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Robert Filmer citations

Sir Robert Filmer, né en 1588 dans le comté de Kent et mort le 26 mai 1653, est un philosophe anglais. Filmer étudia au Trinity College de Cambridge, et fut adoubé par Charles Ier d'Angleterre au début de son règne. Ardent défenseur de la cause royaliste, il fut un défenseur acharné de la monarchie absolue de droit divin pour tous les rois.

Il fut réfuté par John Locke et Algernon Sidney, et sa maison fut pillée par les parlementaires plus de dix fois.

Son ouvrage Patriarcha s'est attiré une vive critique de la part de Jean-Jacques Rousseau : « J’ai cru qu’il suffiroit de ce peu de lignes pour renverser l’odieux système que le chevalier Filmer a tâché d’établir dans un ouvrage intitulé Patriarcha, auquel deux hommes illustres ont fait trop d’honneur en écrivant des livres pour le réfuter. » Wikipedia  

✵ 1588 – 26. mai 1653
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Robert Filmer: 5   citations 0   J'aime

Robert Filmer: Citations en anglais

“...the prince is not subject to his law, nor to the laws of his predecessors, but well to his own just and reasonable conventions.”

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Robert Filmer

Source: The Power of Kings, p. 318

“To majesty or sovereignty belongeth an absolute power not subject to any law.”

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Robert Filmer

Source: The Power of Kings, p. 317

“The three sons of Noah had the whole world divided amongst them by their Father; for of them was the whole world overspread, according to the benediction given to him and his sons: "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth."”

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Robert Filmer livre Patriarcha

Most of the civilest nations of the earth labour to fetch their original from some one of the sons or nephews of Noah, which were scattered abroad after the confusion of Babel. In this dispersion we must certainly find the establishment of regal power throughout the kingdoms of the world.

p. 58
Patriarcha

“In a well-ordered state, the sovereign power must remain in one only, without communicating any part thereof unto the state (for in that case it should be a popular government and no monarchy). Wise politicians, philosophers, divines and historiographers, have highly commended a monarchy above all other commonweals. It is not to please the prince, that they hold this opinion; but for the safety and hap­piness of the subjects. And contrariwise, when as they shall limit and restrain the sovereign power of a monarch, to subject him to the general estates, or to the council; the sovereignty hath no firm foun­dation, but they frame a popular confusion, or a mi­serable anarchy, which is the plague of all estates and commonweals.”

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Robert Filmer

Source: The Power of Kings, p. 325

“I see not then how the children of Adam, or of any man else, can be free from subjection to their parents. And this subjection of children being the fountain of all regal authority, by the ordination of God himself. From whence it follows, that civil power, not only in general is by Divine institution, but even the assigning of it specifically to the eldest parent. Which quite takes away that new and common distinction which refers only power universal and absolute to God, but power respective in regard of the special form of government to the choice of the people. Nor leaves it any place for such imaginary pactions between Kings and their people as many dream of. This lordship which Adam by creation had over the whole world, and by right descending from him the Patriarchs did enjoy, was as large and ample as the absolutest dominion of any monarch which hath been since the creation.”

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Robert Filmer livre Patriarcha

Source: Patriarcha, pp. 57–58