Law of Nature as Justification for Reforms. Polish Political Thought in the Eighteenth Century

Introduction In Polish political thought of the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century, a conviction of the excellence of the old political system and laws was predominant. In political treatises, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was described uncritically as a country of ideal golden freedom. For this reason, new ideas and reforms were feared and the sentence was frequently repeated: „omnia mutatio nociva“ (every change is harmful).1 In the face of growing internal battles and increasing interference of other countries in Polish affairs, in the second half of the 18th century, voices calling for reforms were starting to appear.2 In these political writings there is a clear influence of the thoughts of the Enlightenment, a modern concept of the laws of nature formulated by philosophers such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau or French physiocrats – François Quesnay or Victor Riquetti de Mirabeau. One of the political currents that referred to the concept of law of nature was that defined in modern historiography as the doctrine of compromise between the nobility and bourgeoisie. Andrzej Sylwestrzak pointed out the specific situation of the Commonwealth, in which the ideologists of bourgeoisie did not intend to unite themselves within their social condition, or cooperate with peasantry, but descending from intelligentsia and petty nobility, they sought cooperation with nobility.3 This gave the Polish political thought of the 18th century a special dimension. The most prominent representatives of this trend are Józef Wybicki, Hugo Kołłątaj, Stanisław Staszic.4 These ideologists believed that to


Introduction
In Polish political thought of the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century, a conviction of the excellence of the old political system and laws was predominant. In political treatises, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was described uncritically as a country of ideal golden freedom. For this reason, new ideas and reforms were feared and the sentence was frequently repeated: "omnia mutatio nociva" (every change is harmful). 1 In the face of growing internal battles and increasing interference of other countries in Polish affairs, in the second half of the 18 th century, voices calling for reforms were starting to appear. 2 In these political writings there is a clear influence of the thoughts of the Enlightenment, a modern concept of the laws of nature formulated by philosophers such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau or French physiocrats -François Quesnay or Victor Riquetti de Mirabeau.
One of the political currents that referred to the concept of law of nature was that defined in modern historiography as the doctrine of compromise between the nobility and bourgeoisie. Andrzej Sylwestrzak pointed out the specific situation of the Commonwealth, in which the ideologists of bourgeoisie did not intend to unite themselves within their social condition, or cooperate with peasantry, but descending from intelligentsia and petty nobility, they sought cooperation with nobility. 3 This gave the Polish political thought of the 18 th century a special dimension. The most prominent representatives of this trend are Józef Wybicki, Hugo Kołłątaj, Stanisław Staszic. 4 These ideologists believed that to 1 OPERA HISTORICA • ROČNÍK 20 • 2019 • č. 1 was one of the first who "introduced two issues of watershed significance into Polish political discourse: the concept of freedom as a law of nature, and the division between civil and political freedom." 8 Wybicki begins his book with the proposition that man is free by nature; however, experience shows that everywhere he is in captivity, he "groans in chains". 9 Although he repeated the famous quotation from Jean-Jacques Rousseau "L`homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers", he did not mention his name at any point. 10 Wybicki concluded that one should consider the reason for this state of affairs in order to be able to change it. He began by presenting a description of the state of nature, in which people lived as equals and completely free. He defined natural freedom as the right to do everything that the laws of nature allow. According to him, it means not being forced to do what these laws forbid. He emphasized that people who have not chosen any civil government live in such a state of freedom. Initially, people lived free and happy, but it ended when, as a result of population growth, appropriation and vices began to proliferate. There appeared property, greed, and as a consequence, inequality and violation. Therefore, development meant a change for the worse. Wybicki emphasized that the law of nature was not able to prevent these changes. The natural tendency to adhere to its principles was overcome by stronger, more expansive emotions like envy, greed, and self-exaltation. The weakness of the law of nature is the lack of sanctions that would be able to suppress people's bad instincts. Due to the constant threat to life, property and fame, people decided to voluntarily bind themselves to perform "civil status obligations". Under the terms of the agreement, they agreed to be subject to one political power and defend it, if the community were to be threatened by an external enemy. The social contract turns "natural freedom" into "civil freedom", which consists in being subject to civil law. It is a more effective instrument of regulation than the law of nature, due to physical sanctions imposed and enforced by political authorities. Civil law protects the lives of citizens, and sets the limits of freedom and property.
