MAN-MADE SYSTEM
I. Primitive Age
ANTHROPOLOGY does not support the view that man ever
lived a solitary life like the tiger or the lion. He was weak and defenceless against the
powerful beasts that roamed about him. He could survive only through some form of group
life. A band of men could survive under conditions in which a single individual had no
chance, so early men naturally lived in groups. Some form of social Organisation is
necessary for group life. Men can co-operate with each other only at the cost of their
egoistic impulses. The dictates of group life invade individual liberty. The first social
ties came from blood relationship. The groups were almost overgrown families. The
authority exercised by the father passed into the hands of the patriarch,
the head of the
tribe. Custom regulated the conduct of the members, of this group. Primitive man believed
that the customs of his tribe were unchangeable and inviolable. Patriarchal authority and
rigid customs protected the social order and were an effective check to all kinds of
anti-social activities in which individuals might be tempted to engage. However, a new
authority enlarged in the group—this was the priest. His supremacy was founded on his
expert knowledge of the religious ritual, and of correct behaviour in the temple and on
solemn occasions. Ritual had gradually become very complex, and the patriarch had to place
it in the charge of a professional man. Superstitious, a factor to be reckoned with in
primitive life, lent powerful support to the authority of the priest. In a changing world
no form of social organisation can be permanent. The tribal organisation dissolved giving
place to a purely political organisation. The Raja or King supplanted the patriarch. He
was usually a man who had organised a military force which had enabled him to extend his
dominion over several tribes. The political system that arose was composed of different
tribes. A consequence of this change was that the hold of tribal customs on man was
considerably weakened. People saw their fellow-citizens observing different customs, and
hence any particular custom could no longer be regarded as sacred and inviolable. The
social order had now to be maintained by physical force. If the king was powerful, he
usually succeeded in this task and held the straggling group together He usually relied on
officials whom he had personally appointed. The new social order, however, could not be as
stable as the tribal order which was based on blood-ties and time-honoured customs. Men
could not be held in check for long by mere brute force. Risings and rebellions often
shook the king's authority. In this predicament he sought for an ally and such an ally was
close at hand. The priest also had vested interests which he was not willing to
relinquish. Any social or political upheaval would endanger the vested interests of both
the king and the priest. The result was that the king and the priest made common cause,
and each gave the other mutual support. The king bolstered the power of the priests in the
religious domain and took steps to protect the interests of the sacerdotal order. The
grateful priest cloaked the king with sanctity and awe. The obedience of the people was
now enforced both by force and superstition.
II. Struggles Between the
Rulers and the Subjects
There is something in man which chafes at
external compulsion. In the heart of man the flame of freedom may sometimes
flicker, but is never extinguished. The patience of man is not inexhaustible, and
subjected to the double tyranny of priest, and king, he became more and more discontented.
He longed for intellectual as well as political freedom. It was not long before he rose
against the hold of the priest and the authority of the king. History has recorded the
long drawn out and sanguinary struggle of the masses to regain their freedom and
over-throw both spiritual and political yokes. The participants in this struggle could be
identified as:
1. The rulers, temporal and spiritual, who strove hard for the status
quo.
2. Ambitious elements who tried to carve a slice of their
own.
3. Common people who tried again and again to, throw off their
oppressing weights.
4. A few men of reflective type of mind who set themselves to
the more difficult task of devising a political system which would reconcile authority
with individual freedom. They wanted to protect the social order as, above all, they
feared political chaos ; but they also wanted the individual to enjoy the freedom which is
his birth right.
Full of interest is the history of man's attempts to
devise a socio-political system which would concede man's basic human rights and at the
same time would place social order on a secure basis. One such attempt was made by the
Christian priest. They evolved a system which is known as Theocracy. It did not go very
well, mainly because of the fanatical and oppressive demands it made on human liberties.
It was a tyranny sanctioned by religion. It was done in the name of Christianity, although
Christianity claimed to stand only for the "spiritual" freedom of man. In the
words of Viscount Samuel :
It (Christianity) has supported the doctrine of
the 'Divine Right of Kings' and must bear responsibility for all the evil consequences of
that doctrine in the history of Europe. 1
III. Might is Right
The doctrine that might is right also had its
advocates. It was defended by specious arguments. It was said that a social order which
had not the support of the powerful, could not last long. Throughout human history, those
who had power had ruled over the weak. To make the mighty and the weak equal is to fly in
the face of nature, argued the opponents of Right. Reasonable men have always found this
doctrine of Might revolting and humiliating.
