Leo Strauss and Natural Right, Part 1: Introduction

LEO STRAUSS (1899-1973) will be the focus of our next several blog postings. In particular, we shall focus upon Leo Strauss's understanding of the natural law as presented in his Natural Right and History.* Originally published in 1953, the book was based upon Strauss's Walgreen Lectures of 1949.

Born in 1899 in Kirchhain, Hesse-Nassau, (Prussia) Germany of Jewish parents, Leo Strauss was raised in a ritually Orthodox Jewish home, one where the Jewish ritual was practiced, but where traditional Jewish learning was not. Rather, Strauss's parents appears to have wanted their son to gain a conventional education. After attending the Volksschule (public school) and the Protestant Rektoratsschule in Kirchhain, Strauss was graduated from the Gymnasium Philippinum in neighboring Marburg in 1917. There, he was exposed to neo-Kantianism. He briefly served in the German army during World War I, in between July 1917 and December 1918. At seventeen, the young Strauss turned Zionist, a movement to which he was attached until he was thirty and which exposed him to a number of Jewish intellectuals. He later referred to political Zionism as "problematic," though fulfilling an important "conservative function" in his life. After receiving his doctorate in Philosophy in 1921 from the University of Hamburg under the supervision of Ernst Cassirer (his doctoral thesis: "On the Problem of Knowledge in the Philosophical Doctrine of F. H. Jacobi"), he spent a short period of time attending classes taught by Edmund Husserl and Husserl's assistant, Martin Heidegger, at the University of Freiburg. In 1925, Strauss was employed in a research position at the Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin. During the next three years, he researched and wrote what was to be his first published work, a work on the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. In 1932 Strauss married the widowed Mirjam Bernsohn.

Leo Strauss (1899-1973)

In 1933 Strauss and his family moved to England. In between 1936 and 1937, Strauss held a research fellowship at Cambridge University where he was affiliated with Gonville and Caius College. Frustrated at finding permanent employment in England, however, Strauss moved to the United States where, for a short period of time, he was a research fellow at Columbia University in 1937. In between 1938 and 1948, Strauss was employed at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York. In 1944, Strauss became an American citizen.

In 1949, Strauss joined the faculty of the University of Chicago as a professor in the Department of Political Science, and in 1959 was appointed Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor, a position which he retained until 1969. In 1969 he moved to Claremont Men's College (now known as Claremont McKenna College) in Claremont, California for one-and-a-half years. In 1970, he transferred to St. John's College-Annapolis, where he served as the Scott Buchanan Distinguished Scholar in Residence until his death of pneumonia in 1973. "The contemporary rejection of natural right leads to nihilism--nay, it is identical with nihilism."
--Leo StraussDuring the course of his life, Strauss published numerous books on political philosophy, including what is probably his most popular and accessible work, Natural Right and History. An advocate of the traditional, classical natural law theory (at whose heart was Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero), Strauss was an indefatigable foe of modern liberalism and positivism, which he saw as founded on relativism and leading ultimately to nihilism. With respect to Strauss's faith, Edward Feser summarized it as follows:

Strauss was not himself an orthodox believer, neither was he a convinced atheist. Since whether or not to accept a purported divine revelation is itself one of the “permanent” questions, orthodoxy must always remain an option equally as defensible as unbelief.

Edward Feser, "Leo Strauss 101," in National Review (May 22, 2006). Thus, Strauss's advocacy of the traditional and classical natural law cannot be said to be based upon a religious presupposition, much less a Roman Catholic one. He based himself on the gem of Western tradition. Indeed, he based himself on what he viewed to be the sound nature of man himself.


Written on the heels of World War II, Leo Strauss's introduction to his Natural Right and History starts out rather forcefully by suggesting that Americans have traded in their inherited traditions, those documented in the Declaration of Independence, that man is endowed by his Creator with inalienable rights, and that such a truth is self-evident. It was a Esauian bargain, the trading of one's heritage and patrimony for a mess of pottage. In its place, America--indeed not only America, but the whole of the Western world--seemed bent on adopting the "yoke" of Germanic thought, in particular its relativistic "historical sense" political philosophy and jurisprudence. With the sole exception of Catholics, American social science--and this includes political science and jurisprudence--"is dedicated to the proposition that all men are endowed by the evolutionary process or by a mysterious fate with many kinds of urges and aspirations, but certainly with no natural right." Strauss, 2. That is, social thought was governed either by a nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw Darwinism or a boo-hurrah Emotivism, and not by natural law philosophy. Of course, rejection of natural right philosophy leads to (or results from) despair in objective morality, and therefore leads to a reliance upon pure positivism in law, where "right is determined exclusively by the legislators and courts of the various countries." Strauss, 2. So in this view the most that any ideal could be is convention, "nothing but the ideal adopted by our society . . . ." Arbitrary choice, perhaps not even so much active choice, but maybe even "dull and stale habit," define our values. Cannibalism for cannibals; abortionalism for abortionals; homosexuality for homosexuals; liberalism for liberals. "[O]ur ultimate principles have no other support than our arbitrary and hence blind preferences." Strauss, 4.

We are then in the position of beings who are sane and sober when engaged in trivial business and who gamble like madmen when confronted with serious issues--retail sanity and wholesale madness.

Strauss, 4.

This is absurdity. A form of delusional schizophrenia. Indeed, it is as if the floor has caved in and we have tumbled headlong into nihilism. "The contemporary rejection of natural right leads to nihilism--nay, it is identical with nihilism." Strauss, 5.

Strauss won't stand for it. We talk too much about justice. We argue and wrangle too much over right. By the very asking and arguing of these questions we give hint to the fact "that there is something in man that is not altogether in slavery to his society." Strauss, 3. Arguing belies the truth. There is a hint, then, of some extrinsic, extra-legal, extra-political, extra-cultural "standard" to which we even unwillingly pay implied obeisance despite our foolish rejection of natural right. The problem of justice, of right "cannot be solved if we do not possess knowledge of natural right." Strauss, 3. It is implicit in our discourse. And yet, Strauss warns, "the seriousness of the need of natural right does not prove that the need can be satisfied." Strauss, 6.