Thus, the origin of the state is also connected with the aspiration of those who have more to perpetuate this state of affairs. This is also a repetition of Rousseau's idea that the state is an instrument for maintaining a divided society. The social contract ends the natural equality of all people by sanctioning the division of people into classes that are given different rights. We are dealing here with a paradox, because equality as a law of nature is always superior. that knows no bounds destroys freedom. Every large country needs both upper classes and poor classes working in industry.For him, equality means that there is no serfdom, in his Patriotic Letters he devoted much space to explaining that "subjugation is against the law of nature." 11 The authority is to protect the safety and property of each person regardless of their class. It also has to make sure that no citizen is so rich to buy the other citizen or so poor to sell themselves. Such situations would be detrimental to the public good. It would be nothing other than the trade of personal freedom that would evolve rapidly into the trade of country's freedom. Guided by greed, in selling their homeland, traitors do not even realize at first that they are selling themselves.
The social contract also concerns the type of government. According to Wybicki, people renounce natural freedom to the greatest extent by establishing an autocracy and to a lesser extent by establishing aristocracy. Citizens preserve the most freedom where the government is co-dependent, that is, every citizen of the particular class and at the appropriate age is a member of the highest political council, which constitutes laws for the good of the homeland. The authority should also be divided between offices to create a balance between them, which would effectively maintain laws. In such a system the nation rules. For Wybicki, the nation is a group of people with political rights, which are the freedom of thought, presenting opinions on the council and making laws in it. Political freedom he understood as meaning involvement in political power and making state decision.
Political freedom therefore belongs only to those with political rights. At the same time, freedom, which is the law of nature, belongs to every human being, regardless of the form of government or their class. The lowest classes, namely the peasants, are also free. Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz pointed out that the situation of the peasants was earlier considered either in the moral context (the abuse of power by the nobility) or in the economic context (excessive oppression caused losses for the country). In turn, Wybicki distinguished, apart from political freedom, also civil freedom, which he recognized as a natural right of every man, regardless of the class. "He was doubtlessly the only thinker in the 1779 who appealed to the concept of natural freedom in political discussions". 12 Civil freedom did not entail the sharing of power -it is own safty, the ability to do everything that is no prohibited by law and free exercise of ownership under the protection of law.
Observance of the law is a basic condition for civil freedom because freedom is not arbitrariness. Wybicki believed that laws should be collected in three codes: in codice legum civilum (which should contain fundamental rights defining the extent and limits of civil freedom and political rights), in speciali codice (which should contain laws regarding councils and the parliament, specifying the competences of offices and tax issues), and the third code, which should pertain to treaties with neighbouring countries. According to Wybicki, the highest law is the good of the whole of the state. Pursuing this goal, citizens should choose the most appropriate means in given circumstances. Thus, Wybicki distances himself from Machiavelli's views that the end result, which is the good of the state, justifies the means. However, if anyone incited others to break the law and did it themselves, then the authority must be ruthless and unconditionally eliminate such a man, so that the law of the stronger that would ruin the country could be stopped. Wybicki argued that a sick member should be cut off so that the whole body would not die. He repeated another idea of Rousseau -forcing people to be free. It seems that it is a testimony to the weakness of the state since he was convinced that even one man's failure could lead it to ruin.
Wybicki put forward a controversial thesis that there is neither political nor civil freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the erroneous opinion of the nobility of golden freedom must be torn down. In his opinion, it was the Poles themselves who destroyed order; wishing for immoderate freedom, they deprived themselves and others of real freedom, that is civil freedom. It is defined as being subject to laws, whereas the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was dominated by arbitrariness supported by the interregnum or free elections, among others. Wybicki presented the history of Poland as the history of anarchy, a sequence of constant mistakes on the way to freedom. Striving for freedom, Poles continued to move further away from it. Wybicki also stressed that there would be no freedom unless foreign states stopped interfering in the government, which is why it was so important to take care of national power and security. Every citizen was obliged to pay taxes to the army because, caring for the security of the country, they took care of their individual freedom.
