Restoration of Political Science by Karl Ludwig von Haller

Author:Karl Ludwig von Haller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Imperium Press
Published: 2023-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

1 How the wickedness and the ineptitude of men denature the most beautiful truths! How dangerous these abstract, short and obscure maxims! If princes hold their power and their rights from God, that is to say, from the nature of things, it follows that they can’t actually possess rights other than those actually received from God, that is to say, those proper to them, and hold them in the same sense that all men likewise hold their rights and property from God, and not their inferiors. In addition, if princes ought to regard their sovereign dignity, that is to say, their power to do good, as an office conferred to them by the Divine, following the beautiful expression from the Bible: it follows that that they must not exercise this power except in accordance with the will of God, and in order to see to it that His laws of justice and mercy are obeyed, but never in order to violate the rights of others; and in this sense, the liberty and abilities of each man are likewise an office received from God, a talent or gift conferred to him, which he must use for good and not evil. As to absolute power or the full complement of sovereign authority, it is nothing other than that perfect liberty, which consists in not being subject to coercion by the will of others, and that comprises the essential characteristic of every sovereign prince. But this would never be to say that princes are freed from the duty to obey natural law; for in this sense, no human power is limitless. We are all subjects of God.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.