Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Epikuräer, Lukrez/Lucretius: Dokument des Konventionalismus (Über die Natur der Dinge); Zweck der Götter

Kurzinhalt: The greatest document of philosophic conventionalism and, in fact, its only document available to us that is both authentic and comprehensive is the poem ...

Textausschnitt: 111a The greatest document of philosophic conventionalism and, in fact, its only document available to us that is both authentic and comprehensive is the poem On the Nature of Things by the Epicurean Lucretius. According to Lucretius, men roamed originally in forests, without social bonds of any kind or without any conventional restraint. Their weakness and their fear of the dangers threatening them from wild beasts induced them to unite for the sake of protection or for the sake of the pleasure deriving from security. After they entered society, the savage life of the beginning gave way to habits of kindness and fidelity. This early society, the society antedating by far the foundation of cities, was the best and most happy society that ever was. Right would be natural if the life of the early society were the life according to nature. But the life according to nature is the life of the philosopher. And philosophy is impossible in early society. Philosophy has its home in cities, and the destruction, or at least the impairment, of the way of life characteristic of early society is characteristic of the life in cities. The happiness of the philosopher, the only true happiness, belongs to an entirely different epoch than the happiness of society. There is, then, a disproportion between the requirements of philosophy or of the life according to nature and the requirements of society as society. It is owing to this necessary disproportion that right cannot be natural. The disproportion is necessary for the following reason. The happiness of early, noncoercive society was ultimately due to the reign of a salutary delusion. The members of early society lived within a finite world or a closed horizon; they trusted in the eternity of the visible universe or in the protection afforded to them by "the walls of the world." It was this trust which made them innocent, kind, and willing to devote themselves to the good of others; for it is fear which makes men savage. The trust in the firmness of "the walls of the world" was not yet shaken by reasoning about natural catastrophes. Once this trust was shaken, men lost their innocence, they became savage; and thus the need for coercive society arose. Once this trust was shaken, men had no choice but to seek support and consolation in the belief in active gods; the free will of the gods should guarantee the firmness of "the walls of the world" which had been seen to lack intrinsic or natural firmness; the goodness of the gods should be a substitute for the lack of intrinsic firmness of "the walls of the world." The belief in active gods then grows out of fear for our world and attachment to our world--the world of sun and moon and stars, and the earth covering itself with fresh green every spring, the world of life as distinguished from the lifeless but eternal elements (the atoms and the void) out of which our world has come into being and into which it will perish again. Yet, however comforting the belief in active gods may be, it has engendered unspeakable evils. The only remedy lies in breaking through "the walls of the world" at which religion stops and in becoming reconciled to the fact that we live in every respect in an unwalled city, in an infinite universe in which nothing that man can love can be eternal. The only remedy lies in philosophizing, which alone affords the most solid pleasure. Yet philosophy is repulsive to the people because philosophy requires freedom from attachment to "our world". On the other hand, the people cannot return to the happy simplicity of early society. They must therefore continue the wholly unnatural life that is characterized by the co-operation of coercive society and religion. The good life, the life according to nature, is the retired life of the philosopher who lives at the fringes of civil society. The life devoted to civil society and to the service of others is not the life according to nature.1 (Fs)