has provided for the protection of life and property, and removed all obstacles in the way of individual exertion, it must then be content to leave the people to work out their welfare for themselves, encouraging and rewarding perhaps in some few instances their efforts, but more ordinarily leaving them to their own reward, and thus encouraging rather self-reliance, self-culture, and persevering industry, than any leaning upon Government.

The country is rich, but its products may be greatly increased by improving the arrangements between landlords, tenants, and labourers, giving to the first fixed payments, to the second certain tenure, and to the last money wages by the day, week, or year, putting an end to the roboth or payment of rent in labour, which is the worst mode of payment to both landowner and peasant, for it inclines the one to be idle and the other exacting, and both to be dissatisfied; let every one engaged in manual labour have the keenest motive for industry, by increased earnings in proportion to the work he does.

And as to the minerals of the country, which are abundant and of great value, the crown and the noble proprietors would probably find it to their advantage to confide the working of them to men of capital, science, and experience, who would pay them a fixed tonnage or rent greater in amount than the net profits they could obtain by keeping such undertakings in their own royal or aristocratic hands. Let all monopolies be abolished. Endeavour to extinguish the animosities of race, though not in too great a hurry, that when all men have equal rights, and are on a social level, they may gradually forget the distinctions of race, and fuse into one strong amalgam. Give, in fine, fair play to the physical and mental energies of a people who, take them all in all, are not excelled in the world, who have most of our virtues with few of our vices. To make such a land and such a people all that they are capable of being made is one of the noblest of human enterprises. We heartily wish them success. There are, and of course there will be difficulties, but not greater than we have experienced at home-may they learn wisdom from our varied career, avoid our errors, and imitate only where we have deserved imitation-and may the years be few ere the various races of Austria, Hungary, and Venetia, become as contented and as united as those of England, Ireland, and Scotland!

ART. VII.-1. De Regimine Principis. S. Thomas Aquinas. Rome, 1615.

2. Commentaries on Public Law. Sir G. Bowyer. London, 1831. 3. Saggio di Dritto Natural. L. Tapparelli, S.J. 1851.

Leghorn, Mansi,

THE attacks lately made on the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, arousing, as they have done, all the warmest feelings and passions, both of his defenders and assailants, have given rise to a host of pamphlets in every language of Europe on the subject of his right to the Government of his states. A logical mind must at once perceive that the first question to be decided is, what conditions are necessary to give any Government a just claim to the allegiance of its subjects? The second is, Does the Papal Government fulfil these conditions? The former is the major of the syllogism: the latter the minor: if the parties in the argument be not agreed on the former, there is no use in their discussing the latter. Yet this is precisely the ambiguity which runs through the whole controversy: and which has, we believe, puzzled and distressed some Catholic minds. They are anxious to think the Pope in the right, and to wish for his success: yet they cannot satisfactorily answer the arguments of his opponents, even to themselves; because they have tacitly admitted an erroneous major, and assented to an erroneous standard for the decision of the question, whether his government is a lawful and just one. In very truth, the origin of all this is older and deeper than the present controversy, though this has brought it prominently forward; and we therefore think that we may do some service by investigating and explaining the doctrine of government, or, as it may be more fully expressed, the question of the rights and duties of governments and subjects. And here we must premise two things. First, that although the question of the Papal Government has turned attention to this class of subjects, we write with no reference whatever, implied or otherwise, to that question; we leave the defence of the Pope to his other advocates, and investigate the general problem of all government. Secondly, that the question, as we

intend to treat it, is not one of positive teaching on the part of the Church; but like other questions of deductive morality, an open one; although the axioms on which the whole investigation must be founded, are fixed by its authority; and although no Catholic could safely disregard, even in collaterals, the teaching of the great Catholic doctors. What that teaching has been, and what may be considered to be the soundest Catholic views on the subject, it is our special aim to investigate and elucidate.

