THE GREAT POLITICAL SUPERSTITION. 297 



One might have expected that utterances to this effect would have 

 been rendered less dogmatic by the knowledge that a whole school 

 of legists on the Continent maintains a belief diametrically opposed 

 to that maintained by the English school. The idea of Natur-reclit 

 is the root-idea of German jurisprudence. Now, whatever may be 

 the opinion held respecting German philosophy at large, it can not be 

 characterized as shallow. A doctrine current among a people distin- 

 guished above all others as laborious inquirers, and certainly not to be 

 classed with superficial thinkers, should not be dismissed as though it 

 were nothing more than a popular delusion. This, however, by the 

 way. Along with the proposition denied in the above quotations, 

 there goes a counter-proposition affirmed. Let us see what it is, and 

 what results when we go behind it and seek its warrant. 



On reverting to Bentham, we find this counter-proposition overtly 

 expressed. He tells us that government fulfills its office " by creating 

 rights, which it confers upon individuals — rights of personal security ; 

 rights of protection for honor ; rights of property " ; etc.* Were 

 this doctrine asserted as following from the divine right of kings, 

 there would be nothing in it manifestly incongruous. Did it come to 

 us from ancient Peru, where the Inca " was the source from which 

 everything flowed "; f or from Shoa (Abyssinia), where "of their 

 persons and worldly substance he [the king] is absolute master"; J 

 or from Dahome, where "all men are slaves to the king" ;* it would 

 be consistent enough. But Bentham, far from being an absolutist 

 like Hobbes, wrote in the interests of popular rule. In his " Consti- 

 tutional Code " II he fixes the sovereignty in the whole people : argu- 

 ing that it is best to " give the sovereign power to the largest possible 

 portion of those whose greatest happiness is the proper and chosen 

 object," because " this proportion is more apt than any other that 

 can be proposed " for achievement of that object. 



Mark, now, what happens when we put these two doctrines to- 

 gether. The sovereign people is to appoint representatives, and so to 

 create a government ; the government thus created, creates rights ; 

 and then, having created these rights, it confers them on the sover- 

 eign people by which it was itself created. Here is a marvelous piece 

 of political legerdemain ! Mr. Matthew Arnold, contending, in the 

 article above quoted, that " property is the creation of law," tells us 

 to beware of the "metaphysical phantom of property in itself." 

 Surely, among metaphysical phantoms the most shadowy is this which 

 supposes a thing to be obtained by creating an agent, which creates 

 the thing, and then confers the thing on its own creator ! 



* Bentham's Works (Bowring's edition), vol. i, p. 301. 

 \ Prescott, " Conquest of Peru," book i, eh. i. 



\ Harris, " Highlands of .Ethiopia," ii, 94. 



* Burton, " Mission to Gclelc, King of Dahomic," i, p. 226. 

 \ Bentham's Works, vol. ix, p. 97. 



