EDMUND BURKE AND THE NATURAL LAW

EDMUND BURKE AND THE NATURAL LAW

The destiny of free men may depend largely upon their, ability to understand and choose wisely between the philosophies of Caesar and Cicero, between "the fanatics of popular arbitrary power" and "a manly, moral regulated liberty" based upon constitutional law and Natural Law. Throughout Western history the Natural Law has played a vital role in the dramatic' struggle to preserve and extend the traditions of civil and religious liberty, and men who wish to gain fresh insights into its applied principles will have their faith in liberty renewed by turning to the political writings of Edmund Burke.

APPENDIX I

These quotations should be read not merely as an illustration of the consistency and duration of Natural Law principles; they are vital to an understanding of Burke's political philosophy. I return frequently to the philosophical ideas expressed in these passages on the Natural Law:

ca. 340 BC; Aristotle: Political justice is partly natural, partly legal. Natural justice is that which everywhere has the same force and does not exist by people's thinking this or that (Ethics, v. 7). Particular law is that which each community lays down and applies to its own members. Universal law is the law of nature. For there really is, as everyone to some extent divines, a natural justice and injustice which binds all men (Rhetoric, i, 13)

ca. 54 BC; Cicero: Right reason is indeed a trite law 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 front doing wrong. Its commands and prohibitions always influence good men, but are without effect upon the bad. To invalidate this law by human legislation is never morally right, nor is it permissible ever to restrict its operation, and to annul it wholly is impossible. Neither the senate nor the people can absolve us from our obligation to obey this law .... It will not lay down one rule at Rome and another at Athens, nor will it be one rule today another tomorrow. But there will be one law, eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times upon all peoples; 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 (De republica, iii, 22).

533 A.D., Justinian: Natural laws which are observed among all nations are due to a divine providence. They remain in full force and are immutable (Pandects, I, 2).

ca. 1268, Henry de Bracton: The King himself ought not to be subject to any man, but he ought to be subject to God and the law, since law makes the King. Therefore, let the King render to the law what the law has rendered to the King, vis, dominion and power, for there is no King where will rules and not the law (Tractatus de legibus, f 5b).

1275, St. Thomas Aquinas: Since all things subject to Divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal law ... it is evident that all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, in so far as ... 'from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to Divine providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes, of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others .... This participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law .... Every human law has just so much of the nature oflaw as it is derived from the law of nature. But if at any point it deflects from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law (Summa theologica, 1,2, Q. xci, art. 2; Q. xcv, art. 5).

1593, Richard Hooker: This [natural] law we may name Eternal; being that order which God, before all ages, has set down with Himself to do all things by .... The [natural] laws ... do bind men absolutely even as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, nor any solemn agreement among themselves what to do or not to do .... Human laws are measures in respect of men whose motions they must direct. ... Such measures have also their higher rules to be measured by: which rules are two, the law of God and the Law of Nature. So that laws must be made according to the general law of nature (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, I, ii, 6; I, x, 1; III, 9).

1608, Edward Coke: The Law of Nature was before any judicial or municipal law and is immutable. The Law of Nature is that which God at the time of the creation of the nature of man infused into his heart for his preservation and direction; and this is the Eternal Law, the Moral Law, called also the Law of Nature (Calvin's Case, note 7, Rep. i 2a).

1612, Francis Suarez: The rational basis of the Law of Nations, ... consists in the fact that the human race, howsoever many the, various peoples and kingdoms into which it may be divided, alway, preserves a certain unity, not only as a species, but also, as it were a moral and political unity called for by the natural precept of mutual love and mercy, which applies to all. ... For just as in one, state or province law is introduced by custom, so in the human race; as a whole, it was possible for laws to be introduced by the habitual conduct of nations, and all the more because the matters comprised within this latter system of law are few, and very closely related to the Natural Law, and most easily deduced there from in a manner so advantageous and so in harmony with nature itself, that while this derivation of the raw of nations from Natural Law may not be self-evident, that is, not essentially and absolutely required for moral rectitude, it is nevertheless quite in accord with nature and universally acceptable for its own sake (De legibus ac de Deo legislatore, VoL II, Chap. xix).

1625, Hugo Grotius: The Natural Law is the dictate of right reason which points out that a given act, because of its opposition to or conformity with man's rational nature, is either morally wrong or morally necessary, and accordingly forbidden or commanded by God, the Author of nature .... Many human laws may be established supplementing the Natural Law, but they cannot contradict it (De jure belli et pacis, I, i, 10).

1672, Samuel Pufendorf: We may call it [Natural Law] likewise the law Universal or Perpetual, the former, in regard that it binds the whole Body of the Human Race, the latter, because it is not subject to change (Of the Law of Nature and Nations, Oxford ed. [Oxford, 1703], p. 95). .

1690, John Locke: Municipal laws are only so far right as they are founded on the law of Nature, by which they are to be regulated and interpreted (Second Treatise on Civil Government, chap. 2, sec. 12).

1758, Emmerich de Vattel: As men are subject to the laws of nature and as their union in civil society cannot exempt them from the obligation of observing those laws ... the whole nation remains subject to the laws of nature and is bound to respect them in all its undertakings (Le droit des gens, Int. 5).

1765, William Blackstone: This law of nature, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original (Commentaries on the Laws of England , Chitty ed. [New York, 1832], I, 27-28).

1776, Thomas Jefferson: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness (The Declaration of Independence, p. 1).

Taken from Professor Stanlin's Book of the same title, available at Amazon.com and other on-line book serivces.