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Preface to the Political Works

1. Philosophy, we have said,(1) is the science of ultimate reasons. Every discipline, therefore, has its own philosophy because each of them must contain the ultimate reasons to which all others are reduced. There will be a philosophy of jurisprudence, medicine, mathematics, literature, fine arts and so on. In the same way, there will be a philosophy of politics whose concept and purpose will be clarified in this Preface to works on political philosophy.

2. Civil government has the mission of directing and leading the society over which it rules to the end for which the society has been instituted. To reach this end, politics (the greatest of all arts) must like every other art use only means which are proper to it. Civil government, which deals with the art of politics, must restrict its action to the use of means proper to this art and within governmental power.

Politics as a science, therefore, is concerned with determining the nature of civil society and its proper end. It must go on to deal with the concept of civil government, and determine both the means it possesses and the means under its control, as well as the most suitable way of using them.

3. But if this is the business of politics taken in its generic sense, what is the special function of the philosophy of politics?

The political means which a government can and must make use of are innumerable; some are more important than others. There is also a way of using them to produce their effect; this, too, often depends upon calculations extending to innumerable circumstances. Special political sciences deal separately with these means: political economy, for example, studies variations in wealth, military science the armed forces, criminal science laws intended to repress crime. The same can be said about all other sciences: wealth, the armed forces, laws and so on are so many special means used by politics. But it is not sufficient that each of these means be dealt with separately; they have to be considered as a whole, their relative power measured, and their total effect on the end of civil society calculated.

4. Our first thought must be to classify or generalise the countless means open to political theory. Generalising them implies seeking the common qualities which can serve as a base and foundation for the numerous, extensive classes in which these means are distributed. Here we have to be careful: such a generalisation and classification is not produced arbitrarily. We cannot choose as our foundation any common quality which the means may possess. The quality which helps in classifying political means must not be accidental to them nor foreign to their suitability as political means. It can only be an essential quality, that is, their aptitude and efficacy for bringing about the end which society is directed. This aptitude alone constitutes political means which, if unsuitable for acting upon civil society, would be useless in the hands of government. As we said, although political means taken separately are innumerable, many of them contain the same aptitude for action or at least the same species of aptitude. In fact, their aptitudes, which are far fewer than the means themselves taken separately, can serve as a base for reducing political means to classes determined precisely by the kinds of aptitude they have for facilitating public affairs.

5. Moreover, these aptitudes themselves can be generalised and reduced to lesser classes in which arbitrariness has no part. The foundation of this second classification, more general than the first, depends upon finding the reason underlying the aptitudes. For example, newspapers are political means. But to which class of means do they belong? Examining their aptitude, we find that they are suitable for educating people. They belong, therefore, to the class, `education’. This is their first classification. We could then search for a more elevated and general way of classifying them by asking why education is so suitable for helping the end of society.

This can only be accounted for by a study of humankind. We would have to investigate the way in which human beings are directed to a given course of action. In doing so, we would find that human actions are influenced by two sources, cognitions and felt experiences, which can come from outside us. If we know what is true, and endeavour to arouse benevolent, virtuous affections in ourselves, we will come to do what is good; if we ignore what is true, feed on falsity and put ourselves in the grip of evil, vicious passions, we will direct ourselves to evil. Consequently, the reason explaining the suitability of education as a means of assistance for government is its existence as a principle influencing human actions. As such, it can constitute the base of a broader kind of political means which can be expressed as follows: `Means which have some influence in determining whether human beings act well or evilly.’ This kind of means is infinitely more extensive than the preceding class, which could have been expressed as: `Means of education.’ Nevertheless, this class in its turn is much broader than that of newspapers, which are only one of the many channels through which knowledge can be imparted to the people.

This of course is only an example, but it is sufficient, I think, to show how political means can be reduced to certain species, and then to ever more extended genera until we reach the final few classes or even a single principle which would provide the elegance and completeness sought in every branch of science.

