AUTHORITY
141
AUTHORIZED
better. Rousseau's theory contemplates "a people
of gods", so he assures us. Such a people would
scarce require any government. The ideal, sylvan
creatures whom his imagination brings together to
form the Social Contract, if not all verj' intelligent,
may be supposed to be all good listeners \o intelligent
teaching, and thus Intelligence will govern the
majority, and the vote of the majority will be an
ideally Real Will. Government is an easy matter
on such optimistic presuppositions. The eye, how-
ever, glances back upon Hobbes's ruffian primeval,
"brutish and nasty". Hobbes's view of human
nature must check that of Rousseau. Both views
are extreme, and the truth lies between them. The
democratic rule of a numerical majority is not of
universal application. One has to consider the
character of the people, and peoples vary. If in one
age or place the people approximate to the character
of "a people of gods", or angels, in another countrj'
or another time they may be more like devils.
"Force, devoid of counsel, of its own bulk comes to
a crash", says Horace (Odes, III, 4). That is the
danger of the General Will. Rousseau, with Hobbes
to guide him, starts from a false supposition, that the
natural state of man is savage soHtude, not civil
society; he proceeds through the false medium of the
"Social Contract", false because society is not a
thing of convention; false again, because out of all
keeping with the evidence of history; and he is
apt to end in the tyranny of a brute majority, tramp-
ling upon the rights and consciences of individuals;
or again in anarchy, his disciples putting too literal
a construction upon the promise that henceforth no
man shall obey any other than himself.
The doctrines of Rousseau have not escaped the censure of the Church. Rousseau may be recognized in the following propositions, condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX: "The State is the source and origin of all rights, and its rights are unlimited" (n. 39): "Authority is nothing else than numbers, and a sum of material forces" (n. 60): "It is allowable to refuse obedience to lawful princes, and even to rebel against them" (n. 63). Leo XIII, not con- tent with condemning, teaches positive doctrine against Rousseau, to wit: the Aristotelean and Thomist doctrine already stated. Thus the Ency- clical "Immortale Dei", of November, ISS.i: "Man's natural instinct moves him to live in civQ society; for he can not, if dwelling apart, provide himself with the necessarj- requirements of life, nor procure the means of developing his faculties. Hence it is Divinely ordained that he should be bom into the society and company of men, as weU domestic as civil. Only civil society can ensure perfect self- sufficiency of life [an Aristotelean term]. But since no society can hold together unless there be some one over all, impelling individuals efficaciously and harmoniously to one common purpose, a ruling au- thority becomes a necessity for e\ery civil common- wealth of men; and this authority, no less than society itself, is natural, and therefore has God for its atithor. Hence it follows that public power of itself cannot be otherwise than of God."
In the theory of Hobbes and Rousseau, Authority is the outcome of contract, not between people and prince, but of everj' man with everj- otiier man to relinquish solitude and its rights, and live in civil society. Rousseau is instant in pronouncing that be- tween people and prince there can be no contract, but the prince is a tenant at will, who may be turned out of doors, with or without reason, any day that the Sovereign People assemble to vote upon him. But there is another theory of contract, centuries older than Hobbes, a theory greatly cherished by Locke and the Englisli Whigs, who found in it the justification of the expulsion of James II in 1688. In this theory, the contract is said to lie between the
people and their ruler; the ruler is to be obeyed so
long as he fulfils certain conditions, known as "the
constitution". If he violates the constitution, he
forfeits his authority and the people may cast him
out. Thus ruler and subject are two "high contract-
ing parties ". The ruler has no superiority of status,
but of contract only. On tliis it is to be observed,
first, that such a contract lies not in the nature of
things, and therefore is not to be taken for granted;
but evidence in each particular case should be forth-
coming of the contract having been made on those
terms as a fact of history. Secondly, this asserted
contract labours under the inconvenience that Job
declared of old: "... in judgment. There is none
that may be able to reprove both, and to put his hand
between both" (Job, ix, 32, 33). The contract can-
not be enforced at law, for lack of a judge; in case
of dispute, ^ch party pronounces in his own favour,
and they are like to fight it out. The result is civil
war, as between Charles I and his Parliament. But
really ruler and subjects are not two "high contract-
ing parties", as two nations are. The theorj- is
prejudicial to the unity of the State, and countenances
revolution. The theory was brought up to meet that
delicate inquiry, "What is to be done when Gov-
ernment abuses its authority?" On which see
"Moral Philosophy" (Stonyhurst Series), 338-343.
Xewmak, Aristotle. Politics, (Clarendon Press, Oxford; there is a translation also by Weldon) I; St. Thom.*.s, De Regimine Principum, I; Leo XIII, Encyclicnls: Latin, five volumes (Totjrnai); English, The Pope and the People, SeUct Letters on Social Questions (New York); Sn.tREZ, Defensio Fidei. III. i, ii, iii: R. W. and .K. T. Carlyi,e, Medieval Political Theorv in the West (London); Gierke. Political Theories of the Middle Age, tr. by Maitland (Cambridge); Rickabv. Political and Moral Essays, The Origin and Extent of Civil Authority; Hobbes, Leviathan (Cambridge University Press); Rousseau, Le control social (London); Locke, Of Civil Government; Green, Principles of Political Obligation (London and New York); Bosanquet, Philosophical Theory of the State (London and New York).
Joseph Rickaby. Authority, Ecclesiastical. See Church; Pope;
HlER.\JlCHY.
Authority, Paternal. See Obedien-ce; Par- ents.
Authorized Version, The, name given to the English translation of the Bible produced by the Commission appointed by James I, and in conse- quence often spoken of as "King James's Bible". It is in general use among English-speaking non- Catholics. In order to understand its origin and history, a brief survey is necessary of the earlier English translations of the Scriptures. From ver;,' early times portions of the Bible have been trans- lated into English. It is well known that Venerable Bede was finishing a translation of St. John's Gospel on his death-bed. But the history of the English Bible as a whole does not go back nearly so far; it dates from the so-called Wyclif Version, believed to have been completed about the year 1380. The translation was made from the Vulgate as it then existed, that is before the Sixtine and Clementine revisions, and was well and accurately done. \\>- bot Gasquet contends confidently (The Old Englisli Bible, 102 sqq.) that it was in reality of Catholic origin, and not due to Wyclif at all; at any rate it seems fairly certain that he had no share in any part of it except the Gospels, even if he had in these; and there is evidence that copies of the whole were in the liands of good Catholics, and were read by them. The version, however, undoubtedly derived its chief importance from the use made of it l)y Wyclif and the Lollards, and it is in this connexion that it is chiefly remembered. During the progress of the Reformation a number of Englisli version.-i appeared, translated for the most part not from the Vulgate, but from the original Hebrew and Greek.
