§ 6 The division of the province or subject-matter of politics, which has just been traced, appears to be well-marked, and to be convenient for purposes of investigation. It may therefore be suitably adopted in a treatise which aims at describing the methods of reasoning in politics. Nevertheless, it is not pretended either that any such division has been hitherto observed by political writers, or that it ought to be invariably followed in the discussion of political questions. It is proposed with a view of assisting the political inquirer; of pointing out the best manner of arranging his own ideas, and thus of guiding his. investigations; but without implying that in laying the fruits of his researches before the public he ought necessarily to keep within one of these four departments. For example it may often be convenient to combine the second with the third; it may often be necessary for the political speculator to fix with precision the ideas and relations with which he deals, before he attempts to characterize the practical tendencies of any institution, and to determine the comparative expediency or inexpediency of its various forms. Again, the treatment of the fourth department, which consists in laying down maxims, may often require a partial re-treading of ground properly belonging to the third. On reviewing the progress of political philosophy, from its first birth under the influence of Socrates, to the present time, it will be seen that, although the various treatises and other writings admit of being distributed, by a dissection of their contents, into these several departments, few, with the exception of histories, biographies, and collections of statistical facts, fall exclusively into any one division. § 7 Political philosophy may, for our present purpose, be considered as consisting of three periods; namely, 1st, The period of antiquity; 2nd, The period from the revival of literature to the end of the seventeenth century; 3rd, The period from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the present time.(7) (7) For an enumeration of various writings on politics, see Morhof's The first attempt of the human mind to treat politics as a science of observation, and to establish it on the solid basis of positive knowledge, was made by the early Greek historians. Herodotus first gave an example of a copious and consecutive narrative of historical facts, derived from authentic contemporary testimony, and accompanied with instructive comment and explanation. In his speeches, he likewise introduces political argument; and, in one place, he sums up the current views of the Greeks respecting the comparative advantages of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; putting them, by a singular inconsistency, in the mouths of the Persian conspirators against the Magus. (9) This debate, though ostensibly real and practical, is as fictitious as the dialogues in Télémaque, and may be considered as the earliest example of political speculation. The history of Thucydides forms by itself a great epoch in politics; both as furnishing a model of accurate, trustworthy, and impartial narrative, and as embodying all the practical sagacity of the ablest statesmen of Greece (including Pericles), who had lived before and during the Peloponnesian war. For close, cogent, and appropriate reasoning upon practical political questions, the speeches of Thucydides have never been surpassed; and, indeed, they may be considered as having reached the highest excellence of which the human mind is capable in this department. The understanding of Thucydides, however, was essentially practical; it had been trained in the school of practical politics; and though his comments on actual events are generally conceived in a philosophical spirit (as those on the plague of Athens, and on the Corcyræan sedition); yet they are strictly historical, and are suggested by his subject. It has been often remarked that art, in an empirical form, always precedes science. So much practical sagacity about the affairs of life, and so much acute political dialectics, could hardly continue long among a people with the Polyhistor, tom. iii. lib. ii. ; and the treatise of Rau, cited above. See also Rühs, Entwurf einer Propädeutik des historischen Studiums, Berlin, 1811. (8) iii. 80-2. intellectual endowments and free institutions possessed by the Greeks, without calling forth some attempts at scientific political speculation. Socrates (who was born three years after Thucydides), (') first entered upon this course. He turned the nascent philosophy of the Greeks from attempts to explore the causes of physical phenomena, to an examination of the facts of man's moral nature, and of political society. His conversations on politics-so far as they are recorded by his disciples, Xenophon and Plato-fall chiefly within the second and third departments of the division described at the beginning of this chapter. He analyzed the ideas which form the current coin of politics: he inquired what is a state, what is a citizen, what is a government, what is law, justice, &c :(1) he likewise entered the region of speculative politics, and traced the general tendencies and operations of particular institutions and modes of government. Moreover, he probably occupied himself with the art, or preceptive department of politics, in attempting a solution of the problem, What is the best form of government? Xenophon, however, in his Cyropædia, and