POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS POLITICS. 



613 



(9 vols, Leipsic, Arau and Nuremberg, 180524) ; 

 Whately's Introd. Lect. on Poiit. Econ. (1831); 

 Senior's Lectures on Population (1831 ) ; Sadler, 

 Law of Population (anti-Malthusian) (vols. i. and ii. 

 1830) ; Cooper's Lectures on the Elements of Polit. 

 Econ. (Columbia, 1826) ; Cardozo's Notes on Polit. 

 Econ. (Charleston, 1826) ; Thoughts on Polit. Econ. 

 by D. Raymond (Baltimore, 1820). 



POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. The origin of 

 political societies and institutions has been a fre- 

 quent subject of disquisition. Like many other 

 thing's, they are supported from an instinctive feel- 

 ing of their necessity, though their origin and true 

 principles may not be correctly understood. The 

 universal feeling of their necessity has induced some 

 persons to compare political institutions to lan- 

 guages ; both, they say, are essential to the exist- 

 ence of mankind ; both exist from time immemorial, 

 and neither can be changed at will ; a comparison 

 which tends, like other partial analogies, to lead 

 the inquirer into error. The theories of the origin 

 of the state may be comprised under two heads 

 those which make authority the starting point, and 

 those which seek it in equality. Those who sup- 

 port the former principle are again divided ; some 

 recur at once to God, and say, that he united all 

 power in the hands of the father of the family, who, 

 therefore, at first, had the priestly and princely, as 

 well as the paternal authority ; and it was only in 

 later times that these functions became separated ; 

 but it is idle, in scientific speculation, to refer posi- 

 tive institutions to God. He implanted the princi- 

 ples of every thing good, but we are not to take for 

 granted a direct inference, on his part, in their ap- 

 plication. Other advocates of authority place the 

 origin of political institutions in force. Mr von 

 Haller started this idea anew. (See the article 

 Holler, Charles Louis von.) We have already 

 spoken of the mistake of laying much stress upon 

 the supposed origin of bodies politic, in the article 

 Estates (vol. iii. note on p. 97). What did Mozart, 

 in composing his Requiem, care for the origin of 

 music ? or Ariosto, or Milton, for the origin of lan- 

 guages ? Political institutions may have origina- 

 ted in a variety of ways, from force, compact, re- 

 verence, &c. ; and they actually have, as history 

 shows us. But their accidental origin does not 

 show the principle which lies at their foundation, 

 holds them together, and is understood more clearly 

 with the improvement of the social order. The 

 accidental origin of the hut of the savage does not 

 teach us the principles of architecture. These are 

 gradually unfolded, in proportion as the art advances. 

 The principle which lies at the basis of all political 

 union we hold to be the idea of the just, as that 

 of the good is the foundation of morals, and that of 

 the beautiful of the fine arts. The idea of the just, 

 again, in politics, is but a modification of the idea 

 of equality. This is the animating principle of all 

 political societies, whatever may have been their 

 origin, and is invariably developed in the progress 

 of society, as the flower is the product of the perfect 

 plant. The idea of force declines as this principle 

 is unfolded. We might add. that the idea of the 

 just is at least as ancient as that of paternal author- 

 ity ; because, as soon as two individuals are placed 

 together, the idea of equal rights arises, the idea of 

 "doing as one would be done by." Still more is 

 this the case in a family, because as soon as there 

 are several children, parents as well as children feel 

 that it is not right to prohibit to one of the children 

 what, in the same case, would be allowed to an- 

 other. That children obey their parents originally 

 from a mere feeling of inferiority, may be allowed ; 

 but states consist of men, and little would the re- 



membrance of former inferiority avail for the main- 

 tenance of social order. The idea of the state and 

 of law (for both go hand in hand, and the essence ot 

 law is equality, even where it establishes differences 

 and privileges) has a much surer foundation in the 

 idea of the just, which is as primitive an idea as 

 that of the good. Whether, therefore, all bodies 

 politic were originally founded upon the social com- 

 pact or not, this social compact is the fundamental 

 idea of all, and that to which all strive in the pro- 

 gress of their development. See our article Estates 

 for the various stages of political government ; see, 

 also, Constitution, and Sovereignty. 



POLITICS, in its widest extent, is both the science 

 and the art of government, or the science whose 

 subject is the regulation of man, in all his relations 

 as the member of a state, and the application of this 

 science. In other words, it is the theory and the 

 practice of obtaining the ends of civil society as per- 

 fectly as possible. In common parlance, we under- 

 stand by the politics of a country the course of its 

 government, more particularly as respects its rela- 

 tions with foreign nations ; and the more important 

 these relations are (as, for instance, in European 

 states, which exert so powerful an influence on each 

 other), the more prominent is the place which they 

 hold in the ideas conveyed by the word ; whilst in 

 kingdoms, whose relations to foreign countries are 

 comparatively unimportant, the word, in common 

 usage, is naturally more confined to the principles 

 and operation of the internal government. Politics, 

 therefore, extends to every thing which is the sub- 

 ject of positive laws ; for it is by means of these 

 that the purposes of a state or civil union are effect- 

 ed. The political relations of men have therefore 

 always been the engrossing subject of history. (See 

 the definition of history, at the beginning of the ar- 

 ticle on it.) As the idea of politics depends upon 

 that of state, a definition of the latter will easily 

 mark out the whole province of the political sciences. 

 By state we understand a society formed by men, 

 with the view of better obtaining the ends of life by 

 a union of powers and mutual assistance. This 

 idea of state is the basis of a class of sciences, and 

 gives them as distinct a character as belongs to the 

 various classes of historical, philosophical, theolo- 

 gical, medical, &c., sciences. The political sciences 

 are divisible into the abstract, or purely philosophi- 

 cal, and the historical and practical. This, however, 

 is not the best order for studying them. The fol- 

 lowing order may, perhaps, be adapted to the wants 

 of the scientific student : 



1. Natural law, which treats of the rights and 

 duties of men in the absence of all positive regula- 

 tions. As the idea of law and the mutual obliga- 

 tions of mm is closely connected with that of the 

 state or government, the philosophy of government 

 enters, in some degree, into this science, so that the 

 various views of the origin of governments, whe- 

 ther they are to be considered as founded essentially 

 on compact or force, or as having a divine origin, 

 &c., fall under natural law. The subject of natural 

 law is treated at considerable length in the article 

 on that subject, in this Encyclopedia, to which we 

 refer the reader ; also to the article Haller, as he 

 gives a peculiar turn to the old notion of divine 

 right. For the various theories of natural law, see 

 the works of Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacts 

 ( Paris, _1 625), which belongs, however, more pro- 

 perly to the practical law of nations ; Puffendorf, 

 Elementa Jurisprudentiae universalis ; Wolf, Jus 

 Naturae, Methodo scientifica pertractatum (8 vols., 

 Halle, 1740 49, 4to) ; Montesquieu's Esprit des 

 Lois ; Rutherforth's Institutes of Natural Law ; 

 Ferguson on Civil Society ; also the works on go\" 



