17. If we inquire into what the most accurate philosophers declare themselves to mean by material substance, we shall find them acknowledge they have no other meaning annexed to those sounds but the idea of Being in general, together with the relative notion of its supporting accidents. The general idea of Being appeareth to me the most abstract and incomprehensible of all other; and as for its supporting accidents, this, as we have just now observed, cannot be understood in the common sense of those words; it must therefore be taken in some other sense, but what that is they do not explain. So that when I consider the two parts or branches which make the signification of the words material substance, I am convinced there is no distinct meaning annexed to them. But why should we trouble ourselves any farther, in discussing this material substratum or support of figure and motion, and other sensible qualities? Does it not suppose they have an existence without the mind? And is not this a direct repugnancy, and altogether inconceivable?
18. But though it were possible that solid, figured, movable substances may exist without the mind, corresponding to the ideas we have of bodies, yet how is it possible for us to know this? Either we must know it by sense or by reason. As for our senses, by them we have the knowledge only of our sensations, ideas, or those things that are immediately perceived by sense, call them what you will; but they do not inform us that things exist without the mind, or unperceived, like to those which are perceived. This the materialists themselves acknowledge. It remains therefore that if we have any knowledge at all of external things, it must be by reason, inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived by sense. But what reason can induce us to believe the existence of bodies without the mind, from what we perceive, since the very patrons of matter themselves do not pretend there is any necessary connection betwixt them and our ideas? I say it is granted on all hands (and what happens in dreams, frenzies, and the like, puts it beyond dispute) that it is possible we might be affected with all the ideas we have now, though there were no bodies existing without, resembling them. Hence, it is evident the supposition of external bodies is not necessary for the producing our ideas; since it is granted they are produced sometimes, and might possibly be produced always in the same order we see them in at present, without their concurrence.
19. But, though we might possibly have all our sensations without them, yet perhaps it may be thought easier to conceive and explain the manner of their production by supposing external bodies in their likeness rather than otherwise; and so it might be at least probable there are such things as bodies that excite their ideas in our minds. But neither can this be said; for though we give the materialists their external bodies, they by their own confession are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are produced, since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the mind. Hence it is evident the production of ideas or sensations in our minds can be no reason why we should suppose matter or corporeal substances, since that is acknowledged to remain equally inexplicable with or without this supposition. If therefore it were possible for bodies to exist without the mind, yet to hold they do so, must needs be a very precarious opinion; since it is to suppose, without any reason at all, that God has created innumerable beings that are entirely useless, and serve to no manner of purpose.
20. In short, if there were external bodies, it is impossible we should ever come to know it; and if there were not, we might have the very same reasons to think there were that we have now. Suppose (what no one can deny possible) an intelligence without the help of external bodies, to be affected with the same train of sensations or ideas that you are, imprinted in the same order and with like vividness in his mind. I ask whether that intelligence hath not all the reason to believe the existence of corporeal substances, represented by his ideas, and exciting them in his mind, that you can possibly have for believing the same thing? Of this there can be no question; which one consideration were enough to make any reasonable person suspect the strength of whatever arguments he may think himself to have for the existence of bodies without the mind.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Principles of Human Knowledge (5)
Principles of Human Knowledge (4)
13. Unity, I know, some will have to be a simple or uncompounded idea, accompanying all other ideas into the mind. That I have any such idea answering the word “unity” I do not find; and if I had, methinks I could not miss finding it: on the contrary, it should be the most familiar to my understanding, since it is said to accompany all other ideas, and to be perceived by all the ways of sensation and reflection. To say no more, it is an abstract idea.
14. I shall farther add that, after the same manner as modern philosophers prove certain sensible qualities to have no existence in matter, or without the mind, the same thing may be likewise proved of all other sensible qualities whatsoever. Thus, for instance, it is said that heat and cold are affections only of the mind, and not at all patterns of real beings, existing in the corporeal substances which excite them, for that the same body which appears cold to one hand seems warm to another. Now, why may we not as well argue that figure and extension are not patterns or resemblances of qualities existing in matter, because to the same eye at different stations, or eyes of a different texture at the same station, they appear various, and cannot therefore be the images of anything settled and determinate without the mind? Again, it is proved that sweetness is not really in the sapid thing, because the thing remaining unaltered the sweetness is changed into bitter, as in case of a fever or otherwise vitiated palate. Is it not as reasonable to say that motion is not without the mind, since if the succession of ideas in the mind become swifter, the motion, it is acknowledged, shall appear slower without any alteration in any external object?