IV. Theory of Contract
The doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings was
challenged by some great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth. centuries. Hobbes,
Locke, Rousseau and others developed a rival theory to account for the rise of kingship
and to justify the king's claim to the obedience of his Subjects. The theory of social
contract is based on a myth. It is supposed that, at first, there was no restraint placed
on man's action. Law and order did not exist and men had no conception of rights and
duties. The law of the jungle prevailed and every man fought for his own interest. This
condition of lawlessness soon became intolerable. The sense of insecurity became too
painful. Even the strong man was assailed by the fear that a stronger one might come any
time and deprive him of his possessions. Men eventually came together and agreed to pay
any price for social security. They agreed to relinquish their freedom and put themselves
under the absolute authority of a king. The king's duty was to enforce the laws and see
that no injustice was done to any of his subjects. The king's right to rule had,
therefore, its source in the consent of the people. That consent might be withdrawn if the
king failed to discharge the duty assigned to him. Kingship, thus, came to be regarded as
a man-made institution. Popular will had made him the king and popular will might dethrone
him.
The theory of social contract was not, however, based on a conscious
historical fact. Nevertheless, it was ingenious in its own way. It divested kingship of
its celestial power and made the general will of the people the source of authority. The
way was thus paved for the advent of democracy.
With the rise of democracy, the problem of sovereignty came to the
fore. To whom does sovereignty belong ? Different answers were given but they all agree in
vesting it in the people. Rousseau maintained that sovereignty belonged to people as a
whole. Locke held that it belonged to the majority of the people. Karl Marx vests it in
those who control the means of production. Capitalism vests sovereignty in the capitalist
class while Socialism vests it in the labouring class.
V. Democracy
Democracy is now generally regarded as the best
form of government. It developed chiefly in the West, but people in Asia and Africa also
regard it as the last word in political wisdom. Let us examine its claims carefully and
see how far the praise showered upon it is justified. Democracy has been defined as the
government of the people, by the people, for the people. It is chiefly the second factor
in this definition that calls for comment here. It means that in a democratic state there
is no distinction between the rulers and the ruled. The people are supposed to rule
themselves. They cannot do so directly, so they elect their representatives. These
representatives, in turn, select the ministers who actually run the government. The laws
and policies of the state and the principal measures adopted by the government do indeed
reflect the will of the people, not of the whole people but of the majority of them.
This in brief is democracy. There is no doubt that this is the best
system man has been able so far to evolve for himself. The basic concept on which
it rests, namely, that nobody has a right to rule over another, is ideal. But the point is
whether it has achieved, or is capable of the achieving the aim it has laid before it. The
West has been the cradle of democracy, so we may ask what the thinkers there have to say
about it.
VI. Democracy’s
Failure
In his book The Crisis of Civilisation, Professor
Alfred Cobban of London University, discussing the causes of the decline of Western
civilisation, says :
Considering politics in terms of actual facts and not of
abstract theories, it must be acknowledged that the identification of ruler and the ruled,
assumed in the theory of the sovereignty of people, is a practical impossibility. The
government is one set of people and the governed another. Once society has developed
beyond the smallest and the most primitive communities, they never have been and never can
be the same. The pretence that they are can only lead to the worst excesses of power in
the state (p. 68).
Professor A. C. Ewing of Cambridge University has
discussed democracy in his book The Individual, the State and World Government. The
following quotation from the book shows the trend of his thought:
Had Rousseau written now, and not, as lie
did, prior to any experience of democracy in the modern world, he could not
have been so optimistic
(p. 116).
A similar view has been expressed by another thinker,
Rene Guenon, in his book The Crisis of the Modern World. The relevant passage,
though long, (reserves to be quoted in full :
If the word ‘democracy’ is defined as
the government of the people by themselves, it expresses an absolute impossibility and
cannot even have a mere de facto existence in our time any more than in any other.