To understand this clearly, we must for a moment reflect on what is the mode of teaching of the Church, with regard to morals. Whilst on points of belief, the decisions of the Church, so to speak, cover the whole ground; on points of morals, the great leading principles are clearly laid down; and their more immediate consequences authoritatively enforced; but the more remote consequences and their applications are left to the discussion of casuists; and the practical application of principles in each individual case remains a question for the individual conscience guided and directed by authority. Thus the Church clearly lays down the principle that killing in an unlawful war is murder, and that wars undertaken without just cause are unlawful. But although certain extreme cases of unjust war are clearly ascertainable, she nowhere undertakes to lay down a whole detailed theory by which to decide at once peremptorily the justice or injustice of any particular war, In like manner, the doctrine that the authority of lawful governments is derived from God, and that lawful governors, in the exercise of their authority, must be obeyed not only for fear, but also for conscience sake" is positively laid down; but no empirical formula is given by which to test in every instance whether a particular government is lawful or not: and the correlative doctrine is equally emphatically enforced; that civil governors are not to be obeyed when their commands are contrary to the law of God, "for we must obey God rather than man"; and that governors are bound to govern justly, "for by me do kings reign and princes administer justice;" but no formula is given to decide when a command, being unjust may be lawfully disobeyed. Thus we per ceive that the question of what constitutes a lawful government, and what are its rights; and the correlative

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one of what constitute practically the rights and duties of subjects, is, as we have said, one for open discussion, guided by the light of those venerable authorities, the great Catholic doctors of all ages..

From the fifteenth century to the present day two opposite theories have divided opinions on the subject, especially in Protestant countries; and their influence has been felt even in Catholic lands. One, commonly known as that of divine right, or the divine right of kings (founded as will be shewn later, on an ambiguous use of the term "divine right") may more properly be called that of absolutism. Its leading principles are that rulers are appointed directly by God, and hold their power immediately from Him: and are accountable directly or indirectly only to Him; they are God's vicegerents, answerable only to Him; and that subjects have no rights against them, nor can in any way call them to account, or resist them. They are indeed bound to govern justly, but this is a duty only to God, and therefore confers no correlative rights on their subjects.t

The opposite theory, which claims for itself, (a little unjustly as we shall see later) the exclusive title of liberty, and that of the sovereignty of the people, may be more correctly designated as that of the sovereign rights of populations.

Its leading principles are-That all power of government is founded only on the delegation of the population, and consists only of the aggregate amount of individual right voluntarily surrendered by each individual for the sake of living in society. That all power resides in the population as individuals, who, when they elect a governor, (whom they need not create at all) delegate to him

* Not despotism, which is different.

+ Amongst Catholic writers who sustain this doctrine, we may mention the writer of the edition of "Institutiones Philosophiæ Lugdunenses," published in the reign of Louis XIV; in the older edition it is not to be found. F. Amat Archbishop of Palmira idea della Chiesa militante cap 3. ap. Balmes, Catholicity and Protestantism compared, vol. 4. The Imperial constitution of the Emperor Louis of Bavaria ap. Balmes, vol. 3. Count de Maistre and writers of his school, although they cannot be said fully to adopt these views, lean towards them from their antagonism to the Revolutionary theories.

such power as they choose; which they may as freely revoke. In this view the people alone have rights, governors possess none against those who, as they made, can also unmake them.*

Such, stated in their clearest terms, are the two theories which divide public opinion in these and other countries. Not that almost any writer on either side states them nakedly or pushes them to their farthest logical limits. In this, as in most other cases, men shrink from the rigid application of their own theories. The supporters of the divine right of kings speak tenderly of subjects, and how they ought to be treated by their rulers, whilst the advocates of popular rights speak reverently of existing governments, and each is strongest in attacking their opponents and pointing out the weak points in their arguments.

Up to the fifteenth century these questions had excited comparatively little attention and led to few practical differences. The great Catholic writers had indeed, as we shall see later, laid down sound principles, but their practical discussion was seldom called for by circumstances. The Governments of Europe which arose out of the deluge of barbarian invasion in which the Roman Empire had perished, were governments of fact, not of theory. They were of all sorts, and arose in all sorts of ways; and all seem to have been considered equally legitimate. In Venice, a community of emigrants, all tolerably equal, agreed to govern themselves in an oligar chical republic. In France, the leaders of tribes of warlike barbarians, who had acquired the leadership by virtue of the strength of their arin and the keenness of their intellect, transmitted their power, with the title of king, to their descendants, who were freely obeyed by the descendants of those whom their fathers had led to battle and conquest. In Rome a society, abandoned by its

See Hobbes, Rousseau, and Paine, for full development of these principles.

This is most observable in the English whig writers who whilst basing their support of the Revolution of 1688 on the rights of the people, try to modify in every way the rights of the people, to upset any other government. See Macaulay's masterly account of the discussions at the Revolution.