A Brief History of Modern Philosophy. Harald Høffding

and the vital principle as identical, and he constantly seeks to combine physiology, as he understands it from the works of Galen, with his psychology. He holds however that, whilst the souls of plants and of animals (the principle of organic life and of sensory experience) evolve from matter, God creates the human soul. The proof of the divine origin of the soul consists of the fact that man is never satisfied with the sensible and finite, but is forever striving to realize the infinite.

      Two years after the appearance of Vives' work, Philip Melanchthon (1495-1560), the reformer and "Preceptor of Gemany," published his Liber de anima, a book which made a profound impression upon Protestantism. He ​follows Aristotle and theology more closely than Vives and his book is therefore of less importance for the history of psychology than that of Vives. Melanchthon's mild conception of human nature, contrasting sharply with that of Luther and the Lutheran zealots, had a wholesome influence however. His theory of the "natural light" shows this clearly: there are a number of ideas implanted in us by God, hence innate (notitiæ nobiscum nascentes), and these form the basis of all thought and of all value-judgments. This "natural light" was darkened by the Fall which necessitated the giving of the law at Sinai. The content of the ten commandments however is the same as the "natural light." It follows therefore that ethics may be founded on human nature (naturalistically). But it is powerless to quicken the life of the spirit and give peace. (Philosophiæ moralis epitome.)

      The doctrine of the natural light was taken up enthusiastically by the Reformed provinces and applied most rigorously, especially with reference to the idea of authority and of the state. John Althaus (Althusius, 1557-1638), the Burgomaster of Emden, made this theory the basis of his idea of popular sovereignty in his Politica methodice digesta (1603). Even before him, Jean Bodin (in La republique, 1577) had conceived and elaborated the idea that sovereignty is indivisible and can exist in but a single place in the state. Althaus now teaches that it always belongs to the people. Rulers come and go, but the people constitute the permanent foundation of the state. They are the source of all authority because it is their welfare that constitutes the cause and purpose of the existence of the state. As a matter of history the sovereignty of the people is revealed in the first place by the fact that in most states there are a number of officers ​exercising governmental control by virtue of their appointment by the people, and, in the second place, by the fact that the people terminate the government of tyrannical princes by revolution. From the viewpoint of philosophy, on the other hand, the theory of popular sovereignty is demonstrated by the fact that either an expressed or tacit contract (pacturn expressurn vel taciturn) underlies the origin and perpetuity of the state; it is by virtue of such contract that the people institute organized society and submit themselves to governmental authority. Athaus therefore maintains that the purpose of this contract can be nothing else than the welfare of the people. He seems to construe this contract more in the form of a directive idea than as an historic fact. The state is simply the most comprehensive community; its antecedents being the narrower circles of the family, the neighborhood and the corporation.

      The appearance of Hugo Grotius’ De Jure belli et pacis (1625) marks an epoch in the sphere of jurisprudence and political theory. Born at Delft in 1583, his great learning in the field of jurisprudence and of theology attracted attention early in life. Politically he belonged to the aristocratic and liberal theological party of Oberbarnevelt. He was rescued from the imprisonment into which he was cast after the fall of Oberbarnevelt by his wife's cunnning. Thereafter he lived in Paris, and finally received the appointment of ambassador to Sweden (1645). Grotius makes war his starting point and requires how it may be abolished. There are four kinds of war between states— between an individual and the state—between different individuals—between the state and the individual. 1. When states declare war they have no right to abrogate the rights of the individual and the obligations of humanity. ​War must be conducted for the sake of peace, and hence not in such a way as to make peace impossible. It is through this principle that Grotius became the founder of the modern theory of popular sovereignty. 2. When the individual declares war against the state it is an act of rebellion, and, in evident opposition to Althaus, Grotius denies the right of the people to revolt. 3. War between individuals, in a well-regulated state, is limited to justifiable self-defense. 4. War of the state against the individual takes the form of punishment. The state's right to punish must not be construed as the right of expiation. Punishment is justified only in case the pain imposed on the individual contains the possibility of greater good both to the individual himself and to the community.—In all of these various contingencies the authority of the law is independent of theological grounds. It proceeds from human nature (ex principiis homini internis). Human beings congregate and are led to organize societies under the influence of a native social impulse (appetitus societatis); but the constitution of society presupposes certain principles of government—above all the inviolability of every promise—and the people therefore pledge themselves to the observance of these rules either by expressed or tacit contract. The obligation to keep promises, according to Grotius, rests upon a primitive promise. In direct opposition to Althaus, Grotius holds that the people—i. e. after they have constituted society on the basis of the primitive contract—can renounce its sovereignty absolutely because it confers it on a prince or corporation. His theory of the relation of the state to religion, on the other hand, is more liberal than that of the strictly confessional Althaus: The only requirement which the state can make ​of its subjects is the acceptance of general religious ideas (the unity of Deity, predestination).

      3. The general religious ideas which Grotius has in mind, and which even Melanchthon accepted, were elaborated by a series of thinkers in more or less direct opposition to the confessional conception. Similar ideas had already been expressed during the period of the older Italian Renaissance (especially in the Platonic Academy at Florence). Jean Bodin (a Frenchman learned in law, d. 1596), previously mentioned, in his remarkable work called the Dialogue of Seven Men (Colloquium Heptaplomeres) describes a conversation between men whose religious viewpoints were widely at variance. Two of the men, defending natural religion—one of them dogmatically, the other more critically—engage in controversy with a Catholic, a Lutheran, a Calvinist, a Jew, and a Mohammedan. According to Bodin, true religion consists in the purified soul turning to God, the infinite essence. This religion can be exercised within any of the various religions, and the seven men therefore separate in charity and peace.

      Bodin’s book was in circulation for a long time in nothing but manuscript copies. In 1624, however, the English diplomat, Herbert of Cherbury, published his book De veritate, which remained the text book of natural religion for a long number of years. Cherbury takes issue with those on the one hand who regard confessional faith as superior to rational knowledge, and seek to inculcate such faith by threats of future punishment, and those on the other hand who pretend to depend wholly on the rational understanding, together with those who would derive everything from sense experience, conceiving the soul as a blank tablet (tabula Rasa). He holds that there ​is an immediate, instinctive sense which guides all men to the acceptance of certain truths (notitiæ communes). This sense is the natural product of the instinct of self-preservation, which is another instance of the operation of divine predestination. The following propositions are instinctive truths of this order: Two contradictory propositions cannot both he true; There is a first cause of all things; No one should do anything towards another which he would be unwilling to suffer in return. According to Cherbury, even natural religion rests on an instinctive foundation, an inner revelation experienced by every human soul. The evidences of this revelation consist of the fact that we have capacities and impulses which finite objects fail to satisfy. The following five propositions contain the essence of all religion: There is a Supreme Being; This Being must be worshipped; The truest worship consists of virtuous living and a pious disposition; Atonement for sin must be made by penitence; There are rewards and punishments after the present life. Questions which go beyond these five propositions need give us no concern.

      Jacob Böhme (1575-1624), the Gorlitz cobbler, and the profoundest religious thinker of this period, does not intend to oppose positive religion, as is the case with Bodin and Cherbury. He means to be a good Lutheran. He simply wishes to furnish a philosophy