On the Characteristics of Classical Natural Law

Cheng Zhimin

Hainan University

Abstract: Classical natural law still retains its deep transcendental roots, i.e. ancient Greek cosmology, although it is no longer based on theodicy. The oldest meaning of the universe (kosmos) is not nature, but order. Therefore, the universe is larger than nature. Cosmology, which takes a holistic approach to everything, is superior to reason or ontology, which underlies modern natural law and is essentially a mechanistic worldview. Classical natural law does not regard reason as the ultimate cause to avoid the disconnection of “form” from “substance,” which is a disadvantage of modern thought resulting in a loss of regulative capacity. The eternal recurrence (ewige Wiederkehr) of natural law requires us to constantly revisit the idea of classical natural law in order to find a real footing for the salvation of reality.

Keywords: natural law, divine law, cosmology, reason

Unlike modern natural law, which is self-evidently rational, classical natural law exhibited inherent conflicts and struggles right from the very beginning and underwent a rather long process of integration before reluctantly coming into being under the name natural law. Thus, to modern people, natural law is the inherent law of the universe or reason, an objective standard for determining what is right and wrong, and a ready-made “higher law.” To ancient people, however, the term natural law itself was questionable,as behind it lay a paradox of choice concerning fundamental issues of human thought, such as rationality versus enlightenment, the sacred versus the secular, vindication of God versus vindication of man, ancestry versus mastery (or, in Confucian terms, “following the earlier kings” versus “following the later kings”), revolution versus conformity, democracy versus tyranny,necessity versus freedom, and will versus norm.

How did the “nature-law” issue become inherently conflicting? Why did nature and law clash with each other in a particular historical period? What was the relationship between nature and law prior to the emergence of their conflict?

Originally, all was under law (themis or nomos) and all natural beings (physis) in the universe were subordinate to law. In such a context, nature and law were inclusive and free from any conflict. Even with new meanings added, physis remained highly consistent with nomos in terms of purposiveness and sacredness and even retained original unity in terms of social or group functions, otherwise the later emergence of natural law would not have been possible. With the rise of reason, however, religious beliefs, which were the basis of “l(fā)aw,” became the target of attack. The nature-law conflict that emerged during that period was in fact first manifested as a fundamental conflict between reason and faith, or between religion and philosophy in the form of either safeguarding or rebelling against tradition. Using the nature of things as a weapon, the revolutionaries opposed the confinement of outdated dogmas and all nomos (which stood for norm).

Recent studies of natural law slightly resemble classical natural law for being a “problem”itself. Yet, the respective problems they deal with are essentially different. The school of new natural law tries to counter legal positivism with the old nomos (or rather, classical natural law) “shields perceptions of the current world situation from the confusion of legal positivism”(Schmitt, 2006, p. 69. Cf; George, 1999, pp. 17ff), the erosion of skepticism, the poisoning of atheism and the resulting ethical relativism in absinkende Zeit, and to eventually allow us to escape extinction in the surge of nihilism. Nevertheless, the modern physics-based concept of physis is in nature a mechanistic cosmology, which has no place for natural law and leaves physis itself, the very foundation of natural law in ontology unsettled (to say nothing of the existence of the gods). As a result, “Thus positivism, which was now beginning its triumphal march, obtained its laurels all too easily, since it was indeed able to vanquish this historical form of a philosophy of law which called itself natural law, but not the idea itself of natural law”(Rommen, 1998, p. 96). Thus, however hard the academics try to revive natural law, it remains highly questionable whether they will manage to solve what they are trying to solve—that is the most fundamental issue facing the current study of natural law.