15. In short, let anyone consider those arguments which are thought manifestly to prove that colors and tastes exist only in the mind, and he shall find they may with equal force be brought to prove the same thing of extension, figure, and motion—though it must be confessed this method of arguing does not so much prove that there is no extension or color in an outward object, as that we do not know by sense which is the true extension or color of the object. But the arguments foregoing plainly show it to be impossible that any color or extension at all, or other sensible quality whatsoever, should exist in an unthinking subject without the mind, or in truth, that there should be any such thing as an outward object.
16. But let us examine a little the received opinion. It is said extension is a mode or accident of matter, and that matter is the substratum that supports it. Now I desire that you would explain to me what is meant by matter’s supporting extension. Say you, I have no idea of matter and therefore cannot explain it. I answer, though you have no positive, yet, if you have any meaning at all, you must at least have a relative idea of matter; though you know not what it is, yet you must be supposed to know what relation it bears to accidents, and what is meant by its supporting them. It is evident “support” cannot here be taken in its usual or literal sense—as when we say that pillars support a building; in what sense therefore must it be taken?
Principles of Human Knowledge (3)
9. Some there are who make a distinction betwixt primary and secondary qualities. By the former they mean extension, figure, motion, rest, solidity or impenetrability, and number; by the latter they denote all other sensible qualities, as colors, sounds, tastes, and so forth. The ideas we have of these they acknowledge not to be the resemblances of anything existing without the mind, or unperceived, but they will have our ideas of the primary qualities to be patterns or images of things which exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance which they call matter. By matter, therefore, we are to understand an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist. But it is evident from what we have already shown, that extension, figure, and motion are only ideas existing in the mind, and that an idea can be like nothing but another idea, and that consequently neither they nor their archetypes can exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence, it is plain that the very notion of what is called matter, or corporeal substance, involves a contradiction in it.
10. They who assert that figure, motion, and the rest of the primary or original qualities do exist without the mind in unthinking substances, do at the same time acknowledge that color, sounds, heat, cold, and suchlike secondary qualities, do not; which they tell us are sensations existing in the mind alone, that depend on and are occasioned by the different size, texture, and motion of the minute particles of matter. This they take for an undoubted truth, which they can demonstrate beyond all exception. Now, if it be certain that those original qualities are inseparably united with the other sensible qualities, and not, even in thought, capable of being abstracted from them, it plainly follows that they exist only in the mind. But I desire anyone to reflect and try whether he can, by any abstraction of thought, conceive the extension and motion of a body without all other sensible qualities. For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to frame an idea of a body extended and moving, but I must withal give it some color or other sensible quality which is acknowledged to exist only in the mind. In short, extension, figure, and motion, abstracted from all other qualities, are inconceivable. Where therefore the other sensible qualities are, there must these be also, to wit, in the mind and nowhere else.
11. Again, great and small, swift and slow, are allowed to exist nowhere without the mind, being entirely relative, and changing as the frame or position of the organs of sense varies. The extension therefore which exists without the mind is neither great nor small, the motion neither swift nor slow, that is, they are nothing at all. But, say you, they are extension in general, and motion in general: thus we see how much the tenet of extended movable substances existing without the mind depends on the strange doctrine of abstract ideas. And here I cannot but remark how nearly the vague and indeterminate description of matter or corporeal substance, which the modern philosophers are run into by their own principles, resembles that antiquated and so much ridiculed notion of materia prima, to be met with in Aristotle and his followers. Without extension solidity cannot be conceived; since therefore it has been shewn that extension exists not in an unthinking substance, the same must also be true of solidity.
12. That number is entirely the creature of the mind, even though the other qualities be allowed to exist without, will be evident to whoever considers that the same thing bears a different denomination of number as the mind views it with different respects. Thus, the same extension is one, or three, or thirty-six, according as the mind considers it with reference to a yard, a foot, or an inch. Number is so visibly relative, and dependent on men’s understanding, that it is strange to think how anyone should give it an absolute existence without the mind. We say one book, one page, one line; all these are equally units, though some contain several of the others. And in each instance, it is plain, the unit relates to some particular combination of ideas arbitrarily put together by the mind.
