OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 251 



to be a constant protest against the French idea of liberty ; and perhaps 

 no writer in English has so well developed the nature and value of 

 institutions, or has shown so ably the amount of struggle necefSsary for 

 winning one position of free self-government after another, as he has 

 in this work.* 



Dr. Lieber thus united in a rare degree practical and theoretical 

 politics, and for this balance of mind his many-sided life fitted him ; 

 but he owed it to his native qualities also, to the value which he put 

 on histoi-y and statistics, to the leaning which he felt towards the 

 observation of concrete social problems, to the union, in short, of the 

 qualities of the Anglo-Saxon and of the German mind, that he reached 

 a high degree of political wisdom. The same hapi^y commingling of 

 qualities helped his naturally clear-sighted mind to attain to a higher 

 degree of political sagacity than most men can reach. He sav/ farther 

 into our institutions and into the evils which threatened them than 

 most native politicians, for he had three guides assisting his foresight, 

 while they generally have but one : he had history, general principles, 

 and immediate observation. 



Dr. Lieber showed this happy wisdom, so superior to mere political 

 philosophy, in the ethical qualities of his nature. M. Rolin-Jaecque- 

 myns tells us that his motto in his letters was " no right without its 

 duties, no duty without its rights." His " Political Ethics " (1838, 1 839) 

 looks at the State in the first part, and the civic duties of men in the 

 second; but the basis of the whole, like that of Trendelenburg's 

 " Naturrecht," is laid in moral convictions.. Throughout the work the 

 conception of a perfect citizen seems to be the leading idea, of a person 

 who has duties in proportion to the greatness of his rights. Dr. Lieber 

 was the first, if we are not in an error, to introduce into the English 

 language the word jural as distinguished from moral. A friendly critic 

 of his life and character in " The Nation " describes this work as a 

 "storehouse of political wisdom," and "as distinguished for its pro- 

 foundness, originality, and its exhaustive treatment of one of the most 

 difficult of subjects." "Judge Story commended it for its sound 

 common sense, varied learning, and profound views of government." 

 " The Legal and Political Hermeneutics," a smaller work, originally 



* The author of the present sketch, believing that American youths were in 

 danger of falling into an ompty, abstract theory of rights and of freerlom resem- 

 bling the French, used this book in his classes soon after it appeared, for the 

 very purpose of counteracting this tendency, and found that it had a decided 

 influence in favor of correctness of political thought. 