It is contradictory to say that the same persons can be, at the same time, rulers and
ruled, because, to use the Aristotelian phraseology, the same being cannot be `in
act’ and 'in potency' at the same time and in the same circle of relations. The
relationship of the ruler and ruled necessitates the joint presence of two terms ; there
could be no ruled if there were not also rulers, even though those be illegitimate
and have no other title to power than their own pretensions ; but the great ability of
those who are in control in the modern world lies in making the people believe that they
are governing themselves, and the people are the more inclined to believe this as they are
flattered by it and as they are in any case, incapable of sufficient reflection to
see its impossibility. It was to create this illusion that 'universal suffrage' was
invented. The law is supposed to be made by the opinion of the majority but what is
overlooked is that this opinion is something that can very easily be guided and modified;
it is always possible by means of suitable suggestions to arouse in it currents moving in
this or that direction as desired. 2
All these writers have taken pains to show that the belief that in
democracy sovereignty or the absolute and unrestricted right of law-making belongs to the
people, has no basis in fact. It has been supposed that the law enacted by the majority
vote of the representatives of the people embodies the unanimous decision of all the
citizens of the state and that, therefore, it is based on justice. This assumption is the
chief cause of the decline of democracy in the present day. This view has been supported
by Meneken, as the passage given below shows.
Under all such failures there is a greater one :
the failure of man, the most social of all the higher animals and by far the most
intelligent, to provide himself with anything, even remotely described as good government.
He has made many attempts in that direction, some of them very ingenious and others
sublimely heroic, but they have always come to grief in the execution. The reason surely
is not occult ; it is to be found in the abysmal difference between what Government is in
theory and what it is in fact. In theory it is simply a device for supplying a variable
series of common needs, and the men constituting it (as all ranks of them are so fond of
saying) are only public servants ; but in fact, its main purpose is not service at all,
but exploitations 3
He proceeds on :
Of all the varieties of government, it is
probably democracy that has fared worse at the hands of these brethren. Knowing very well
as a cardinal article of their art, how little people in general are moved by rational
ideas and how much by mere hullabaloo, they make common cause with every pressure group
that comes along, and are thus maintained in office by an endless series of public
enemies.4
Arnold J. Toynbee writes (in his recent book, The Present Day
Experiment in Western Civilisation, 1962) :
Democratic parliamentary government is a less
efficient and, therefore, a more wasteful regime than oligarchic parliamentary Government,
and even a parliamentary oligarchy is inefficient and extravagant by comparison with a
well-managed authoritarian regime
(p. 35).
VII. UNO's
Questionnaire
In 1947, UNESCO, the cultural organ of the U.N., set up
a research committee to study and report on the working of the democratic system in
different countries. The Committee invited some great scholars to contribute articles to
the proposed volume on democracy. All shades of opinion were represented in the volume
which was published under the title Democracy in a World of Tensions. "What is
the meaning of democracy?" was the first question that they were asked. Most of the
scholars admitted that the word was vague and its precise sense had not been determined. A
few went so far as to call it "one of the most ambiguous words in current usage"
(p. 460).
The next question asked was, "Is the majority vote always correct,
and a protest against it is a protest against democracy" ? The answers was :
It does not, however, imply that the judgement of the
majority is inerrant ; and it, therefore, allows freedom to minorities to agitate and vote
for the reversal of previous majority decisions (p. 504).
While pointing out its defects we must be fair
and recognise the merits of the democratic system at the same time. The democratic form of
government would pass muster in any comparison with kingship, despotism and theocracy.*
*Theocracy is the worst form of despotism.
Under this system, people are exploited in the name of God. There is no place
for priests in Din.
It is a bold advance on the earlier forms. By asserting equality of all
men, by requiring the state to advance the interests of the people and by enlarging
the area of individual freedom, it has rendered remark able service to humanity. The
criticism levelled against it really applies not to democracy in general, but to its
typical form developed in the West. This form of democracy is based on secularism and,
therefore, suffers from a fatal weakness. It is built on the shifting sands of changing
human interests and beliefs. Because it is not grounded in permanent values, it is at the
mercy of every gust of wind. Secular democracy is in fact a reaction to theocracy which,
directly or indirectly, had disturbed the very basis of peace and freedom in Europe.
Theological disputes continually threatened internal peace. Secularism tried to solve the
problem by excluding morality and religion from the purview of government and making them
matters of private concern of the individual. The unfortunate result was that man in his
political life was left with no stable frame of reference and no objective standard to
guide him. Political decisions could be made not on the basis of any established
principle, but under the influence of passing national mood. "To err is human"
was proved to be too true. Men often judged wrongly and acted wrongly, both collectively
and as individuals. The supposition that people as a whole can never go wrong received
little support in actual practice. Collective wisdom has been as imperfect and fallible as
individual wisdom. The governments that evolved reflected the individual failings.
According to Lord Snell :
Governments are always composed of men who share
the general imperfections of mankind, with the result that they can never be more noble or
more enlightened than are the human beings who administer their laws and shape their
policy.5
Aldous Huxley makes the same point in his book, Science, Liberty and
Peace, when he says :
There has never been a time when too much power
did not corrupt its possessor, and there is absolutely no reason to suppose that in this
respect, the future behaviour of human beings will be in any way different from their
behaviour in the past and at the present time (p. 41).