6. At this point we have to retrace our steps a little. Having seen that the successive classification of political means is not arbitrary we must consider carefully the bases we have indicated as the foundations of different classifications. We said, the first degree of generalisation has as its base the different aptitudes of political means, that is, the qualities which make the means efficacious in assisting civil society to reach its end. This is the reason why it is a political means. But we rise to a greater generalisation, we said, by asking the reason for the aptitudes possessed by political means. Asking why aptitudes are what they are means seeking the reason explaining them. The reason for aptitudes, which is the reason for the means, is therefore only the reason explaining the reason of political means, in other words, a higher reason.

It is clear that by rising to a more general class of means, we move from a lesser to a greater reason: the more general classes become, the higher the reason on which they are founded. This principle leads us directly to understand that in arriving at the most extensive classes, we have by that very fact arrived at the ultimate reasons of political theory. If we then succeed in pushing the generalisation far enough to reduce all the classes to unity, we have inevitably found the ultimate reason explaining the action of political means, that is, the principle of political theory.

It is not difficult to understand now what we mean by the phrase: philosophy of politics.(2) We said that philosophy in general is `systematic knowledge of the ultimate reasons for things’; the special philosophy of politics must be `that science which seeks the ultimate reason or reasons by which political means can obtain their effects’. These final reasons for the efficacy of political means can also be called the most general means of political theory. As we said, they are the foundation according to which political means are classified in the most general way.

7. Having clarified the definition of the philosophy of politics, we are now in a excellent position to deduce its function, character and natural division.

First, its function. Political philosophy sets out to teach the way in which a government can make the best use of political means. The so-called special political sciences deal with these means, but only by considering them separately, without showing how the means must be used to bring about the intended complex effect. Economists, for example, will tell us how to augment private and public wealth which, however, is only one element of true social prosperity. People can be wicked and unhappy even when wealth abounds. Wealth, moreover, is quite capable of destroying itself.

We need a more elevated science than political economy; we need some kind of wisdom to guide economy itself and determine how and within what limits material wealth can be directed towards the true human good for which civil government was instituted. The same can be said about any other means: physical force, social organisations, political laws, education, and so on.

Such wisdom teaches the genuine use of these political means which it rules, apportions, balances and directs harmoniously to prevent their doing more harm than good, and to bring about the greatest possible good of which they are capable. This wisdom is derived and imbibes from the fountain provided by the ultimate reasons of political theory.

In fact, the ultimate reason according to which any means is of use for the end of society also judges the lesser reasons and separates within them, so to speak, the formal from the material. In other words, it separates their sap, their life, from any obstacle of a useless outer covering.

For example, it is said that promoting education is useful because an increase in common knowledge is advantageous. This is the first and natural reason to be offered. We could ask, however, why knowledge is advantageous. Our answer would have to be: `Because through knowledge we arrive at the possession of truth.’ The more truth we possess, the further we find ourselves from error and the bad effects which result from error and indeed from ignorance. Clearly this higher reason illuminates and rules the preceding reason. Realising that knowledge is good only in so far as through it we possess the truth, I am immediately aware of the kind of knowledge and education I should seek. I see immediately that some errors pass for knowledge, and that I have a responsibility for eliminating such unwarranted knowledge from society with means falling within my competence. If, for example, I am in charge of public affairs, I can no longer be content with saying or doing what is necessary to encourage everything that passes as knowledge. I have to see that all men and women are assisted in their search for true knowledge and in their attainment of truth. This is how the ultimate reasons in political theory, and in every other genus of things, direct the lesser, proximate reasons.

The philosophy of politics, therefore, as the science of the ultimate reasons, is also political wisdom placed on high to guide all political means directly to the end proposed by human beings when together they formed civil communities. Political philosophy, considered in its essence, investigates the ultimate reasons of the art of government; likewise, considered in its application, it is `the branch of knowledge which teaches the best use of political means.’

8. If we consider more carefully this noble function of the philosophical part of politics, we shall understand better the character of the science to which the works in this collection belong.

Civil government would be useless if the decisions it takes were not aimed directly at the end of the society over which it presides. This would also be the case if, while directed to their end, such decisions remained inefficacious. Government decisions, that is, the means government adopts, have therefore to be 1. well directed; 2. of their nature efficacious.