Plato, in his two great works, the Republic, and the Laws, may be considered as the true representatives of this phasis of political investigation. The two political dialogues of Plato, though their main purpose is to construct an ideal state, and to hold it up to the imitation of mankind, nevertheless contain episodes, which consist merely of the exposition of general truths, and have therefore the scientific character. Such are the accounts of the origin of a state and of civil society, (") and of the characteristics of the several forms of government. Such, too, is the attempt to reduce the succession of governments (9) Socrates was born 468, and Thucydides 471, B.C. not later than 490 B.C. Pericles was born It is doubtful whether the history of Thucydides was published during the lifetime of Socrates: but the character of the political discussion of Athens, and of Greece generally, at that period, is apparent from his work.' (10) See Xen. Mem. i. 1, § 16. (11) Rep. ii. 11-14, p. 369-74; and compare the mythico-historical description of the origin of governments, in the Laws, b. iii. to a constant cycle; which, though unsound, professes to discover a law of uniform sequence in political phenomena, without undertaking to inculcate any lesson, or to form any model institution. Aristotle, following Plato, conceived his great political treatise in the form of a search after the best government. The introductory part, however, consists of inquiries belonging to the descriptive or positive department of politics: it aims at determining the conditions necessary for the existence of a state, and of its constituent parts, and of the several modes of government. The remaining part, though the problem is kept in view, consists in great measure of general theorems relating to the several forms and varieties of government, abstracted from observed facts. Its different portions may be distributed into the three latter departments of the division made above: but whereas the chief part of the Platonic dialogues falls into the third department, a large part of the Aristotelic treatise falls likewise into the second. Aristotle also wrote descriptions of the constitutions of 158 states, Greek and barbarian; many fragments of which are extant.(12) Besides this work, which was purely local, and falls into the first, or historical department, Aristotle wrote some other political treatises, the titles of which have been alone preserved. (13) Political speculation was continued by Theophrastus and Dicæarchus, disciples of Aristotle, and by other later adherents of the peripatetic school.(1) Nor was it altogether neglected by the Stoics: Zeno propounded the model of a perfect state, but reprobated all exclusive patriotism. He taught that the wise man should be a cosmopolite, without attaching himself to (12) See Fragm. Hist. Gr. vol. ii. p. 102, ed. Didot. (13) Thus he wrote treatises on kingly government, and on colonies, and a treatise on Greek international law, entitled dikaiμarа TÓλе. On the latter, see Neumann, Aristot. Rerump. Rel. p. 43. (14) See Cic. de Leg. iii. 5 and 6. Cicero mentions some material additions to the doctrine of magistracies as having been made by Theophrastus, and Dion the Stoic, after Aristotle; but we do not know what they were. Cicero likewise speaks of Panæætius, another Stoic, as having treated politics. the political forms of any particular state. (1) But the Stoic sect seems to have occupied itself little with politics, and the Epicurean not at all. Even historians, such as Polybius, in treating incidentally of political theories, contented themselves with reproducing the doctrines of the early philosophers; (1) and Cicero's political treatises were avowedly written after the Platonic models. These two works, both of which have reached us in an imperfect state, and one only in fragments recovered in our own time from a palimpsest manuscript, may, like the dialogues of Plato, be distributed into the descriptive, speculative, and preceptive departments of politics; but they belong chiefly to the latter department. None of the later political writings of antiquity have any importance; the short treatises of Plutarch have the admonitory character. (") History remained for nearly four centuries in the exclusive possession of the Greeks. The early Roman historians either wrote in Greek, or else they scarcely rose above the meagre and jejune style of a monkish chronicle. At last, Sallust, Livy, and (15) See Plutarch, Alex. Fort. i. 6. The stoics taught the doctrine of universal philanthropy: 'Hi mores, hæc duri immota Catonis Hominibus prodesse natura jubet : servi liberine sint, ingenui an libertini, justæ libertatis, an inter amicos datæ, quid refert? Ubicunque homo est, ibi beneficio locus est.'-Seneca, de Vit. Beat. c. 24. The Stoics, however, as well as the Epicureans, taught that the wise man ought to take no part in practical politics. Their doctrines are thus distinguished and expounded by Seneca: Duæ maxime in hac re dissident sectæ, Epicureorum et Stoicorum: sed utraque ad otium diversâ viâ mittit. Epicurus ait: Non accedet ad rempublicam sapiens, nisi si quid intervenerit.' Zenon ait: Accedet ad rempublicam, nisi si quid impedierit.' Alter otium ex proposito petit, alter ex causâ.'-De Otio Sapientis, c. 30. (16) See vi. 5. (17) On political speculation under the Roman empire, see Gräfenhan, Geschichte der Klassischen Philologie, vol. iii. p. 371; vol. iv. p. 419. |