Even by proving that a certain view is indispensable for living well, one proves merely that the view in question is a salutary myth: one does not prove it to be true. Utility and truth are two entirely different things.

Strauss, 6.

Rejecting the tradition of natural right for another social theory is, from a juridico-political view, disastrous. It robs us of our ends, but leaves us with all our means. Bereft of a standard to discriminate between "legitimate and illegitimate, between just and unjust," between "soundness or unsoundness," our sciences become "instrumental and nothing but instrumental." Strauss, 4. (One thinks here of Saul Alinsky's vicious "If the ends don't justify the means, what else does?") It is a fortunate accident of history that, having jettisoned our end, we are given to "generous liberalism," and so the artificial god our means serve has not been bloodthirsty [we say that, but is that really so? How many victims have been sacrificed upon the altar of liberalism if one counts the hideous liberal "sacrament" of abortion?]. But without a standard, our sciences can just as well be used by tyrants as well as free peoples. A Shiite radical can use a nuclear device equally as well as Mr. Truman. Science is no respecter of persons; but then it is not much of a respecter of right or justice either. It works very well in the hand of the mighty, whether that hand is moved by a good or evil is unimportant to it. And it matters to science not, it cares not, it wants not, what the mighty makes of it.

Our country is (or at least was in the 1950s) full of "generous liberals." (The "liberals" of today are less than "generous," they seem bent on controlling thought and speech--political correctness--imposing their values on the majority--homosexual marriage and unabashed secularism, and their values are increasingly bloody--abortion, euthanasia . . . need I go on?)
"Liberal relativism has its roots in the natural right tradition of tolerance . . . but in itself it is a seminary of intolerance."
--Leo StraussThese "generous liberals" advance the virtue of tolerance as the only meaningful response to the impossibility of knowing objective (or intrinsic: it is the same thing as objective if it is intrinsic) right and wrong. But their purported tolerance of all views leads them down a strange road. If unlimited tolerance is what is in accord with reason, then it is nothing less than an admission that one must prefer (because reasonable) any preference that is tolerant of other preferences. What this means, negatively phrased, is that there is a "rational or natural right to reject or condemn all intolerant or all "absolutist" positions." (Strauss, 5) (emphasis added). One must be tolerant of the tolerant, but intolerant of the intolerant. All the tolerance of the "generous liberals" is, then, is a reverse sort of tolerance, where relativism is tolerated, but "absolutism" (objective morality) is not. An intolerant tolerance. And absolutism against absolutism. Liberalism is built on an oxymoron. Very weird.

Liberalism has done something else. Each and every time it is confronted with some limit, some natural right that constrains its madness for diversity, each time it encounters tension between natural law and diversity or individuality, it selects diversity and individuality.

When liberals became impatient of the absolute limits to diversity or individuality that are imposed by even the most liberal version of natural right, they had to make a choice between natural right and the uninhibited cultivation of individuality. They chose the latter.

Strauss, 5. What this means is that eventually liberalism is led to have to chose between the right to tolerance and diversity and individuality. This places the liberal in a sort of conundrum. If he chooses tolerance as an absolute value, then he has rejected his central tenet of uninhibited individualism. On the other than, if he opts for uninhibited individualism, then he places tolerance on equal footing with intolerance since liberals have no objective footing with which to distinguish objective reality. The liberal cannot advocate the moral equivalence of intolerance to tolerance, and so, by naked choice alone, by liberal fiat only (and not by any objective norm, since liberalism refuses objective, absolute norms), the liberal holds that tolerance is superior to intolerance. And so the liberal ends up being the most intolerant of them all:

Liberal relativism has its roots in the natural right tradition of tolerance or in the notion that everyone has a natural right to the pursuit of happiness as he understands happiness; but in itself it is a seminary of intolerance.

Strauss, 6. This is precisely at the heart of what Pope Benedict XVI has called the "dictatorship of relativism."

At the heart of this modern "dictatorship of relativism" or liberal intolerance, or what Strauss calls "fanatical obscurantism," is the lack of belief in any fundamental principles. It is the frightening reality that liberals "have to silence the easily silenced voice of reason, which tells us that our principles are in themselves as good or as bad as any other principles." Strauss, 6. Liberals choke the life out of the life of reason, and they are left with nothing, nihil. Having cultivated nihilism while choking the life out of reason, they become fanatical obscurants, fugitives from the law of nature that pursues them, like a hound of heaven, for murdering reason. Liberals then are pursued by demons. Like Orestes, then are pursued by Erinyes or Furies for having murdered reason. The blood of murdered reason, like the blood of liberalism's victims, cry out to heaven for vengeance. Could it be that God has heard the cries? Could it be that the rise of bloody Islam is his judgment? Could it be that these godless worshipers of a false God and a false prophet are the Chaldeans of old called by God to do his dirty work of cleaning up that which was caused by our even dirtier work?

Behold ye among the nations, and see: wonder, and be astonished: for a work is done in your days, which no man will believe when it shall be told. For behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and swift nation, marching upon the breadth of the earth, to possess the dwelling places that are not their own. They are dreadful, and terrible: from themselves shall their judgment, and their burden proceed.

Habacuc 1:5-6. We hope not, but we do not know.

The dead end, the intellectual and moral cul-de-sac into which liberalism leads, has led to some renewed interest in natural right. But Strauss warns that in facing the fanatical obscurantism to which the valueless liberalism inevitably tends, we must not ourselves fall into fanatical obscurantism. "Let us beware of the danger of pursuing a Socratic goal with the means, and the temper, of Thrasymachus." Strauss, 6.

In approaching natural right, moderns are in a situation markedly different from the situation that confronted the ancients. They were striving for knowledge that they did not have. We are striving to recover knowledge we once had. Therefore: "[t]he problem of natural right is today a matter of recollection rather than of actual knowledge." Strauss, 7. In the matter of natural right, we are trying to retrieve, not invent, to recover not advance.

In approaching the notion of natural law, we become aware that we will be confronted with a stark choice. We have to chose our loyalties. "Natural right in its classic form is connected with a teleological view of the universe."
--Leo StraussWe are in the same situation that confronted Christ's disciples after he taught that he was the bread of heaven which they would be required to eat. This made the Jew shudder. (John, Chapter 6) We have to chose to follow a way. We have to chose which way is the Way. And some of us will depart and go one way, and some of us will remain and go another. Perhaps a large number will just do nothing. Shall we follow and go live with the liberals? Or shall we follow and go live with the advocates of natural law? Or shall we simply duck the problem?

