SECTIONS A AND C 



POLITICAL THEORY AND NATIONAL 

 ADMINISTRATION 



(Hall 15, September 22, 3 p. m.) 



SPEAKERS : PROFESSOR W. W. WILLOUGHBY, Johns Hopkins University. 

 PROFESSOR GEORGE G. WILSON, Brown University. 

 RIGHT HONORABLE JAMES BRYCE, London, England. 

 SECRETARY: DR. CHARLES E. MERRIAM, University of Chicago. 



POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 



BY WESTEL WOODBURY WILLOUGHBY 



[Westel Woodbury Willoughby, Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins 

 University, b. Alexandria, Virginia, July 20, 1867. A.B. Johns Hopkins 

 University, 1888; Ph.D. ibid. 1891. Member of American Political Science 

 Association; American Economic Association; American Historical Associa- 

 tion; American Academy of Political and Social Science; Secretary and Treas- 

 urer of the American Political Science Association. Author of The Supreme 

 Court of the United States; The Nature of the State; The Rights and Duties of 

 American Citizenship; Social Justice; Political Theories of the Ancient World; 

 The American Constitutional System, etc. Editor of The American State Series. 

 Co-editor of the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political 

 Science. Managing Editor of The American Political Science Review.} 



THE term " political philosophy " is not so self-explicative as to 

 render unnecessary an inquiry into the character and value of the 

 speculations with which it has to deal. The adjective " political ' 

 is easily reduced to its proper meaning. Correctly used, it has 

 reference to those matters that directly pertain to the organization 

 of men in corporate communities over which some paramount 

 ruling authority is generally recognized as the legitimate source of 

 all legally binding commands. We thus term "political " all matters 

 that concern the state, its origin, history, right to be, organization, 

 activities, administration, and aims. When, however, we turn to 

 the meaning of the substantive "philosophy," when used in connec- 

 tion with the qualifying adjective " political," the matter is not 

 quite so simple. It is clear that we cannot speak of a philosophy 

 of politics in the metaphysical or epistemological senses of the word, 

 nor can we employ it in its cosmic application as a synthesis of the 

 doctrines of all the sciences. The only meaning, then, which we 

 may properly attach to the word, when used in the phrase " political 

 philosophy," is that which it has when we speak of the philosophy 

 of any science as that portion of it which is concerned with the 