Objective standards based
on permanent values take a long-term view. Without them man cannot look very far beyond
his immediate selfish interests which may not, in the long run, be to his own best
advantage. His legislative efforts, all by himself, ultimately may not only prove
detrimental to himself but may also alienate him from his surrounding groups.
Social groupings have inevitably led to the division of mankind. Each
group promotes friendship between its members and incites them to take hostile attitude
towards other groups to maintain its own interests. Feuds between tribes used to be bitter
and recurrent. Tribes were later supplanted by national states. Hostility to the outgroup
is as characteristic of nations as it was of tribes. Every nation has feeling of ill-will
and hatred towards its neighbour. The slightest provocation sends them flying at each
other's throats. Prof. Cobban's remarks on this point should be noted :
Nationalism is a feeling which is born out of hatred and lives on
enmity. Nations become aware of themselves by their conflicts with other nations and their
feelings of hostility do not cease with the completion of national unity. No sooner has a
nation asserted its own right to self-determination than it sets about oppressing other
nations that make the same claim. For all these reasons it may be concluded that
nationalism is a very dangerous foundation for a state.6
Fredrick Hertz, the historian of nationalism,
writes as follows in his book Nationality in History and Politics :
History shows that for the greater part the quarrels between several
nations had scarcely any other occasion than that these nations were different
combinations of people and called by different names. To an Englishman, the name of a
Frenchman, Spaniard, or an Italian raises, of course, ideas of hatred and contempt. Yet
the simple name of man, applied properly, never fails to work a salutary effect (p. 328).
In his book, New Hopes for a Changing World, Bertrand Russell
has expressed the view that in the present age, the thing which stands in the way of
social contacts extending beyond the limits of the nation and which, therefore, poses the.
most serious threat to the human race, is the cult of nationalism. We note with surprise
that while Russell condemns nationalism in general, he speaks highly of the nationalism
of. his own people.
There is, however, a fundamental difference between the tribes of the
past and the nations of the present day. Nationalism does not merely indicate a form of
political grouping : it has developed into a cult which arouses in the individual
passionate devotion to his nation and violent antipathy to other nations. It is odd that
the West, which has practically turned its back to religion as not suitable for rational
men, should have espoused the pseudo-religious cult of nationalism. Aldous Huxley’s
comment on this is worth noting:
Nationalism leads to moral ruin, because it
denies universality, denies the existence of a single God, denies the value of the human
being as a human being ; and because at the same time, it affirms exclusiveness,
encourages vanity, pride and self-satisfaction, stimulates hatred and proclaims the
necessity and rightness of war.7
The same writer makes the following remarks at
another place :
Twentieth century political thinking is incredibly primitive. The
notion is personified as a living being, with passions, desires, susceptibilities. The
National Person is superhuman in size and energy, but completely sub-human in morality.
Ordinarily, decent Behaviour cannot be expected of the National Person, who is thought of
as incapable of patience, forbearance, forgiveness and even of common sense and
enlightened self-interest. Men, who in private life believe as reasonable and moral
beings, become transformed as soon as they are acting as representatives of a National
Person, into the likeness of their stupid, hysterical and insanely touchy tribal divinity.
This being so, there is little to be hoped for at the present time, from genera
international conferences. 8
A thought-provoking passage by Adam de Hegedus is
quoted below :
At the bottom of these two wars, there was the same anarchic division
of the world into sovereign independent nation states, which by their very nature, are
forced to compete and conflict with each other and are unable to create a mutually healthy
economic organisation. The worst feature of this situation is not so much the recurrence
of war as the absence of peace.9
VIII. Patriotism
Nationalism has implanted in the mind of man the belief
that patriotism is the noblest and highest virtue. The slogan of the patriots is.:
"My, country, right or wrong." Rumelin, Chancellor of Tubingen University, wrote
(in 1875) that :
The state is autarchic. Self regard is its
appointed duty ; the maintenance and development of its own power and well-being.