The issue of natural right presents itself today as a matter of party allegiance. Looking around us, we see two hostile camps, heavily fortified and strictly guarded. One is occupied by the liberals of various descriptions, the other by Catholic and non-Catholic disciples of Thomas Aquinas. But both armies and, in addition, those who prefer to sit on the fences or hide their heads in the sands are, to heap metaphor on metaphor, in the same boat. They are all modern men.

Strauss, 7.

What is one fact that all modern men--the liberals, the advocates of natural law, the fence sitters--confront? "We are all in the grip of the same difficulty." Strauss, 7. The problem arises from the nonteleological philosophy behind the modern sciences, compared with the teleological view that is inherent in the philosophy of the natural law.

Natural right in its classic form is connected with a teleological view of the universe. All natural beings have a natural end, a natural destiny, which determines what kind of operation is good for them. In the case of man, reason is required for discerning these operations: reason determines what is by nature right with ultimate regard to man's natural end.

Strauss, 7. Modern science, in adopting what is essentially a mechanistic view of the universe, would appear to have destroyed the notion of a teleology in nature. (One recalls Francis Bacon's disdain of the Aristotelian "final cause," and the Cartesian and Hobbesian view of man, or at least his body, as machine, his heart but a spring or coil.) When confronting the scientific, nonteleological view of the universe and the requirement in the classical, traditional theory of natural right or natural law that requires a teleological view of man, what is one to do? How is one to decide?

Two opposite conclusions could be drawn from this momentous decision. According to one, the nonteleological conception of the universe must be followed up by a nonteleological conception of human life. . . . [T]he alternative solution . . . [is] to accept a fundamental, typically modern, dualism of a nonteleological natural science and a teleological science of man.

Strauss, 8. In other words, we must be consistently nonteleological in both natural science and the science of man (the science of man becoming nothing other than part of the natural sciences), or we must become dualists: teleological in the science of man, and nonteleological in the case of all other natural sciences. If we chose the former, we are with the liberals, we are with the relativists, and like it or not, we help usher in the dictatorship of relativism. If we chose the latter, which "the modern followers of Thomas Aquinas, among others," feel compelled to take, we run into another problem. That problem is that we are not really disciples of Aristotle and St. Thomas at all. Because Aristotle and St. Thomas were not the dualists that we feel we are forced to be. They had a comprehensive teleological view, not a piecemeal, dualist teleological/non-teleological view, with science on the one hand, morality on the other.

The fundamental dilemma, in whose grip we are, is caused by the victory of modern natural science. An adequate solution to the problem of natural right cannot be found before this basis problem has been solved.

Strauss, 8.

Alas, however, Strauss avoids the problem in his book. Its limited role, useful enough we suppose, but admittedly not reaching to the heart of the basic problem, is to address the problem of natural right vis-à-vis the social sciences. The main focus of Strauss's book, then, will be whether natural right is plausibly rejected on the grounds of history (and the apparent relativism of values we find in history) or on the grounds of the modern philosophical and ethical distinction between "fact" and "value" (the so-called naturalistic fallacy). The answer to both, we shall learn, is "no."


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*Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).

Cardinal Mercier and the Natural Law, Part 20: The Christian Concept of the State

LEAVING THE ERRORS of the pantheistic, social contract, liberal, and organic theories of State behind him, Mercier then provides a Christian conception of the State, one predicated basically upon a classical notion of natural law, corrected, as it were, by the revelation of Christ. There are several operative truths that the Christian conception of State seeks to maintain, truths about the nature of the individual and the nature of civil society.

"The individual," Mercier begins, "is by nature a personal and social being." [335(114)] The fact that man is a personal being, that is a person, has great importance. It is the dignity of his end which gives dignity to his personhood.

[Man] has been created for an end which excels every other end, since it is identical with God Himself, inasmuch as He is the object of knowledge and love of mankind. Such an end implies the perfection and the happiness of the rational creature: his perfection, because the knowledge of God is the highest to which we can attain, and the love which this inspires is the most noble of all; his happiness, because the possession of this object appears as the goal of the deepest aspirations of the human soul.

[335(114)] Manifestly, the Christian notion of man, which it shares with classic natural law theory (e.g., Aristotle and Stoics) is world's apart from the selfish, Hobbesian view of man, the individualistic Rousseauian view, the materialistic view of Spencer, or the oddly minimalistic and State-dominated view of Hegel. Of course, Christianity adds a further dignity to man, and assures mankind of a supernatural destiny that is not contrary to his natural destiny, but which, in comparison, makes the natural destiny virtually blanch with inferiority.

[T]he idea of the personality of man is logically bound up with one of the essential dogmas of the Christian religion, namely, the dogma of his supernatural destiny. Being children of the same Father who is in heaven, redeemed by the same Saviour, called to the same celestial inheritance, men are all brethren and possessors of the same essential rights. In this we have the true idea of human personality.

[335(114)]

Though each man is a personal being, and so, to that degree, each man has equal dignity in relation to another man, it is also true that man is a social being. This is the teaching of the Doctors of the Church along with the best of the pagans, Plato and Aristotle, for example. The social nature of man is particularly manifest in the institution of the Church, which incorporates each man into the Body of Christ.

[B]y its visible organization, by its precepts of justice and of charity, by its dogmas of the divine Fatherhood, original justice, redemption and communion of saints, the Christian religion proclaims the solidarity and, consequently, the sociability of all mankind.

[335(114)] Christianity therefore promotes individual personality, without ignoring the communal aspects of human life. It does not fall into an impersonal collectivity, but neither does it promote an artificial and lonely individuality.

Christ Dividing Church and State

Both civil society and the State are therefore great goods. However, they are goods ordered and subordinate to the natural and supernatural destiny of man. As such, they are not absolute.

Civil society or the State is not a superior being, some transcendental reality having an ends of its own. it is constituted by the personal members who unit to form it; but yet it is not exclusively the product of their individual wills. Its foundation is indeed nature.