Cosmology as the Basis of Classical Natural Law

To the ancients, the idea of nature or universe itself was characterized by personality, which means it signified human emotions (pleasure, anger, sorrow and joy), will and purpose. Most importantly, as nature or universe was believed to have been divinely ordained or created, it was endowed with divinity.①Nature is purposeful, rather than accidental or spontaneous (Aristotle, The physic, n.d., 198b34-199a2). In this regard, similar ideas can be found in ancient Chinese philosophies. For example, Dong Zhongshu said, “Just like man, the heaven also has its own emotions (pleasure, anger, sorrow and joy). It is precisely this similarity that enables interaction and harmony between man and heaven ” (Dong, 1992, p. 341).In this way, natural law and divine law were connected by one similarity, namely cosmology. Heraclitus considered divine law to be a natural law reflected in the law and relevance of the universe, “His divine law is a law of nature, manifesting itself in cosmic regularities and reciprocities, the sun’s diurnal rotation, seasonal changes, and the cycle of life and death. It also appears to be natural, as distinct from human, law, with a universal,authoritative, and objective scope that civic laws can at best seek to approximate” (Long, 2005,p. 418). Natural law, which was close to divine law, was mainly reflected in the “continuous emergence of the new” in the universe. According to Heraclitus, natural law exists in the law of the universe, or can be understood as the law of the universe itself. By law of the universe,he meant “cosmic justice,” rather than “cosmic law.” Likewise, the idea of natural law did not appear as a form of normative integration in the golden age of the ancient Greek civilization,when dike (justice) was preferred to nomos (although the term dike was of judicial significance).The “natural justice” in ancient Greek sense corresponded to the so-called “natural law” which appeared later (Plato, The Republic, n.d., 501b, The Laws, n.d., 889d-890d, Timaeus, n.d., 83e4-5;Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, n.d., 5.105; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, n.d.,1134b-1135a).

In the view of the ancients, the universe itself, which includes the sun, the moon and the stars, and witnesses the lapse of seasons and years, is sufficient to prove the existence of the gods (Plato, ca. 360 B.C.E., The Laws, 885e-886a). The gods control the repeated changes of nature (Plato, ca. 360 B.C.E., The Laws, 715e-716a); the fundamental law for the harmonious coexistence of all things in the universe should be the goal of mankind, or should at least make man devout and kind (Plato, Epinomis 990a; Cicero, On the Laws. 2.16, On the Commonwealth 1.26, 6.20-29, 2.16). It was precisely in the context of divine law that Plato sought support for cosmology.

Unlike the Hebrew God who created everything, the ancient Greek gods were responsible only for “ordering” the universe. The word theos (gods) in ancient Greek came from tithemi(meaning “to put”). Originally, everything was out of order. It was the gods that “put things in order” (die-kosm-ēsen), integrated them into a whole, namely, the universe (kosmos) and endowed the whole world with sacredness, naturalness, purposiveness and morality (Plato,Timaeus, 69c). In ancient Greek, both “the universe” and “order” were referred to as kosmos.Now that kosmos covered “nature” and “l(fā)aw”, there was “natural law” in the kosmos.

Cicero echoed the idea more bluntly, “The immortal gods implanted souls in human bodies so as to have beings who would care for the earth and who, while contemplating the celestial order (caelestium ordinem), would imitate it in the moderation and consistency (constantia)of their lives” (Cicero, trans. 1923). Constantia is eternity, which is also one of the essentials of natural law. The movement of celestial bodies and the change of seasons are the law of“nature,” and also the law that man should imitate (Cicero, ca. 352 B.C.E., On the laws 1.61,2.16). Obedience to “obey this celestial order (caelesti descriptioni), the divine mind and the all-powerful god” (Cicero, ca. 52 On the Laws 1.23) is obedience to natural law and divine law,for the basis of natural law is celestial regency. Similar ideas can be found in ancient Chinese philosophy, too. Mozi once said, “What then should be taken as the standard in government?Nothing better than following Heaven. Heaven is all-inclusive and impartial in its activities,abundant and unceasing in its blessings, and lasting and untiring in its guidance. And, so,when the sage-kings had accepted Heaven as their standard, they measured every action and enterprise by Heaven. What Heaven desired they would carry out, what Heaven abominated they refrained from” (Mozi, Fayi). Laozi held that “the ‘Tao’ (the divine law) follows nature”(Laozi, Laozi) because “Heaven is the divine law, and the divine law is eternal” (Laozi, Laozi).Later, Dong Zhongshu advocated “following the laws of Heaven and nature” (Dong, n.d.).

Cosmology as the basis of classical natural law was not debated in ancient times. But in modern times, cosmology may sound old-fashioned, unscientific or even superstitious to people, who may thus oppose classical natural law and eventually make (classical) natural law no longer possible. Or to flip it around, with cosmology as a divine teleology, along with the holistic mindset abandoned by modern people, natural law loses ground and inevitably comes to an end. Under such circumstances, a careful examination of the positive senses and possible limits of classical cosmology is needed.

