1. _One polity alone is against the natural law; that is every polity
which proves itself unworkable and inefficient: for the rest, various
States exhibit various polities workable and lawful, partly from the
circumstances, partly from the choice, of the citizens: but the sum
total of civil power is a constant quantity, the same for all States_.
We proceed to establish the clauses of this statement in succession.
2. If a watch be necessary to a railway guard, and he is bound to have
one accordingly, it is also necessary, and he is bound to procure it,
that the watch shall go and keep time. A watch that will not keep time
is an unlawful article for him to depend upon, being tantamount to no
watch, whereas he is bound to have a watch. Otherwise, be his watch
large or small, gold, silver, or pinchbeck, all this is indifferent,
so long as it be a reliable timekeeper. In like manner, we must have a
State, we must have a government, and we must have a government that
can govern. Monarchy, aristocracy, parliaments, wide or narrow
franchise, centralisation, decentralisation, any one of these and
countless other forms--apart from the means whereby it is set up--is a
lawful government, where it is a workable one; unlawful, and forbidden
by God and nature, where it cannot work. A form of government that
from its own intrinsic defects could nowhere work, would be everywhere
and always unlawful.
3. You cannot argue from the accomplished fact the lawfulness of the
means whereby it was accomplished. Nor do we say that every form of
government, which succeeds in governing, was originally set up in
justice; nor again that the success of its rule is necessarily due to
the use of just means. The Committee of Public Safety in Paris in 1794
did manage to govern, but it was erected in blood, and it governed by
an unscrupulous disregard of everybody's rights. All that we say is,
that no distribution of civil power as a distribution, or no polity as
a polity (s. iii., n. 5, p. 312), is unlawful, if by it the government
can be carried on. And the reason is plain. For all that nature
requires is that there should be an efficient civil authority, not
that this man should have it, or that one man or other should have it
all, or that a certain class in council assembled should engross it,
or that all the inhabitants of the country should participate in it.
Any one of these arrangements that will work, satisfies the exigency
of nature for civil rule, and is therefore in itself a lawful polity.
4. Working, and therefore, as explained, lawful polities are as
multitudinous as the species of animals. Besides those that actually
are, there is a variety without end, as of animals, so of polities,
that might be and are not. We can classify only the main types. We
ground our classification upon Ar., _Pol._, III., vii., modernising it
so as to take in forms of representative government, whereof Aristotle
had no conception.
(1) _Monarchy_, or the rule of the Single Person, in whose hands the
whole power of the State is concentrated, e.g., Constantine the Great.
(2) _Aristocracy_, or the rule of the Few, which will be either
_direct_ or _representative_, according as either they themselves by
their own votes at first hand, or representatives whom they elect,
make the laws.
(3) _Democracy_, or the rule of the Many, that is, of the whole
community. Democracy, again, is either _direct_ (commonly called
_pure_) or _representative_. The most famous approach in history to
pure democracy is the government of Athens, B.C. 438-338.
(4) _Limited Monarchy_.
(a) _Monarchy with Aristocracy_, the government of England from 1688
to 1830.
(b) _Monarchy with Democracy_.
5. All civil government is for the governed, that is, for the
community at large. The perversion of a polity is the losing sight of
this principle, and the conducting of the polity in the interest of
the governing body alone. By such perversion monarchy passes into
_tyranny_, aristocracy into _oligarchy_, and democracy into
_ochlocracy_ or _mob-rule_. It might appear strange that, where the
power rests with the whole people collectively, government should ever
be carried on otherwise than in the interest of the entire community,
did we not remember that the majority, with whom the power rests in a
democracy, may employ it to trample on and crush the minority. Thus
the Many may worry and harass the Few, the mean and poor the wealthy
and noble: though commonly perhaps the worrying has been the other way
about. Anyhow it is important to observe that there is no polity which
of itself, and apart from the spirit in which it is worked, is an
adequate safeguard and rock of defence against oppression.
6. The wide range of polities that history presents is not drawn out
by the caprice of nations. The very fact of a certain nation choosing
a certain polity, where they are free to choose, is an indication of
the bent of the national character, and character is not a caprice. No
North American population are ever likely to elect an absolute monarch
to govern them. That polity which thrives on the shores of the
Caspian, can strike no root on the banks of the Potomac. The choice of
a polity is limited by the character of the electors and by the
circumstances in which the election is made. Not every generation in a
nation is free to choose its polity: but the choice and institution of
the fathers binds the children. Up to a certain point ancestral
settlements must be respected, or instability ensues, and anarchy is
not far off. Thus the spirit of freedom should always act as Burke
says, "as if in the presence of canonized forefathers."
7. The smallest State in the world is the little republic of Andorra
in the Pyrenees. Though it be a paradox to say it, there is as much
political power in Andorra as in Russia,--one and the same measure of
it in every State. In every State there is power for civil good to the
full height of the emergencies that may arise. The same emergencies
may arise everywhere, and everywhere there is full power to see that
the commonwealth take no harm by them. What a great empire can do for
this purpose, _e.g_., proclaim martial law, search houses, lay an
embargo on the means of transport, impress soldiers, the same can the
tiniest commonwealth do in the like need. And the ordinary functions
of government are the same in both.