[335-36(115)] Since it finds its foundation in nature, it follows that its rights and its duties find ultimate support or foundation in nature, that is the moral law, itself. Civil society and the State, since they are natural in origin, must also advance, not retard or diminish, human nature's flourishing in a moral sense above all. Nature, however, does not inform us what form the civil society or the Sate must take. That determination appears to be left upon the will of men who have bound themselves in a society. What nature does supply is the instinct and the need in man for some sort of social organization, and that social organization, to be effective, presupposes "another, more august than nature." [336(116)]

The State, then, because demanded by nature, organized by man, willed by God, is at one and the same time an institution natural, human, and divine.

[336(115)] How so divine? "Society exists by the will of God, and therefore obedience of subjects to its authority is by the will of God . . . ." [336(116)] Man is give the power to determine, based upon circumstances, the form by which the State is to administer its authority over civil "As, then, the natural law is the foundation of the rights possessed by the individual and family, it follows that these rights must be respected by the public power."
--Cardinal Mercier
society. "Any form of government is lawful so long as it is properly adapted to fulfill the mission of the State." [336(116)] So the form of the government of the State is to be distinguished from the authority of the government of the State. "Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God." (Rom. 13:1) Since authority stems ultimately from God, it follows that the State has no authority to act against nature, against the moral law, against the interests of civil society or, more particularly, against the interests of man. "Civil society exists for the sake of the individuals composing it." [336(17)]

To provide the general conditions for our happiness and for our perfect development, conditions which we cannot establish and maintain by isolate effort, is the end of civil society, namely, the common weal. Hence the role of the public authority in the society is none other than to direct it towards its end. . . . [T]he first function of authority is to secure that our rights are respected. But it has a further duty to discharge as part of its mission: the common weal consists not only in the absence of injustice, but it also presupposes a state of affairs such as will favour the full exercise of the individual's rights and further the proper development of his faculties. . . . This is what is mean when the State is described as having 'civilization' as its mission.

[336-37(117)]

The State is in no way absolute. It must recognize and is subordinate to the rights of individual, of the family, and of religious society. Ultimately, it is subject to the natural law. Indeed:

The will of the State is supreme and its commands obligatory only in so far as they are in conformity with the natural law, which is the expression of the divine Will . . . As, then, the natural law is the foundation of the rights possessed by the individual and family, it follows that these rights must be respected by the public power . . . . From this may be judged the 'civilizing mission' of the State.

[337(118)] Since a man's self-development is his own work, and not anybody else's work, it follows that the State must allow for private initiative. It must not suppress private action; rather, it ought to encourage it, foster it, nurse it in every possible way. With its strong understanding of human personality and human dignity, the Christian notion of the state opposes the collectivist's ideal. Similarly, the State must recognize the pre-existing natural rights of the marriage state and the family, both natural institutions over which the State has no power other than in their civil effects. "Founded on this [natural]basis, the family enjoys a juridical existence that is independent of the civil law." [337(118)]

Since the advent of Christianity, a third restriction has been placed on government. Before the coming of Christ, religious authority was intermixed with civil authority. The founder of Christianity clearly intended to form a society separate from the State, namely, the Church. By establishing the Church, Christ clearly intended to free the individual conscience from the yoke of secular power. The conscience is not however free in the sense of anarchy. It was not loosed to be outside the pale of law, and so it is "under another power, but this is a spiritual one, whose influence is essentially not one of constraint but of persuasion." [338(118)]

By proclaiming the incompetence of the State in the governance of the soul and the essentially voluntary character of the act of faith, Christianity has laid the foundations of true liberty of conscience. . . . The separation of this twofold jurisdiction and the voluntary nature of the act of faith come from the Founder of the Christian religion.

[338(118)]

Cardinal Mercier

But all this Christian political philosophy has been rejected, spurned. It is not part of the public square. The separation of Church and State, which has evolved into secular dogma, a convenient one for the State that since the Protestant reformation has progressively been elbowing out the Church, has kept any semblance of natural law or Christian political philosophy at bay. At best, it is found in books, in catechisms, in Papal encyclicals, or in blogs, but in no other place on earth. Apparently, we prefer liberalism, and we are paying the moral and the social costs associated with that bad choice and that pact with that liberal of all liberals, that libertine known as the Devil.*

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*Cf. Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, No. 14: "But many there are who follow in the footsteps of Lucifer, and adopt as their own his rebellious cry, I will not serve; and consequently substitute for true liberty what is sheer and most foolish license. Such, for instance, are the men belonging to that widely spread and powerful organization, who, usurping the name of liberty, style themselves liberals."

Cardinal Mercier and the Natural Law, Part 19: Rights of the State

THE TERM RIGHTS OF THE STATE has an unfamiliar ring to it, but it is shorthand for the ensemble of "juridical [legal] relations which unite the governed to the governing power in the civil society." [325(106)] Within this division, and under the guidance of a natural law philosophy, Mercier explores the nature, origin, and end of the State. He asks what the functions of public authority ought to be, and in what form those functions ought be assumed and exercised. Mercier addresses the rights and duties of citizens to the State, the principles that ought to govern international relations, and the relationship between the civil society and the religious society. "All these questions . . . belong to the sphere of the philosophy of Natural Law." [325(106)] The answers to those questions are all predicated upon the theory of the State that one adopts.

The first matter addressed by Mercier is the various theories of the existence of the State. He reviews some of the main theories that are outside the classical natural law tradition: (1) a pantheistic view of the State (Plato, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte); (2) the view of the State as an institution of positive divine right (such as that advanced by Filmer or Bodin); (3) the view that the State is a creature of social contract alone (Hobbes, Rousseau); and (4) the view of the State as a social organism (Lilienfeld, Schäffle, Spencer). Finally, as against all these other theories, he discusses the rival Christian, that is natural law, conception of the State.

The pantheistic theory of the State is probably not much held modernly, and it is difficult to conceive that it was ever advocated in earnest. But it was. In some sense, Plato may be viewed as being its originator. In our day, we can trace this view largely to the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831).

