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MAKER
I N N O VAT I O N S
SERIES

Arduino
Software
Internals
A Complete Guide to How Your Arduino
Language and Hardware Work Together
—
Second Edition
—
Norman Dunbar
Maker Innovations Series
Jump start your path to discovery with the Apress Maker Innovations series! From the basics of
electricity and components through to the most advanced options in robotics and Machine Learning,
you’ll forge a path to building ingenious hardware and controlling it with cutting-edge software. All
while gaining new skills and experience with common toolsets you can take to new projects or even
into a whole new career.
The Apress Maker Innovations series offers projects-based learning, while keeping theory and
best processes front and center. So you get hands-on experience while also learning the terms of the
trade and how entrepreneurs, inventors, and engineers think through creating and executing hardware
projects. You can learn to design circuits, program AI, create IoT systems for your home or even city,
and so much more!
Whether you’re a beginning hobbyist or a seasoned entrepreneur working out of your basement
or garage, you’ll scale up your skillset to become a hardware design and engineering pro. And often
using low-cost and open-source software such as the Raspberry Pi, Arduino, PIC microcontroller,
and Robot Operating System (ROS). Programmers and software engineers have great opportunities
to learn, too, as many projects and control environments are based in popular languages and operating
systems, such as Python and Linux.
If you want to build a robot, set up a smart home, tackle assembling a weather-ready meteorology
system, or create a brand-new circuit using breadboards and circuit design software, this series has all
that and more! Written by creative and seasoned Makers, every book in the series tackles both tested
and leading-edge approaches and technologies for bringing your visions and projects to life.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/17311.

Norman Dunbar

Arduino Software Internals

A Complete Guide to How Your Arduino
Language and Hardware Work Together

Second Edition
Norman Dunbar
Rawdon
West Yorkshire, UK

ISBN-13 (pbk): 979-8-8688-0170-9 ISBN-13 (electronic): 979-8-8688-0171-6

https://doi.org/10.1007/979-8-8688-0171-6

Copyright © 2024 by Norman Dunbar

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned,
specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
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The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such,
is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights.
While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors
nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher
makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.

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If disposing of this product, please recycle the paper.

This book is dedicated to my wife, Alison, who occasionally
allows me to have some time to myself, programming,
attempting to build things (with or without “Internet of”), and
writing notes, articles, and/or this book.
Another person to whom I am grateful is Alison’s late maternal
grandmother, Minnie Trees (yes, I did call her Bonsai!), who
gifted me an Arduino Duemilanove starter kit and rekindled my
long-lost (for over 35 years) interest in building things with
electronics.
The book is also dedicated to the myriad of people and
companies or organizations around the world who freely give
their time and skills to produce open source software and
hardware, for the benefit of others or just for fun.
If I may paraphrase the words of Isaac Newton, I too stand on
the shoulders of giants, so here’s to the giants, the little people,
and all the medium-sized ones too, who may or may not become
giants themselves. Let’s hope the fun never stops.
Finally, my own motto is Don’t think! Find out! Hopefully, this
book will help you do exactly that.
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Arduino Installation Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Coding Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.1 Number Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 The Arduino Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 Coming Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 Arduino Compilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 Settings.json . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 Finding Other Hidden Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.2 Setting Tab Stops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2 Globally Defined Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3 Boards.txt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3.1 Arduino Uno Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4 Boards.local.txt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.5 Platform.txt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.5.1 Build Recipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.5.2 Pre- and Post-Build Hooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.6 Programmers.txt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.7 Compiling a Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.7.1 Arduino Sketch (*.ino) Preprocessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.7.2 Arduino Sketch (*.ino) Build . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.7.3 After the Build . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.8 The Arduino main() Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.9 Header File Arduino.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.9.1 Header File avr/pgmspace.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.9.2 Header File avr/io.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.9.3 Header File avr\interrupt.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.9.4 Header File binary.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.9.5 Header File WCharacter.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.9.6 Header File WString.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.9.7 Header File HardwareSerial.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.9.8 Header File USBAPI.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.9.9 Header File pins_arduino.h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.10 The init() Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.10.1 Enabling the Global Interrupt Flag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.10.2 Enabling Timer 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

vii
viii Contents

2.10.3 Timer 0 Overflow Interrupt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2.10.4 Configuring Timer 1 and Timer 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.10.5 Initializing the Analog-to-Digital Converter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.10.6 Disabling the USART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3 Arduino Language Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.1 What Are We Looking At? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.2 Digital Input/Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2.1 Function pinMode() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.2.2 Function digitalRead() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.2.3 Function digitalWrite() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3 Analog Input/Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.3.1 Function analogReference() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.3.2 Function analogRead() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.3.3 Function analogWrite() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.4 Advanced Input/Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.4.1 Function tone() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.4.2 Function noTone() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.4.3 Function pulseIn() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.4.4 Function pulseInLong() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.4.5 Function shiftIn() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.4.6 Function shiftOut() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.5 Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.5.1 Function delay() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.5.2 Function delayMicroseconds() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
3.5.3 Function micros() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.5.4 Function millis() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.6 Interrupts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
3.6.1 Function interrupts() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.6.2 Function noInterrupts() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.6.3 Function attachInterrupt() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.6.4 Function detachInterrupt() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.7 Bits and Bobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
3.7.1 Macro bit() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
3.7.2 Macro bitClear() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
3.7.3 Macro bitRead() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
3.7.4 Macro bitSet() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
3.7.5 Macro bitWrite() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
3.7.6 Macro bitToggle() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
3.7.7 Macro highByte() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3.7.8 Macro lowByte() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3.7.9 Macro sbi() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3.7.10 Macro cbi() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
4 Arduino Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
4.1 The Print Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
4.1.1 Class Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.1.2 Using the Print Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Contents ix

4.2 The Printable Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

4.2.1 An Example Printable Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.3 The Stream Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.3.1 Class Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.4 The HardwareSerial Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
4.4.1 Interrupt Handlers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
4.4.2 Class Functions and Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
4.5 The String Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
5 Converting to the AVR Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
5.2 Numbering Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
5.2.1 Decimal Numbering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
5.2.2 Binary Numbering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
5.2.3 Hexadecimal Numbering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
5.3 Binary Logical Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
5.3.1 NOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
5.3.2 AND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
5.3.3 OR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
5.3.4 XOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
5.4 Replacing the Arduino Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
5.4.1 The ATmega328P Pins and Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
5.4.2 Replacing pinMode() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
5.4.3 Replacing digitalWrite() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.4.4 Enabling Internal Pull-Up Resistors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
5.4.5 Replacing digitalRead() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
5.4.6 Toggling Output Pins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
5.4.7 Installing digitalToggle() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
6 Alternatives to the Arduino IDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
6.1 What Are the Alternatives? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
6.2 PlatformIO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
6.2.1 System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
6.2.2 Installing PlatformIO IDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
6.2.3 Testing PlatformIO Core . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
6.2.4 PlatformIO for Arduino-Style Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
6.2.5 PlatformIO for AVR-Style Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
6.2.6 Burning Bootloaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
6.2.7 Using Your Own IDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
6.2.8 Adding Additional Boards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
6.2.9 PlatformIO Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
6.3 Arduino Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
6.3.1 Obtaining the Arduino CLI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
6.3.2 Installing the Arduino CLI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
6.3.3 Configuring the CLI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
6.3.4 Creating Sketches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
6.3.5 Unknown Boards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
6.3.6 Installing Platforms or Cores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
6.3.7 Compiling Sketches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
x Contents

