ence to legal rights and duties; so that ethical science stands on a different foundation from political economy. It is rather analogous to domestic economy; to that branch of economy which considers the relations of a family as distinguished from those of a state. Nevertheless, so important is the influence of civil government upon the whole circle of human actions, that Aristotle treats ethics as a department of politics. He includes

not only strategics, economics, and rhetoric, but also ethics, under political science, which he considers as the master-science; and as comprehending within itself all the ends of human life aimed at by the other sciences.(8o)

It is true that in ethics reference must not unfrequently be made to the existence of political government and law; so that ethical presupposes political science. But inasmuch as ethics consider men exclusively in their private relations, independently of the community, they may properly be separated from politics. (1) Where, however, man is avowedly treated with reference to society at large, and not with reference to individuals, it ought to be assumed, as a fundamental principle, that this society is

(80) Ἐπειδὴ προαιρούμεθα λέγειν ὑπὲρ ἠθικῶν, πρῶτον ἂν εἴη σκεπτέον τίνος ἐστὶ μέρος τὸ ἦθος. ὡς μὲν οὖν συντόμως εἰπεῖν, δοκεῖ οὐκ ἄλλης ἢ τῆς Πολιτικῆς εἶναι μέρος. μέρος ἐστὶν ἄρα, ὡς ἔοικε, καὶ ἀρχὴ ἡ περὶ τὰ ἤθη πραγματεία THS TOMITIRNS. Mag. Mor. i. 1. See also the description of TOATɩký in Eth. Nic. i. 1, which he concludes thus:- pèv ovv μétodos ToÚTwv ¿pietai, TOλITIKÝ TIS Ovσa. Compare i. 13. x. 9. All the subordinate communities, considered in ethics, form a part of politics, viii. 11. ὥστε συμβαίνει τὴν Ρητορικὴν οἷον παραφυές τι τῆς Διαλεκτικῆς εἶναι, καὶ τῆς περὶ τὰ ἤθη πραγματείας, ἣν δίκαιόν ἐστι προσαγορεύειν Πολιτικήν, Rhet. i. 2, § 7. ἡ Ρητορικὴ σύγκειται μὲν ἐκ τε τῆς ἀναλυτικῆς ἐπιστήμης, καὶ τῆς περὶ τὰ ἤθη πολιτικῆς, ib. i. 4. § 5. As to Aristotle's view of the relation of ethics to politics, see Biese, Philosophie des Aristoteles, vol. ii. p. 287-95.

D'Alembert, on the other hand, considers politics as a department of

ethics.

La politique, espèce de morale d'un genre particulier et supérieur, à laquelle les principes de la morale ordinaire ne peuvent quelquefois s'accommoder qu'avec beaucoup de finesse, et qui, pénétrant dans les ressorts principaux du gouvernement des états, démêle ce qui peut les conserver, les affoiblir, ou les détruire. Etude peut-être la plus difficile de toutes, par les connoissances qu'elle exige qu'on ait sur les peuples et sur les hommes, et par l'étendue et la variété des talens qu'elle suppose.'-Discours Prél. de l'Encyclopédie; Euvres, tom. i. p. 218.

(81) Compare Mill, Essays, &c., p. 134.

political society. This, and no other form of society, is the appropriate characteristic of mankind. Whenever human society is in question, man ought to be considered as something more than a mere gregarious animal; he ought not to be regarded only as living in a herd, like a troop of wild animals, without a common superior, or a system of positive law. Human society, to the philosophic inquirer, is political society; and therefore the 'social science,' or 'sociology,' of which Mr. Mill (*) has so well described the limits and object, and for the investigation of which he has laid down the conditions with so much precision, appears to be in fact no other than political science. In the analysis of human society, no advantage will be found in abstracting from the idea of political government. It is of the essence of human society to be divided into several communities, each under its own national government. All the scientific researches relating to human society-whether in the way of observation or of the investigation of causes, as well as all general maxims intended for the guidance of political practice-are conditioned by this peculiarity of the social state of man. It is undoubtedly possible to consider human society without reference to civil government, just as it is possible to consider bodies in motion without reference to friction. But in dynamical problems, it is conve