Plato's philosophy, specifically his ontology, had the "germ of pantheism." He saw the entirety of the cosmos informed by "a kind of psychic principle," of which individual's soul was "but an emanation." This view, coupled with the notion that universal ideas correspond to universal essences in the divine wrap up all things in a pantheistic blanket. These underlying metaphysical presuppositions inform his ideal state in his Republic. After all, the state is viewed as the cosmos writ large, and the state as the soul of man writ large. Thus they are all intimately joined and linked in one pantheistic chain of being. For Plato, justice was tied to harmony and unity. "Liberty and the traditional philosophy of man's spiritual nature stand or fall together."
--Cardinal MercierAccordingly, the role of reason was to harmonize and unify the various human faculties. Similarly, the role of the city state was to harmonize and unify its citizens into one body corporate of the City-State. This required a subordination of the individual to the City-State. Anything that could present itself as a threat to the unification was suspect, and so intermediate institutions such as the family, private property, and idiosyncratic activities such as poetry and so forth had to be banned from Plato's ideal state. (It is this tendency in Plato, noted by Mercier, that led Karl Popper to identify Plato (along with Hegel and Marx) as one of the traditional enemies of the "open society".) But even Plato, in his extremity, cannot be said to have "identif[ied] the State with the deity of the universe," though he came awful close. [326(107)] The same cannot be said for Hegel.

Portrait of Hegel by Jakob Schlesinger (1792-1855)

"With Hegel, who here follows Schelling and Fichte, the case is otherwise. . . .[I]n his later writings he professed the completest pantheism." [326-27(107)]

'The State', he says, 'is the social substance that has arrived at self-consciousness . . . . It is the rationnel* of itself and for itself . . . it is a terrestrial divinity.' Here we find the State has become an aspect of the Absolute which, according to Hegel, is the common substrate of all things, the universal substance, of which individual beings are but so many modes or determinations.

[327(107)] (quoting Hegel's Philosophy of Right) For Hegel, the State, being in essence divine, lives for its own ends, and not for the common good. "Hegel's answer is that the State must be viewed as an organic and living unity having its own subsistence as its one end." [327(107)] Similarly, the State is the source of all right:

[S]ince [the State] is the divine being, its will must be the sovereign law, the source of all rights and all duties. Therefore against its decisions no individual right founded on nature can be of any avail.

[327(107)] This divinization of the State is a serious lapse into paganism because it absolutizes the State. One of the boons of Christianity was to force a separation between the secular State and the religious life of man (the Church). Christianity thus demoted the pretensions of an absolute State, and it would seem that the State, like a man with a heart darkened by the bitterest desire for vengeance, has been unforgiving since that time, biding its time and nursing its wounds until it could destroy the Church and re-assume the powers that Satan would give it.

Charles I by Unknown Artist Receiving His
Divine Right to Rule Immediately from God
(National Portrait Gallery, London)

Another theory of the State is what may be called the "divine right" theory. Stemming from 17th century jurisprudence, it held the monarchy to be appointed by God himself in an office of divine right. Thus the prince was responsible not to his subjects, but to God alone. As if by divine election, the monarch was chosen from the mass of men and given special authority by God. Not only was he given authority directly from God, but apparently as part of it the power to cure his subjects of scrofula, known thereby by the moniker "the King's evil."**

The political interest of the monarch, namely, the consolidation and extension of his power, dominates all other interests. He is known as the 'raison d'Etat' Before his superior claims the rights of the individual must yield.

[328(108)] Such a theory of government is largely Eastern in inspiration. "Its origin is not Christian." [328(108)] Obviously, such a theory is not held by anyone modernly. One need only read the work of Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653) to see the risibility of such a theory. Another advocate of the theory was Jean Bodin (1530-1596). It is of merely historical interest currently.

The social contract theory of the State is probably the view held by a majority of political theorists currently since it is at the heart of political liberalism. Although there is great variety among advocates of this theory, the essential kernel shared among all of them is that "civil society owes its rights to a contract, either expressed or tacit, that has been freely entered into by its members." [328(109)]

Hobbes is an early advocate of the concept, but his theory has a decided monarchical slant, although his theory may be translated and mutated to the power of an absolute State of other stripes.

Portrait of Jean Jacques Rousseau in Armenian Dress

Rousseau was the theory's great popularizer and democratizer. Rousseau's writings, however, resulted in a dichotomous interpretation. On the one hand, Rousseau gave birth to an individualistic notion of the social contract theory, where the State's role was by common agreement or contract stipulated to be one that would allow men to express their autonomy, free of any extrinsic influence. What was originally the fruit of rationalism in thought (philosophy) and morality and religion (i.e., autonomy), found its expression in political theory. "There it fostered liberalism, and drew conclusions from the theory of the social contract which were directly opposed to those of Hobbes." [329(111)]

Essentially, any social contract theory of the State makes the institution's origin entirely human. It is formed by consent of men, and God has nothing to do with it. The social contract theory is the basis for the modern school of political liberalism, as from this theory it has borrowed two fundamental tenets. The first principle liberalism has borrowed is the legal basis of public authority. The second principle borrowed from the social contract theory relates to the purpose of the State.

Liberalism, along with the social contract theory, believes that the "free consent of individuals is the one and only source of all lawful authority." Thus the State and law finds its ultimately source in human consent, human contract, and it is therefore independent of any divine law. Public authority is viewed as limited by agreement or compact. Its role is to assure the greatest possible freedom among its citizens, without regard to morality or to nature.

As it is contrary to the principle of rationalism to accept any guidance from constituted authority alike in matters intellectual as well as moral, so it is consistent to assert that the function of the State is not in any way to direct the action of individuals as regards any ideal whatever, but simply to safeguard them from all obstacles that would hinder their free development. Accordingly the function of the State is not to civilize, but only to guarantee that the rights and liberty of the citizens shall be protected.

[330(111)] This is the path that Kant took: "As an advocate of the principle of the autonomy of reason, he gives us the conception of the State as the mere guardian of the rights of the individual." [330-31(111)] All this liberalism, shunning the World's enchantment, ignores God's Grandeur. But:

The world is charge with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights of the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.***

Liberalism has trod, and trod, and trod, and has lost its sense of truth and freedom. It wallows in self-indulgence, and revels in pollution of all sorts, especially social pollution like pornography, homosexuality, dead babies, ruined families, and ruined marriages, the empty shells of which are found anywhere it has had some say. Its expression in classical liberalism, of the laissez faire type, has not been particularly edifying either. The waste, the disregard for the world's resources, the disrespect for nature and the environment, the social and chemical dross left behind by Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is disheartening. How much beauty been have the grasping industrialists destroyed by careless exploitation of the world's resources?

