tical problem, is a caution both against a froward adherence to existing institutions as such, and a levity in altering and departing from them.(75) In the choice of means for the improvement of an existing institution, it is necessary to keep the past as well as the future steadily in view, and to bear in mind those deductions from the beneficial operation of new measures, which must be made on account of habit, as is explained in a former chapter.(76)

§ 16 The choice of fit means for political amelioration in the most advanced communities for the ulterior progress of civilization in the most civilized parts of the world-may, so far as it is a political problem, be considered as dividing itself into two great branches-one involving the internal, the other the external relations of the state.

The first of these includes the form of government, the systems of legislation, administration, and judicature; the mode of raising the public revenue, the treatment of religion, education, science and literature, by the state, the regulation of the press, the provision to be made for the internal communications, and all the other subjects belonging to the internal economy of the country, so far as they are within the circle of political interference and control.

The second branch includes all those political questions which arise in regulating the relations of a country with foreign states, whether they be friendly or unfriendly. This class of questions is mainly governed by the extent to be assigned to the exclusive principle of nationality.

Political society, as we have already seen, (") is essentially national. Mankind, as a whole, is social, but not political. Although man is a social animal, he is not a member of a society including the whole human race. He forms smaller societies,

(75) Reperiuntur ingenia alia in admirationem antiquitatis, alia in amorem et amplexum novitatis effusa; pauca vero ejus temperamenti sunt, ut modum tenere possint, quin aut quæ recte posita sunt ab antiquis convellant, aut ea contemnant quæ recte afferuntur a novis.'-Bacon, Nov. Org. i. 56.

(76) Ch. xx. § 9.

(77) See above, ch. ii. § 6, 7.

each of which is independent of every other similar society. Space and difficulty of communication are limiting conditions for the exercise of political government. They impose certain bounds upon the extent of area over which the society is spread. The action of every political government is necessarily confined to the sweep of a definite radius, but within that circumference its power is supreme.

Now, a material part of the problem of civilization, so far as it depends on political government, consists in determining how far an independent community ought to be exclusive-how far the national union ought to shut out its members from the wider communion of the human race.

The government of every independent state is uncontrolled within its own territory, and recognises no superior-it excludes all external control. Moreover, it is legally powerless out of its own territory, and beyond those limits it exercises no political authority. An independent state might, therefore, cut itself off from the rest of the world, and act as if its own community contained the whole of mankind. No real state has ever attempted to carry the principle of exclusive nationality to its extreme practical results, but it has been acted on to a large extent. Thus, the Romans identified the peregrinus with the hostis, and treated every alien as an enemy.(7) The Spartans expelled foreigners from their state, and prohibited their own citizens from foreign travel.(79) In our own time, the principle of exclusive nationality is chiefly debated with reference to international trade. The ideal perfection of a commercial state, according to Fichte, is, that all foreign trade should be interdicted. He wishes that, for commercial purposes, the national union should be strictly exclusive, and that in each nation there should be no trade but the home trade.(0) Practical politicians stop short of this extreme;

(78) See Ward's History of the Law of Nations, vol. i. p. 174; MüllerJochmus, Geschichte des Volkerrechts im Alterthum (Leipsig, 1848), p. 138. (79) Plutarch, Lycurg. 27. Compare Müller's Dorians, b. iii. ch. i. § 2. Above, ch. xxv. § 2.

(80) For an account of Fichte's ideal commercial state, see above, ch. xxii. § 23.

but it may be observed, that those who object to freedom of foreign trade object, so far as their argument extends, to all foreign trade. There is no distinction between trade and free trade those who condemn freedom of foreign trade wish, in fact, to suppress it altogether, or to reduce it to the narrowest possible limits. They seek to approach to Fichte's ideal as nearly as circumstances will permit.

Another important point, involving the exclusiveness of the political union, is the extension of the system of international leagues and congresses for the maintenance of peace, and for the settlement of disputes between independent states without a recourse to arms. All schemes of national federation must, however, to be really effectual for this purpose, involve a surrender of a portion of the national sovereignty. New obstacles, arising from distance, and the difficulty of communication, then arise. It is conceivable that one state might govern the whole world by means of a system of dependencies-but a federal system, comprehending all nations, would be impracticable.

A customs league (such as the German Zollverein), and treaties of international postage, copyright, and extradition of criminals, afford other instances of an infraction of the principle of national exclusiveness, and of an approximation to the formation of all civilized nations into a combined political system.

These examples will suffice to show the close connexion which subsists between the progress of civilization, and the relaxation of the national principle, so as to render it consistent with a more enlarged principle of association. A further pursuit of this important subject would, however, lie without the bounds of the present Treatise.

INDEX.

Achenwall, the originator of statistics, i. 72.

Action, human, consists of the outward act and the accompanying mental
state, i. 149; the latter cannot be determined by direct observation, i. 150;
political, defined, i. 44; consists of alternatives, ii. 310.

Adolphus, Mr., on the authorship of the Waverley Novels, i. 369.

Eschylus, how the historical contents of his Persians and Seven against
Thebes are to be determined, i. 249; his conception of a progress of
society in the Prometheus, ii. 275, n., 442.

Etiology, i. 117, 401.