6.3.8 Uploading Sketches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

6.3.9 Uploading Sketches with an ICSP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
6.3.10 Burning Bootloaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
6.3.11 Serial Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
6.3.12 Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
6.3.13 A Simple Makefile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
6.3.14 Library Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
6.3.15 Board Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
7 ATmega328P Configuration and Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
7.1 ATmega328P Fuses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
7.1.1 Low Fuse Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
7.1.2 Low Fuse Factory Default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
7.1.3 Arduino Low Fuse Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
7.1.4 High Fuse Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
7.1.5 High Fuse Factory Default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
7.1.6 Arduino High Fuse Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
7.1.7 Extended Fuse Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
7.1.8 Extended Fuse Factory Default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
7.1.9 Arduino Extended Fuse Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
7.2 Brown Out Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
7.3 The Watchdog Timer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
7.3.1 Watchdog Timer Modes of Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
7.3.2 Amended Sketch setup() Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
7.3.3 Watchdog Timer Reset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
7.3.4 The Watchdog Timer Control Register . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
7.3.5 Enabling the Watchdog Timer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
7.3.6 Setting the Watchdog Timer Timeout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
7.3.7 Disabling the Watchdog Timer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
7.4 Putting the AVR to Sleep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
7.4.1 Sleep Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
7.4.2 Sleep and the Analog Comparator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
7.5 Power Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
7.5.1 Power Consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
7.5.2 Power Reduction Register . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
7.5.3 Saving Arduino Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
7.5.4 The Power Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
7.6 Bootloaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
7.6.1 Flash Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
7.6.2 Lock Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
7.6.3 Installing the Uno (Optiboot) Bootloader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
7.6.4 Optiboot Bootloader Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
8 ATmega328P Hardware—Timers and Counters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
8.1 Timers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
8.1.1 Timer 0 (Eight Bits) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
8.1.2 Timer 1 (16 Bits) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
8.1.3 Timer 2 (Eight Bits) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
8.1.4 Timer Clock Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Contents xi

8.1.5 Timer Non-PWM Operating Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

8.1.6 Timer PWM Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
8.1.7 Too Much to Remember? Try AVRAssist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
8.2 Counting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
8.2.1 Setting External Counting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
8.2.2 Counter Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
8.3 Input Capture Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
9 ATmega328P Hardware—AC, ADC, and USART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
9.1 Analog Comparator (AC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
9.1.1 Reference Voltage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
9.1.2 Sampled Voltage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
9.1.3 Digital Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
9.1.4 Enable the Analog Comparator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
9.1.5 Select Reference Voltage Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
9.1.6 Select Sampled Voltage Source Pin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
9.1.7 Comparator Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
9.1.8 Comparator Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
9.2 Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
9.2.1 ADC Setup and Initiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
9.2.2 ADC Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
9.3 USART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
9.3.1 Baud Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
9.3.2 Double Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
9.3.3 Baud Rate Calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
9.3.4 Baud Rate Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
9.3.5 What Is a Frame? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
9.3.6 Parity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
9.3.7 USART Interrupts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
9.3.8 Initializing the USART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
9.3.9 USART Completion and Error Checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
9.3.10 USART Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

A Arduino Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

B ATmega328P Pinout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
C ATmega328P Power Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
D Predefined Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
E ADC Temperature Measuring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
F Assembly Language—Briefly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
G Smallest Blink Sketch? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
xii Contents

H NormDuino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
I No ICSP? No Problem! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
J Breadboard 8 MHz Board Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
K AVRAssist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
About the Author

Norman Dunbar is a retired Oracle database administrator who

lives with his wife, Alison, and a cockapoo dog, Wesley, to keep
him out of trouble.
Norman has had a long-running relationship with electronics
since childhood and computers since the late 1970s, and the Ar-
duino was a perfect marriage of the two interests.
With a love of learning new things, examining and explaining the
Arduino Language and the hardware became a bit of a hobby, and
as his piles of notes expanded, Apress decided to publish his work
as Arduino Software Internals.
Since then, Norman has been diving into the slightly trickier
aspects of the Arduino—interrupts—with a view to documenting
them for his own ease of use. Once more, his notes became a book—
Arduino Interrupts—published by Apress in December 2023.
Because he never remembers exactly how much work is involved
and how hard it is to write a technical book, Norman is now writing
a third book about the Arduino, with a view to completing his
trilogy.
Norman’s motto continues to be don’t think, find out.

xiii
About the Technical Reviewer

Sai Yamanoor is an embedded engineer based in Oakland, CA. He

has over ten years of experience as an embedded systems expert,
working on hardware and software design. He is a coauthor of three
books on using Raspberry Pi to execute DIY projects, and he has
also presented a Personal Health Dashboard at Maker Faires across
the country. Sai is also working on projects to improve the quality of
life (QoL) for people with chronic health conditions. Check out his
projects at https://saiyamanoor.com.

xv
Acknowledgments

I would like to thank everyone involved in the production of this book—the people you almost never
hear about. Without them, there would be no book.
I’m grateful to the following people at Apress/Springer:
Miriam Haidara who convinced me to update Arduino Software Internals to cover changes for the
new version of the IDE and software. Jessica Vakili who has had the misfortune to have worked with
me on three books now, thanks! Also, Joseph Quatela, James Markham, and Nirmal Selvaraj who kept
answering my silly questions!
The people who turned my manuscript into a proper book, who did the indexing for me, the people
running the print machines, and the cover designers. You never get named or mentioned, but authors
do appreciate you—thanks.
Finally, to my wife Alison and Wesley the cockapoo, thanks for letting me write an update and
keeping me exercised!

xvii
Preface

If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants.

Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727), in a letter to Robert Hooke, 15 February 1676

There are many books which discuss the abilities of the Arduino hardware and how best the maker
can use this to their benefit. I have many of them in my bookcase and digital versions on my phone
and tablet—in case I get bored with life and need something interesting to read. Many of these books
explain what the hardware does, and some even dig deeper into the hardware to explain how, in fairly
easy-to-understand terms, it does it.
There are no books which take a similar view of the Arduino software. There is now!
This book takes you on a journey (why do we always have to be on a journey these days?) into the
world of Arduino sketches and the various files involved in the compilation process. It will delve deep
into the supplied software and look at the specific parts of the Arduino Language which deal with the
underlying hardware, the ATmega328P (or ATmega328AU) microcontrollers—henceforth, referred
to as ATmega328P.
Once the Arduino Language has been explained, the book takes a short look at how you can
strip away the Arduino hand-holding and get down and dirty with the naked hardware. It’s not easy,
but equally it’s not too difficult. Don’t worry; this is still the C/C++ language; there’s no assembly
language required. Perhaps!

