Addressing the fundamental nature of humans should be rudimentary to crafting human institutions. While such a responsible posture might be ideal, most societies emerged without significant planning or thought of what they might become. Human societies muddled through. Small ones very likely remained much the same as when they began and followed their traditions. For many different reasons some societies expanded and adapted to the vicissitudes of their experiences with multiple choices for governance. Small and large societies had in common that their existence and structure occurred without a plan.
By the seventeenth century most European states had developed into something close to being nations. Improved communications and education inspired some thinkers to address the nature of nations more systematically than had been the case since antiquity. Also, a larger number of possibilities for governmental structure emerged as alternatives to monarchy or absolute monarchy. The French bishop, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, who personally served Louos XIV, was probably the most articulate advocate of the divine right of kings. In England Sir Robert Filmer made a weaker case for divine right, but served as a strawman for John Locke’s monumental First and Second Treatise on Civil Government.
Amazing scientific developments in the seventeenth century resulted in the Scientific Revolution that offered new concepts of the universe and the physical laws that governed it. Disagreements among the scientific giants lead to widespread confusion most of that century, but there was agreement that the same order that governed the heavens also governed earth. As with most new major scientific concepts, humanists applied the new science to humans and human institutions. New philosophical concepts abounded.
An Englishman, Thomas Hobbes, published his shocking Leviathan in 1651 in behalf of absolute monarchy, shortly after the execution of Charles I in 1649. He differed by basing his theory upon the Nature of Man in a hypothetical State of Nature, meaning the time before there was any social structure. He stated that, due to the intrincic nature of man, life in the State of Nature was “nasty, brutish and short”. This lead to people joining to form a group to protect their lives. They entered a binding contract to give up their lonely independence to an authority which would provide them the single benefit of protecting them from violent death. That, in Hobbes’ opinion, was the only obligation of government.
Another Englishmen, John Locke, also based his political treatises on the State of Nature, the Nature of Man and Natural Law, but totally disagreed with Hobbes. Writing shortly after the Gloriuos Revolution of 1688, he ignored the difficult arguments of Hobbes and directed his comments toward Filmer’s weaker defense of monarchy as simply fulfilling the role of a beneficient father.
Locke viewed man as basically good in the State of Nature but insecure out of fear for his life, liberty and property. In his pristine but insecure State of Nature man sought safety in a larger group. Willingness to accept membership was predicated upon retaining the inalienable rights of life, liberty and property that he possessed in the State of Nature. Being inalienable, he was unable to give up his Natural Rights and no other person or entity could take them from him. Therefore, any legitimate contract any man made, such as with a government, had to guarantee those rights. This meant that a constitution was necessary to protect the Natural Rights of all members of society.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the most important luminaries of the Enlightenment who had induring influence over individuals and groups of very different attitudes and approaches to social structure. His opening line of Social Contract (1762) that “man was born free but everywhere is in chains” provides an overture of his belief in human freedom. Embracing the concept of Natural Law, he also employed the concept of the State of Nature to explain the requirements of legitimate governmenmt to protect Natural Rights. The difference was his belief that the original contract was inviolable, because it enshrined the General Will of society. He believed there should be no change in a society’s initial declaration of purpose and direction. This work and others he published inspired and directed both the American and French revolutions to accept his basic assumptions and establish constitutional governments to guarantee his perception of basic rights. Rousseau’s Social Contract was the main justification Robespierre stated for instituting the Reign of Terror later during the revolution as he believed the original revolution constituted the General Will of France. Later almost every leftist movement, especially socialists, found inspiration in Rousseau. But he helped popularize the concept of defining the basic nature of man and the belief that Natural Law and Natural Rights existed.
Later speculators about the best way to construct government ignored defining the nature of man to determine their concept of the ideal government. The firmly established practice of having some kind of constitutional government seemed to eliminate such rudimentary concerns. Emphasis upon wealth distribution or plain political manipulation became the primary concern. Until well into the twentieth century authoritarianism in some form prevailed. Utopian efforts proved too toothless to succeed. Marxism in its various forms regarded man as something like a faceless automaton who played his role under the influence of something like cosmic forces that ignored concern for individual human rights.
Inalienable Natural Rights founded in Natural Law appear to be too naïve and unsophisticated to match the mentality of people who can manipulate public opinion and achieve political success without addessing the basic nature of man and, therefore, the kind of government he needs. Still, Natural Rights and government as a contract gave representative government the impetus to make representative government prevail in much of the world and cause it to be a strong desire in places that do not have it.
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