Lucretius on the Stages of History and the Social Contract (with stuff on Master Mo, Hobbes, and Adam Smith) (I)

[A] For then more often would some one of them be caught and furnish living food to the wild beasts, devoured by their teeth, and would fill woods and mountains and forests with his groaning, as he looked on his living flesh being buried in a living tomb. And those whom flight had saved with mangled body, thereafter, holding trembling hands over their noisome sores, would summon Orcus with terrible cries, until savage griping pains had robbed them of life, all helpless and knowing not what wounds wanted….Then after they got themselves huts and skins and fire, woman yoked with man retired to a single home and marriage-rites were learnt, and they saw children sprung from them, then first the race of man began to soften…and children, by their winning ways, easily broke down the haughty will of their parents. Then, too, neighbours began eagerly to form friendship one with another, not to hurt or be harmed, and they commended to mercy children and the race of women, when with cries and gestures they taught by broken words that 'tis right for all men to have pity on the weak. Yet not in all ways could unity be begotten, but a good part, the larger part, would keep their compacts loyally; or else the human race would even then have been all destroyed, nor could breeding have prolonged the generations until now.—Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book V, 1011-1027, 

[B] Kings began to build cities and to found a citadel, to be for themselves a stronghold and a refuge; and they parcelled out and gave flocks and fields to each man for his beauty or his strength or understanding; for beauty was then of much avail, and strength stood high. Thereafter property was invented and gold found, which easily robbed the strong and beautiful of honour; for however strong men are born, however beautiful their body, they follow the lead of the richer man…since struggling to rise to the heights of honour, they made the path of their journey beset with danger, and yet from the top, like lightning, envy smites them and in scorn to a noisome Hell; since by envy, as by lightning, the topmost heights are most often set ablaze, and all places that rise high above others…And the kings were put to death and the ancient majesty of thrones and proud sceptres was overthrown and lay in ruins, and the glorious emblem on the head of kings was stained with blood, and beneath the feet of the mob mourned the loss of its high honour; for once dreaded overmuch, eagerly now it is trampled. And so things would pass to the utmost dregs of disorder, when every man sought for himself the power and the headship. Then some of them taught men to appoint magistrates and establish laws that they might consent to obey ordinances. For the race of men, worn out with leading a life of violence, lay faint from its feuds; wherefore the more, easily of its own will it gave in to ordinances and the close mesh of laws. For since each man set out to avenge himself more fiercely in his passion than is now suffered by equal laws, for this cause men were weary of leading a life of violence.— Lucretius, Book V, 1136-1150, translated by Cyril Bailey

Thanks to the work of scholars like Catherine Wilson, the significance of Lucretius' poem on early modern philosophy is increasingly being recovered. And so while reflecting on Hobbes, I decided to go back to these passages. In what follows, I treat [A] as a description of the state of nature and [B] as the emergence of a social contract. And these, in turn, have two important characteristics. first, in [A] the state of nature is divided in two: a terrifying phase and a gentler phase. Second, in [B] the social contract that emerges is not an escape from the state of nature, but rather a solution to ruinous political life.  This means that we can discern a fourfold political stadial structure: (i) the original terrifying state of nature; (ii) the state of nature in which rudiments of an anarchic social life stabilize; (iii) the introduction of royal authority; (iv) the social contract that provides for law-governed polities.  

What's immediately striking about this is that the age of unfettered royal authority is founded in power and the honor due to strength and beauty. This power is expressed in the capacity to reward loyalty. This creates the conditions for the development and rise of property and the discovery of gold/money, which, in turn, creates a re-evaluation of values in which love of money displaces the significance of honor. So, we can discern in Lucretius an unintended consequence explanation. More subtly, Lucretius implies that royal authority is a stable system when honor is the ruling virtue but murderously unstable when it combines with love of monetary accumulation and an open-ended practice of revenge killings. This opens the floodgates for a return for a new almost third kind of state of nature which is exhibited in the breakdown of civilization. 

Strikingly, the escape from this disorder resembles in some respects the account of Master Mo writing (a few centuries earlier) in China.* Not unlike Master Mo, the very idea of a social contract is the brainchild of the few wise. I call these the civil educators. Because civilization has already arisen, Lucretius avoids the problem we find in Master Mo of having to explain where the civil educators originate (a version of this problem also bedevils Hobbes as Hume noted). In Lucretius account the solution of the civil educators does not involve abolishing property or love of gain, that is, there is no return to unfettered royal authority. Rather authority is regulated and made impartial. What motivates submission of all to the social contract, is fear of death and the mayhem of murderously unstable royal authority. 

The new social contact also relies on practices that have their, as it were, prehistoric, roots in the gentle state of nature. For after the invention of fire (which I will us as a proxy for minimal technology) and the development of stable mating patterns around hearth and home and the invention of oath-governed family. Strikingly, it is the stability of homelife with children who belong to a particular family that generates the softening of manners and facilitate the sort of sociability that allows for the generation of a kindler and gentler form of social life. (One does wonder how the parents in the state of nature managed to avoid sleep-deficit induced irritability!) He clearly thinks that this is co-extensive with the development of something like morality.

Lucretius strongly implies that sociability is itself a consequence of, that is, a cultural achievement. I am inclined to think that for Lucretius this involves a change of human nature--that is connected to his proto-selectionist analysis of animal development which is lurking context. For, Lucretius is clearly thinking of the possibility of human extinction without this achievement. In particular, that humans became a oath-respecting species** is due to changing mating/child-rearing patterns in the state of nature. It is notable that not everybody can be trusted to keep their oaths--and so true political unity is not possible. So, while I do not want to ignore the role of technology in driving Lucretius' stadial theory of human development, the social contract that arises out of the breakdown of royal authority builds on human traits that originate much earlier. But it is the historically experienced condition of the breakdown of royal authority that prepares minds for living under rule of law. One does wonder what happens to the rule of law when such experiences are forgotten. 

 

*Obviously, it's possible Lucretius reflects an Epicurean tradition going back a few centuries, too.  

** It reminds me a bit of the social contract described by Glaucon which excludes the charismatic and strong.