Rawdon, UK Norman Dunbar

xix
Preface to the Second Edition

Since the first edition of Arduino Software Internals was published in 2020, the Arduino environment
has moved onward with new microcontroller boards being added, numerous bugs being fixed, new
bugs introduced—albeit, not deliberately—and many improvements made.
One of the bigger changes has been to the IDE itself; it is now at release 2.1.0 and has changed
completely from the old 1.x releases. It now provides a much more modern experience with code
completion, IntelliSense, and much, much more. It still has drawbacks—when you open a new sketch,
you get a new IDE—but progress has indeed been made in lots of areas.
Another big change is the Arduino Command Line Interface. It has moved on from version 0.6
to version 0.30, and it has become a very usable tool. A couple of major improvements that come
immediately to mind are the ability to upload code with an ICSP device and the ability to burn
bootloaders. It has improved so much that the Arduino IDE has replaced the old preprocessing and
compilation subsystems with the “arduino-cli” under the covers. Sadly, it still cannot upload EEPROM
data.
PlatformIO, another alternative to the Arduino IDE, has itself improved and now, at the time of
writing—May 2023—supports over 1,500 boards, 50 platforms, and 24 different frameworks, not to
mention over 13,400 libraries!
The standard IDE for use with PlatformIO is Visual Studio Code (VSCode) rather than Atom or
the command line, although those are still available. Don’t worry if you don’t like or use VSCode;
PlatformIO Core—the command-line option—can still generate project files for an even larger number
of common IDEs such as Atom, CLion, Code::Blocks, Eclipse, Emacs, NetBeans, Qt Creator, Sublime
Text, Vim, Visual Studio, and VSCode.
The first edition of this book occasionally mentioned Windows, and at that time, I had limited
access to Windows 7. The current version, as of May 2023, is Windows 11, but unfortunately, I no
longer have access to any versions of Windows.
I hope you find the second edition as useful as, if not more than, the first edition.

xxi
Introduction
1

The Arduino is a great system for getting people into making with electronics and microcontrollers. I
was reintroduced to a long-lost hobby when I was gifted an Arduino Duemilanove (a.k.a. 2009) by my
wife’s late grandmother, and since then, I’ve had lots of fun learning and attempting to build things.
I’ve even built a number of Arduino clones based on just AVR microcontrollers and a few passive
components—it’s cheaper than fitting a new Arduino into a project!
Much has changed over the intervening years; LEDs used to cost about £10 each and came in one
color, red. These days, I can get a pack of 100 LEDs for about £2 in various different colors. Even
better, my old faithful Antex 15W soldering iron still worked, even after 35 years. Sadly, after the first
edition was published, it finally died. I bought another one, exactly the same!
The Arduino—and I’m concentrating on either the Uno version 3 or the Duemilanove here
as those are two which I’ve actually purchased (or been given)—is based around an Atmel
ATmega328 microcontroller. On the Uno, it’s the ATmega328PAU, while the Duemilanove uses the
ATmega328PPU.
Roughly, the only difference between the two is the Uno’s ATmega328PAU version is a surface
mount, while the ATmega328PPU version is a 28-pin through-hole device. They are, or should be,
identical to program, although the ATmega328PAU version does have two additional analog pins that
are not present on the ATmega328PPU.
Occasionally though, I may mention in passing the Mega 2560 R3—as I have a cheap Chinese
clone of one of these—which is based on the Atmel ATmega2560 microcontroller.
Some older Arduino boards had the ATmega168 microcontroller, which also was a 28-pin through-
hole version, but it only had 16 Kb of flash memory as opposed to the 32 Kb in the later 328 chips.
The EEPROM and RAM size is also half that of the ATmega328P devices.
The Arduino was designed for ease of use, and to this end, the software and the “Arduino
Language” hides an awful lot from the maker and developer. Hopefully, by the time you have finished
reading this book, you will understand more about what it does and why and, when necessary, how you
can bypass the Arduino Language (it’s just C or C++ after all) and use the bare-metal AVR-specific
C or C++ code instead. Doing this can lead to more space for your code, faster execution, and lower
power requirements—some projects can be run for months on a couple of batteries.

© Norman Dunbar 2024 1

N. Dunbar, Arduino Software Internals, Maker Innovations Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/979-8-8688-0171-6_1
2 1 Introduction

1.1 Arduino Installation Paths

The version of the Arduino IDE described in this book is 2.1.0. The version of the underlying Arduino
Language is 1.8.6.
I used an installation on Linux Mint while writing this book as Linux is my operating system of
choice, plus I do not have access to Windows anymore. The IDE was installed by downloading the
zip file version, as opposed to the flatpak version, and extracted. The location I extracted into is

• /home/norman/arduino-2.1.0/arduino-ide

On first execution, the IDE will create two new hidden directories—if they don’t already exist:

• /home/norman/.arduino15 which will contain the appropriate Arduino Language files for
your chosen board(s)
• /home/norman/.arduinoIDE which holds installation log files and is now where the IDE
preferences are stored

When I compiled a sketch for my Uno board, I was prompted to install the AVR package
required by my Uno. I agreed, and AVR package version 1.8.6 was installed into /home/norman/
.arduino15, which just happens to be the same location used by the 1.x version of the IDE.
The range of preferences offered by the new IDE is not as large as previous versions. Well, it seems
that that is the case, but all is not as it seems. This shall be explained soon!
Within this book, there are references to various files provided by the Arduino software. Because of
the way I’ve installed my software and the fact that the installer versions of the download may install to
a different location, most paths used in this book will be relative to /home/norman/.arduino15.
Paths used will be as follows:
When executing the IDE, it will be found in /home/norman/arduino-2.1.0/
arduino-ide where the downloaded zip file was extracted. However, most of the interesting
files, those for the Arduino Language, are to be found elsewhere.

• $ARDBASE is /home/norman/.arduino15, the location where the IDE installed the AVR
packages for the Uno and other AVR boards.
• $ARDINST is /home/norman/.arduino15/packages/arduino/hardware/avr/
1.8.6, the location of the main Arduino files for AVR microcontrollers. This is where the various
cores, bootloaders, and so on can be found, beneath this directory.
• $ARDINC is /home/norman/.arduino15/packages/arduino/hardware/avr/1.
8.6/cores/arduino, the location of many of the *.h header files and most of the *.
c and *.cpp files that comprise the Arduino Language for AVR microcontrollers. This is
$ARDINST/cores/arduino.
• $TOOLS is where the AVR tools reside in the downloaded packages for the AVR boards. Here, you
will find avrdude and the AVR Library which underlies a lot of the Arduino Language itself. On
my system, this is /home/norman/.arduino15/packages/arduino/tools.
• $AVRINC is where the header files for the version of the AVR Library provided by the Arduino
IDE are located. In the new IDE, these are now dependent on the version of the compiler in use—
avr-g++ by default—so the path can be quite convoluted.
The Arduino Language (eventually) compiles down to calling functions within the AVR
Library (henceforth referred to as AVRLib), and the header files are to be found in location
1.2 Coding Style 3

/home/norman/.arduino15/packages/arduino/tools/avr-gcc/xxxxx/avr/
include/avr.
Here, “xxxxx” is the avr-g++ compiler version and name, currently 7.3.0-atmel3.6.
1-arduino7, but this may change as new releases of the compiler are implemented by the IDE.

So, if you see a file referred to as $ARDINC/Arduino.h in the text, you will know that this
means the file

• /home/norman/.arduino15/packages/arduino/hardware/avr/1.8.6/cores/
arduino/Arduino.h on Linux.