9. Such means cannot be well-directed, however, if government is ignorant of the ultimate, complex end of civil society. We need to note that special political sciences do not and cannot ever teach us the nature of this ultimate, complex end. As we said, the object of their investigations are special means which of their nature have special ends and produce only special effects. For example, financial science teaches us to administer efficiently the income of the State, to collect taxes with the greatest economy, to distribute them equally with the least possible trouble to contributors, with the least damage to production, and so on. These are the special ends of this science, but they are not the general, complex end of the State.

Special, lesser ends exist, therefore, but the State has in addition a general, ultimate, complex end to which all others must be subordinated. Special political sciences determine special ends, and teach us how to attain them, but only the philosophy of politics will teach us to subordinate these ends to the ultimate, unique end of civil society, and genuinely determine the true end of the great association we call civil. Only the philosophy of politics teaches us not to fix our eyes on some intermediary, partial end, but to consider and deal with such ends simply as means towards the ultimate end. Strictly speaking, partial ends are not in fact ends, but only means.

The philosophy of politics imposes an inviolable law upon all governments which obliges them to turn all they do to true human good. It does this not because the end of civil society is human good in all its extension, but because it is that portion of good to which society is ordered as an inevitable part of human good. If civil society did not pertain to true, proper human good, it would not tend to good in any way; it would be formed for evil — a truly absurd proposition.

10. Granted, therefore, that the ultimate end of civil association has been clearly determined, it clearly contains the ultimate reason of all political means; it alone must be the ultimate rule for judging the value of these means, and the supreme principle which teaches us how to use them.

11. We were saying, however, that the means used by government must of their nature be efficacious, and provide legitimate direction towards the ultimate end of society. We can now consider the ultimate reason for their efficacy, that is, the quality, most common to them all, which enables them to produce in social living the good effect to which they tend.

This quality, common to all political means, consists in the action exercised on the human spirit. The divisions of politics may indeed be innumerable, but `politics’ is either an empty word or `an art by which the spirits of those governed are moved towards the end of society.’ All human actions spring from and return to the spirit. Arts, sciences and projects of every kind are produced by human activity, which has its hidden origin and, as it were, its home in our spirit. Moreover, this activity returns with its effects to the spirit from which it sprang. In the last analysis, the products of human activity have no other natural tendency than to satisfy human desire.

In any system, therefore, it will always be true that external things can only be means with which to satisfy the desire of the spirit. They are valueless if they do not penetrate to the spirit and contribute something to the satisfaction it desires. This good influence on our spirit must be the characteristic, the common quality, the ultimate reason of all political means if they are truly to be efficacious.

The character and nature of the philosophical part of politics, of which we are speaking, is clearly depicted in what we have said. The philosophy of politics seeks and finds the end of civil society in the very nature of human beings when it prescribes that this end can only be true human good. It also sets the efficacy of all political means firmly in human nature by establishing that such efficacy consists solely in the good influence by which political means satisfy the desires of human nature. As a result this philosophy teaches us to know when, which and how such means are efficacious or inefficacious.

The proper characteristic of political philosophy is demonstrated when it leads the rulers of nations to the hearts of individuals, whose secrets it uncovers. In this profound recess of humanity, political philosophy often indicates the emptiness of the heart’s calculations and the fallaciousness of its speculations. Political philosophy leads people away from deception, and brings an as yet unknown wisdom to the book of the heart, whose seals it breaks.

12. Political theory is indeed a single subject, but made up of two parts. The material element deals with the means individually; the formal or philosophical element co-ordinates the means towards the end. It is very rare indeed for a person to be fully cognisant with both parts.

Normally politicians and philosophers are distinct personages. There are undoubtedly some positions in life which enable those occupying them to learn one part of science; other positions which favour another part. Human beings are limited, and exhaust their energies in only one of the two parts. Unfortunately, after persuading themselves that they are thoroughly familiar with what they know only in part, they become over-confident and through their consequent errors inflict damage in proportion to their influence.