Principles of Human Knowledge (2)
5. If we thoroughly examine this tenet it will perhaps be found at bottom to depend on the doctrine of abstract ideas. For can there be a nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence of sensible objects from their being perceived, so as to conceive them existing unperceived? Light and colors, heat and cold, extension and figures—in a word the things we see and feel—what are they but so many sensations, notions, ideas, or impressions on the sense? And is it possible to separate, even in thought, any of these from perception? For my part, I might as easily divide a thing from itself. I may, indeed, divide in my thoughts, or conceive apart from each other, those things which perhaps I never perceived by sense so divided. Thus I imagine the trunk of a human body without the limbs, or conceive the smell of a rose without thinking on the rose itself. So far, I will not deny, I can abstract, if that may properly be called abstraction which extends only to the conceiving separately such objects as it is possible may really exist or be actually perceived asunder. But my conceiving or imagining power does not extend beyond the possibility of real existence or perception. Hence, as it is impossible for me to see or feel anything without an actual sensation of that thing, so it is impossible for me to conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the sensation or perception of it.
6. Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, to wit, that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind, that their being is to be perceived or known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit; it being perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the absurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an existence independent of a spirit. To be convinced of which, the reader need only reflect and try to separate in his own thoughts the being of a sensible thing from its being perceived.
7. From what has been said it follows there is not any other substance than spirit, or that which perceives. But for the fuller proof of this point, let it be considered the sensible qualities are color, figure, motion, smell, taste, etc.—that is, the ideas perceived by sense. Now, for an idea to exist in an unperceiving thing is a manifest contradiction, for to have an idea is all one as to perceive; that therefore wherein color, figure, and the like qualities exist must perceive them; hence it is clear there can be no unthinking substance or substratum of those ideas.
8. But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not exist without the mind, yet there may be things like them, whereof they are copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind in an unthinking substance. I answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea; a color or figure can be like nothing but another color or figure. If we look but never so little into our thoughts, we shall find it impossible for us to conceive a likeness except only between our ideas. Again, I ask whether those supposed originals or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no? If they are, then they are ideas and we have gained our point; but if you say they are not, I appeal to anyone whether it be sense to assert a color is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible; and so of the rest.
Principles of Human Knowledge (1)
It is evident to anyone who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas (1) actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are (2) perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly (3) ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways. By sight I have the ideas of lights and colors, with their several degrees and variations. By touch I perceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance, and of all these more and less either as to quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me with odors, the palate with tastes, and hearing conveys sounds to the mind in all their variety of tone and composition. And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain color, taste, smell, figure, and consistence, having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name “apple”. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things; which, as they are pleasing or disagreeable, excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so forth.
2. But besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering, about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived.
3. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what everybody will allow. And it seems no less evident that the various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together (that is, whatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving them. I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this by anyone that shall attend to what is meant by the term “exist” when applied to sensible things. The table I write on I say exists—that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed—meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odor, that is, it was smelt; there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a color or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.
4. It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations? and is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived?
Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous
PHILONOUS: I do not pretend to be a setter-up of new notions. My endeavours tend only to unite and place in a clearer light that truth, which was before shared between the vulgar and the philosophers: the former being of opinion, that those things they immediately perceive are the real things; and the latter, that the things immediately perceived, are ideas which exist only in the mind. Which two notions put together, do in effect constitute the substance of what I advance.
HYLAS: I have been a long time distrusting my senses; I thought I saw things by a dim light, and through false glasses. Now the glasses are removed, and a new light breaks in upon my understanding. I am clearly convinced that I see things in their native forms; and am no longer in pain about their unknown natures or absolute existence. This is the state I find myself in at present: though indeed the course that brought me to it, I do not yet thoroughly comprehend. You set out upon the same principles that Academics, Cartesians, and the like sects, usually do; and for a long time it looked as if you were advancing their philosophical scepticism; but in the end your conclusions are directly opposite to theirs.
PHILONOUS: You see, Hylas, the water of yonder fountain, how it is forced upwards, in a round column, to a certain height; at which it breaks and falls back into the basin from whence it rose: its ascent as well as descent, proceeding from the same uniform law or principle of gravitation. Just so, the same principles which at first view lead to scepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.
Biography
George Berkeley (1685-1753), Irish philosopher and clergyman, generally regarded as the founder of the modern school of idealism. Berkeley held that matter cannot be conceived to exist independent of the mind; the phenomena of sense can be explained only by supposing a deity that continually evokes perception of them in the human mind.