You can see why I’m using abbreviations now, can’t you?
If you wish to examine the files on your system that I am discussing in the book, see Appendix A
for a couple of useful tips on how to avoid always having to type the full paths.

1.2 Coding Style

Code listings in the book will be displayed as follows:

#define ledPin LED_BUILTIN

#define relayPin 2
#define sensorPin 3
...

void loop() (1)

{
// Flash heartbeat LED.
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
delay(100);
digitalWrite(ledPin LOW); (2)
...
}

(1) This is a callout that attempts to bring your attention to something in the code which will be
described beneath the code listing in question.
(2) This is another callout; there can be more than one.

In the book’s main text, where you see words formatted like USCR0A or PORTB, then these are
examples of Arduino pin names, AVR microcontroller registers, bits within those registers, and/or
flags within the ATmega328P itself, as well as references to something listed in the data sheet for the
device. Where code listings are being explained, then variables from the code will be shown in this
style too.
Arduino pin numbers will be named Dn or An as appropriate. This is slightly different from the
normal usage of the digital pins, which normally just get a number; I prefer to be a little more formal
and give the digital pins their full title. <grin>
4 1 Introduction

Tip
Tips are exactly that. They give you a clue about something that may not be too well known in
the Arduino world, but which might be incredibly useful. (Or, maybe, just slightly useful!)

Note
This is a note. It brings your attention to something that may require a little more information.
It could be useful to pay attention to these notes. Maybe!

Warning
Warnings are there to highlight potential problems with something in the software or just
something that the data sheet needs you to take extra care over. There may be a possibility
of damage to your Arduino if you don’t pay particular attention. Occasionally, the data sheet
warns against doing something—so it’s best not to do what it says not to do!

1.2.1 Number Formats

Throughout this book, I need to refer to numbers in decimal, binary, or hexadecimal, from time to
time. To this end

Binary Binary numbers are written with a prefix of “0b” and a space every four bits, for
example, 0b0101 1011 0000 1101. All binary numbers will have this prefix, apart
from those which are single bit, that is, 0 and 1.
Hexadecimal Hexadecimal numbers are written with a prefix of “0x”. There are no spaces in
hexadecimal numbers, for example, 0x5B0E.
Decimal These numbers are written as you and I would normally write them, with no prefixes.
Commas will be used to separate the major groupings, for example, 23,310.

1.3 The Arduino Language

I should perhaps point out that there isn’t really such a thing as the Arduino Language. I may refer
to it frequently within the pages of this book, but technically, it doesn’t exist. What it is is simply an
abstraction of the C/C++ language, written in such a way as to make life easier for people learning to
make stuff with their Arduino. Which of the following is easier to understand?

digitalWrite(13, HIGH);

or
PORTB |= (1 << PORTB5);
1.4 Coming Up 5

The first is definitely the easiest to understand; however, the latter is by far the quicker of the
two as it just does what it says; it sets pin 5, on PORTB of the ATmega328P, to HIGH. The name,
digitalWrite(), appears to be a different language, but it isn’t; it’s that abstraction away from
plain AVR C/C++ which makes life easier for us all.

1.4 Coming Up

In Chapter 2, I explain how a sketch gets massaged into a proper C++ program and how the libraries
used in the sketch are incorporated into it. Following the brief overview of how compiling a sketch
operates, I then document the Arduino’s main() function, the various header files that it includes,
and the initialization carried out by the init() function. These initializations are part of every sketch
that you compile, so it helps if you know what the Arduino system is doing, hidden in the background,
just for you.
In Chapter 3, I explain about the features and facilities of the Arduino Language. This will include
all the commands such as pinMode(), digitalWrite(), and so on. I talk through all the
functions that relate to the Arduino, with particular emphasis on the code that applies to the standard
Arduino boards, those based on the ATmega328P family of AVR microcontrollers.
Chapter 4 looks into a number of the C++ classes (or objects) which are supplied with, and
used by, the Arduino Language. The classes of main interest here are the HardwareSerial
class which provides us with the Serial interface and its commands like Serial.begin() or
Serial.println(). However, the HardwareSerial class is not fully self-contained, so the
other, lesser known, supporting classes are also explained in this chapter.
Chapter 5 takes a brief look at how to cast off the bonds of the Arduino Language and delve into
the brazen world of AVR C++ itself, where you bypass the likes of pinMode() calls and talk to the
AVR microcontroller in something akin to its own language. Here, you will learn how you can set
the pinMode() for up to eight pins with a single instruction or how to digitalWrite() those
same eight pins, again with one instruction, and other efficient methods of communication with your
board.
Chapter 6 demonstrates a couple of alternatives to the Arduino IDE. Some people don’t get on
with it; I myself have a sort of love-hate relationship with it as I find versions 1.x of the editor a little
clumsy and slow for my liking. The new, improved versions 2.x of the IDE are much, much better,
however.
In this chapter, I will show you how you can write code for Arduino boards in both the Arduino
Language and plain AVR C/C++ code using the “PlatformIO” system and also give you a hefty
overview of the latest release of the arduino-cli utility used in versions 2.x of the IDE but available
for stand-alone use in Makefiles.
Chapter 7 is where I delve deeper into some features of the ATmega328P which, while not strictly
software, are fundamental to configuring the ATmega328P how you might like it and not as the
Arduino designers, however talented they may be, have decided.
In this chapter, I’ll be looking at the ATmega’s fuses, power reduction modes, sleep modes, and
similar features which determine how the ATmega328P works, but not necessarily what it does.
Chapters 8 and 9 are where I delve deeper into some more features of the ATmega328P which,
while not strictly software, are either important in understanding the Arduino Language or just useful
to know about. Hardware features such as the Analog Comparator (AC), Timer/counters—referred to
as timers henceforth—the Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC), and the Universal Synchronous/Asyn-
chronous Receiver/Transmitter (USART) are covered in some detail.
6 1 Introduction

Finally, in the Appendixes, there are a number of topics that may be of interest or are kept together
in one place for reference. In here, you will find all the helpful reference material you might need,
such as pinout diagrams, and potentially useful (or unusual) code to upload to your Arduino.
There’s even an index!
Without any further ado, let’s dive in to what happens when you want to compile a sketch in the
Arduino IDE.
Arduino Compilation
2

This chapter is all about what happens when you compile an Arduino sketch and how the various
header files are used. Hopefully, by the time you have read (and understood) this part of the book,
you’ll have a much better idea of what happens during the compilation of an Arduino sketch. However,
before we dive into the gory details of a sketch’s compilation, we need to understand a bit about some
of the text files that live in and around the $ARDINST directory.
These files are used to set up the IDE’s menu options and to define the AVR microcontroller and
Arduino board to be used. Additionally, the IDE needs to know how to compile and upload sketches,
and with lots of different boards nowadays, not just those with AVR microcontrollers, these numerous
text files help the IDE configure the build tools and so on, for the specific board chosen from the
Boards menu in the IDE.
Once we have discussed the various text files, we can then get down and dirty in the compilation
process and also take a look at the hidden C++ files that the Arduino environment keeps well away
from us.

