Mediaeval Socialism | Page 3

of the race. Hence was introduced first of all the notion of a civil authority. It was found that without it, to use a phrase which Hobbes indeed has immortalised, but which can be easily paralleled from the writings of St. Ambrose or St. Augustine, "life was nasty, brutish, and short." To this idea of authority, there was quickly added the kindred ideas of private property and slavery. These two were found equally necessary for the well-being of human society. For the family became a determined group in which the patriarch wielded absolute power; his authority could be effective only when it could be employed not only over his own household, but also against other households, and thus in defence of his own. Hence the family must have the exclusive right to certain things. If others objected, the sole arbitrament was an appeal to force, and then the vanquished not only relinquished their claims to the objects in dispute, but became the slaves of those to whom they had previously stood in the position of equality and rivalry.
Thus do the Fathers of the Church justify these three institutions. They are all the result of the Fall, and result from sin. Incidentally it may be added that much of the language in which Hildebrand and others spoke of the civil power as "from the devil" is traceable to this theological concept of the history of its origin, and much of their hard language means no more than this. Private property, therefore, is due to the Fall, and becomes a necessity because of the presence of sin in the world.
But it is not only from the Fathers of the Church that the mediaeval tradition drew its force. For parallel with this patristic explanation came another, which was inherited from the imperial legalists. It was based upon a curious fact in the evolution of Roman law, which must now be shortly described.
For the administration of justice in Rome two officials were chosen, who between them disposed of all the cases in dispute. One, the Praetor Urbanus, concerned himself in all litigation between Roman citizens; the other, the Praetor Peregrinus, had his power limited to those matters only in which foreigners were involved; for the growth of the Roman Imperium had meant the inclusion of many under its suzerainty who could not boast technical citizenship. The Praetor Urbanus was guided in his decisions by the codified law of Rome; but the Praetor Peregrinus was in a very different position. He was left almost entirely to his own resources. Hence it was customary for him, on his assumption of office, to publish a list of the principles by which he intended to settle all the disputes between foreigners that were brought to his court. But on what foundation could his declaratory act be based? He was supposed to have previously consulted the particular laws of as many foreign nations as was possible, and to have selected from among them those which were found to be held in common by a number of tribes. The fact of this consensus to certain laws on the part of different races was supposed to imply that these were fragments of some larger whole, which came eventually to be called indifferently the Law of Nature, or the Law of Nations. For at almost the very date when this Law of Nations was beginning thus to be built up, the Greek notion of one supreme law, which governed the whole race and dated from the lost Golden Age, came to the knowledge of the lawyers of Rome. They proceeded to identify the two really different concepts, and evolved for themselves the final notion of a fundamental rule, essential to all moral action. In time, therefore, this supposed Natural Law, from its venerable antiquity and universal acceptance, acquired an added sanction and actually began to be held in greater respect than even the declared law of Rome. The very name of Nature seemed to bring with it greater dignity. But at the same time it was carefully explained that this Lex Naturae was not absolutely inviolable, for its more accurate description was Lex or Jus Gentium. That is to say, it was not to be considered as a primitive law which lay embedded like first principles in human nature; but that it was what the nations had derived from primitive principles, not by any force of logic, but by the simple evolution of life. The human race had found by experience that the observance of the natural law entailed as a direct consequence the establishment of certain institutions. The authority, therefore, which these could boast was due to nothing more than the simple struggle for existence. Among these institutions were those same three (civil authority, slavery, private property), which the Fathers had