Article I. On the Origin or Nature of the State

553. The State is a natural institution. When the question is, not about the causes by which this or that State arose, but why political societies exist, the positions of Hobbes and J. J. Rousseau concerning the social contract must be entirely abandoned. According to them, men, after leaving behind the state of war or of solitary liberty and autonomy, would have established by a formal pact a bond of social peace or servitude. Rather, the statement made by St. Thomas¹ after Aristotle² must be proved altogether: “It is natural to man that he be a social and political animal.” For by an efficacious and definite impulse of nature, without formal deliberation or conscious assent, men arrived at political society. For:

¹ On the Government of Princes, bk. 1, chap. 1. Observe that up to the fourth chapter of book 2 this treatise is certainly an authentic work of St. Thomas.

² Politics, bk. 1, chap. 2. The book prints “bk. 2, chap. 2,” but Aristotle's statement is in book 1, chapter 2.

1. Nature made man apt, inclined, and compelled by necessity itself toward society, that is, toward a stable union for a common end.

Nature made him apt by the instrument of speech; inclined, on account of the sweetness which it placed in communication with others and the efficacy by which, through a communion of work, labor is lightened, through a communion of evils, pain is soothed, and through a communion of goods, enjoyment is increased. Finally, by very many necessities man is compelled toward society.³ We can do very few things alone; and besides those things which individuals can furnish to individuals, there are many things which must be procured for us only by united forces. Thus security, the perfect education of offspring, and almost whatever good can be devised—at least if you require some abundance of the good. Add that the assistance of other individuals outside society would not be at hand except per accidens, while man especially desires to dismiss anxious solicitude. Come now: the continual necessity of mutual and common work, besides the lasting period which must be expended upon several ends, demands a stable, not a momentary, communication of this kind.

³ In this manner we briefly comprehend and expound the arguments of the Philosopher and the Angelic Doctor.

What of the fact that we are pressed by so great a necessity for society that from the first beginning of life we find ourselves constituted in domestic society?

2. That institution also is shown to be natural in which alone this social communication is had perfectly in its genus. But civil society is of this kind. Therefore.

For nature tends per se toward the perfect. Hence not only that society is to be called natural by which social communication is procured in some manner and, as it were, inchoatively, and the poverty of individuals is supplied, but especially that in which each is obtained more fully and in a certain manner perfectly.

But now, let civil societies such as are presented to the eyes be considered. They perfect families and municipalities, and are broader, stronger unions which are not further perfected per se. We say per se lest we exclude a new perfection which, according to the degree of civil culture, international society can bring. In them there is discerned a certain unlimited, uncircumscribed acquisition of goods, whether you regard the genera of goods or the degree in which they are procured. That is, there first occurs the full sufficiency of goods which lesser societies lack, indeed which they necessarily must lack, since perfect social communication demands a multitude of men and a complex variety of relations, all of which cannot be governed by the private orders of a family or neighborhood. Hence both by common usage and already according to the mind of Aristotle,⁴ the State is called a perfect society; and Leo XIII says that this is its end: that it procure a perfect sufficiency of life.⁵

⁴ Politics, bk. 3, chap. 6.

⁵ Encyclical Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.

Then this also already demonstrates that it is a natural institution: that everywhere, besides societies which are completed by private relations, there is seen a greater and more perfect union of men with public power.⁶

⁶ When many families have begun to inhabit the same place, they have need of civil union and command so that they can dwell there together peacefully and securely. Hence it can probably be said that by natural law itself, which efficaciously wills the peace and common good of men, they are commanded to enter civil union unless they prefer to depart for diverse places, so that the State is constituted by no other consent than that by which they continue to live there together. Cf. Cathrein, Moral Philosophy, no. 500, against many Scholastics who required at least a tacit pact in order that a society be joined. But in reality, without consciousness of an obligation, by an evident consideration of necessity or utility, very many will obey, and the few who wish to resist the same cannot impede the good of so great a multitude. Hence they must yield their place or consent to the multitude, whose right it is to establish public societies.