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PARTISAN REVIEW
The doctrine of natural law is one of the oldest and most debated
doctrines in the history of moral and political philosophy.
It
is the
central theory of the Catholic Church on moral and political matters;
it was adopted by John Locke; it influenced the language and thought
of the Declaration of Independence; it was rejected by Dewey,
Holmes, and Veblen; it has recently been revived by many thinkers
who, like Lippmann, cannot bear the absence of a set of moral prin–
ciples which are universally binding, certain, rationally established
by the inspection of universals, essences, or meanings, depending on
which outmoded epistemology or ethics is adopted. \
In holding certain "truths to be self-evident," the framers of
the Declaration of Independence were probably echoing Aquinas in
The Treatise on Law,
after he loudly had been echoed by John Locke.
The latter, because he was so confused on the fundamental philosophi–
cal questions touching on the status of natural law, is one of the most
interesting
thinkers in the history of the subject. His position is
central in the American tradition, and his own puzzlement reflects
the philosophical problems surrounding natural law.
Aquinas believed that there are self-evident principles which, as
he says, are those principles whose "predicate is contained in the
notion of the subject"
2
;
and Locke believed that there are self-evident
principles, which he explained as those to which we assent "at first
hearing and understanding their terms," or those which "the mind
cannot doubt, as soon as it understands the words." And although
Aquinas and Locke agreed that there were self-evident principles,
they diverged on the most important of all problems so far as natural
law is concerned. In answer to the question: Are there any self–
evident
practical,
i.e.,
moral,
principles? Aquinas was quite consistent
and answered affirmatively, but Locke wobbled in the most scandal–
ous way. Sometimes Locke says that there are self-evident practical
principles, viz., self-evident principles of natural law, and sometimes
he denies that there are any self-evident practical principles. In a
sense Locke's contradiction on natural law is the counterpart of
Niebuhr's in the case of original sin; only Locke did not have the
benefit of Hegelian dialectic.
2 He added that "some propositions are self-evident only to the wise
1
wqo
\l!lders~fl.nd
tile meaninss of the terms of
~uch
propositions."
