of the contrary opinion might draw from it, I will repeat this objection as it was offered me some time ago, with all its advantages, by a very pious, learned, and worthy gentleman[11] of the nonjuring party.

[Footnote 11: Mr. Nelson, author of "The Feasts and Fasts of the Church of England."]

The force of his argument turned upon this; that the laws made by the supreme power, cannot otherwise than by the supreme power be annulled: That this consisting in England of a King, Lords, and Commons, whereof each have a negative voice, no two of them can repeal or enact a law without consent of the third; much less may any one of them be entirely excluded from its part of the legislature by a vote of the other two. That all these maxims were openly violated at the Revolution; where an assembly of the nobles and people, not summoned by the king's writ (which was an essential part of the constitution) and consequently no lawful meeting, did merely upon their own authority, declare the king to have abdicated, the throne vacant, and gave the crown by a vote to a nephew, when there were three children to inherit; though by the fundamental laws of the realm the next heir is immediately to succeed. Neither does it appear how a prince's abdication can make any other sort of vacancy in the throne, than would be caused by his death, since he cannot abdicate for his children (who claim their right of succession by act of parliament) otherwise than by his own consent in form to a bill from the two houses.

And this is the difficulty that seems chiefly to stick with the most reasonable of those, who from a mere scruple of conscience refuse to join with us upon the revolution principle; but for the rest, are I believe as far from loving arbitrary government, as any others can be, who are born under a free constitution, and are allowed to have the least share of common good sense.

In this objection there are two questions included: First, whether upon the foot of our constitution, as it stood in the reign of the late King James, a king of England may be deposed? The second is, whether the people of England convened by their own authority, after the king had withdrawn himself in the manner he did, had power to alter the succession?

As for the first; it is a point I shall not presume to determine, and shall therefore only say, that to any man who holds the negative, I would demand the liberty of putting the case as strongly as I please. I will suppose a prince limited by laws like ours, yet running into a thousand caprices of cruelty like Nero or Caligula. I will suppose him to murder his mother and his wife, to commit incest, to ravish matrons, to blow up the senate, and burn his metropolis, openly to renounce God and Christ, and worship the devil. These and the like exorbitances are in the power of a single person to commit without the advice of a ministry, or assistance of an army. And if such a king as I have described, cannot be deposed but by his own consent in parliament, I do not well see how he can be resisted, or what can be meant by a limited monarchy; or what signifies the people's consent in making and repealing laws, if the person who administers hath no tie but conscience, and is answerable to none but God. I desire no stronger proof that an opinion must be false, than to find very great absurdities annexed to it; and there cannot be greater than in the present case: For it is not a bare speculation that kings may run into such enormities as are above-mentioned; the practice may be proved by examples not only drawn from the first Caesars or later emperors, but many modern princes of Europe; such as Peter the Cruel, Philip the Second of Spain, John Basilovitz[12] of Muscovy, and in our own nation, King John, Richard the Third, and Henry the Eighth. But there cannot be equal absurdities supposed in maintaining the contrary opinion; because it is certain, that princes have it in their power to keep a majority on their side, by any tolerable administration; till provoked by continual oppressions, no man indeed can then answer where the madness of the people will stop.

[Footnote 12: Peter the Cruel is Pedro of Castile. Ivan Basilovitz was the first emperor of Russia who assumed the title of Czar. He was born in 1529, and died in 1584.]

As to the second part of the objection; whether the people of England convened by their own authority, upon King James's precipitate departure, had power to alter the succession?

In answer to this, I think it is manifest from the practice of the wisest nations, and who seem to have had the truest notions of freedom, that when a prince was laid aside for mal-administration, the nobles and people, if they thought it necessary for the public weal, did resume the administration of the supreme power (the power itself having been always in them) and did not only alter the succession, but often the very form of government too; because they believed there was no natural right in one man to govern another, but that all was by institution, force, or consent. Thus, the cities of Greece, when they drove out their tyrannical kings, either chose others from a new family, or abolished the kingly government, and became free states. Thus the Romans upon the expulsion of Tarquin found it inconvenient for them to be subject any longer to the pride, the lust, the cruelty and arbitrary will of single persons, and therefore by general consent entirely altered the whole frame of their government. Nor do I find the proceedings of either, in this point, to have been condemned by any historian of the succeeding ages.

But a great deal hath been already said by other writers upon this invidious and beaten subject; therefore I shall let it fall, though the point is commonly mistaken, especially by the lawyers; who of all others seem least to understand the nature of government in general; like under-workmen, who are expert enough at making a single wheel in a clock, but are utterly ignorant how to adjust the several parts, or regulate the movements.

To return therefore from this digression: It is a Church of England man's opinion, that the freedom of a nation consists in an absolute unlimited legislative power, wherein the whole body of the people are fairly represented, and in an executive duly limited; because on this side likewise there may be dangerous degrees, and a very ill extreme. For when two parties in a state are pretty equal in power, pretensions, merit, and virtue, (for these two last are with relation to parties and a court, quite different things) it hath been the opinion of the best writers upon government, that a prince ought not in any sort to be under the guidance or influence of either, because he declines by this means from his office of presiding over the whole, to be the head of a party; which besides the indignity, renders him answerable for all public mismanagements and the consequences of them; and in whatever state this happens, there must either be a weakness in the prince or ministry, or else the former is too much restrained by the legislature.[1]

[Footnote 1: This is as given in the "Miscellanies" (1711). Scott and Faulkner print "by the nobles, or those who represent the people." [T. S.]]