From a contemporary perspective, classic natural law is associated with an antiquated classical cosmology, which, however, seems to have been found untrue by the huge achievements of modern science. Is that true? Leo Strauss did not think so, holding that modern natural sciences, however successful they become, had no impact on our understanding of“what is human in man” at all. Modern natural sciences no longer see the universe and human nature as “the whole,” making “man as man wholly unintelligible.” “The whole is of mysterious character, and man’s openness to the whole contains the quest for cosmology” (Strauss, 1988,p. 39). Classical cosmology is an organic and holistic view, while modern cosmology is an outcome of mechanical technology. To the ancient Greeks, “heaven and earth and gods and men are bound together by communion and friendship, orderliness, temperance, and justice, and it is for that reason they call this Whole a Cosmos” (Plato, ca. 380 B.C.E., 508a). This view was proposed some 2,000 years earlier than das Geviert, which was proposed by Martin Heidegger with great effort. From a holistic perspective, cosmology is more brilliant than ontology. But the general history of philosophy wrongly assumes it is a historical progress to shift from cosmology to ontology, and to epistemology and the study of speech.

Without a holistic cosmology, man, the gods and the universe would be separated from each other and have no relevance to each other; everything would turn into an atomic natural element; the meaning of life would be buried in “science.” What makes classical cosmology superior to modern cosmology is that classical cosmology retains a concern for humanity.When Descartes’ universe replaced Aristotle’s, and when a universe made up of nature was replaced by a vast thing—the extension (whose components, arrangement and reorganization allowed itself to be handled perfectly in a mathematical way), we had to cope with a picture of the world in which the teleological elements are as irrelevant as the elements of color and taste are to geometry (Simon, 2016, p. 91). This mechanistic view of the universe, which started from Descartes, was already common in Plato’s time (Plato, ca. 360 B.C.E., Laws 889b-c). It goes without saying that there can be no such thing as natural law in a thoroughly mechanistic universe (Simon, 2016, p. 93).①The natural teleology held by Morelly in Code of Nature (1982, p. 21) is in fact a mechanistic view of nature (p. 24). Given that, Morelly’s citation of Cicero was essentially a misunderstanding. Strauss criticized the mechanistic view of the universe but defended Aristotle’s teleological view of the universe (Strauss,2003, p. 8).Strauss thus asked, “What is wrong with cosmology? What is wrong with man’s attempt to find his bearing on the basis of what is apparent to him as a man?”(Strauss, 1997, p. 371). The contemplation of the divine principle in classical philosophy is not a value-neutral, objective study purely in search of knowledge, but a basis “by which we are led to the right conduct” (Strauss, 1997, p. 373). The fundamental teaching of classical thought is“know thyself,” which is primarily about finding one’s place in the universe—one of the most important teachings of classical cosmology and its resulting theory of natural law.

The Place of Reason in Classical Natural Law

In ancient times, Natural law is a “divine gift,” and as long as natural law exists, it seems to be natural and rightful. Even so, natural law itself is not self-evident. Therefore, our understanding of natural law requires the intervention of human reason. Although natural law in Ulpian’s term refers to something that nature gave to all living things (natura omnia animalia docuit) (Justinian, 1989, p. 6), there is no doubt that only humans can experience and even participate in the laws of the universe. After all, of all creatures, only humans have reason. This close association of reason with natural law can easily lead to the misconception that natural law, which can only be understood through reason, is nothing more than a product of reason.Such a misconception, however, is made by modern natural law.②Pound’s understanding of natural law in Roman law is very modern, as the natural law in his vision is in fact an equivalent to modern natural law. “Natural law is a discursive legal style……It originates from reason and is constructed in a philosophical way. The creative application of this ideal helps outline the characteristics of the classical Roman law-governed era” (Pound, 2004, p. 36).Besides, even if reason and natural law can hardly be separated from each other, there is still a world of difference between the “reason” of today and the “reason” in ancient times in terms of meaning and limit.

