Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/595

 ORGANIC THEORY OF SOCIETY 581

but only definitive. Hobbes, recognizing no social law but posi- tive or enacted law, and so condemning the natural man to a con- dition of sheer lawlessness, could not appreciate this distinction between government and society, or between legality and reason ; but obviously this distinction was a necessary result of his philosophy, particularly of his warfare in a state of nature. It was necessary simply for the following reason. Society and this means law or unity in human life is quite as truly a condition as a consequence of warfare among individuals. Moreover, the very motive to contract and social unity cannot arise without some basis in reality, since men must be in a condition of society before they can will its establishment or expression. Locke accordingly, as if realizing this, found reason, that is, respect for law, in natural man, and so denied creation of society to any mere contract.

For reasons that need no mention here it often happens that a change of emphasis occurs in the understanding of a theory. The conditions of history make this necessary. Thus, reading the earlier followers of Locke, and in fact reading even Locke himself, one is not unlikely to miss the exact character and the importance of his departure from the standpoint of Hobbes. Necessities of thinking did, indeed, lead Locke to recognize law and society as a condition of the state of nature ; but more practical affairs the political emergencies of the time at home and abroad induced an emphasis, in his own statement of his views as well as in the earlier interpretations of them from others, upon the value of positive contract to political organization. So true is this that Locke has again and again been interpreted quite as if it were Hobbes that wrote the Treatises on Government, and doubtless the real author must bear his share of the blame ; but, nevertheless, in his philosophy the reality of law and society in nature is definitely recognized, and with the clearer vision, the better perspective, that time always brings, the value of this to political theory is made apparent. Thus governments, Locke himself contended, are formed in order to secure an impartial, impersonal, objective law and an effective execution of the same ; but also, with little if any reading between his lines, we find that in nature even selfish man has a respect for law ; and we know