and wrong exist only in the state, that the will
of a despot is to determine what is moral and what immoral, has given just
offense. Moreover, this was not, in fact, Hobbes's deepest conviction. Even
without ascribing great importance to isolated statements,[1] it must
be admitted that his doctrine was interpreted more narrowly than it was
intended. He does not say that no moral distinctions whatever exist before
the foundation of the state, but only that the state first supplies a fixed
criterion of the good. Moral ideas have a certain currency before this, but
they lack power to enforce themselves. Further, when he ascribes the origin
of the state to self-interest, this does not mean that reason, conscience,
generosity, and love for our fellows are entirely wanting in the state of
nature, but only that they are not general enough, and, as against the
passions, not strong enough to furnish a foundation for the edifice of the
state. Not only exaggeration in statement but also uncouthness of thought
may be forgiven the representative of a movement which is at once new and
strengthened by the consciousness of agreement with a naturalistic theory
of knowledge and physics; and the vigor of execution compels admiration,
even though many obscurities remain to be deplored _(e. g_., the relation
of the two moral standards, the standard of the reason or natural law and
the standard of positive law). And recognition must be accorded to the
significant kernel of doctrine formed, on the one hand, by the endeavor to
separate ethics from theology, and on the other, by the thoughts--which, it
is true, were not perfectly brought out--that the moral is not founded on
a natural social impulse, but on a law of the reason, and first gains a
definite criterion in society, and that the interests of the individual are
inseparably connected with those of the community. In any case, the
attempt to form a naturalistic theory of the state would be an undertaking
deserving of thanks, even if the promulgation of this theory had done no
further service than to challenge refutation.

[Footnote 1: God inscribed the divine or natural law (Do not that to
another, etc.) on the heart of man, when he gave him the reason to rule his
actions. The laws of nature are, it is true, not always legally binding
(_in foro externo_), but always and everywhere binding on the conscience
(_in foro interno_). Justice is the virtue which we can measure by civil
laws; love,