Reason: Not the Ultimate Cause

The ancients considered rational beings more noble than irrational beings. To them, the gods are the noblest of all beings and therefore deservedly possess absolute reason. The goal of man is to use reason or rationality as a means to find ways to “resemble the gods,” i.e., to move towards or approach divinity and achieve perfection as much as possible, which is known as natural law (Plato, Timaeus, 90c6-d7). Cicero argued, “Those who have been given reason by nature have also been given right reason, and therefore law too, which is right reason in commands and prohibitions; and if they have been given law, then they have been given justice too” (Cicero, Ca. 360 B.C.E., On the Laws, 1.33). Natural reason (naturalis ratio) reveals law①Huang Feng, translator of Gai institutiones (Chinese edition) translated naturalis ratio into “natural reason” in Chinese (Gaius, 1996, p. 2).and, more importantly, it is in itself lex divina et humana (Cicero, On obligations, n.d, 3.23, On divination, n.d., 1.90, 1.30, 2.37; Plato, Minos, n.d., 316b5, Theaetetus, n.d., 172b, 177d; Aristotle,Rhetoric, n.d., 1375a31-b5).

According to the theory of classical natural law, “Law is the highest reason, rooted in nature……when this same reason is secured and established in the human mind (mente), it is law” (Cicero, ca. 360 B.C.E., On the Laws, 1.18); “virtue evidently consists in perfect reason and this certainly resides in nature” (Cicero, ca. 360 B.C.E., On the Laws, 1.25, 56). The “reason”here does not refer to anyone’s reason, or human reason, but a “universal” reason. Natural law is more of an outcome of divine reason. The theory of modern natural law, however, relies on individualistic rationalism, with the result that abstract humanity, rather than divinity, becomes the basis of natural law. Hugo Grotius made it clear that “the mother of right—that is, of natural law—is human nature” (Grotius, p. 1749; Pound, 2004, p. 48).②In Finnis’ view, Aristotle (Metaphysics, n.d., 1070a12, 1015a14-15) and Aquinas had built natural law on human nature (Finnis, 2011, p. 103).His words marked a watershed.“For henceforth not God’s essence, but human nature, viewed existentially as well as merely in the abstract, would be regarded as the source of natural law” (Rommen, 2007, p. 88). As a result, the basis of natural law becomes an imagined state of nature. But Thomas Aquinas long ago warned, “It does not suffice that it advance from first principles implanted by nature”(Aquinas, 2000, p. 12).

While sacred, reason is not supreme and is essentially a means to the end of virtue. Reason has a significant capacity to enable an understanding of natural law, but its capacity is bound to be limited. In other words, classical natural law recognizes that law comes from “right reason,” but reason is not the ultimate cause, which comes from the divine. Without the divine,there would be nothing in the universe more remarkable than man. This assumption, i.e. nonexistence of the divine, is summae adrogantiae and even sane adrogantis. Yet, this invalid assumption became a reliable logical premise (non esse Deum) to Grotius.

Aquinas proclaimed, “Human reason is not, of itself, the rule of things: but the principles impressed on it by nature, are general rules and measures of all things relating to human conduct, whereof the natural reason is the rule and measure, although it is not the measure of things that are from nature” (Aquinas, 2016, p. 20). Thus, the reason which classical natural law resorts to is far from (modern) rationalism. “The proud spirit of modern rationalism is lacking.There is no assertion of man’s self-sufficiency and inherent perfection. There is no vindication of abstract ‘rights’ nor of the autonomy of the individual as the ultimate source of all laws and of all standards” (D’Entreves, 2008, pp. 50-51). In the ancients’ view, great reason in itself needs to be supported or even proved by other evidence; reason is not, after all, ultimate. And“there is in (classical nature law) no trace whatever of the extravagances of the rationalistic natural law current in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries” (Rommen, 2007, p. 49). The difference between classical natural law and modern natural law lies in the fact that the former denies natural law to be an outcome of reason, while the latter, having eliminated deism, can only base natural law on reason and consider natural law to be an outcome of self-deduction through speculative reason (Kant, 1781, Axx, Bxiii, B780).

