changing man-made laws but his theory of Natural Law culminated
in the modern Secular State. No doubt, in the first instance, "the
Schoolmen joined [this theory of] natural law to Christian theology
by giving it a basis in Divine Will and thereby implanted it firmly in
medieval political thought."(21)^ Subsequently, however, "the task
accomplished by the early modernizers of natural law theory in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and especially Hugo Grotius
and Samuel Pufendorf, was almost the reverse." By extracting God
from natural law they made it the foundation of the modern,
secular, constitutional State. They constructed a theory of natural
law that would "carry conviction in an age in which theological
controversy was gradually losing the power to do so," thereby
making the ‘existence of God perfectly superfluous’ to the
doctrine."(22)
XII. Higher LawThe general trend amongst modern thinkers in the West now is
that it is wrong to accept the majority decision as right in all
circumstances. We need an objective standard for judging human
actions. For Locke it was Natural Law. Cobban calls it the moral
standard. The Italian patriot, Mazzini, however, puts it in a more
definite shape when he says that the principle of universal suffrage
was a good thing inasmuch as it provides a lawful method for a
people for guarding against forces of destruction and continuing
their own government. However, in a people who have no common
beliefs, all that democracy can do is to safeguard the interests of the
majority and keep the minority subdued. We can, he adds, be subject
to God or to man, one man or more than one. If there be no
superior authority over man, what is there to save us from the
subjugation of powerful individuals? Unless we have some sacred
and immutable law, which is not man-made, we can have no
standard for discriminating between right and wrong. A government
based on laws other than God's Will, he continues, produces the
same result whether it be a despotic or a revolutionary one. Without
God, whosoever be in authority will be a despot. Unless a
government conforms to God's Law, it has no right to govern. The
purpose of government is to enforce God's Will: if a government
Political System 224