In Wybicki's views, one can see the influence of liberal ideas, especially the opinion that freedom is a natural human right and the task of positive law is to protect it. He also believed that without the freedom of the people, the government would transform into tyranny. Simultaneously, Wybicki draws from the republican tradition emphasizing that the most important thing is the good of the state (securing the freedom of citizens is possible only in a free state) and stating the importance of citizens' virtue. The corruption of the nation is the cause of the state's collapse.
According to Wybicki, the pillars of a free state are perfect laws and virtuous citizens. Perfect laws are those in accordance with the law of nature.

Hugo Kołłątaj (1750-1812)
The conviction that there is no freedom without law and that good law protects the country from its collapse was also the basis of Hugo Kołłątaj's views. He was a politician, political writer, educational reformer and priest. He was one of the co-authors of the Constitution of the Third of May 1791 with Ignacy Potocki, the King Stanisław August Poniatowski and Scipione Piattoli. He described the Constitution as "pacifica OPERA HISTORICA • ROČNÍK 20 • 2019 • č. 1 revolu zione" -he borrowed this concept from Gaetano Filangieri. 13 The Constitution was supposed to introduce the "real Commonwealth" instead of "the feudal government". It was bound by the power of authority, which was also based on the fact that its norms were in accordance with the law of nature, that is, the superior legal order. Basing the state political system on the norms of the law of nature was to protect the Commonwealth from collapse as well as make it a free and independent country.
In his reflections on the law of nature, Kołłątaj was inspired by the views of the French Physiocrats who believed that good and justice is the essence of being (i. e. nature). The good means acting in harmony with the laws of nature and accepting the guidance of the physical-moral order. The good is beneficial for the person doing good and for others, and evil results from ignorance. The Physiocrats did not separate morality from the law of nature, which they defined as the most general principles that are the foundation of the social world. 14 Kołłątaj distinguished mathematical, physical and moral sciences, and the latter science encompassed law. The branches of law of nature were political law and the law of nations. It was a "pure moral philosophy", whereas the science of positive law was "applied moral philosophy".
Due to the fact that positive legal norms should have a source in the law of nature, the activities of legislators are declaratory, not constitutive. "They declare what they read in nature; their work is similar to the work of scholars publishing the results of scientific research." 15 Although the declaratory character of legislation was pointed out already in the Middle Ages, what was declared then were divine laws, the source of which was Revelation. In turn, the Physiocrats' doctrine was secular in nature. It is worth noting that Kołłątaj (similarly to Staszic) was a priest, and despite this fact, he separated morality and law from religion. Even though he defined the law of nature as the eternal law of the Creator, he emphasized that man's moral obligations should be sought in his nature and not in the Scriptures. 16

and Obligations of Man Arising From the Eternal, Invariable and Necessary Natural Laws]
(1810). The starting point of the book was a statement repeated by modern philosophers that there is a contradiction between the natural order and the way people really live. This has negative consequences, so order based on the law of nature should be restored. To do this, it is first necessary to get to know this law. Since it is inscribed in human nature, it is examined with the same methods as natural laws. The man is subject to natu ral laws like all other beings. That what distinguishes him from animals is speech and he also subject to moral laws. The basis of moral laws is freedom, which is not unlimited but regulated by our entitlements (ius) and obligations (officium). The freedom of man is considered with regard to his needs, energies, entitlements, obligations, relations with other things. Needs arise from man's nature, and some of them can be satisfied only by things. Here Kołłątaj saw the source of natural property rights. He repeated the views of the Physiocrats, that property is the law of nature, and that concrete property is the product of human labor. 17 Kołłątaj emphasized that only work legitimizes property.
Analyzing the nature of man, Kołłątaj came to the conclusion that morality is based on two fundamental values: absolute justice, that is, the obligation to observe the law, and charity, that is, the obligation to help others. 18 The highest form of charity is heroism, that is, putting the good of others above one's own.