(82) See his System of Logic, b. vi. c. 6, 9, 10. The science of society (he says, vol. ii. p. 535) would have attained a very high point of perfection, if it enabled us, in any given condition of social affairs, in the condition, for instance, of Europe or any European country at the present time, to understand by what causes it had, in any and every particular, been made what it was; whether it was tending to any, and to what changes; what effects each feature of its existing state was likely to produce in the future; and by what means any of those effects might be prevented, modified, or accelerated, or a different class of effects superinduced. There is nothing chimerical in the hope that general laws, sufficient to enable us to answer these various questions for any country or time with the individual circumstances of which we are well acquainted, do really admit of being ascertained; and, moreover, that the other branches of human knowledge, which this undertaking presupposes, are so far advanced that the time is ripe for its accomplishment. Such is the object of the social science.' See also Mr. Mill's Essays, &c., p. 135. M. Auguste Comte's views respecting sociology, and the method of its treatment, are expounded in the three last volumes of his Cours de Philosophie Positive. Comp. tom. i. p. 22, 48.

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nient to omit the element of friction; in social problems, it is not convenient to omit the element of civil government; for civil government is of the essence of human society. It forms the characteristic distinction between human and animal communities, and it is the main instrument of progressive civilization, which is the highest attribute of human nature.

We shall have frequent occasion, in the course of this treatise, to inquire how the phenomena of human society are to be studied in relation to the existence of political government. For the present, therefore, it will be sufficient to say, that we shall understand the province of politics as comprehending all those acts and relations of men, which have not a determinate individual reference, but regard an entire independent community, or some large and indeterminate portion of it. With all these, political government, in the social constitution of human nature, is necessarily, more or less, concerned; and therefore they properly fall within the limits of political science, taken in its widest signification.

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CHAPTER III.

ON THE DIVISION OF POLITICS INTO

WE

DEPARTMENTS.

E have in the previous chapter attempted to trace the limits of the province of politics, and to show how it is separated from other subjects. We now turn from its external to its internal relations; and proceed to inquire how this province is to be mapped out, and how the boundaries of its several districts are to be drawn within its extreme confines.

Politics, taken in its largest sense, may be divided into four principal departments; each of which, though it comprehends numerous subjects, and admits of further subdivision, has a distinctly marked characteristic. These departments are:

1 The registration of political facts.

We propose to explain summarily, in this chapter, the leading distinctions between these four departments of politics; the peculiarities of each will be further developed in the course of the treatise, as they successively become the subjects of more detailed examination.

§ 2 All scientific theorems in politics, all general maxims for the guidance of political practice, and, indeed, all practical measures taken in individual cases, must rest ultimately upon. observed facts. The observation of political facts is the first step; but observation, by itself, avails little, unless the observed fact is recorded in such a manner as to insure its preservation. The first department of politics, therefore, serving as a foundation for all the rest, is that which concerns the regis

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tration of political facts. This department may be described generally as consisting of history and statistics: but it includes all the methods adopted for preserving in an authentic and permanent form the memory of political facts as they occur. This department may be considered as the entrance and propylæa to politics. It furnishes the materials upon which the artificer operates, which he hews into shape, and builds up into a symmetrical structure.

Positive or descriptive politics is that branch of politics which teaches what is necessarily involved in the idea of political government. It considers political government, as much as possible, in equilibrio; and it thus corresponds to the statical branch of mechanics. We have already seen that man has a capacity for command, or obedience, peculiar to himself, and not shared by other animals, which enables him to form a political community under a common government. The government thus formed is not accidental in its structure: it is conditioned by the permanent properties of human nature, by the constitution of the human mind, and by the nature of the medium in which Cour life is cast. Hence, though made by man, and in this sense arbitrary, it must, in order to be, and to remain, a political government, fulfil certain conditions. The positive or descriptive department of politics undertakes to assign these conditions, it undertakes to define the elements necessary to constitute a government; and to show how these are modified in its various possible forms.(') It explains the nature of the instruments by which a government operates: as a law, rights and obligations, sanctions, executive commands, and the like. It thus includes, or, indeed, to a certain extent, is co-extensive with universal jurisprudence, in the proper sense of the term :() that is to say, the science which teaches what law is in every country, without reference to the varieties of national systems of jurisprudence.

(1) This idea is expressed by Conring. Diss. xiii. De Necessariis Civitatis Partibus.'-Opera, vol. iii. p. 748, ed. fol.

(2) See Austin's Province of Jurisprudence, Outline, p. iii.