The Finitude of Reason

Any finite being in this world features a paradoxical duality, with both advantages and disadvantages. To the ancients, god-given reason is admittedly keen (Cicero, On moral ends,5.57). Yet, wrong application of reason makes one suffer the consequences. After all, no bad thing is the masterwork of bona ratio (Cicero, On divination, 3.71). To the ancients, reason is great and therefore needs to be treated with more caution. “The greater and more divine their superiority, the greater their need of assiduous care. And so reason if well employed (adhibita)sees clearly what is best; if left neglected it is entangled in a multitude of deceptions.” (Cicero,Tusculan disputations, 4.58). Elsewhere, Cicero thoroughly reflected on the finitude of reason:

God gives us only reason, assuming that in fact he does; whether it is good or bad depends on ourselves. When reason is bestowed upon a person by the gods’ gift, it is not analogous to a bequest left to us, for if they had wished to harm us what better could they have bestowed on mankind? If reason does not underlie injustice, lack of restraint and cowardice, from what seeds would these vices sprout? (Cicero, On the nature of the gods, 3.71)

The evil in the world is also the “masterwork” of reason. Given that, reason is not omnipotent, let alone the best. In essence, reason is not the god. In fact, Socrates had long since sharply criticized the then roaring wave of rationalism. He was originally convinced by Anaxagoras’ theory of mind (nous), but later discovered this theory to be a hubristic nonsense.According to Socrates, Anaxagoras’ theory, which held that mind organizes (diakosmōn) and arranges (kosmein) all things, including the universe (kosmos), was theoretically groundless and sacrilegious. That was why Socrates took a different route and started his famous “second voyage” (Socrates, Phaedo. 97c-99d). Modern scholars have also recognized that reason can lead man astray. To them, it is no surprise that under such circumstances this reason turned into one of the most dangerous tools of vices and took the wrong turning (Morelly, 1982, p. 30).

Reason is often compared to the sun, for it enables us to see everything more clearly, “but we cannot stare at the sun long, for the light would ruin our eyes” (Plato, Phaedo, 99d5-7).The sun (reason) can nourish all things. But excessive sun exposure can cause a “house fire.”There are some modern thinkers “having their eyes hurt” due to their addiction to reason. It has become an irreversible fact that their over-amplification of the brilliance of reason gave rise to an extensive crisis in modern philosophy. The explanation is as follows, “The rationalism of the Encyclopedists, making of natural law no longer an offspring of creative wisdom but a revelation of reason unto itself, transformed natural law into a code of absolute and universal justice inscribed in nature and deciphered by reason as an ensemble of geometric theorems or speculative data” (Maritain, 2009, pp. 74-75).

Suarez, Grotius, Descartes and Pufendorf endowed reason with infinite power, making the objective order of all things (ordo rerum) and also natural law, which was based on it,superfluous. To them, human reason was supreme; while to ordinary people, their ego and everything related to it were directly guaranteed via “I think.” Man becomes an angel because he has reason. Modern rational epistemology is angelic epistemology in essence. “Rationalism soon made human reason and its innate ideas the measure of what is. Human reason could now indulge in the uncontrolled construction of systems that have characterized the natural law of rationalism” (Rommen, 2007, pp. 80-81). Nevertheless, this anthroposophical angelism was bound to degenerate, and reason would not be able to support human morality and would eventually be taken over by economic status. Modern scholars such as John Finnis, having abandoned metaphysics, tried to develop a doctrine of natural law without nature. The natural law in the age of naturalism, individualism, radicalism and rationalism eventually became the founder and gravedigger of modern thoughts.

The Form and Substance of Natural Law

In classical thought, reason is an external cognitive faculty with specific connotations.Natural law is right reason, whose rightness is reflected in its guidance to virtue. Thus, virtue is the connotation of reason and is also the main target of classical natural law (Laertius, Lives of eminent philosophers, 7.94). Natural law is called the “teacher of life” because it is in itself the leges vivendi et disciplinam or vivendi doctrina (Cicero, ca. 360 B.C.E., On the Laws, 1.57, 1.58)Strauss concluded, “Natural law directs man toward his perfection, the perfection of a rational and social animal; it is ‘the guide of life and the teacher of the duties’ (Cicero, On the nature of the gods, 1.40); it is the dictate of reason regarding human life. Thus, the virtuous life as choiceworthy for its own sake comes to be understood as compliance with natural law—with a law,and hence as a life of obedience. Inversely, the content of natural law is the whole of virtue”(Strauss, 1983, p. 141).