African nations, their characteristics, ii. 106.

Alberoni, Cardinal, on perpetual peace, ii. 287.

Alison, Mr., on the causes of the French Revolution of 1789, i. 337.

Almanacs, ii. 393.

Alphabet, intricate and simple, ii. 104.

Alternative courses in conduct, ii. 317.

Ambiguity of political terms a cause of error in practice, ii. 387.

American writers on politics, i. 72.

Anaxagoras, his physical doctrine, i. 399.

Animals, reasons why they are incapable of political government, i. 17, 35 ;
graduated series of, i. 18; points of difference between all animals and
man, i. 19; animals have no language, i. 20; they cannot command or
punish, i. 21; they have no humanity, i. 22; their family feelings are
very limited, i. 24; they have no idea of death, i. 25; or of religion, i. 28;
they have no arts, except for purposes of construction, i. 31; they cannot
combine sociability and solitude, i. 33; within what limits they learn by
experience, i. 36; the species is unprogressive, ib.; ii. 334; influence of
domestication, i. 37; solitary animals cannot be domesticated, i. 38, n.;
pedigrees of, i. 41, 115; they have no history, i. 116; natural history of
animals, i. 116, n.; their peculiarities attributed to imaginary causes,
i. 409; they contract habits, ii. 180; they do not teach or learn from one
another, ii. 291; degeneracy of animal species, ii. 448.

Aristocracy, how its characteristics are to be traced, ii. 67,
Aristomenes, different accounts of his lifetime, i. 284.

78.

Aristotle, his remark on the degree of precision suitable to each subject, i. 7;
cites the Cyclopes as a type of the savage state, i. 10; his explanation
why men, and not animals, are capable of political government, i. 17; was
the author of the theory of a graduated series of animals, i. 18; on the
opposition of law and discretion, i. 27, n.; contents of his Economics,
i. 45, n.; treats ethics as a department of politics, i. 50; character of his
political speculations, i. 63; his doctrine that fiction is more philosophical
than truth, i. 250; on the capture of Rome by the Gauls, i. 269; on
bodily insults as a cause of the overthrow of Greek despotisms, i. 279;
on the legislation of Lycurgus, i. 284; on the causes of Greek seditions,
i. 339; on wonder, as the cause of science, i. 400; he wrote on the causes
of political institutions, i. 416; on law being a contract, i. 424; his
researches on natural history, i. 465; on governments not administered
according to law, ii. 51; his Rhetoric, ii. 153; on bad political forms
being redeemed by the excellencies of the rulers, ii. 170; on the argu-
ment from examples, ii. 212; on Hippodamus, ii. 243; on ideal constitu-
tions and laws, ii. 248; on the communist doctrines of Plato, ii. 250; on
the vagueness of the Platonic state, ii. 252; plan of his treatise on Politics,
ii. 254; on virtue being a mean between extremes, ii. 317; on Plato's
doctrine of a cycle of governments, ii. 443.

Art, terms of, i. 77, n.; its relation to nature, ii. 149; opposed to nature,
ii. 282; its difference from practice, ii. 163; art of politics consists of
precepts, ii. 155; its precepts and maxims, ii. 157.

Arthur, king, romances relating to, i. 281.

Arts, useful, ii. 151; fine, ii. 142; liberal and illiberal, ii. 143, n.; their
relation to science, ii. 146, 152; useful arts attributed to false causes,
i. 411; they are creative, not imitative, ii. 150; their origin, ii. 411, 414;
their progress, ii. 422.

Asiatic nations, ii. 91.

Association, both in men and animals, is confined to a portion of the species,
i. 38.

Astronomy is not an experimental science, i. 159; its assistance to history,
i. 300; its prophetic powers, ii. 337; its use in politics, ii. 392.

Athens, early history of, i. 260.

Auctor, its meaning, i. 182, n.

Augustus Cæsar, how he made the Roman government monarchical, i. 83,
461; ii. 198; he rejected the title of Dominus, ii. 62, n.

Austin, Mr., on the social compact, i. 430.

Aventures de Jacques Sadeur, ii. 271.

Bacon, Lord, his inquisition into the nature of heat, i. 7; he only touched
incidentally on general politics, i. 69; his complaint of the loose observa-
tion of facts in physics, i. 143; his distinction of experimenta lucifera
and fructifera, i. 154; how his preference of experimenta lucifera to
fructifera is to be reconciled with his condemnation of a philosophy which
bears no fruit, i. 155, n.; his use of the word experiment, i. 178, n.;
makes three periods of history, i. 255; on a defective mode of inferring
causation, i. 381; on negative instances, i. 381, 384; on inference from
a few cases, i. 382; on the knowledge of causes, i. 403; on the signs of
longevity, ii. 22; his view of universal jurisprudence, ii. 37; his axiomata
media, ii. 113, 127, 200; on the means necessary for controlling nature,
ii. 136; on custom, ii. 186; on the empiric and dogmatic schools of
philosophy, ii. 206; on legal precedents, ii. 215, 216, 218; on the diffe-
rence between civil institutions and inventions of the useful arts, ii. 221;
his New Atlantis, ii. 268; on despondency as an obstacle to improvement,
ii. 450.