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew —
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene****.

The other prong of Rousseau's thought took a decidedly less liberal path, and expressed itself in the notion of the "General Will" and the absolutism of a democratic state. Rousseau attributes to the general will qualities of absolute sovereignty, indefectibility, and infallibility, and by a sleight of hand, though it is but the will of the majority, makes it by transference the will of each individual. As it turns out, under this branch of Rousseauism, it is "law or, more accurately, the will of the majority, that creates rights, and especially the right of property." [331(112)] The seeds of collectivity are already present:

By becoming a citizen a man has even lost his own individual existence. For Rousseau informs us that 'the mission of the legislator is to transform each individual, who by himself is a solitary unit, into a part of a larger whole from which this individual in a certain measure receives his life and being.' . . . Christianity in asserting the independence of religious from civil authority had liberated the human conscience form the yoke of the State. Rousseau would replace that yoke.

[332(112)] Like a dog, it would seem, man left Christ and then returned to his own earlier pagan vomit. This is in keeping with proverbial wisdom: "As a dog returneth to his vomit, so is the fool that repeateth his folly." Sicut canis qui revertitur ad vomitum suum sic inprudens qui iterat stultitiam suam. (Proverbs 26:11).

Herbert Spencer by John McClure Hamilton (1853-1936)

The last theory addressed by Mercier before launching in the natural law way of things is the theory of the "social organism" or organicism. Though it has some Platonic roots, and was present in the teachings of the Physiocrats, and even in a form in Hegel and his disciples, this now-forgotten theory was advanced by the likes of Paul (Pavel) von Lilienfeld (1829-1903), Albert Eberhard Friedrich Schäffle (1831-1903), and the social Darwinist Herbert Spencer (1820-19

We are told by Spencer that all phenomena are governed by a law of evolution. . . . Now under this same law of evolution individuals are brought together to form social organisms. . . . For he viewed the life of society as not essentially different from the organic life of man . . . .

[333-34(113)]. Mercier cuts to the quick: this theory "is simply a restatement of the old-world materialism." Like all materialism it denies the human personality. [334(113)] Ultimately, the question revolves around whether "the individual, who is also the social unit, is not something more than a mere aggregation of cells, such as materialists would have us believe." Their denial of any further principle other than atomism or cell-aggregation, "when applied to political science," leads to "the most radical absolutism." [335(113)]

"Liberty and the traditional philosophy of man's spiritual nature stand or fall together." [335(114)] And it is to that conception of man and to the State, that Mercier directs his attention and ends his foray in the natural law in his A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy. That will be the subject matter of our next, and also last, posting on Cardinal Mercier and the natural law.

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*Rationnel (adjective) is French for rational.
**The "King's Evil" (le mal du roy) or Scrofula (Tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis) is essentially tuberculosis of the neck. Popular belief held that the "royal touch" of the monarch of France or England could cure the unfortunate subject of the disease. It was viewed as a power collateral to his right of rule. Apparently, the power respected the Salic law in France, but not in England, where Queens apparently claimed it.
***Gerard Manley Hopkins, "God's Grandeur."
****Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Binsey Poplars."

Cardinal Mercier and the Natural Law, Part 18: Family Rights

THAT THE FAMILY HAS RIGHTS, natural rights at that, is forgotten in modern Western thought. The family has suffered assault from the existential, relativistic, liberal ethic, just like the individual. As the individual is said to be able to define himself without regard to his nature, so, analogously, is he able to define what he means by family. Man is answerable neither to God nor to his nature in respect to self or to family. This is the modern creed of liberalism, and it gives us such foul perversions and natural aberrations, indeed monsters, as homosexual "marriage." The intellectual dishonesty among its advocates is rank. Suggesting that homosexual "marriage" is constitutional is untenable under any reasonable theory of a written constitution, at least the U.S. Constitution. In no wise can it be said to have incorporated implicitly, much less explicitly, the right to homosexual activity, much less homosexual marriage. The suggestion is a legal enormity as much as it is a moral enormity.

The institution of marriage is a natural institution between a man and a woman formed by their mutual consent to join for life. The institution of the family derives from the institution of marriage and the procreation of children. Thus there are two societies or relationships: a conjugal "horizontal" one between spouses (which arises out of the marital covenant), and a "vertical" parental one between parents and children (arising out of consanguinity and procreation). In his discussion of right and duty, Mercier treats of the institution of marriage--its purpose, the perpetuity of the marital bond--and then family.

Mercier steps slightly outside of the typical presentation of marriage, at least at the time that he wrote his A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy. In his discussion on the purpose of the institution of marriage, he designates the first end of the family as the good of the spouses. He describes the second end of the family as the procreation and education of children. In most classical treatments of marriage, the hierarchy of ends is reversed. What Mercier appears to be doing, however, is not contradicting the classical treatment, but presenting the ends in chronological order. First there is marriage and union of the spouses, and second there is procreation. The chronology in ends is thus distinguished from the hierarchical ordering of ends.

A man and a woman generally agree to unite themselves in marriage each with a view to his or her own well-being and the well-being of his or her partner. "This is the reason why they give themselves to one another, each being the complement, as it were, of the other by sharing in common the physical, intellectual, and moral resources of their individual natures." [316(99)] The couple seek happiness in their wedlock. There is thus conveniently joined in marriage the happiness sought by the couple with the means to assure the perpetuation of the human race and the allaying of the "importunities of passion."*

Couple and Child by Marc Chagall (1887-1985)

The second end of marriage and the family is the procreation and education of children. [317(100)] Human development is a lengthy process, and the marital relationship is accordingly naturally designed to be long-lasting, indeed permanent. Parents have the duty to form and educate their children.

