Endnotes explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Consent of the Governed

  Hooker's quotations emphasize that laws derive their authority from the consent of the people, and that no one can be commanded without their agreement.

• Limited Government and Rule of Law

  The excerpts argue that government must be bound by laws, which are necessary to prevent the misery of arbitrary rule, and that human laws must conform to the law of God and nature.

• State of Nature and Social Contract

  Hooker describes the transition from a state of nature to civil society through deliberate agreement and composition among men, establishing government to remedy mutual grievances.

Characters to notice

• Hooker

  Quoted extensively on the origin of political society, the necessity of laws, and the role of consent.

• Sir Robert Filmer

  Referenced in endnotes regarding his claims on paternal power and supreme authority.

• Adam

  Mentioned in Filmer's context as the original source of paternal power.

• Melchizedeck

  Cited as an example of ancient kings who also exercised priestly office.

Key passages

• “They saw, that to live by one man's will, became the cause of all men's misery. This constrained them to come unto laws wherein all men might see their duty beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them.”

  People realized that living under the arbitrary will of a single ruler led to universal suffering, which forced them to establish laws so that everyone could know their obligations and the consequences of breaking them.

  Hooker explains the necessity of moving from discretionary rule to a system of known laws.

• “The lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men, belonging so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth, to exercise the same of himself, and not by express commission immediately and personally received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent, upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny.”

  The legitimate authority to make laws for an entire political community belongs to that community itself; any ruler who makes laws on his own, without divine commission or the consent of the people, is simply a tyrant.

  Hooker asserts that legislative power originates from the consent of the governed, not from the unilateral will of a prince.

• “Human laws are measures in respect of men whose actions they must direct, howbeit such measures they are as have also their higher rules to be measured by, which rules are two, the law of God, and the law of nature; so that laws human must be made according to the general laws of nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of scripture, otherwise they are ill made.”

  Human laws serve as guidelines for human actions, but they themselves must be judged by higher standards: the law of God and the law of nature. If a human law contradicts these, it is poorly made.

  Hooker establishes that positive law is subordinate to divine and natural law.