Man also has the ability to improve himself, thanks to which, unlike animals, he develops his life and changes the circumstances in which he lives. It is going beyond nature that makes him original and creative. However, this is not something unnatural; quite the opposite -it is the natural potential of a human being. In the opinion of Kołłątaj, getting to know man involves both the knowledge of his physical state and the moral state that mutually condition one another. Suchodolski emphasized that none of the writers of the Enlightenment perceived human at the same time as a biological being and a social being. 19 Kołłątaj showed how people, being a part of nature, are at the same time the creators of their own world. He combined the concepts of Physiocrats with the research of naturalists.
According to Kołłątaj, getting to know man and moral laws also requires putting them into a specific historical perspective. At this point, he disagreed with the views of the Physiocrats who considered history irrelevant and claimed that it is not helpful in learning the eternal and unchanging laws of nature. They did not consider it important to study the diversity of human civilization. In turn, Kołłątaj wondered why the fate of nations was so different. Of course, the main reason for his interest in this subject was the situation of the Commonwealth and the question of the causes of its downfall. believed that the answers should be sought in history and he put forward the thesis that philosophical anthropology and social philosophy can not be considered in isolation from history. He was an original thinker in this respect. 20 For this reason, he became interested in historical research and wrote a comprehensive treatise entitled Rozbiór krytyczny zasad historii początkowej wszystkich ludów [The Critical Analysis of the Principles of History at the Beginnings of Human Lineage], which was published posthumously in 1842. 21 Then, he planned to write the early history of the Polish nation, so that the memory of the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would survive despite the collapse of the state. 22 In this treatise, he described the state of nature in which people learned the norms of the law of nature through introspection and lived according to these principles. It was a period devoid of history and concreteness. Kołłątaj described it in order to show the image of the world in which the physical and moral order prevails. This state was ended with cataclysm, which was the Flood. He did not refer to the version of the Flood known from the Bible, but indicated that it had natural causes. It was also not a hypothesis, but a fact that could be examined by scientific methods. The Flood in the philosophy of Kołłątaj replaced the idea of a social contract. In this way, he justified the reasons for the ending of a good and just physical-moral order. Thus, it was neither the decision of the people nor their bad will or ignorance. This catastrophe changed people and from then on, the diversity of cultures began. This Flood separated the state of nature from history. 23 Describing the social world, Kołłątaj perceived it in the context of the unchanging and universal laws of nature as well as historical time. According to Hinz, Kołłątaj's historicism created a bridge connecting the Enlightenment idea with the philosophy of Romanticism. 24 Kołłątaj was convinced that, thanks to the research in the physical and moral nature of man, his potential for self-improvement and the establishment of positive laws based on the laws of nature, it would be possible to restore a just society. Legislation was to be declaratory because only those norms that are compliant with the law of nature constitute the law. Conflicting laws are not even law and no one is obliged to obey them. Kołłątaj emphasized that the law of nature is constantly in force and the sanction for non-compliance is unavoidable suffering and damage in private or public life.
Kazimierz Opałek drew attention to one more important thing: rights are an essential element of the law of nature, duties are reflections of rights, which constitute guarantees and conditions for their implementation. 25 The laws of nature are freedom, equality and property. Countries were created to secure people's freedom. Grześkowiak-Krwawicz highlighted that Kołłątaj reversed the correlation indicated by republicanism, namely that there are no free citizens without a free country. 26 He wrote that there is no free government where there are some people in captivity. 27 It should be added here that he used the categories of civil and political freedom. The former freedom is guaranteed to everyone without exception and is defined as the freedom to dispose of one's person, one's movable property and land, as well as being entitled to rights. The political freedom as meaning involvement in political power and making state decision should be granted to the noble and bourgeois owner-citizens. For this reason, Kołłątaj postulated that the executive power should belong to the Sejm, which would meet all the time. In this way, everyone with political freedom would actually co-rule. Grześkowiak-Krwawicz stated: "Like probably no other Polish writer he knew how to combine modern concepts of freedom (drawn mainly from the physiocrats) with the tradition of republican freedom, his developing his own proposal of freedom for the Commonwealth". 28 Freedom is linked to property and the purpose of a free government is to protect citizens so that they can be the owners of themselves and the property they possess thanks to their work. However, this definition of of property makes it necessary to abolish feudalism. After that, natural relations of the superior and subordinate, owner and farmer, and craftsman and merchant will be established. Kołłątaj believed that equality does not contradict the subordination and existence of class divisions, because equality of citizens is equality in obedience to laws. In fact, the concept of the law of nature served Kolłątaj to justify the abolition of feudalism, and at the same time to secure the new system against the peasant revolution. 