; of the sovereignty of the ruler (_rex major
populo; plenitudo potestatis_), and of popular sovereignty[3] (_populus
major principe_); of the original and inalienable prerogatives of the
generality, and the innate and indestructible right of the individual to
freedom; the thought that the sovereign power is superior to positive
law _(princeps legibus solutus_), but subordinate to natural law; even
tendencies toward the division of powers (legislative and executive),
and the representative system. These are germs which, at the fall of
Scholasticism and the ecclesiastical reformation, gain light and air for
free development.

[Footnote 1: Gierke, _Johannes Althusius und die Entwickelung der
naturrechtlichen Staatstheorien_, Breslau, 1880; the same, _Deutsches
Genossenschaftsrecht_, vol. iii. Sec. II, Berlin, 1881. Cf. further, Sigm.
Riezler, _Die literarischen Widersacher der Paepste_, Leipsic, 1874; A.
Franck, _Reformateurs et Publicistes de L'Europe_, Paris, 1864.]

[Footnote 2: Nicolas' political ideas are discussed by T. Stumpf, Cologne,
1865.]

[Footnote 3: Cf. F. von Bezold, _Die Lehre von der Volkssouveraenitaet im
Mittelalter_, (Sybel's _Historische Zeitschrift_, vol. xxxvi., 1876).]

The modern theory of natural law, of which Grotius was the most influential
representative, began with Bodin and Althusius. The former conceives
the contract by which the state is founded as an act of unconditional
submission on the part of the community to the ruler, the latter conceives
it merely as the issue of a (revocable) commission: in the view of the one,
the sovereignty of the people is entirely alienated, "transferred," in that
of the other, administrative authority alone is granted, "conceded," while
the sovereign prerogatives remain with the people. Bodin is the founder
of the theory of absolutism, to which Grotius and the school of Pufendorf
adhere, though in a more moderate form, and which Hobbes develops to the
last extreme. Althusius, on the other hand, by his systematic development
of the doctrine of social contract and the inalienable sovereignty of the
people, became the forerunner of Locke[1] and Rousseau.

[Footnote 1: Ulrich Huber (1674) may be called the first representative
of constitutionalism, and so the intermediate link between Althusius and
Locke. Cf. Gierke, _Althusius_, p. 290.]

The first independent political philosopher of the modern period was
Nicolo Machiavelli of Florence (1469-1527). Patrio