2.1 Settings.json

The file settings.json holds all the preferences for the Arduino IDE, and under versions
2.x of the IDE, it is found in /home/norman/.arduinoIDE which is a new hidden
directory, created on the first run of the version 2 IDE. On Windows, this would be
C:\Users\norman\.arduinoIDE.
You should be able to find the file after the first run of the IDE; if you have not yet done so, there
will not be a settings.json file to be found.
As you may have guessed, the file is in JSON format, which is still a text format, but has a different
layout to the preferences.txt file in previous versions of the IDE.
In the IDE, if you click File  Preferences, a dialog will be displayed showing the current
preferences. These have been read from settings.json. Just like the old preferences.txt
file, there are limited preferences that can be set on this dialog. However, there are a lot more
preferences than meets the eye!

© Norman Dunbar 2024 7

N. Dunbar, Arduino Software Internals, Maker Innovations Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/979-8-8688-0171-6_2
8 2 Arduino Compilation

2.1.1 Finding Other Hidden Settings

The new IDE has a hidden preferences system similar to that in VSCode. You access it via the
CTRL+SHIFT+P key combination. This opens a new search bar in the editor and waits for you to
type something. Type “settings” without the quotes, which will give you a number of options. For
example:

• Open Settings (UI)

• Open User Settings
• Open Workspace Settings
• Open Workspace Settings (JSON)

The last option will allow you to edit the settings.json file directly in the IDE; this is very
useful and, at times, quicker than using CTRL+SHIFT+P. The others all appear to display the same
dialog in the IDE, and there are numerous settings available, too many to be honest.
A small example of using this option follows where we will search for the current tab size and
change it to “4,” but inserting spaces instead of a hard TAB character.

2.1.2 Setting Tab Stops

Now, you would think that an editor, for writing code, would at least allow you the ability to easily
adjust the width of the tab stops—not so the Arduino IDE!
All is not lost, as we do have that ability, but it involves editing the settings.json file;
however, we don’t have to edit it manually. These instructions only apply to version 2.x of the IDE:

• Open the IDE if not already open.

• Press CTRL+SHIFT+P.
• Type “settings” without quotes.
• Choose “Open Settings (UI).”

A new tab named “Preferences” will open in the IDE. There are two main options to the left side:

• User
• Workspace

The former will affect everything the current user does in the IDE; the latter will affect only the
current workspace or sketch.

• Click “User” and note that there are a number of categories of settings that can be changed.
• In the search box, type “tab size” without quotes. One of the displayed options is “Editor: Tab
Size.”
• Change the default of “2” to some other value that you prefer; I like four spaces, so I’ve configured
mine to be “4.”

Another useful setting to search for is “spaces.” This will allow you to configure the IDE to insert
spaces instead of actual tab characters. “Editor: Insert Spaces” is the appropriate setting.
Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lectures on
the Principles of Political Obligation
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation

Author: Thomas Hill Green

Author of introduction, etc.: Bernard Bosanquet

Editor: Richard Lewis Nettleship

Release date: April 22, 2020 [eBook #61889]

Language: English

Credits: GDurb

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LECTURES ON

THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL OBLIGATION ***
 Produced by GDurb

LECTURES ON THE
PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL
OBLIGATION
BY

THOMAS HILL GREEN LATE FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE AND WHYTE'S

PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

REPRINTED FROM GREEN'S PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS, VOL II. WITH

PREFACE BY BERNARD BOSANQUET

NEW IMPRESSION

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO LTD 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW

YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
 1911

All rights reserved

PREFACE.

The present volume consists of the late Professor Green's lectures

on the 'Principles of Political Obligation,' together with a chapter on
the different senses of the term 'Freedom,' taken from a course
directly connected with the former. The work thus re-issued is a
reprint of pp. 307-553 of Vol. II. of Professor Green's Philosophical
Works, with the addition of a brief supplement (p. 248) furnished by
the present writer, consisting of English renderings for some
quotations which appear in the text (pp. 49-59).

The reason for this re-issue is as follows. The course of lectures in

question has long been known to teachers as a most valuable text-
book for students of political theory. But as a portion of a large and
expensive volume, which is itself part of a set of collected works, it
naturally was not accessible to members of popular audiences. In
discussing the selection of a text-book for a projected course of
instruction on political theory, to be given in London, it was
suggested that a separate volume, containing the 'Principles of
Political Obligation' would be the best conceivable book for the
purpose. No other recent writer, it was felt, has the classical strength
and sanity of Professor Green, who was never more thorough and
more at home then when dealing with those questions affecting
citizenship in and for which, it may be said, he lived. Many of the
troubles of today reflect the distraction of minds to which a sane and
balanced view of society has never been adequately presented; and
the importance of the service which might be rendered to general
education by the re-issue of these lectures in a convenient form
appeared to justify an application to those who had the power of
carrying out the suggestion which had been made.

The friends of genuine political philosophy will have good cause, it

is hoped, to be grateful to Mrs T.H. Green for her cordial assent to
the proposed republication, as also to Messrs. Longman for their
promptitude in agreeing to undertake it. The elaborate table of
contents, reprinted from the Philosophical Works, was compiled by
their editor, the late Mr. Lewis Nettleship. It adds very greatly to the
value of the book.

BERNARD BOSANQUET

Transcriber's Note: each of Green's footnotes has been placed

after the paragraph to which it refers, and renumbered accordingly.
The footnotes added by R.L. Nettleship are treated the same way,
remain in the square brackets with which he distinguished them, and
are marked 'RLN'. The transcriber has added a few footnotes, mainly
explaining Greek words in the text. These are also in square
brackets, marked 'Tr'.

CONTENTS

ON THE DIFFERENT SENSES OF 'FREEDOM' AS APPLIED TO WILL AND TO

THE MORAL PROGRESS OF MAN.

1. In one sense (as being search for self-satisfaction) all will is

free; in another (as the satisfaction sought is or is not real) it may or
may not be free
 2. As applied to the inner life 'freedom' always implies a metaphor.
Senses of this metaphor in Plato, the Stoics, St. Paul

3. St. Paul and Kant. It would seem that with Kant 'freedom'
means merely consciousness of the possibility of it, ('knowledge of
sin')

4. Hegel's conception of freedom as objectively realised in the

state

5. It is true in so far as society does supply to the individual

concrete interests which tend to satisfy the desire for perfection

6. Though (like the corresponding conception in St. Paul) it is not

and could not be realised in any actual human society

7. In all these uses 'freedom' means, not mere self-determination

or acting on preference, but a particular kind of this

8. The extension of the term from the outer to the inner relations
of life, though a natural result of reflection, is apt to be misleading

9. Thus the question, Is a man free? which may be properly asked

in regard to his actions, cannot be asked in the same sense in regard
to his will

10. The failure to see this has led to the errors (1) of regarding
motive as something apart from and acting on will, (2) of regarding
will as independent of motive

11. Thus the fact that a man, being what he is, must act in a
certain way, is construed into the negation of freedom
 12. And to escape this negation recourse is had to the notion of
an unmotived will, which is really no will at all

13. The truth is that the will is the man, and that the will cannot
be rightly spoken of as 'acting on' its objects or vice versa, because
they are neither anything without the other

14. If however the question be persisted in, Has a man power

over his will? the answer must be both 'yes' and 'no'

15. 'Freedom' has been taken above (as by English psychologists

generally) as applying to will, whatever the character of the object
willed

16. If taken (as by the Stoics, St. Paul, Kant (generally), and
Hegel) as applying only to good will, it must still be recognised that
this particular sense implies the generic

17. Whatever the propriety of the term in the particular sense,

both 'juristic' and 'spiritual' freedom spring from the same self-
asserting principle in man

18. And though the former is only the beginning of full freedom,
this identity of source will always justify the use of the word in the
latter sense

19. But does not the conception of 'freedom' as = the moral ideal
imply an untenable distinction like that of Kant between the 'pure'
and 'empirical' ego?