Egoism—if you call this egoism—is the supreme principle of all politics. The
State can only have regard to the interest of any other State so far as this can be
identified with its own interests. Self devotion is the principle for the individual ;
self assertion for the State. The maintenance of the State justifies every sacrifice, and
is superior to every moral rule.10
Rumelin is brutally frank, but Lord Grey
has expressed the same sentiment in milder language:
I am a great lover of morality, public and private ; but the
intercourse of nations cannot be strictly regulated by that rule.11
While Burke was denouncing the
Revolution, Walpole wrote :
No great country was ever saved by good men, because good men will not
go to the lengths that may be necessary.12
Prof. C.E.M. Joad makes the following
observations :
The practical effect of idealist theory in its bearing upon the
relations between States is, therefore, to create a double standard of morality. There is
one system of morals for the individual and another for the State so that men who, in
private life, are humane, honest and trust-worthy, believe that, when they have dealings
on the State's behalf with the representatives of other States, they are justified in
behaving in ways of which as private individuals, they would be heartily ashamed.13
Cavour has given this view in nut-shell :
If we did for ourselves what we do for our country, what
rascals we should be.14
The general acceptance by the West of the creed
of nationalism has had three unfortunate results :
1. Humanity has divided into a number of Nation States with
conflicting interests.
2. A powerful nation was tempted to exploit the weaker nations
on the pretext of safeguarding its interests.
3. The absence of moral restraint turned the world, as Wakeman has rightly
observed, "into an arena of beasts, with only one principle in view, that- is, might
is right."15
It is in fact the Machiavellian spirit which had
dominated the Western mind in the modern age. The Western rulers have taken to
heart Machiavelli's cynical advice in his Prince :
A prince being thus obliged to know well how to
act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from
traps and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must, therefore, be a fox to
recognise traps, and a lion to frighten wolves. Those that wish to be only lions do not
understand this. Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it
would be against his interest and when the reasons which made him bind himself no
longer exist.16
After mentioning a few good qualities of conduct
he says :
It is not, therefore, necessary for a prince to have all the above
named (good) qualities, but it is very necessary to seem to have them. I would even be
abold to say that to possess them and always to observe them is dangerous, but to appear
to possess them is useful. Thus it is well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere,
religious and also to be so ; but you must have the mind so disposed that when it is
needful to be otherwise you may be able to change to the opposite qualities. And it must
be understood that a prince, and especially a new prince, cannot observe all those things
which are considered good in men, being often obliged, in order to maintain the
State, to act against faith, against charity, against humanity, and against religion. And,
therefore, he must have a mind disposed to adapt itself according to the wind, and as the
variations of fortune dictate, and as I said before, not deviate from what is good, if
possible, but be able to do evil if constrained.17
No apology is needed for quoting at such length
from the book as it is well known that the Prince has been the Bible of Western
politicians and rulers ever since it was written. It was the constant companion of Charles
V, his son and his courtiers. Thomas Cromwell brought a copy from Italy and kept it under
his pillow when he went to bed. Catherine de Medici, the daughter of the prince to whom
the book was dedicated, brought it to France and her political views were deeply
influenced by it. Her son, Henry III, always carried it in his pocket. When he was
murdered, it was found on his person. The same was the case with Henry IV. Several Popes
and kings admired it and approved of its political philosophy. Frederick who invariably
acted on its principles in his dealings with other rulers, wrote in his Political
Testament as follows :
The great matter is to conceal one's designs and to cover tip one's
character ......Policy consists rather in profiting by favourable conjunctures than in
preparing them advance. This is why I counsel you not to make treaties depending on
uncertain events, and to keep your hands free. For then you can make your decision
according to time and place, and the conditions of your affairs, in a word, according as
your interest requires of you.18
Politicians who follow Machiavelli believe that
moral rules are not binding on them. They reject moral considerations as irrelevant to
political affairs. Even in the present age there are many enthusiastic followers of
Machiavelli. John F. Kennedy (in his book, Profiles In Courage,, 1963)
quotes Frank Kant, saying :
Probably the most important single accomplishment for the political
ambitious is the fine art of seeming to say something without doing so...... The important
thing is not to be on the right side of the current issue but on the popular side . . . .
regardless of your own conviction or of the facts. The business of getting the votes is a
several practical one into which matters of morality, of right and wrong, would not be
allowed to intrude (p. 8).
Kennedy continues :
But this is no real problem, some one will say.
Always do what is right, regardless of whether it is popular. Ignore the pressure, the
temptation, the false compromises. That is an easy answer-but it is easy only for
those who do not bear the responsibilities of elected office (p. 11).
Machiavelli's views cannot,
therefore, be dismissed as obsolete.