Public life is certainly more adapted to the study of special political disciplines; private life to philosophical meditation. Philosophy, as we said, joins political means with the human heart — a private, not a public place — where entry is closed to those loaded with the trappings of exterior dignities. We have to despoil ourselves of all that envelops and attracts us; we have to dismiss our courtiers, strip off our regalia and come down from our thrones. Then, naked, solitary human beings, we have to try to enter by the narrow gate and pass through the dark recesses of our secret passions, hidden calculations, unbelievable pain and stifled sobs before finally reaching what is truly virtuous and vicious in our fellow human beings. A person surrounded by the immense illusion of exterior vanity needs infinite courage, heroic virtue and a sublime, firm mind to take such a tremendous step. Oppressed day and night by business, formalities and pleasure, he will have great difficulty finding the necessary tranquillity and leisure for deep meditation.

Moreover, the philosophical reflection of which we are speaking seems too humble and obscure to elevated persons of this world whose attention is drawn by so many clamorous, splendid, external affairs which lend themselves to general calculations in which entire populations become a mere cypher, and individuals are reduced to zero.

The wise, private individual seems much more suited, therefore, to cultivate the philosophical aspect of the science of government. He is not cut off either from human nature or from his fellows by some vast ocean of ambition and artificial dignities. Without fatigue or difficulty, he questions his own nature with which he is as it were in daily contact. It would seem highly proper that in the long chain of means and ends, of causes and effects, the entire sequence should pertain to the politician except for the final link that joins political means to human beings themselves.

For the last link, the public personage should turn to the poor lodgings of the sage, and ask respectfully to hear his salutary teaching.(3)

13. From what we have said, it is clear that the distinction between politics and the philosophy of politics is not arbitrary. The facts themselves present us with the two parts we have indicated, represented more often than not by two different personages, the public and the private individual.

In fact, this distinction between the politician and the political philosopher always appeared when civil societies attained a certain degree of culture. At first, however, political means were few, although they gradually increased as experience showed that governments were able to benefit from a greater number of situations than had been thought. At this point all political means began to be dealt with separately, as we said, and reduced to special sciences. Consequently, we had a flood of books dedicated to business, industry, arts, legislation, war, relationships between States, and many similar subjects. As a result, the special sciences grew immensely, and drew far more attention than the philosophical part of politics. This, in turn, was rendered much more difficult by its need to rule and direct harmoniously with simple principles such a vast mass of political means — all of which seemed to require the entire application of one person. We should not be surprised, therefore, if we find the best axioms of political philosophy in ancient authors but, in our own days, an immense wealth of cognitions built up around the special political sciences.

14. We have to consider that the public individual was at first only a private person who undertook public duties. Consequently, the art of politics must at first have been principally concerned with the private study of human nature rather than the political expedients which gradually resulted from experience. Politics must have been more formal than material, more philosophical than administrative. Indeed, we see that the art of politics sprang from philosophy. Seneca notes that Seleucus and Charondas learned neither in the forum nor in the waiting rooms of the juris consults the rights and laws they dictated when Sicily and Magna Grecia flourished; their education was gained in the silent, sacred recesses of Pythagoras.(4) Plato, in declaring that philosophers were the best possible administrators of any State,(5) not only showed how much respect he had for the philosophical side of politics, but also indicated what was supremely good for his time. This was clearly understood by the good sense of all.

Nor should we be astonished if we see that the first political means, which the ancients considered the most efficacious, were those which exercised the greatest and most immediate effect upon human beings. Here religion was foremost. The Egyptians, who were called the founders of all branches of science, tempered everything with religion.(6) The same is true of the Persians, another school from which the Greeks learned. Take, for instance, the way in which the Persians made philosophy the governing principle in the education of the king’s son, the heir to the throne. When he attained his fourteenth year, four of the wisest and most outstanding officers of State were chosen to educate him. The first had to impart religious instruction and with it, as though they were a single subject, instruction in the art of government; the second simply had to watch over him to see that he always spoke the truth; the third taught him to control his desires; and the fourth showed him how to overcome base fear by developing courage and self-confidence.(7)

All this is philosophy, pure and simple.Zoroaster’s laws also, in so far as we know them, contained only religious and moral precepts.(8) Xenophon tells us that Persian legislation was especially notable because it aimed not only at punishing crime, but also and chiefly at inculcating in all hearts a horror for vice, and a love of virtue for its own sake.(9)