20. The 'pure' and 'empirical' ego are one ego, regarded (1) in its
possibility, (2) as at any given time it actually is
 21. In man the self-realising principle is never realised; i.e. the
objects of reason and will only tend to coincide

22. So far as they do coincide, man may be said to be 'free' and

his will to be 'autonomous'

23. The growing organisation of human life provides a medium for

the embodiment, and disciplines the natural impulses for the
reception, of the idea of perfection

24. The reconciliation of reason and will takes place as the

individual more and more finds his own self-satisfaction in meeting
the requirements of established morality

25. Until these come to be entirely superseded by the desire of

perfection for its own sake, and his will becomes really free.

LECTURES ON THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL OBLIGATION

A. The grounds of political obligation.

1. Subject of the inquiry

2. Its connection with the general theory of morals. Ideal

goodness is to do good for its own sake: but there must be acts
considered good on other grounds before they can be done for the
sake of their goodness

3. When, however, the ideal comes to be recognised as the ideal,

the lower interests and rules must be criticised and revised by it

4. The criticism of interests will yield a 'theory of moral

sentiments'; that of rules will relate (1) to positive law, (2) to the law
of opinion

5. As moral interests greatly depend on recognised rules of

conduct, and those again on positive law, it is best to begin by
considering the moral value of existing civil institutions

6. The condition of morality is the possession of will and reason,

and it is realised in a personal character in which they are
harmonised

7. Civil institutions are valuable so far as they enable will and

reason to be exercised, and so far they answer to 'jus naturae'

8. The essential questions as to the 'law of nature' are, (1) Are

there rights and obligations other than those actually enforced? (2)
If so, what is the criterion of them?

9. While rejecting the theory of a 'state of nature,' we may still

use 'natural' of those rights which ought to be, though they actually
are not

10. Such 'natural law' is (as admitting enforcement) distinct from,

but (as implying a duty to obey it) relative to, the moral law

11. Hence two principles for the criticism of law, (1) only external
acts can be matter of obligation proper, (2) the ideal of law must be
determined by reference to the moral end which it serves

12. Observe (a) that in confining law to 'external actions,' we

mean by 'actions' intentions, without which there is properly no
'action'
 13. (b) That by 'external' we mean that law, though it does supply
motives to action, looks merely to whether the action is done, not to
whether it is done from a particular motive

14. Law then can only enjoin or forbid certain acts; it cannot
enjoin or forbid motives

15. And the only acts which it ought to enjoin or forbid are those
of which the doing or not doing, from whatever motive, is necessary
to the moral end of society

16. The principle of 'natural law,' then, should be to enjoin all acts
which further action from the highest motive, and no acts which
interfere with such action

17. This principle would condemn much legislation which has

tended, e.g., to weaken religion, self-respect, or family feeling

18. This, and not the principle of 'laissez-faire,' is the true ground
of objection to 'paternal government'

19. The theory of political obligation (i.e. of what law ought to be,
and why it ought to be obeyed) is not a theory (a) as to how
existing law has come to be what it is

20. Nor (b) as to how far it expresses or is derived from certain

original 'natural' rights

21. 'Natural' rights (like law itself) are relative to moral ends, i.e.
they are those which are necessary to the fulfilment of man's moral
vocation as man
 22. This however is not the sense in which political obligation was
based on 'natural rights' in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, previously to utilitarianism

23. The utilitarian theory so far agrees with that here advocated
that it grounds existing law, not on a 'natural' law prior to it, but on
an end which it serves

24. The derivation of actual rights from natural (i.e. more

primitive) rights does not touch the real question, viz. how there
came to be rights at all

25. The conception of a moral ideal (however dim) is the condition

of the existence of rights, and conversely anyone who is capable of
such a conception is capable of rights

26. Thus the consciousness of having rights is co-ordinate with the

recognition of others as having them, the ground of both being the
conception of a common good which ought to be attained

27. Rights then can only subsist among 'persons,' in the moral
sense of 'persons,' i.e. being possessed of rational will

28. Though the moral idea of personality is later in formulation

than the legal, and this again than the actual existence of rights

29. Rights which are directly necessary to a man's acting as a

moral person at all may be called in a special sense 'personal'

30. Nor is there any objection to calling them 'innate' or 'natural,'

if this means 'necessary to the moral development of man' in which
sense 'duties' are equally 'natural'
 31. Without a society conscious of a common interest there can be
only 'powers,' no 'rights'.

B. Spinoza.

32. Spinoza, seeing that 'jus naturae' = 'potentia,' and not seeing
that it is not really 'jus' at all, identifies all 'jus' with 'potentia,' both
in the state and in the individual

33. From which it follows that the 'right' of the state against its
individual members is only limited by its 'power'

34. And the same principle applies to the relations of one state to
other states

35. But, according to Spinoza, though everything is 'lawful' for the

state, everything is not 'best,' and the 'best' state is that which
secures a life of 'peace,' i.e. rational virtue or perfection

36. This conclusion does not seem consistent with his starting-
point, according to which men are 'naturally enemies'

37. From such a 'status naturalis' there is no possible transition to

the 'status civilis,' and the phrase 'jus naturae' remains unmeaning

38. Spinoza's error of regarding 'rights' as possible apart from

society was confirmed by his denial of final causes

39. It was just because Plato and Aristotle regarded man as

finding his end in the end of the state, that they founded a true
theory of rights
 40. Spinoza, however, while insisting that man is 'part of nature,'
yet places his 'good' in understanding nature and so acquiring a new
character

41. In thus recognising the idea of perfection as a determinant of

life, he really recognises an operative final cause, though without
seeing its bearing on the theory of right.

C. Hobbes.

42. Hobbes differs from Spinoza in regarding the right of the

sovereign, not as limited by his power, but as absolute

43. Statement of his doctrine

44. He uses 'person,' as in Roman law, for either (1) a complex of

rights, or (2) the subject of those rights

45. Though by his theory the sovereign may be one or many, and
sovereignty is transferable by the act of a majority, he tacitly
vindicates the absolute right of a de facto monarchy

46. The radical fiction in his theory is that there can be any 'right'
after the institution of sovereignty, if (as he holds) there is none
before it

47. To justify his doctrine of absolute submission he has to assume

a 'law of nature' which binds men to keep covenant, while yet he
holds the 'law of nature' to be mere 'power' and covenants to be
only valid under an imperium,

48. His 'contract' can confer none but natural right, and that is
either not a right at all, or (if it is) it belongs to all men, subject and
sovereign alike

49. The real flaw in the theory of contract is not that it is

unhistorical, but that it implies the possibility of rights and
obligations independently of society

50. Though it has not been popularly accepted as regards the

rights of sovereigns over subjects, the behaviour of individuals to
society is to a groat extent practically determined by it.

