Show POLITICAL BREVITIES Right and wrong in the legal sense 41 4 ivtlvlnlk 41 Ci 4 1 allowed and are that which the State has a ll owe an forbidden and nothing else To understand under-stand this is one of the first conditions of clear legal and political thinking and it is Hobbess great merit to have made this clear beyond the possibility of misunderstanding misunder-standing No one who lias grasped misled Hobbess defmition can ever be b yerbal conceits about lawsof the State which are contrary to natural right or the law of nature not being binding All such language is mischievous as confusing confus-ing the moral and political grounds of positive law with its actual force In practice prac-tice we all know that the oflicers of the State cannot entertain complaints that I the laws enacted by the supreme power in the State are in the complainants opinion unjust It would be impossible for government to be carried on if they did Laws have to be obeyed as between the State and the subject not because they are reasonable but because the State has so commanded The laws maybe may-be and in a wisely ordered State will be I discussion which the result of the fullest I the nature of the case admits and subsequent subse-quent criticism may be allowed and even invited But while the laws exist they have to be obeyed The citizen who sets himself against the authority of the State is thereby so far as in him lies dissolving civil society At one point Locke comes down against I facts Hobbes on the hard bottom of with great effect He expects the objection objec-tion that this hypothesis of the possible pos-sible forfeiture of political power lays a ferment for figured rebellion And he answers No more than any other hypothesis hypo-thesis for when the people are made miserable and find themselves exposed to the Sill usages of arbitrary power cry u fd ia innMi oe vnn will up their governors as mucii as yuu for sons of Jupiter let them be sacred or divine descended or authorized from heaven give them out for whom or what please the same will happen you Fred Pollock Montesquien meets with rare straightforwardness straight-forwardness the ancient objection to popular government that the people at large are not competent in politics It is not to be expected says Mon tesquien that they should be competent compe-tent nor does it much matter The main thing is that they should be interested Experience and discussion must be trusted to make error find its true levelS level-S |