Classical natural law values reason, but it ultimately aims at virtue and happiness in order to safeguard human interests (Cicero, On obligations, 3.31). If such content is still not deemed substantive enough, the classical view of reason and its implicated natural law also have concrete provisions concerning reverence for the gods, defense of mother country, filial devotion to parents, and loyalty to brothers and friends. “If nature does not ratify law, then all the virtues may lose their sway. For what becomes of generosity, patriotism, or friendship?Where will the desire of benefitting our neighbors, or the gratitude that acknowledges kindness,be able to exist at all? For all these virtues proceed from our natural inclination to love mankind. And this is the true basis of justice, and without this not only the mutual charities of men, but the religious services of the gods, would be at an end” (Cicero, Ca. 360 B.C.E.,On the Laws., 1.43). All these virtues (reverence, sincerity, loyalty, filial piety, fraternity and kindheartedness) are the inherent connotations of classical natural law or classical rationality.

Through continued deification of its content, reason was eventually brought to its climax by Kant and Hegel, to whom everything could be deduction from reason. “Human reason now becomes the sovereign architect of the order of knowledge; it becomes the measure of things.The objective basis of natural law, the ordo rerum and the eternal law, has vanished. What was termed natural law is a series of conclusions drawn from the categorical imperative and from the regulative ideas of practical reason, not from the objective and constitutive ordo rerum”(Rommen, 1998, p. 78). The true meaning of the “our faculty of understanding is the primary source of nature’s lawfulness” is that human reason is the source of natural law. Natural law is primarily about safeguarding free will. The “categorical imperative” or “definitive imperative”of natural law becomes an empty form. “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” (Kant, 1997, p. 31). The“categorical imperative” of this universal natural law (allgemeinen Naturgesetze) seems similar to the quote by Confucius—“Do not do unto others what you do not want done unto you”(Confucius, Duke Ling of Wei, The analects of Confucius). But Confucius also specified what must be obeyed in conduct and behavior beyond this formal principle, while Kant did not teach anything substantive in this rational “categorical imperative.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte also expressed an idea similar to Kant’s “categorical imperative.”He said, “The principle of any judgment of right is that each is to limi his freedom, the sphere of his free actions, through the concept of the freedom of the other (so that the other, as free in general, can exist as well)” (Fichte, 2000, p. 102). But mankind had struggled in this vast ocean of “freedom” for centuries before a narrow escape from drowning. They became more and more aware of the fact that freedom, although being the basis of modern natural law, has no substance at all. If not carefully distinguished, concepts like freedom, equality, natural state,will and absolute rights can be a mirage leading to nowhere.

Modern natural law is based on the scientific “natural law” or “l(fā)aw of nature” (Gierke, 1934,p. 35)①According to Gierke (1934, p. 35), a leading scholar of natural law, it was the “l(fā)aw of nature” that led to the disintegration of the medieval concept of natural law. John Locke directly applied “l(fā)aw of nature” in the sense of natural law (Locke, 2014).. But unfortunately, “the ‘natural law’ of the natural sciences only denotes a calculable function without substance” (Schmitt, 2006, p. 72). Just like philosophical positivism, scientific natural law has no interest in core issues such as “origin” and “root” and therefore becomes homeless and rootless. Pufendorf (and Hobbes) and Cicero all understood natural law as an outcome of “right reason.” Cicero specified what reason was right (Cicero, On obligations),while Pufendorf just mentioned this “right reason” in vague terms (Buckle, 2014, p. 131).Similarly, in Kant’s view, “The impersonal, formal, categorical imperative takes the place of the eternal law. The natural law, therefore, as part of the lex naturalis, is no longer connected with the eternal law, for the very reason that it can no longer be understood as part of the lex naturalis, of the rational moral law. Furthermore, not enforceability but external physical force is directly and necessarily included in the concept of law” (Rommen, 1998, p. 90). Kant’s rational formalist argument prevented him from developing a doctrine of substantive value. To this end, Max Scheler competed a lengthy critique of Kant’s pure formalism (Scheler, 2011, pp.8-9, p. 113).①Scheler once made a vicious comment on Kant. According to Scheler, Kant’s ethics is not half right or all wrong, but the “devil’s words” (Scheler, 1999, p.715). The fundamental reason may lie in the fact that Kant was under the direct influence of Grotius, Pufendorf and Thomasius. Worst of all, neither Kant nor Pufendorf had any real understanding of classical natural law. “Or was it not fateful that Pufendorf was well acquainted with scarcely a single Greek or Scholastic, and that Kant, the watershed from which flow so many and such varied streams of modern thought, knew Aristotle and St. Thomas only from a very imperfect history of philosophy?” (Rommen, 2007. p. 85). This was indeed an “extremely fateful fact.” Leibniz’s critique of Pufendorf can be found in Natural Law and the Theory of Property: Grotius to Hume (Buckle, 2014, p. 55) and The Natural Law: A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy (Rommen,2007, p. 88).In this way, natural law ceased to have any substantive content and eventually came to an end.