29  freedom would not be safe if the common people had the same share in the government as the richest citizens. Such views "always introduced disorder, violence, sparked off civil wars, and ended with autocracy." 30 It should be stressed again that civil freedom, according to Kołłątaj, belongs to everyone regardless of the class. In this way, he created a new community that embraced all citizens. Kołłątaj used the term "nation" and understood it as the whole population of the country, including peasants, and it was a doctrine quite innovative at that time. 31 He emphasized that the nation is made up of people speaking one language. Acting within the National Education Commission, he was engaged in attempts to make the Polish language a full-fledged language of scientific expression. He was involved in reforming the Cracow Academy from 1777. Instead of Latin, the Polish language became the language of lectures. The replacement of Latin with the national language in higher education was still uncommon in Europe.Writing The Critical Analysis of the Principles of History at the Beginnings of Human Lineage in Polish, he contributed to making the Polish language a language of science. 32 It should be noted that his two books quoted here were published after the partitions of Poland. Thanks to this, Polish was present in the scientific discourse, despite the fact that Commonwealth no longer existed.
Analyzing the views of Kołłątaj regarding the law of nature, it can not be overlooked that he had a huge impact on the development of the science of the law of nature in the Commonwealth. Under his influence, his friend Jan Śniadecki, lecturer at the Cracow Academy, from 1777, changed his lectures on "moral science" into a lecture on the law of nature. Other lecturers did likewise for they mainly used the French Physiocrats' writings as their source of inspiration. 33

Stanisław Staszic (1755-1826)
According to Grzegorz  of moral postulates defining lasting human duties and responsibilities, but at the same time it is an expression of the necessity according to which truely historical events are to take place in the human world." 41 As Staszic claims, the ideal is a simple life in accordance with the law of nature. However, it is always necessary to look at a person's life from a collective perspective. Living in the group was considered by Staszic from three different perspectives: psychological -it is the weakness of the human being that necessitates the co-existence with other people, historical -the pursuit of living in the family or larger groups, and the teleological one -implying the attitude of God to man. 42 God gave man the four commandments that Staszic recognized as the laws of nature: be vigilant, grow, multiply and the strong win. 43 Freedom should be correlated with equality. Freedom occurred in the pre-social period, while equality is "the chief manifestation of social life". 44 Staszic took the view that in the state of nature, inequality came into being when ownership appeared. At that time, people who could not enjoy their natural right to equality decided to enter into a social contract. The basic element of the social contract was the promise that everyone would renounce the use of "personal power and reason to defend their right" and would sacrifice themselves in order to defend "the society". 45 The very fact of concluding a social contract on an equal basis was an expression of human freedom. In the state of nature, man was often dependent on another human being. In turn, in an organized society that operates on the basis of law, this dependence is replaced by subordination to the law. Laws protect the natural rights of every human being. Although the consequence of the social contract was the necessity to limit personal freedom, thanks to that everyone achieved equality and protection of their property guaranteed by law. "Freedom of man is free use of his property in accordance with the law." 46 The physical force that governed the community was replaced by moral force, that is, law. 47 The social contract also gave rise to justice. Staszic 43 Ibidem, p. 174. Moreover, according to Staszic, God gave man a "reasonable soul and inner feeling" as well as sent him on an earthly journey. In addition, He did not show the way or purpose of this journey -it was supposed to be man's job. During this journey, an evil was born being an excess of innate properties, given to man by God  the society, but his guiding thought was to create force that would "transform man, as a simple creation of nature, into a moral being." 48 Staszic, similarly to other modern philosophers referring to the idea of a social contract, stated that the then present state did not function in accordance with the law of nature. Moreover, he repeatedly emphasized that the law of nature would make the society happy if it were observed. That is why it is necessary to conclude a social contract. It was defined as the "act constituting a society" and as "a system of the government". The writer indicated that he discussed both elements at the same time. 49 According to Staszic, it is necessary to ensure that the state is based on the principles of the law of nature. Staszic stated that freedom should be protected first and foremost by all means, even by despotism of monarchy. He was, however, above all a supporter of republicanism and considered the theory of the separation of powers by Montesquieu as particularly valuable. It is the application of this theory that would best secure freedom. Grześkowiak-Krawicz pointed out, that Staszic "did not draw any distinction between political and civil freedom and did not devote much space to natural freedom either, even though like his master Rousseau he did accept the concept. But it seems that he was the last author to devote much space to the educational role of the law, to cultivating the proper civil attitudes". 50 It should also be added that Staszic understood the nation as nobles and townsmen, and these states enjoy the freedom understood as the co--govern ment of the country. 51 He did not propose radical reforms, only these two states were to have political rights.