To parents above all others falls the duty of being the protectors and educators of their child. This is not difficult to understand. Together they have been instrumental in bringing into being a human person like themselves, possessing the same imprescriptible right both to life and perfection and yet incapable of providing for himself. Tho whom should such a one turn to obtain the assistance to which he has a right unless to those who are the authors of his being? To their instrumentality his life is due; by bringing him into being they have taken upon themselves the duty of providing the means for his preservation and his full development. Such is what right order would require. . . . This is the dictate of logic, and is not the natural law the law of reason?

[317(100)] The natural disposition or natural inclination that parents have to their children is evidentiary of what reason would require of parents.

[In slightly different presentation, this is the Augustinian/Thomistic trilogy of the ends of marriage of marriage: offspring (procreatio), mutual help and aid (mutuum adiutorium or auxilium), and the legitimate expression for sexual desire (honestum remedium concupiscentiae). These are closely tied to the three goods (bona) of marriage: the good of children (bonum prolis), the good of fidelity (bonum fidei), and the good of a "natural" sacrament (bonum sacramenti).]

Mercier elaborates on what is meant by education of children. The education is holistic, and includes physical, intellectual and aesthetic, moral, and religious education. Physical education looks to the health of the body, and so includes providing a healthy physical environment, with opportunity of exercise. The physical development is important to the intellectual and moral life. Intellectual education helps develop those specific human faculties that have as their object the true and the beautiful. This requires the development of the senses, the memory, and intelligence. "The primary purpose of [intellectual] education is not to stock the mind with erudition, but to make it capable of thought." [319(101)] Although parents are preeminently the educators of their children, "public authority has here the right to interfere in the last resort in order to safeguard the right of the child [to education] against any remissness or selfishness on the part of the parent." [319(101)] The religious and moral faculties of the child must not be neglected.

As morality is meaningless if divorced from the idea of the Absolute--the proper object of religion--the moral upbringing of anyone must have religious education as its foundation. By the first he will be shown the law which must govern his conduct, he will be taught how to conform to it, and for this end his will-power will be strengthened against the allurements of the senses; by the second he will be shown the august origin of this law and the sovereign sanctions on which it rests. Parents owe to their children this moral and religious education . . . .

[320(101)] The duty that the parents have to their children suggests that the children have correlative duties, and they do:

The duty of parents towards their children implies as its counterpart the rights to obedience, respect and affection from the latter towards them.

[321(102)]

Viewed strictly from a natural law standpoint, and not from any religiously doctrinal point of view, marriage is, by nature, "an indissoluble contract." The reason for its indissolubility is that it s founded upon love, not sensual love, but "a love that is rational, which alone is worthy of the dignity of man." [321(103)] Thus, superficial, fleeting, passing qualities are not the substance of marriage. Marriage "has the grasp of a substance that is enduring." "Its very nature is that it should last." [321(103)]

The perpetuity of the marriage bond is made more manifest by the link it has to the procreation and education of children and their correlative duty to honor their parents. The education of children is a lengthy, laborious, and enduring one, which calls for a stable, long-lasting relationship between the parents. More, once the children become emancipated, they are still bound to their parents by the claims of gratitude which "may put upon them imperious obligations binding in strict justice." [321(103)] So the parental union would seem to endure by nature beyond the emancipation of the children. "The dissolution of the latter [marriage] would shake the very foundations of the economy of the former [obligations of gratitude, perhaps even care, that children should have to their parents]." [322(103)]

Mercier then handles the problem of divorce. He acknowledges that legislators have made exception to the perpetuity of the marital covenant and have permitted divorce. In discussing the issue of divorce, Mercier divides the issue into three separate parts: divorce by mutual consent, divorce for incompatibility of temper, and divorce for reasons of adultery, cruelty, or ill-treatment.

It is evident that divorce by mutual consent, or for mere incompatibility of temperament, notwithstanding the legal [civil] formalities that accompany it, is nothing short of a direct negation of the whole principle of the perpetuity of the marriage tie.

[322(103)] The entire edifice upon which such notion of divorce rests--the rescindability of the marital covenant--makes marriage as an institution less enduring.

Divorce on the account of adultery or some grave crime (violence against a spouse, for example) is a harder case. "For certainly the innocent party, condemned to live a solitary life under the hard law of continence, has a claim on our sympathy." But marriage is more than a contract for the convenience of two individuals; it also has a social role. And divorce, which is always an evil, may be viewed by some as the lesser of two evils. The Catholic Church has thought otherwise:

The Catholic Church has . . . absolutely prohibited divorce in the name of the higher interests of morality and social order. And the experience of centuries has clearly justified her action. We are well aware that when divorce is once sanctioned by law it slowly by surely becomes a practice in all classes of society. It works as a germ bringing social dissolution and death. In vain does legislation [or marital counseling, for that matter] attempt to restrain the growth of this evil. The time comes when the restrictions of thought to be capable of opposing further developments are swept away by the impulse of passion. . . . It was for this reason that the Founder of Christianity laid down the principle, 'what God hath joined together let no man put asunder.'

[323(104)]

Holy Family by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-82)

Let any modern argue that no-fault divorce has raised the health and welfare of family life. Let any modern argue that the current marital regime has led to more stable, more fulfilling family life. It is an impossible burden. The very opposite seems manifestly the case. In the West, the family is in shambles. And divorce and contraception are, above all, the principal culprits. They are fundamentally opposed to marriage, deny its very nature. Is it any wonder that, accustomed to such marital evils, we have lost the sense of what marriage is, and now hear arguments seriously entertained that marriage is even possible between two members of the same sex? It is but a short step, however, from marriage made artificially unfruitful to marriage by its nature unfruitful. But marriage made unfruitful, either by nature or by artifice, is no longer marriage. It is a travesty of marriage.

[S]igns are not lacking of a disturbing degradation of some fundamental values [relating to marriage and the family]: a mistaken theoretical and practical concept of the independence of the spouses in relation to each other; serious misconceptions regarding the relationship of authority between parents and children; the concrete difficulties that the family itself experiences in the transmission of values; the growing number of divorces; the scourge of abortion; the ever more frequent recourse to sterilization; the appearance of a truly contraceptive mentality.

Familiaris consortio, No. 6.

