Page:Philosophical Review Volume 12.djvu/155

Rh them. But external compulsion alone can guarantee that selfish individuals will permanently restrain their selfish inclinations, even when this restraint is on the whole to their advantage. "Covenants without the sword are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all." Consequently, it is indispensable that there should be some supreme power which compels all individuals alike to observe the articles of peace. The dictates of the sovereign power must of course be obeyed without question, since the security so much desired cannot be attained on any other terms. The content of morality, therefore, is in the end identical with the commands of the sovereign. It is not necessary at present to consider whether or not the system of Hobbes is internally coherent. It is obvious that at every stage of his argument he denies that moral laws are unconditionally valid, and this is the aspect of his theory which influences the development of rationalism. Opposition to this view of morality brings the rationalistic mode of thought into prominence, and moulds the character of the rationalistic theories.

Cudworth insists that moral distinctions depend, not on the will of the sovereign or on the will of God, but on the nature of things. Even God cannot, by any arbitrary command, make an action just or unjust. "Omnipotence itself cannot by mere will make a body triangular without having the nature and properties of a triangle in it," for this would involve a contradiction. So long as things remain as they are, certain actions are necessarily right and others are necessarily wrong. But the nature of every being is a permanent essence which involves permanent relations to other things. These permanent essences and relations constitute the definite plan in accordance with which God created the world. The principles of morality, therefore, since they are conditioned by the nature of things, are immutable and eternal. They are thus cognizable by reason alone. The senses tell us nothing in regard to the essences of things; sensation simply represents the way in which objects affect the individual here and now. The senses are equally unable to give any information in regard to