Conclusion
Characterizing the political thought in Poland in the 18 th century, Grzegorz Seidler emphasized that Wybicki, Kołłątaj and Staszic made a significant breakthrough in it. 52 When proposing reforms, they did not only present arguments of a utilitarian nature, which was the usual practice at the time, but referred to the indisputable authority of the eternal and unchanging law of nature. For this reason, in their works, theoretical and philosophical considerations regarding the law of nature, the state of nature, the social contract, human nature and a just political community can also be found. These reflections were mostly a repetition of the concepts of Western philosophers. They recognized 48 freedom, equality, property, the rule of law, security, education, virtue and patriotism as the pillars of the state which they derived from the law of nature.
Opałek stressed that the legal ideology of feudalism was a system of orders and prohibitions, which promoted submission and renunciation of any claims. 53 The modern law of nature broke with these principles because its norms have a demanding character. Thanks to the concept of the law of nature, Wybicki, Kołłątaj and Staszic gave their political postulates a universal character, although, of course, when they were concretising their ideas, de facto they served the particular interests of their social group. Still, "their" (peasants') freedom was different from "our" freedom. 54 The peasants were to have only civil freedom, while the nobility and rich burghers were to have political freedom. However, they undoubtedly created a new concept of the nation, which included not only nobility, but also burghers and, in a sense, peasants, providing them with legal protection. 55 Jerzy Szacki pointed out that in contrast to the Enlightenment in Western Europe, whose one of the guiding ideas was individualism (of course, it was not uniform), in Polish political thought, the social point of view dominated. 56 The aim of these three thinkers was to expand the nation, make it a community that would be able to protect the country from collapse. They did not prioritize the powers of the individual, which they rather associated with the anarchy of Polish nobility, but emphasized the importance of these laws of nature, which form the foundation of a just social order. The main problem was not the reduction of despotism, but rather the strengthening of power, and the reform of rights, so that the spreading anarchy would not lead to the final collapse of Poland. Their projects were quite conservative, not utopian. The law of nature was their weapon in the struggle for the country. At the same time, they referred to the republican tradition, proclaiming that the fall of Poland would be the fall of freedom. Grześkowiak-Krawicz stated that the major achievement of Polish political thinkers in the second half of 18 th century "was to combine the liberal understanding of freedomas the maximal capacity to act within the bounds set by law -with the republican idea of 53 K. Opałek, Prawo natury, p. 43. 54 Grześkowiak-Krwawicz pointed out that from the late 16 th century to the 80s of the 18 th century, political writers, while writing about freedom, used possessive pronouns. Freedom was usually "ours"; the writers did not consider freedom in general terms. Kołłątaj's statements that "our" freedom can not mean the servitude of peasants were revolutionary; what is more, he recognized that their freedom is a guarantee of our freedom. A. Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Moja, twoja, nasza… Wolność i zaimki w polskiej myśli politycznej XVIII wieku, Horyzonty Polityki 4, 2013, No. 7, p. 95-96. 55 The first reflections on the nation appeared in the philosophical and political treatises in the 18 th century. One of the precursors was Rousseau, a theoretist of the law of nature. See Marta Baranowska, U źródeł nacjonalizmu: Idea narodu w filozofii Jan Jakub Rousseau , Studia nad Autorytaryzmem i Totalitaryzmem 35, 2013, No 2, p. 7-24. 56 Jerzy Szacki, Historia myśli socjologicznej. Wydanie nowe, Warszawa 2007, p. 129-130.