Before Mercier takes leave of his discussion of marriage and family, he briefly discusses the relationship between marriage and family and the State. "[T]he institution of the family is not the result of legislation, nor are the rights and duties of its members created by it." [324(105)] It is the height of hubris, indeed, it is absolutely tyrannous, for the State to suggest that it has the power of defining marriage through positive law. While the State should have a supportive role in its citizens' marriages, and may address certain aspects of marriage life, such as formalities of marriage, and financial and other social or public aspects of it, marriage and family life remain fundamentally outside and independent of the State. Marriage is a natural institution established by God, and is governed by natural law and natural right, which are absolutely preeminent over the State, and to which the State must be subordinate. For the State to arrogate to itself the right to re-define marriage, whether under the mantle of "equal rights" or any other pennant or standard, is an arrogation of power it does not have. In a sense, it is a claim to divinity, of power over nature, over man, and over God. The advocates of homosexual marriage are doing nothing other than feeding the ravenous appetite of a tyrannous state that sees no natural limitations on its legislative powers. If it can define marriage, it can define man, and that means he can define who is man, and who is not (as indeed it has done in legislating or by judicial opinion holding that children in the womb are not "persons" subject to legal protection).


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*Cardinal Mercier emphasizes that the fact that marriage "allay[s] in some measure the importunities of passion," that is, acts as a honestum remedium concupiscentiae, a legitimate remedy for sexual concupiscence, "must not have a preponderating influence." "Sensual gratification," Mercier reminds us, "must always be subordinated to a higher motive, for if this is sought as an exclusive end, the worst excesses may result. The union of marriage is not that of merely material organisms but of persons with spiritual natures. To be of one flesh is but a means to a closer union of soul. This the dignity of human personality requires." [316-17(99)]

Cardinal Mercier and the Natural Law, Part 17, Respect of Property

PROPERTY IS AN IMPORTANT but not absolute right in Mercier's view. "Property, as synonymous with ownership, is the right to use and dispose of an animal or thing for a legitimate end without the interference of any other person." [279(82)] Mercier distinguishes between use and disposal, and is critical, from the perspective of natural law, of a notion of a right of absolute disposal of property. Essentially (at least in Mercier's time, it is certainly less true now), the positive law does not enforce, though it does not necessarily deny, the moral restrictions that may govern an individual's particular disposal of property. In some cases, restricting the disposition of property so as to conform to moral requirements would give rise to worse abuses. Yet here, as in many cases, "certain acts which the positive law refuses to punish may still be infringements of the moral law." [280(83)]

Two factors can limit the right to private property from a moral point of view. The first is the nature of the goods that are committed to our particular dominion. The second arises from our own nature as a rational and social being.

Private property is to be understood as existing under the design of divine Providence. Destruction of property out of mere caprice, with no purpose in view of oneself or others, disregards such aspect of property ownership. The abuse or poor treatment of animals, the infliction of unnecessary suffering, falls under that same limitation. Similarly, to use property to gratify illicit desires is an immoral use of property.

Because man is by nature a rational and social being, property ought not to be used in a way that contradicts those aspects of his nature. Thus, property use or disposition cannot be purely based on selfish motives. But this prohibition does mean that the only proper use of property is social.

Since the individual has a his personal life to consider, he can aim at furthering his own development and his own happiness by the disposal of his goods; only he must never forget that he is a social being as well. . . . If he possesses a superfluity, he will share with those who are in want of the bare necessaries of life.

[280-81(84)] This principle may also be used with respect to celebrity. One who enjoys the fruits of celebrity is to use his celebrity not to further his selfish whims, but is to recall that he must use that celebrity to exercise positive moral influence on others. It is not to be used as a platform for scandal or bad example.

Mercier explains the source or basis of the right to private property. Various theories have been advanced to explain its basis. Some base the right on mere convention (social contract) or positive law (e.g., Hobbes, Montesquieu). Others base it by extending it or tying it to the right of each man to the fruits of his labor (e.g., Locke, Adam Smith). Mercier rejects these theories as insufficient or self-defeating. With respect to the social contract theory of ownership, Mercier observes:

Men could never have set out to divide goods [by compact], if they had not previously the right to dispose of them, that is to say, the right of ownership . . . . Ownership must therefore logically precede the social compact.

[281(85)] The Lockean justification for private property is probably the most widely accepted contemporaneously. Mercier rejects its sufficiency as an explanatory basis for right to property:

[L]abour is not the foundation of ownership; it is an exercise of it and presupposes the general right to dispose of the goods of the earth. I cannot claim to transform anything by my labour if I do not first of all possess the right of making it serve my purpose, that is, the right of disposing it.

[282(86)] How can we claim the crops we, through our labor, have grown, if we do not first have the property right to land and the the fruit of our labor? Basing private ownership on labor begs the question.

Mercier finds the right to property to be based upon human nature.

The earth and its wealth were made for the use of man. . . . Man has the right to use and to dispose of things and of animals, because, as we have already said, he is a person. As such he has the [natural] right both to provide for his own preservation and to make use of his natural powers. Hence he may establish his dominion over things, since this is a necessary condition both for his existence and for his development. And it is clear that this dominion must not only look to the satisfaction of his present needs . . . . As a rational and free being capable of foreseeing the future and of restraining his appetites . . . he acts in conformity with his nature when he regulates his conduct with a view to his future needs. As the head of a family he is bound to some extent to provide for the future of those whom Providence has entrusted to his care.

[283(87)] However, this natural right to property may be exercised either privately or communally, for the justification of property may be viewed from either individual or communal perspective. Mercier believes that "what is due to man by virtue of his humanity does not belong simply to the race as a whole but to each individual member of it." As a result individual ownership is a legitimate expression of the natural right to property. Against this view is the communist and the collectivist (socialist) notion of property, which would deny the individual, at least to great extent, the individual right to property. Mercier engages the standard arguments brought by communist and collectivist theories of property, and disposes of them. He also addresses the typical objections to private property and capitalism, and offers responses or counterarguments against them. These will not be reviewed here. [284(89)-306(93)]

In the last three sections of his treatment of the right to property, Mercier discusses the various titles to property (by occupancy, by prescription) [307(94)-311(95)], the (natural) right to make a will [311-14(96)], and the (natural) right to inheritance [314-15(97)].

Mercier next addresses the rights of members of the family, a matter we will reserve for our next blog posting.