Born in County Kilkenny, Ireland, on March 12, 1685, Berkeley studied at Trinity College, Dublin, where he became a Fellow in 1707. In 1710 he published The Principles of Human Knowledge. When it failed to convince people of his theory, he published a more popular version, The Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, in 1713. Both statements of his philosophy were regarded as foolish by his contemporaries. Meanwhile, Berkeley had been ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church of Ireland and became increasingly prominent as a churchman. In 1728 he moved to America to attempt to found a missionary college in Bermuda. Although he abandoned his plan in 1732, he had a great effect on higher education while in America, assisting in the development of Yale and Columbia universities and a number of other schools. In 1734 he was made Bishop of Cloyne, remaining in this position until his retirement. He died on January 14, 1753.
Berkeley’s philosophical theory was developed as an answer to the scepticism and atheism that he felt to be implicit in contemporary philosophy, influenced as it was by John Locke’s “way of ideas”. Locke had distinguished between the ideas of which people are immediately aware in perception, and the physical objects that are the causes of those ideas. Berkeley argued that, since all that human beings can ever be aware of are ideas (of sight, sound, touch, etc.), any belief in material objects distinct from these ideas (but causing them) is empty speculation, unjustifiable and meaningless. To close the gap that has opened between ideas and physical objects, it must be recognized that, for objects such as tables and trees, being consists in being perceived (“esse est percipi”). They do not exist outside of the mind. The difference then, between a real table and a hallucinatory table lies in the orderliness, arrangement, and regularity of the ideas that go together to constitute the real one, but not the other.
Minds, unlike objects such as trees and tables, are active. Their being consists in perceiving, in having ideas. Of the ideas present to the minds, some lie within a person’s control (they can be conjured up), while others arise regardless of the will (sights and sounds force themselves on the consciousness). Berkeley argued that those ideas that arise regardless of the will must depend upon some other will, namely the will of God. Thus, what are taken to be material objects that exist beyond the mind are ideas in the infinite mind of God.
The relation between the ideas in God’s mind and the corresponding ideas in human minds creates difficulties for Berkeley’s philosophy. There cannot, it seems, be one idea, shared between God and people, since God’s ideas are so much fuller—unless, that is, people are prepared to admit that there are many things about their own ideas of which they are unaware. If, on the other hand, the ideas in God’s mind are different from those in people’s minds, the gap that existed in Locke’s philosophy—namely that between ideas in consciousness and the physical things that cause them—threatens to re-emerge as a gap between the ideas in consciousness and the ideas in God’s mind that also give cause to them. Thus, Berkeley’s theory falls into the same trap as that of Locke.
There is also a problem for Berkeley in explaining how it is possible to talk of minds at all, especially since he tends to explain the grasping of meanings as the having of appropriate ideas. Berkeley was aware of the difficulty, but argued that since minds are active and ideas are passive, an (accurate) idea of the mind cannot be formed. He maintained that it is possible to speak meaningfully of minds by forming the appropriate “notion”, yet he explains very little about the nature of notions, other than the fact that they are not ideas.
Berkeley’s philosophical system produced few followers, despite his claim that it was in accordance with common sense. Nevertheless, his criticisms of arguments for an external world separate from ideas were forceful and have influenced philosophers ever since.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Knowledge of Mathematics, Ethics, the Self, and God
Locke applies the results of the earlier books to determine the nature and extent of knowledge. As ideas are the sole immediate objects of the mind, knowledge can be nothing else than "the perception of the connexion of and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy, or any of our ideas." This agreement or disagreement is said to be of four sorts: identity or diversity; relation; co-existence or necessary connection; real existence. Each of these kinds of knowledge raises its own questions; but, broadly speaking, one distinction may be taken as fundamental. In the same paragraph in which he restricts knowledge to the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, he admits one kind of knowledge which goes beyond the ideas themselves to the significance which they have for real existence. When the reference does not go beyond the ideas "in the mind," the problems that arise are of one order; when there is a further reference to real things, another problem arises.
