companion for Adam, that is, Eve, whom he created from his rib (which yet was not superfluous in Adam, and its removal did not mutilate his body) and gave to Adam in matrimony.
§29. This society in the state of innocence was supremely equal, for only after the fall the power to command was transferred by God to the husband in order to punish the wife, and before the fall the common cause of subjection, imperfection, could not be attributed to Eve.
§30. The Apostle teaches that it does not befit wives to rule over their husbands, and he uses the argument that Adam was created earlier than Eve.20 But one cannot infer from this that in the state of innocence Adam commanded Eve because Eve could not command Adam.
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§31. The argument put forward by others, that the husband is superior to the wife in dignity and power because God intended to create the wife to complement the husband and not vice versa, establishes a priority of order but not a superiority of dignity or power, as can easily be shown with the example of a society of merchants.
§32. Such was the society of the state of innocence; would it have continued to exist if man had not lost his integrity? Some have thought so and denied that paternal society would have existed in the state of innocence. This has recently been argued among the English by Thomas Hobbes, who made bad use of his intellect, and among the Dutch by that horrible author Adriaan Beverland.21
§33. We not only defeat those authors with the words of the divine benediction: “go forth and multiply,” but rout them by pointing out the shape of the human body and the members destined for procreation.
§34. We believe, however, that this society too would have been equal, but would have differed from conjugal society in that children would have had to show reverence toward their parents not so much because of a priority of order, but because they received the benefit of procreation from them.
§35. For the debt of reverence does not presuppose the imperfection implied by subjection, and the cause of paternal rule, as will be shown in its appropriate place, would have been absent in the state of innocence.
§36. But the domestic society of masters and servants [servi] would certainly have been absent from the state of innocence. For the economic need, which introduced this society both on the part of the master and the slave, would not have existed in the state of innocence, not to mention the division of property.
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§37. And would there have been a commonwealth? That will become clear if we consider the structure of the commonwealth. It consists of the power to command, which is directed to preserving public peace and the sufficiency of all things. We have already shown that there was no political power in the state of innocence. And power would not have been necessary to obtain either peace (since there would have been no fear) or sufficiency (since there would have been no lack of anything).
§38. But they who argued for the existence of a commonwealth in the state of innocence confessed almost unanimously that they did not mean a society with power in the proper sense. Thus, some distinguished between directive power and coercive power. But by doing so they admitted that there was no power [in the state of innocence], because a directive power is like a cold fire.22
§39. Then follows the state of fallen man. Here many things were altered. The organs of the body required some time before they were able to exercise their powers of locomotion and to be guided by the soul. Death enters the world; various diseases precede and further it; digestion is often poor; man must beware of poison; food must be prepared with various artifices so that it does not inflict harm; the sense organs of humans frequently deceive; the intellect has become much less acute. In infants it is like a clean slate, suitable to receiving any impressions whatsoever. The will of man has lost much of its liberty and is inclined almost wholly to evil, because the passions very frequently rise up and make man lose control of himself and in any case are perpetually straining at the leash.
§40. We believe that these changes in man have been so great that it is absolutely impossible for man to correct these imperfections in the present life by natural means.
§41. If he could do so, it would be in his power to rid himself of original sin or to evade divine punishment. Either of these, however, is absurd.
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§42. Insofar as the intellect is concerned, however, perfection did remain to the extent that man could recognize the common rules and precepts, above all those of the law of nature that are relevant to the will, which was inclined toward evil, but in such a way that it retained at least the liberty of constraining external actions effectively.
§43. Moreover, if we look at the changes with respect to societies, in divine society today there is no longer the face-to-face conversation with God, nor is God only loved as a benign father; he is also feared as a just judge. Conjugal society has been turned from an equal into a mixed society, as a punishment for original sin. The power to command was introduced into paternal society for the sake of education. The curse on the soil and the resulting division of property produced the society of masters and servants, and the fear of external violence led to the foundation of cities and commonwealths.
§44. The state of innocence is also called the state of right nature [natura recta], and the state after the fall from grace that of corrupt nature. Yet we must note that here by corruption we do not mean moral corruption with respect to external actions, since that description pertains either to the physical corruption of man or, at least, to the moral corruption of the internal actions that strongly incline to sin against the laws.
§45. Thus the postlapsarian state is still right to some extent, and the sinful external actions in that state do not reflect the defects of the state but of the humans living in it.
§46. Hence, you should also note the following ambiguity: corruption is opposed either to the state of innocence or to the postlapsarian state, to the extent that this latter state is still uncorrupt; in that case it refers for example to the condition of thieves, etc.
§47. There are many more different meanings concealed in the term natural state. We know of the distinction between the natural and the legal states of man, which is explained in different ways by different authors
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but is usually interpreted to mean that the natural state was that of man flourishing in the state of innocence; the legal state, however, that of corrupt nature. And this distinction is commonly applied not only to individual humans, but also to human societies, above all to civil society. And apart from that its use in solving several political controversies is often emphasized.
§48. We have done so, too, in another place.23 But now we have changed our opinion, in part because the natural state [in this sense] presupposes the existence of a civil society in the state of innocence, and we have just demonstrated the opposite; in part because those [political] controversies can be solved, if not better, then equally well, if we direct our attention exclusively to the legal state.
§49. Almost any beginner will know how much political theorists have criticized the natural state of Hobbes, which he insisted to be a war of all against all, and how much he opposed the social state to this. Pufendorf’s comments in various places against this state of war deserve to be read here.
§50. The state of man after the fall from grace can be described as natural in many respects. This will be clear from the following distinctions. The natural state initially describes a condition common to all humans that distinguishes