IX. Western Thinkers
No social group is free from inner conflicts. The main
source of all conflicts is the clash of interest among the members of the same group or
between different groups. No political system has, so far, been devised that eliminates
internal conflict. Democracy is no exception. It has even intensified internal stresses
and in the international sphere has given an impetus to power politics. Nevertheless,
modern thinkers have not lost faith in democracy and believe that its defects are
not, irremediable. Let us see what remedies they have suggested.
Democracy is based on two fundamental suppositions. The first
supposition is that sovereignty is vested in the people and the second is that decisions
arrived at by majority vote are always right. Prof. Cobban's remarks on the basis of
democracy are worthy of careful consideration :
The traditional justification for the sovereignty
of the people is that the government must be founded on either force or consent, and that
since force cannot make right, rightful government must be based on consent. But this is
neither logical nor is it true. The fact that a million people consent to an act which is
wrong, does not make it any the less wrong. If words have any meaning, the rightfulness of
any government's authority depends on its objects and on the way in which it is exercised.
A will ought to prevail only if it is a good will; but this is dependent not upon whose
will it is but upon its content.19
X. Moral Standard
Prof. Cobban has proposed "Moral values" as
the standard for judging right and wrong, instead of the majority vote. Locke calls it an
"immutable"- or Natural law." We quote from Mabbott :
There is an immutable law governing the
just relations between man and man, independently of any society or state to which they
may belong. This natural law would serve like natural rights as a limitation on the
absolute rule of governments, however constituted and whatever other ends they may pursue.
20
XI. Locke's Mistake
Locke put his trust in Natural Law, to guide aright. He
argued that people followed the Natural Law as long as they lived naturally and were
without culture and civilisation. At this time reason was their guide and not sentiment.
Later on, they were guided by Sentiment and ceased to live in accordance With the Natural
Law. The revival and enforcement of Natural Law was what society needed now. But when we
ask how this Natural Law can be discovered, Locke refers us to the "will of the
majority." Here he seems to be arguing in a circle. The decision of the majority is
right if it conforms to the Natural Law, and the Natural Law is manifested only in the
will of the majority. Natural Law cannot, therefore, serve as an objective standard for
judging the actions of, a nation. When Locke sees a government acting unjustly he cries
out a government has no right to thrust its will on the people; it must conform to the
immutable law of nature. "However, when he is asked to specify the source. of the
Natural Law, he can think of nothing better than the will of the majority. This looks like
"seeking protection from rain by standing under the roof-gutter." The result was
just the reverse of what he thought. His idea was to free mankind from the shackles of
ever-changing man-made laws but his theory of Natural Law culminated in the modern Secular
State. No doubt in the first instance, "the Schoolmen joined this theory to Christian
theology by giving it a bias in Divine Will and thereby implanted it firmly in medieval
political thought."21 Subsequently, however, "the task accomplished
by the early modernisers of natural law theory in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
and especially Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf , was almost the reverse. " By
extracting God from natural law they made it the foundation of the modern secular
constitutional State. They constructed. a theory of natural law that would "carry
conviction in an age in which theological controversy was gradually losing the power to do
so," thereby making the "existence of God perfectly superfluous to the.
doctrine."22
XII. Higher Law
The general trend amongst modern thinkers in the West
now is that it is wrong to accept the majority, decision as right, in all circumstances.
We need an objective standard for judging human actions. For Locke it was Natural Law.
Cobban calls it the moral standard. .The Italian patriot, Mazzini, however, puts it in a
more definite shape when he says that the principle of universal suffrage was a good thing
inasmuch as it provides a lawful method for a people for guarding against forces of
destruction and continuing their own government. However, in a people who have no common
beliefs, all that democracy can do is to safeguard the interests of the majority and keep
the minority subdued. We can, he adds, be subject to God or to man, one man or more than
one. If there be no superior authority over man, what is there to save us from the
subjugation of powerful individuals? Unless we have some sacred and immutable law, which
is not man-made, we can have no standard for discriminating between right and
wrong. A government based on laws other than God's Will, he continues, produces the
same result whether it be a despotic or a revolutionary one. Without God, whosoever be in
authority will be a despot.. Unless a government conforms to God's Law, it has no right to
govern. The purpose of government is to enforce God’s will if a government fails in
its purpose, then it is your right and duty to try for and bring about a change. 23
The idea of a "higher law" is not newly born. The ancient
Greeks, among them Sopheeles, Heraclitus, Plato and Aristotle., contributed much to the
emergence and development of the concept of a Divinely inspired, universal, immutable and
eternal natural law. They wrote for example, that "all human laws are sustained by
the one Divine Law, which is infinitely strong and suffices, and more than suffices, for
them all" (Heraclitus). Plato's theory of human law as an imperfect replica of an
ideal form that exists only in the world of ideas, is another expression of much the same
view. For Plato, and Greeks general, the law of nature was no more than a basis of
comparison—an intellectual standard and—did not serve as a means for concrete
juridical decisions. As stated by Corwin' "Aristotle was led to identify the rational
with the general in human laws." Putting the question in his Politics whether
the rule of law or the rule of an individual is preferable, he answers his own enquiry in
no uncertain terms. "To invest the law then with authority is, it seems, to invest
God and reason only; to invest a man is to introduce a beast as desire is something
bestial, and even the best of men in authority are liable to be corrupted by passion. We
may conclude then that the law is reason without passion and it is, therefore, preferable
to any individual."25
It remained, however, for the Stoics in Greece after 300 B. C., and
later in Rome to erect on this philosophical base an authentic natural law theory.