8. This seems at variance with the theory of some constitutions,
according to which there are certain so-called _fundamental laws_,
which the legislature cannot call in question, nor deal with in any
way, but must take them in all its deliberations for positions
established and uncontrovertible. The British Constitution recognizes
no fundamental laws. There is no reform that may not legally be
broached in Parliament and enacted there. Parliament is said to be
"omnipotent," "able to do everything, except to make a man a woman."
But in many legislatures it is not so. At Athens of old there were
certain measures which no one could introduce for discussion in the
Sovereign Assembly without rendering himself liable to a prosecution
[Greek: graphae paranomon]. And there have been many monarchs termed
absolute, who yet were bound by their coronation-oath, or by some
other agreement with their people, to preserve inviolate certain
institutions and to maintain certain laws. It may be contended that
such a government as we have in England, which is theoretically
competent to pass any law within the limits of the natural law, has a
greater range of power than a government whose operation is limited by
a barrier of fundamental positive law. But this contention vanishes
when we observe that there must remain in the State, which has
fundamental laws, a power somewhere to reverse them. They can be
reversed at least by the consent of the whole people. Thus at Athens
the [Greek: graphae paranomon] could be suspended by a vote of the
Assembly. A people can release their monarch from his coronation-oath
in such portions of it as are not binding absolutely by divine law.
Where _fundamental law_ obtains, a portion of the civil power becomes
_latent_, and only a diminished remainder is left _free_ in the hands
of the person or persons who are there said to rule. Such person or
persons are not the _adequate ruler_ of the State, as they have not
the full power, but the people, with whom rests the latent authority
to cancel certain laws, are to that extent partakers in the
sovereignty. Where there is agreement of the whole people, great and
small, no part of the power remains _latent_, but all is set _free_.
With us, it may be observed, the omnipotence of parliament has become
a mere lawyer's theory. On every great issue, other than that on which
the sitting parliament has been elected, it is the practice of
ministers to "go to the country" by a new General Election. Thus only
a certain measure of available authority is _free_ at the disposal of
parliament: the rest remaining _latent_ in the general body of the
electorate. Such is our constitution in practice.
9. If in any State the whole power were _free_ in the hands of one
man, there we might look to see made good the _dictum_ of the
judicious Hooker (_Ecclesiastical Polity_, bk. i., s. x., n. 5): "To
live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery." In a
monarchy untrammelled by senate or popular assembly, it were well that
some of the sovereign power should remain _latent_, and that His
Majesty should rule in accordance with certain laws, not within his
royal pleasure to revoke.
10. The State and the power of the State, apart from the polity, is of
God. (s. iii., n. 14, p. 318.) The State under this or that polity and
this or that ruler, is also of God. But, apart from the polity, the
State is of God _antecedently_ to any determination of any human will:
because, willy nilly, man must live in civil society and God commands
him so to do. But the State under _this_ polity and _this_ ruler is of
God _consequently_ to some determination of human volition. In this
consequent sense we write _Victoria Dei gratia_.
11. There is little use in the enquiry, Which is the best polity?
There is no polity which excels all other polities as man does the
rest of animals. We judge of polities as of the various types of
locomotives, according to the nature of the country where they are to
run. Aristotle tells us that if we meet with a Pericles, we shall do
best to make him our king, and hand over all our affairs to him. (Ar.,
_Pol_., III., xiii., 25: cf. Thucydides, ii., 65.) Otherwise, "for
most cities and for most men, apart from exceptional circumstances, or
a condition of ideal perfection, but having regard to what is
ordinarily possible," he recommends a moderate republic under
middle-class rule. (Ar., _Pol_., VI., xi., Ed. Congreve.) This he
calls _par excellence_ "a polity," [Greek: politeia]. _Democracy_,
[Greek: deimokratia] with Aristotle, always means that perversion of
democracy, which we call _mob-rule_. (Ar., _Pol._, III., vii., nn. 3,
5.)
12. In the English monarchy the whole majesty of the State shines
forth in the Single Person who wears the Crown. The Crown is the
centre of loyalty and gives dignity to the government. The Crown is
above all parties in the State, knows their secrets, their purposes
when in office as well as their acts, and is able to mediate, when
party feeling threatens to bring government to a standstill. The
British Crown has more weight of influence than of prerogative.
[Footnote 21]
[Footnote 21: Written in the month and year of jubilee, June, 1887.]
_Readings_.--St. Thos., 1a 2æ, q. 105, art. 1, in corp., ad 2, 5; Ar.,
_Pol_., III., xv.; _ib_., III., xvi., nn. 5-8; _ib_., VIII. (al. V.),
xi. nn. 1-3.