Locke also distinguishes between two degrees of knowledge: intuition and demonstration. In the former case, the agreement or disagreement is immediately perceived; in the latter, it is perceived through the mediation of a third idea, but each step in the demonstration is itself an intuition, the agreement or disagreement between the two ideas compared being immediately perceived. He believes that mathematics and ethics are demonstrable. When ideas are together in the mind, we can discover their relation to one another; so long as they are not taken to represent archetypes outside the mind, there is no obstacle to certainty of knowledge. "All relation terminates in, and is ultimately founded on, those simple ideas we have got from sensation or reflection" (Bk. 2:28:18). but "general and certain truths, are only founded in the habitudes and relations of abstract ideas" (Bk. 4:12:7). In this way Locke vindicates the certainty of mathematics: although instructive, the science is merely idea, and its propositions do not hold of things outside the mind. He thinks also that "morality is capable of demonstration as well as mathematics." But, in spite of the request of his friend Molyneux, he never set out his ethic doctrine in detail. In Book II he reduced moral good and evil to pleasure and pain which -- as reward and punishment -- come to us from some lawgiver; thus they point to a source outside the mind. But his ground for maintaining the demonstrative character of morality is that moral ideas are "mixed modes," and therefore mental products, so that their "precise real essence ... may be perfectly known." He ventures upon two examples only of this demonstrative morality; and neither of them is more than verbal or gives any information about good or evil. Yet the doctrine is significant as showing the influence upon Locke of another type of demonstrative thought.
Thus, knowledge of mathematics and ethics may be firmly establish, particularly as these subjects involve relations between ideas, and thus make no claims about matters of real existence. When it comes to knowledge of real existence, though, ultimately there are only two certainties: the existence of ourselves (by intuition) and that of God (by demonstration).
Concerning the self, Locke agrees with Descartes that the existence of the self is implied in every state of consciousness. Every element of our experience, every idea of which we are conscious, is a certificate of our own existence, as the subject of that experience:
As for our own existence, we perceive it so plainly and so certainly, that it neither needs nor is capable of any proof. For nothing can be more evident to us than our own existence. I think, I reason, I feel pleasure and pain: can any of these be more evident to me than my own existence? If I doubt of all other things, that very doubt makes me perceive my own existence, and will not suffer me to doubt of that. For if I know I feel pain, it is evident I have as certain perception of my own existence, as of the pain I feel: or if I know I doubt, I have ascertain perception of the existence of the thing doubting, as of that thought which I call doubt.
However, Locke fails to point out how the self can be an idea and thus belong to the material of knowledge. An idea of the self cannot come from sensation; and the simple ideas of reflection are all of mental operations, and not of the subject or agent of these operations. On the other hand, when he had occasion to discuss personal identity, he followed his new way of idea, and made it depend on memory.
Concerning God's existence, his proof is a cosmological-type argument. From the certainty of our own existence that of the existence of God immediately follows. A person knows intuitively that he is "something that actually exists." Next a person knows with intuitive certainty, that "bare nothing can no more produce any real being, than it can be equal to two right angles." it is, therefore, "an evident demonstration, that from eternity there has been something. And since all the powers of all beings must be traced to this eternal Being, it follows that it is the most powerful, as well as the most knowing, that is, God. Eternal ind alone can produce "thinking, perceiving beings, such as we find ourselves to be" (Bk. 4:10). Locke here assumes, without question, the validity of the causal principle even beyond the range of possible experience.
Economic Writings
Locke's writings on economic subjects do not rank in importance with his treatises on government. They deal with particular questions raised by the necessities of the political situation. No attempt had yet been made to isolate the fact of wealth and make it the subject of a special science. The direction of industry and commerce was held to be part of the statesman's duty; but, in the seventeenth century, it began to be carried out with less thoroughness than before; and at the same time new problems were opened up by the growth of the national life. The American colonies, the enterprise of the East India Company, the planting of Ireland, the commercial rivalry with Holland and withy France, as well as questions regarding the rate of interest and the currency, occupied the attention of a crowd of writers in the second half of the century. Locke's own contributions were occasioned be the financial problems which faced the new government after the revolution. His reflections on the rate of interest show the growing disfavor with which appeals for state interference were beginning to be met. He points out the obstacles to trade that are caused when the rate of interest is fixed by law, and he argues in favor of freedom for what he calls, in words which suggest Adam Smith, "the natural interest of money." Money "turns the wheels of trade"; therefore its course should not be stopped. At the same time, he holds no general brief against the interference of the state in matters of commerce; nor is the language of the mercantilist foreign to him. Riches consist in plenty of gold and silver, for these command all the conveniences of life. Now, "in a country not furnished with mines, there are but two ways of growing rich, either conquest or commerce." For us commerce is the only way; and Locke condemns "the amazing politics of some late reigns" which had "let in other competitors with us for the sea." In the concluding portion of Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money (1691), Locke laid stress on the importance of a uniform and stable measure of values; four years later, in his Further Considerations he defended his view against the proposals involving a depreciation of the standard, which William Lowndes, secretary of the treasury, had set forth in An Essay for the amendment of the silver coins (1695).