D. Locke.

51. The development of this latter side of it is peculiarly due to

Rousseau, but Locke, Hooker, and Grotius have essentially the same
conception: Spinoza alone differs

52. Ambiguity of their phrase 'state of nature.' They agree in

treating it as the negation of the 'political state.' But if so, contract
would be impossible in it

53. Nor could it be a state of 'freedom and equality,' as most of

them assume it to be

54. And if this state of nature implies consciousness of obligation,

it must imply recognition of social claims, and must therefore be
virtually a political state

55. In fact the theory of a state of nature governed by a law of

nature, as preceding civil society, must be untrue either to the
conception of law or to that of nature

56. Locke differs from Hobbes (1) in distinguishing the 'state of

nature' from the 'state of war'
 57. He implies (more consistently than Hobbes) that the 'state of
nature' is one in which the 'law of nature' is observed

58. (2) He limits the supreme power in the state by the

legislature, which holds its functions in trust from the community

59. And this distinction between the supreme community and the
supreme executive enables him to distinguish between dissolution of
the political society and dissolution of the government, which
Hobbes had confused

60. He invests the community with the right of resuming the

powers which they have delegated, and thus justifies revolution
when it is the act of the whole community

61. The difficulty is to determine when it is the act of the whole

community, and on this Locke's theory gives no help

62. The difficulty indeed is not so great as that of conceiving the

act of original devolution of power, and is inherent in the theory of
contract

63. In the particular case of the reform of the English

representative system, Locke does not contemplate the carrying out
of his own theory.

E. Rousseau.

64. Rousseau conceives the community to be in continual exercise

of the power which Locke conceives it to have exercised once and to
hold in reserve
 65. In his view of the motive for passing from the state of nature
into the civil state he is more like Spinoza than Locke

66. His statement of the origin and nature of the 'social contract'

67. Its effects upon the individual

68. His idea of the sovereign is really that of a supreme

disinterested reason, but he fuses this with the ordinary idea of a
supreme coercive power

69. The practical result of his theory has been a vague exaltation
of the will of the people, regardless of what 'the people' ought to
mean

70. Further consequences of his ideal conception of sovereignty. It

cannot be alienated, represented, or divided

71. Thus the 'government' is never the same as the 'sovereign,'

and constitutions differ according to where the government, not the
sovereignty, resides

72. The institution of government is not by contract, but by the

act of the sovereign, and this act must be confirmed or repealed
periodically

73. His distinction between the 'will of all' and the 'general will':
the latter always wills the common good, though it may be mistaken
as to means

74. He admits however that it may be overpowered by particular

interests, and so find no expression even in the vote of a general
assembly
 75. What then is the test of the 'general' will? Absolute unanimity
is what Rousseau requires of the parties to the original contract

76. But what is to decide whether their successors are parties to

it? Not 'residence,' unless there is also freedom to migrate

77. The element of permanent value in Rousseau is his conception

of the state as representing the 'general will'

78. Difficulties in this conception. It seems that either no actual

state realises it, or that there may be a state without a true
sovereign

79. We may distinguish between de facto and de jure sovereignty,

and say that Rousseau meant the latter; but this is only an inference
from what he says.

F. Sovereignty and the general will.

80. Hence it may be asked, (1) Is any actual sovereignty founded

on the 'general will'? (2) Can sovereignty de jure be truly said to be
founded on it? (3) If so, must it be expressed through the vote of a
sovereign people?

81. (1) According to (e.g.) Austin's definition of sovereignty, we

should answer this question in the negative

82. (Observe that from Austin's definition it would follow that,

while every 'law' implies a 'sovereign,' a 'sovereign's' commands
need not be 'laws')

83. That definition directly contradicts that of Rousseau, in (a)

placing sovereignty in determinate persons, (b) making its essence
lie in power to compel obedience

84. Actual sovereignty combines both definitions; the habitual

obedience of subjects to the sovereign is due to the sense that by
obeying they secure certain ends

85. So far as Austin means that a fully developed state implies a

determinate supreme source of law, he is right as against Rousseau

86. But if sovereign power = the aggregate influences which really

make the people obedient, it must be sought in the 'general will'

87. Such power need not be 'sovereign' in the narrower sense,

and may coexist with a separate coercive power which is 'sovereign'

88. This has been the case in ancient despotisms, and in the
modern empires of the East

89. So in states under foreign dominion, which retain a national

life, the technical sovereign is not the law-making and law-
maintaining power

90. Under the Roman Empire, in British India, in Russia, where the
technical is also the real sovereign, its strength rests in different
degrees on the general will

91. Thus the answer to question (1) depends on the sense of

'sovereign.' If it = a power which guarantees equal rights, it is
implied in every 'political' society

92. But (a) it need not be the supreme coercive power, and (b) if
it is so, it is not because it is so that it commands habitual obedience
 93. Thus (retaining the technical use of 'sovereign') it is true that
if the sovereign is to be so really, it must express and maintain a
general will

94. Though this is compatible with the fact that some of the laws
of the sovereign conflict with the general will

95. Thus as to question (2) (above, sec. 80), if sovereignty is said

to rest on the general will 'de jure,' either 'sovereign' or 'jus' is not
used in the strict sense

96. An antithesis between sovereign 'de jure' and 'de facto' can
only arise from a confusion between 'sovereign' as = the source of
law and 'sovereign' as = the 'general will'

97. Though there are cases in which (in a different sense) a

sovereign may be conveniently described as 'de facto,' not 'de jure,'
or vice versa

98. Similarly, to say that the people is 'sovereign de jure' is to

confuse the general will with the coercive power of the majority

99. Rousseau's confusion is due to the theory of 'natural rights'

(that the individual is not bound by anything which he has not
individually approved)

100. The individual must indeed judge for himself whether a law is
for the common good; but though he judge it not to be, he ought as
a rule to obey it

101. Cases in which a doubt may arise

 102. (a) Where the legal authority of the law is doubtful, owing to
the doubt where the sovereignty in the state resides

103. In such cases the truth generally is that the 'right,' on the
particular issue, has not yet formed itself

104. But it does not follow that because the 'right' is on both
sides, one is not 'better' than the other; though this may be the case

105. In such cases of disputed sovereignty the distinction of 'de

jure' and 'de facto' may be applied, though it is better to say that the
sovereignty is in abeyance

106. The individual, having no 'right' to guide him, should take the
side whose success seems likely to be best for mankind

107. (b) Another case is where there is no legal way of getting a

bad law repealed. Here it is a question, not of right, but of duty, to
resist the sovereign

108. Nor is it a question of the right of a majority, as a majority, to

resist: it may be the duty of a helpless minority

109. Some general questions which the good citizen may put to
himself in such dilemmas

110. They can, indeed, seldom be applied by the agents at the

time as they can be after the event

111. In simple cases we may judge of the right or wrong of an act

by the character which it expresses, but generally we can only judge
them by its results
 112. All that the historian can say is that on the whole the best
character is likely to produce the best results, notwithstanding
various appearances to the contrary.

