the permanence of any new doctrine on such subjects.

913. There are two other objections urged by Paley against the Doctrine of an Original Compact; —That if such be the ground of Government, despotic Governments can never be changed or mitigated, because Despotism is in the Compact, and the Subject is bound by it; and thus in this Theory, recourse to arms for the sake of a better constitution cannot be justified :—and again, That since every violation of the Compact destroys it, this Theory offers ready arguments for reposing obedience to Government, and "has in fact always supplied the factious with a topic of seditious declamation."

914. To the first of these objections, we reply, that the laws of no State allow the citizens to have recourse to arms for the sake of bettering the Constitution; that our Morality does not give Precepts for such armed attempts at improvements; and that a system of Morality which lays down, for the citizens of States in general, rules contradicting the Laws, cannot be fit for the general guidance of mankind. If an English Moralist might go into any State which he deems Despotic, and preach to the citizens the duty of bettering the Constitution by an armed insurrection, English morality would be rejected by the Moralists of all other countries, as inconsistent with Order and Humanity. Not that we allow that despotic Governments are never to be improved; but they are not, as a general Rule, to be improved by armed insurrections, but by improving the condition of the people; by promoting the moral and intellectual culture of the Governed and of the Governors; by strengthening all the elements of the Constitution which contains a germ of Liberty; (for almost all Governments, however despotic, have such elements). By such courses, despotic Governments, and all Governments, may be improved, without any contradic

tion of the Social Compact. For the Social Compact, according to all moderate interpretations of it, is not an unchangeable Rule; but is capable of modification from age to age, by constitutional proceedings; changes so produced being understood as changes in the terms of the Compact, made with the consent of the parties. In the progress of improvement, violence and resistance may occur; yet violence and resistance can never be justified as results of general Moral Rules, but only as the resource in a case of necessity which forms an exception to general Rules.

915. As to the objection that the Doctrine of a Social Contract offers, and has supplied, ready arguments for Sedition, this is no more than inevitably belongs to every doctrine which recognizes Civil Liberty as an important object. If every obnoxious proceeding of the Governors of a State may be represented as a violation of the Social Contract, it may also be represented as a violation of Natural Justice; and in whatever manner the consequences of Natural Justice are described, the description may be used as a means of inflaming seditious dispositions.

916. It is by no means true, that the Doctrine of the Social Contract has been especially used for purposes of sedition or rebellion. When it was brought into prominence at the Revolution in 1688, it was used to justify resistance to the Sovereign in a case of necessity, and not as a general Rule. Those who, in modern times, have most freely urged the Right of Resistance to the Government, though they may have occasionally spoken of a Social Contract, have not really applied the Doctrine. They have not usually dwelt upon any special transgression of the Governor, as a violation of the Compact dissolving its tie; but have commonly denied and

derided the Authority of those ancient Laws and Maxims in which we read the Contract.

917. How far the Doctrine of an Original Contract is from being "captious and unsafe," as Paley calls it, may be seen by the mode in which its adherents in this country have employed it since 1688. One of the most prominent of the occasions on which this was done, was the prosecution of Dr. Sacheverell for seditious doctrines in 1710, the prosecution being managed by the leaders of the House of Commons. These Managers all took occasion to speak of the Foundations of Government; and they all agreed in putting forward, in the most distinct and emphatic manner, the doctrine of an Original Contract. It may suffice to quote one of them. "The nature of our Constitution," said Mr. Lechmere, "is that of a limited Monarchy, wherein the supreme power is communicated and divided between Queen, Lords, and Commons, though the Executive power and administration be wholly in the crown. The terms of such a Constitution do not only suppose, but express, an Original Contract between the Crown and the People; by which that supreme power was, by mutual consent, and not by accident, limited and lodged in more hands than one. And the uniform preservation of such a Constitution for so many ages without any fundamental change, demonstrates the continuance of the same Contract. The consequences," it is added, "of such a form of Government are obvious. The Laws are the rule for both; the common measure of the power of the Crown and the obedience of the Subject." It was added, that "if the executive part endeavours the subversion and total destruction of the Government, the Original Compact is broken, and the Right of Allegiance ceases that part of the Government thus fundamentally injured hath a right to save or recover that Constitution in which it had an original

interest." But such a breach of Contract is not contemplated as a general or ordinary case; but as an extreme case; a case of necessity; a case about which no rules can be laid down, and which can never be drawn into precedent, except in a case of the like necessity. The doctrine of the Original Compact, put forwards in this case by Lord Somers and all the most zealous lovers of liberty of the time, showed no traces of the seditious tendency which Paley ascribes to it.

918. Burke quoted these passages at a later period, in his " Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs," in order to show that the lovers of freedom in England had always asserted the cause of freedom in this measured and balanced manner, and thus to justify his own consistency in doing the same. And he himself, also, refers to the Social Contract as the Foundation of Government. Thus he describes the succession of the crown as "derived from an authority emanating from the Common Agreement and Original Compact of the State, communi sponsione reipublicæ; and as such, binding on the king and people too, so long as the terms are observed."

919. The absence of any tendency to foment sedition or rebellion, in the Doctrine of the Social Contract, will further appear if we compare it, as Burke did, with other Doctrines which prevailed at the time of the French Revolution; and which represented the People as the source of Political Power. To this representation, Burke replied, that if by "The People" be understood the mere assemblage of individuals without any social organization, laws, or magistrates, the term describes something so vague, obscure, and arbitrary, that no intelligible proposition can be asserted concerning it. "The People," so understood, has no means of collecting or delivering its convictions and intentions: it has no Rights, not even a Right to the soil on which the individuals happens to be living. An assumption is

commonly made, by those who thus put forwards "the People," that the numerical majority of the People are to act for the whole but the assumption that a numerical majority of an assemblage shall decide or choose anything, is altogether arbitrary. The Rule of a majority governing a minority, is a creature of civil society, not the origin of it. The Rule is entirely artificial; is learnt only by early training; and when applied, is applied with arbitrary limitations; for instance, with the exclusion of women and children. A far more natural mode, for a rude nation to act and decide, is to follow their Natural Aristocracy ;-those whom their character, and property, and history, and habits, and education, have made most fit to lead, and have disposed others to follow them.

920. Thus the doctrine, that Political Power is bestowed by the People, cannot be realized without assuming some organization natural or arbitrary. In order to bestow power, the People must have some mode of assembling, debating, and voting; and this is, to have, to some extent, a Government, for the form of which we still have to find reasons. If we resolve the nation into its counties, or its parishes, we shall still have to give reasons for the boundaries which we thus draw, and for the officers whom we assume to exist: and our reasons will necessarily be drawn from history and usage, not from the choice and will of the existing individuals. And thus we are brought, in the partial elements of any possible national act, to conventions which must govern men, though not made by themselves, but transmitted from previous generations. And thus, if we reject a National Social Contract, such as we have spoken of, namely, an historical Contract into which we are born; we are driven to a Provincial or Parochial Contract of the same description. And if we were to reject these conceptions as artificial, we should resolve society