850 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



est are habitually made the arena of pure- 

 lv ambitious contention, of selfish aspiration, 

 and even of corrupt conspiracies against the 

 public well-being. The wider the territorial 

 area of any particular government, and the 

 more complicated and extensive its essential 

 mechanism, the more opportunity is there for 

 the exhibition of personal, or, at the most, of 

 local self-seeking. So far as this prevails, 

 politics becomes degraded into a mere vul- 

 gar struggle for money, office, or power. All 

 actual reference to scientific considerations 

 is excluded. The tone of public thought and 

 sentiment becomes proportionately infected, 

 and all the claims which might otherwise be 

 asserted on behalf of politics to take its place 

 by the side of other sciences dealing with 

 such moral elements as the human will meet 

 with a skeptical repudiation. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



INTEKNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC 8EEIES. 

 No. XLIII. 



The Science of Politics. By Sheldon 

 Amos, M. A., author of " The Science of 

 Law," etc., late Professor of Jurispru- 

 dence in Universitv College, London. 

 Pp. 490. Price, $l"75. 



It is doubtful if any book could be of- 

 fered to the American public of which they 

 would be so little able to judge what it might 

 be about, as a treatise on " the science of 

 politics." It would rather be expected that 

 the writer would choose some such title to 

 give respectability and character to new po- 

 litical theories of his own, and it would at 

 any rate be anticipated that the work would 

 be largely of a visionary and speculative 

 nature. Yet no such expectation would 

 have been justified in the present instance. 

 Professor Amos has given to the world an 

 instructive and valuable contribution to the 

 important subject which he has felt it incum- 

 bent upon him to undertake. It is first of 

 all a moderate, judicious treatise, indulging 

 in no extreme or extravagant views, and 

 imbued throughout with the true scientific 

 spirit. Professor Amos has this claim, which 

 is probably an advantage in the treatment of 

 his subject: he is not a man trained in the 

 field of physical science who has felt that 

 he had a mission to carry physical methods 

 of study over into the political region to 

 open a new dispensation of political philoso- 

 phy. On the contrary, he is an erudite stu- 



dent of history, law, and civil institutions, 

 and has made jurisprudence and the work- 

 ing of political constitutions a matter of life- 

 long and critical investigation. His prepa- 

 ration has been in the general field which 

 furnishes the subject-matter of his book, 

 and he has come to the large conception of 

 a science of politics through inquiry into 

 the relations of political phenomena. From 

 this consideration, his work will have a 

 weight and a practical character which no 

 amount of preparation in the special sciences 

 could have given it. We are of opinion 

 that Mr. Spencer's " Development of Politi- 

 cal Institutions," dealing strictly with the 

 subject from the point of view of historic 

 evolution, is probably a more valuable contri- 

 bution towai'd the organization of a political 

 science than this work of Professor Amos, 

 and yet it may not be so well adapted to inter- 

 est general readers in the claims and grounds 

 of this new subject. At all events, Professor 

 Amos's book is better suited to the state of 

 mind of politicians, who, being generally of 

 the class of lawyers, will be more familiar 

 with his data and the questions he discusses 

 than they would be with the rigorous in- 

 quiries into the genesis of political ideas 

 worked out by an analysis of primitive so- 

 ciety. The plan of the work before us may 

 be best gathered from a statement of the 

 topics dealt with in its successive chapters. 

 These are : I. " Nature and Limits of the Sci- 

 ence of Politics." II. " Political Terms." 

 III. "Political Reasoning." IV. "The Geo- 

 graphical Area of Modern Politics." V. 

 " The Primary Elements of Political Life 

 and Action." VI. "Constitutions." VII. 

 "Local Government." VIII. "The Gov- 

 ernment of Dependencies." IX. " Foreign 

 Relations." X. " The Province of Govern- 

 ment." XL " Revolutions in States." XII. 

 " Right and Wrong in Politics." 



Obviously the first implication of science 

 is of laws or principles of a general nature, 

 or that are universal in their operation. A 

 science of politics, therefore, if there be such 

 a thing, must deal with political phenomena 

 in their most comprehensive forms, or as 

 exemplified under wide diversities of consti- 

 tution. It will be seen from the titles above 

 enumerated that the range of discussion in 

 the present volume is broad, and deals with 

 all the chief fundamental problems relating 