G. Will, not force, is the basis of the state.

113. The doctrines which explain political obligation by contract

agree in treating sovereign and subject apart, whereas they are
correlative

114. For the desire for freedom in the individual is no real desire
unless he is one of a society which recognises it. (Slaves are not a
real exception to this)

115. And without an authority embodied in civil institutions he

would not have the elementary idea of right which enables him to
question the authority

116. But the theory of contract expresses, in a confused way, the

truth that only through the common recognition of a common good,
and its embodiment in institutions, is morality possible

117. Thus morality and political subjection have a common source.

118. And both imply the twofold conception, (a) 'I must though I
do not like,' (b) 'I must because it is for the common good which is
also my good'

119. It is a farther and difficult question, how far the sense of

common interest can be kept alive either in the government or
subjects, unless the people participates directly in legislation
 120. And this suggests the objection, Is it not trifling with words
to speak of political subjection in modern states as based on the will
of the subjects?

121. We must admit (a) that the idea of the state as serving a
common interest is only partially realised, even by the most
enlightened subject, though so far as realised it is what makes him a
loyal subject

122. (b) That if he is to be an intelligent patriot as well as a loyal

subject, he must take a personal part in the work of the state

123. And (c) that even then his patriotism will not be a passion
unless it includes a feeling for the state analogous to that which he
has for his family and home

124. But are we not again assuming what was disputed, viz. that a
sense of its serving a common interest is necessary to the existence
of the state?

125. Observe that the idea of an end or function, realised by

agencies unconscious of it and into which it cannot be resolved, is
already implicit even if the state be treated as a 'natural organism'

126. Such a treatment, however, would ignore the distinction

between the 'natural' and the 'human' or 'moral' agencies which
have operated in the production of states

127. It may be objected that these 'human' agencies are not

necessarily 'moral,' but on the contrary are often selfish

128. But though human motives are never unalloyed, they only
produce good results so far as they are fused with and guided by
some unselfish element

129. If e.g. we would form a complete estimate of Napoleon, we

must consider not only his ambition but the particular form in which
his ambition worked

130. And further reflect that the idiosyncrasy of such men plays
but a small part in the result, which is mainly due to agencies of
which they are only the most conspicuous instruments

131. Thus an ideal motive may co-operate with the motives of

selfish men, and only through such co-operation are they
instrumental for good

132. The fact that the state implies a supreme coercive power
gives colour to the view that it is based on coercion; whereas the
coercive power is only supreme because it is exercised in a state, i.e.
according to some system of law, written or customary

133. In the absence of any other name, 'state' is the best for a
society in which there is such a system of law and a power to
enforce it

134. A state, then, is not an aggregate of individuals under a

sovereign, but a society in which the rights of men already
associated in families and tribes are defined and harmonised

135. It developes as the absorption of fresh societies or the

extended intercourse between its members widens the range of
common interests and rights

136. The point to be insisted on is that force has only formed

states so far as it has operated in and through a pre-existing
medium of political, tribal, or family 'rights'.

H. Has the citizen rights against the state?

137. As long as power of compulsion is made the essence of the

state, political obligation cannot be explained either by the theory of
'consent,' or by that which derives all right from the sovereign

138. The state presupposes rights, rights which may be said to

belong to the 'individual' if this mean 'one of a society of individuals'

139. A right may be analysed into a claim of the individual upon

society and a power conceded to him by society, but really the claim
and the concession are sides of one and the same common
consciousness

140. Such common consciousness of interests is the ground of the

'natural right' of slaves and of the members of other states

141. But though in this way there may be rights outside the state,
the members of a state derive the rights which they have as
members of other associations from the state, and have no rights
against it

142. i.e. as they derive their rights from their membership in the
state, they have no right to disobey the law unless it be for the
interest of the state

143. And even then only if the law violates some interest which is
implicitly acknowledged by the conscience of the community

144. It is a farther question when the attempt to get a law

repealed should be exchanged for active resistance to it
 145. e.g. should a slave be befriended against the law? The slave
has as a man certain rights which the state cannot extinguish, and
by denying which it forfeits its claim upon him

146. And it may be held that the claim of the slave upon the
citizen, as a man, overrides the claim of the state upon him, as a
citizen

147. Even here, however, the law ought to be obeyed, supposing

that its violation tended to bring about general anarchy.

I. Private rights. The right to life and liberty.

148. There are rights which men have as members of

associations, which come to be comprised in the state, but which
also exist independently of it

149. These are 'private' rights, divided by Stephen into (a)

personal, (b) rights of property, (c) rights in private relations

150. All rights are 'personal'; but as a man's body is the condition
of his exercising rights at all, the rights of it may be called 'personal'
in a special sense

151. The right of 'life and liberty' (better, of 'free life'), being based
on capacity for society, belongs in principle to man as man, though
this is only gradually recognised

152. At first it belongs to man as against other members of his

family or tribe, then as against other tribes, then as against other
citizens, which in antiquity still implies great limitations
 153. Influences which have helped to break down these limitations
are (a) Roman equity, (b) Stoicism, (c) the Christian idea of a
universal brotherhood

154. This last is the logical complement of the idea that man as
such has a right to life; but the right is only negatively recognised in
modern Christendom

155. It is ignored e.g. in war, nor is much done to enable men to

fulfil their capacities as members of humanity

156. Four questions as to the relation of the state to the right of

man as man to free life.

K. The right of the state over the individual in war.

157. (1) Has the state a right to override this right in war? It must
be admitted that war is not 'murder,' either on the part of those who
fight or of those who cause the war

158. Yet it may be a violation of the right of life. It does not prove
it not to be so, that (a) those who kill do not intend to kill anyone in
particular

159. Or that (b) those who are killed have incurred the risk
voluntarily. Even if they have, it does not follow that they had a
'right' to do so

160. It may be said that the right to physical life may be

overridden by a right arising from the exigencies of moral life

161. But this only shifts the blame of war to those who are
responsible for those exigencies; it remains a wrong all the same
 162. But in truth most wars of the last 400 years have not been
wars for political liberty, but have arisen from dynastic ambition or
national vanity

163. Admitting, then, that virtue may be called out by war and
that it may be a factor in human progress, the destruction of life in it
is always a wrong

164. 'But if it be admitted that war may do good, may not those
who originate it have the credit of this?'

165. If they really acted from desire to do good, their share in the
wrong is less; but in any case the fact that war was the only means
to the good was due to human agency and was a wrong

166. (2) (See sec. 157). Hence it follows that the state, so far as it
is true to its principle, cannot have to infringe the rights of men as
men by conflicts with other states

167. It is not because states exist, but because they do not fulfil
their functions as states in maintaining and harmonising general
rights, that such conflicts are necessary

168. This is equally true of conflicts arising from what are called
'religious' grounds

169. Thus no state, as such, is absolutely justified in doing a

wrong to mankind, though a particular state may be conditionally
justified

170. It may be objected that such a 'cosmopolitan' view ignores

the individuality of states, and could only be realised if they wore all
absorbed in a universal empire
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