Conclusion

The shift from divine law to natural law seems to be an inevitable process, which was already marked in ancient Greece: “The quest for the beginning, for the first things, becomes now the philosophic or scientific analysis of the cosmos; the place of the divine law, in the traditional sense of the term, where it is a code traced to a personal god, is replaced by a natural order, which may even be called, as it was later to be called, a natural law—or at any rate,to use a wider term, a natural morality. So the divine law, in the real and strict sense of the term, is only the starting point, the absolutely essential starting point, for Greek philosophy,but it is abandoned in the process. And if it is accepted by Greek philosophy, it is accepted only politically, meaning for the education of the many, and not as something which stands independently” (Strauss, 1989, p. 256). Later, divine law became a theoretical guarantee or an ideological irrelevance, which was perhaps also an inevitable trend. Unlike classical natural law, which relied on reason while being well aware of the perils of reason, modern natural law,after “executing deism” (Heine, 2007, p. 78), had no alternative but to leave natural law, or even the entire spiritual world to reason.

Although the separation of divine and natural law had already occurred to Cicero, the two did not drift apart. In modern times, Hobbes, who emphasized the distinction between ius and lex (Hobbes, Leviathan, 1.14), distinguished natural rights from natural law, which became no more than a theoretical guarantee for natural rights. With the substantive theory of natural law on the wane, when talking about natural law, people were in fact talking about natural rights.Thus, natural law (lex naturalis) evolved into natural rights (ius naturale), or to say, natural law was replaced by natural rights, which marked the ultimate victory of “anthropolodicy.” After the American Revolution and the French Revolution, natural law as a disguise was dropped and natural rights were openly pursued. In particular, the right to self-preservation became an unconditional and absolute basis of natural law (Strauss, 2003, p. 185; Hobbes, 2003, p. 8, p.15)—(Never expected) the quality of thought degenerated to such a point. Blaise Pascal said,“Doubtless there are natural laws, but this fine reason having been corrupted, it corrupted everything” (Pascal, 2004).

The result or manifestation of the corruption of reason is that “l(fā)aw” becomes “right”and that “nature” becomes “world” and “resources.” Once rational natural law is faced with widespread skepticism, the entire world of thought will fall into a new round of skepticism,historicism and nihilism, which again need to be remedied by a newly emerged “new natural law.” Natural law itself is in an “eternal cycle” or perpetual transition. As Heinrich Rommen put it, “Yet it has always come back into jurisprudence whenever the human mind, weary of the unsatisfying hunt for mere facts, has again turned to metaphysics, queen of the sciences”(Rommen, 1998, p.28)①Its original German version is entitled Die ewige Wiederkehr des Naturrechts (Leipzig: Verlag Jakob Hegner, 1936), whose literal translation into English should be the Eternal Recurrence of Natural Law.. In this regard, we are far less optimistic than Rommen was, as the many revivals of natural law in history were not Nietzsche’s ewige Wiederkehr, but Schmitt’s absinkende.

The revival of natural law in modern times may end up being a game of self-deconstruction without full awareness of its problems. This game, along with modern relativism, cynicism,historicism, skepticism and nihilism, forebodes mankind’s spiritual decay. Against such a backdrop, a re-examination of classical natural law is not necessarily a “sovereign remedy,”but it can at least temporarily break the spell of ewige Wiederkehr and allow natural law to truly return to nature in the cosmological sense. Only in this way can treatment, redemption or other alternatives possibly be found.