Bracton, a judge of the King's Bench in the reign of Henry III, prepared a monumental work
based on the study of Roman law. We find the following passage in his treatise which
explains the view-point of the Romans in respect of law. It says:
The King himself ought not to be subject to man
but subject to God and to the law, for the law makes the King. Let the King then attribute
to the law what the law attributes to him, namely dominion and power for there is no King
where the will and not the law has dominated.26
The point has, however, been stated very lucidly
by Cicero, the great Roman jurist and orator, in a passage in the Republic which runs
as follows:
There is in fact a true Law—namely right reason—which is in
accordance with nature, applies to all men, and is unchangeable and eternal. By its
commands, this law summons men to the performance of their duties; by its prohibitions it
restrains them from doing wrong. . . . . To invalidate this law by human legislation is
never morally right, nor is it permissible ever to restrict its operation, and to annul it
is impossible. Neither the Senate nor the people can absolve us from obligation to
obey this law, and it requires no Sextus Aleius to expound or interpret it. It will not
lay one rule at Rome and another at Athens, nor will it be one rule today and another
tomorrow. But there will be one law, eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times upon
all people; and there will be, as it were, one common master and ruler of men, namely God,
who is the author of this law, its interpreter and its sponsor. The man who will not obey
it will abandon his better self, and, in denying the true nature of man will thereby
suffer the severest of penalties, though he has escaped all the other consequences which
men call punishment.27
XIII. Modern Man in Search of Light
After centuries of unsuccessful experiments with
man-made laws, modern man is still in search of the kind of laws which Cicero had so
vehemently yearned for. The problem is where to find such laws—they are eternal,
unchangeable, immutable, inviolable—applicable to all and at all times. The source
would have to be supra-human, i.e., the laws given by God Himself. The West had naturally
to seek the help of religion to ascertain such laws. They tried Christianity, but there
was no response. Christianity has no laws to give, and it is all other-worldly. In the
words of Joad:
Christianity places man’s true life not in
this world but in the next. While the next world is wholly good this world is conceived to
be, at least to some extent, evil; while the next life is eternal, life on earth is
transitory. For man's life hereafter, this, his present existence, is to be regarded as a
preparation and a training; and its excellence consists in the thoroughness and efficiency
with which the training is carried out. Nothing on the earth is wholly and absolutely
good, and such goods as earthly life contains are good only as a means to greater goods
which are promised hereafter.28
The Spanish scholar, Dr. Falta de Gracia, writes:
The notion of justice is as entirely foreign to the
spirit of Christianity as is that of intellectual honesty. It lies wholly outside the
field of its ethical vision.29
Prof. A.N. Whitehead writes:
As society is now constituted, a literal
adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.30
Dorsey, the historian of civilisation, has
asserted that today millions of people feel that Christianity is the religion of the
defeated. They accept the religion but admit solemnly its defeatist spirit. Nothing is
satisfactory in life, they argue. "Desire for satisfaction is wrong and satisfaction
of wrong desires is sin" is a slogan which makes a true and healthy life impossible.