The Basis of Lockean Thought
The political philosophy of Locke's mature years stemmed from the commonly-accepted Natural Law, under which man had Natural Rights, not given to him by any ruler. Under Natural Rights the right of property is paramount. Men came together in an organized community under a Social Contract between every member in order to gain advantages they could not have individually in a state of nature.
This Contract of Society was the foundation of the Contract of Government, under which all political power is a trust for the benefit of the people, and the people themselves are at once the creators and beneficiaries of that trust. The State is based on a contract between ruler and subjects, who give him power only so that their own welfare is increased and their property protected in a way not possible in the State of Nature, where it may be taken away by unprincipled forces. They, if he keeps the contract, owe him their loyalty.
It was Thomas Jefferson's passionate belief in these ideals that made him base the powers of government on "unalienable rights." Most of his Declaration of Independence is a bill of particulars in an indictment of King George III for his failure to keep the contract with his American subjects. He had broken it, and it was therefore void. The signers agreed with him. Contract, therefore, is fundamental to our system of government.
The state, Locke maintained, was concerned only with public order. It extended solely to those aspects of behavior which had to be regulated for the protection of the public.
Locke was rather vague about the organization of government. He said that the legislative and executive power "come often to be separated." While Locke thought that the legislature should be supreme among the branches, the establishment of legislative, executive and judicial powers and their separation in our governmental tradition came from Montesquieu. Locke said that the legislative branch should provide for judges, but there was no mention of judicial review of laws. The power to make war and treaties he called "federative." He said that everyone must submit to the majority, or there would be no compact of government.
He was concerned with principles and rights, and property rights are uppermost. He wrote in "The Second Treatise of Government," . . . every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his . . . " He said that whatever is removed out of the state that nature provided and is mixed with someone's labor, becomes that person's property. James Madison later explained that "property" means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual . . . it embraces everything to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage."
This is a view of property that is at once practical, expansive and libertarian. It is the essence of political freedom. Who can argue that a man does not have a property in his own person? No government could take the fruits of one's labor and intellect without a compelling public need and without compensation, and then only through due process of law. A person was free to contract away his property, or any of his several rights in it, for gain. The contract with government was only to protect private contracts, and the government was not entitled to any of the gains therefrom.
The human right in property was meant by Locke and understood by the Framers of the Constitution to be the fundamental liberty. Obviously, it was not necessary to organize government to protect free speech from government or to protect freedom of assembly against government. It was only necessary to organize it to protect property and life (one's life was his property), and once organized other freedoms had to be protected against government's power. He wrote in the Second Treatise that men unite in a society "for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and estates, which I call by the general name 'property'." He said that the supreme power (the legislative) "cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent. For the preservation of property being the end of government and that for which men enter into society . . . " He noted that for the protection of government everyone should pay his share (a small, flat tax), but only with the consent of the majority.
The right to property was unquestioned in that period, and Locke influenced France as well as America. The Declaration of the Rights of Man in revolutionary France in 1789 (the year North Carolina ratified the U. S. Constitution), asserted the right of property, and successive French constitutions made it stronger. The one in 1793 read: "No one shall be deprived of the least portion of his property without his consent, except when public necessity, legally proven, evidently demands it, and then only on condition of just compensation previously made." It is very similar to the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which says, " . . . nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."
The Constitution of North Carolina has an obvious heritage from Locke. The 1776 version allowed the General Assembly to choose the state executive and judicial officers. Later ones did not give the governor a veto over actions of the legislature, making the General Assembly supreme, as Locke believed it should be. In 1997 the voters granted him that power.
The current State Constitution begins with a Lockean Bill of Rights, Section 1 of which says, "We hold it to be self-evident that all persons are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness."
Section 2 states that all political power is vested in and derives from the People. The State Constitution goes on to provide for the separation of powers, the right of assembly, religious liberty, freedom of speech, for other rights and for the organization of government.
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