It destroys humanity." The German humanist, Gerhard Szezesny, sees Christianity as a
desert people's creed, basically incompatible in its dualistic world-view with philosophy
and science, and a brake on their progress for two thousand years. 32
XIV. Declaration of Human Rights
The same is the case with other religious, both in the
East and the West. It is in fact fertile to seek in religion the laws of God for standard
of absolute right and wrong. Religion itself is man-made. In these, circumstances, the
modern man, a frustrated, helpless pitiable soul, had perforce to seek objective standards
outside the field of religion. He turned for help to the United Nations Organisation. The
U.N.O, appointed a Commission to state and define the fundamental rights of man. On the
basis of the recommendations of the Commission, the U.N.O., published, in 1048, its famous
Declaration of Human Rights. This document listed the basic fundamental human rights. The
U.N.O., asked its member states to guarantee them to all their subjects and to regard them
as sacred and inviolable. The Declaration was hailed as the biggest achievement of the
modern age. It was hoped that governments all over the world would, in future., desist
from encroaching on these rights of man. This hope, unfortunately, has not been fulfilled.
UNESCO, an organ of the U.N.O., had circulated a questionnaire on the draft of the
proposed Declaration. The answers to the questionnaire have been published with an
introduction by Jacques Maritain. His view I shat "rights, being human, should have
some limits imposed on them and be regarded as liable to amendments and change" (p.
15). John Lewis, the editor of the Modern Quarterly, London is equally outspoken in his
criticism of the Declaration. He writes that it is mere fiction that "Human
Rights" area absolute, or are inherent in human nature and came into being before man
began living in organised society. (p. 51). Gerard, a professor in the University of
Chicago, writes that the Declaration is an attempt to determine the proper relationship
between man and society and the "Rights" cannot be viewed as unalterable for all
times to come (p. 20).
XV. Search of Permanent Values
Such criticism has considerably dampened our enthusiasm
for the Declaration. The conviction that man possesses certain inalienable rights does not
seem to be justified. If men possessed a common philosophy of life they might be expected
to respect the ``rights" which that philosophy supports, In the absence of such a
philosophy, there is no guarantee that the rights affirmed by one school of thought would
be accepted by other schools of thought. The first condition to be fulfilled is an agreed
system of values. Prof. Joad makes this clear :
I suggested that the good life for the individual
consists in the pursuit of certain absolute values. If I am right, if, that is to say, it
is by the pursuit of values that a man develops his personality, we may add that the
object of the State is to establish those conditions in which the individual can pursue
absolute values and to encourage him in their pursuit. We are thus enabled to establish a
principle of progress in society, which is also a standard of measurement whereby to
assess the relative worths of different societies.33
Our first task therefore is to determine the
nature of absolute values. We will then see that it is the duty of the state to provide
conditions in which men can freely pursue them. Human Rights will then be brought into a
significant relationship to the pursuit of values and will be regarded as arbitrary. This
task has not yet been undertaken. Let us see if Islam can help on this.
References
1 Viscount Samuel, Belief And Action, p, 39.
2. Quoted by A.C. Ewing, in The Individual, The State and World Government, pp.
106-109.
3. H.C. Meneken, The Treatise on Right and Wrong, p. 234.
4. Ibid., p. 35.
5. Lord Snell, The New World, p. 17.
6. Alfred Cobban, op. cit., p. 166.
7. Aldous Huxley, Science, Liberty and Peace, p. 34.
8. Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means, p. 40.
9. Adam de Hegedus, The State of the World, p 11.
10. Quoted by R. H. Murray, in The individual and The State, p. 216.
11. Quoted by L.S. Stebbing, in Ideals and Illusions, p. 13.
12. lbid., p. 14.
13. C. E. M. Joad, Guide to the Philosophy of Morals and Politics, pp. 729-30.
14. Cavour, Foreign Affairs, July 1952.
15. Quoted by Spalding, in Civilisation in East and West.
16. N. Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses, p. 64.
17. Ibid., p. 65.
18. R.H. Murray, op. cit., pp. 209-12.
19. Alfred Cobban, op. cit., p. 76.
20. J.D. Mabbott, The State and the Citizen, p. 23.
21. Constitutions And Constitutionalism, edited by William G. Andrews, p. 17.
22. Ibid.
23. Quoted by Griffith, in Interpreters of Man, p. 46.
24. W.G. Andrews, op. cit., p. 13.
25. Edward S. Corwin, The "Higher Law" of American Constitutional Law, p.8.
26. Ibid., p. 27.
27. W.G, Andrews, op. cit., p. 16.
28. C.E.M. Joad, op. cit., p. 127.
29. Quoted by Robert Briffault, in The Making of Humanity, p. 333.
30. A.N. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 18.
31. George A. Dorsey, Civilisation, p. 446.
32. Gerhard Szezesny, The Future of Unbelief, translated by Edward B. Garside. p.
105.
33. C.E.M. Joad, op. cit., p. 806.
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