The same philosophical spirit is apparent in the Greek legislators. The famous laws of Crete, Athens, Sparta, Locri and Catania were partly forged from the example of known peoples and partly deducted as simple corollaries by the sages from their study of human nature. The fine arts, gymnastics, public education and similar matters tended directly to the formation of the human spirit. Religion was mixed with everything; the will of the gods was always consulted — it was not coincidental that the council of the Amphizionic League, the force unifying the whole of Greece, was situated at Delphi near the oracle.(10)

The whole art of government, therefore, started from human beings themselves and soon returned to them. It was the Romans who amplified the circle of politics. Totally alien to the humanities at first, devoted to action alone but with sound, wise judgment, they discovered through experience many still unknown political provisions. Vico makes an acute comment about the matter when he says that wisdom prevailed amongst the Greeks and jurisprudence amongst the Romans. By this, he means that the Greeks studied and wrote about the principles behind the laws (leges legum) while the Romans, who had presupposed and preserved these principles hidden in their spirit, wrote solely about their application and consequences, that is, they enunciated particular laws.(11)

15. Nevertheless, a comparison between Roman and modern political ways and means shows that the former, although smaller in number and less distinct, were at the same time more complex and more philosophical. It is enough, for example, to note that the Romans knew how to make servitude pleasing and subjection glorious;(12) their great aim was not to rule a person externally, but to govern the whole person. I am not sure whether this was the result of good fortune on the Romans’ part, or of their natural common sense. Certainly both aspects were guided by a superior providence which saw to it that the first two kings of Rome represented the two elements of politics which we are trying to distinguish in these pages. The first king acted as a politician, the second as a philosopher.(13)

The choice of Numa, a foreigner,(14) whose natural love of tranquillity had always kept him clear of Rome, is indeed a fact of the greatest importance in Roman history. We see a rough, warlike people turn to a peaceful philosopher for government at the death of Romulus, the bellicose leader who had brought them together. Numa himself was astonished, and refused the throne. As he said, in proffering his excuses, he was made for peace, and devoted himself to his studies and religion, all of which were part of a person’s private life; a throne and command of the fierce Roman people were different matters altogether. But the necessity for philosophy in civil governments and the usefulness of private virtues in the formation of a ruler were clearly underlined by Numa’s father and Marius, his kinsman, when they persuaded him to accept the sceptre:

Real government provides an ample field for the sage to show good, magnanimous activity. Here is his opportunity to serve the gods and gently infuse religious feelings in people. Subjects, in fact, easily conform to the example shown by their ruler. — A ferocious people is able to learn meekness and, already loaded with triumphs and spoils, come to love a just, gentle head who knows how to establish attractive laws and mild rule. And (who knows?) perhaps such a ruler will be able, without extinguishing this warlike Roman temperament, at least turn it to good by uniting cities and nations in the bond of friendship.(15)

These words transmitted by Plutarch are suggestions dependent upon calm, detached philosophy, and show that the two parts of government we have distinguished, that is, politics in its ordinary meaning and the philosophy of politics, correspond to a factual distinction present in the history of knowledge and government. We see these two parts cultivated at different times and by different personages; we see that they have greatly different characteristics: public life aids politics, while the philosophy of politics seeks the meditative silence of private life. Nevertheless, each helps the other. Plato, who was thoroughly conscious of the distinction between them, had every reason to desire that the two should be united in the same personages.(16)

16. After defining political philosophy and describing its nature it will not be difficult for us to discover its principal parts if we wish to do so. We have called it the science of the ultimate political reasons, and said that its function is to apply these reasons to the special means proper to the art of government. We showed that these special means must be well directed and efficacious. The application of the ultimate political reasons, therefore, has two aims: knowledge of the value or the efficacy of political means, and knowledge of the best way to use them.

We can easily see now that the philosophy of politics must have two principal parts. The first is directed to searching for the ultimate political reasons and, above all, for the very last reason of all, that is, the supreme principle of this science. We have called these ultimate political reasons political criteria because they are indeed criteria which we can use to judge the value of political means and of the way of using them.

The second part deals with the application to the means of the political criteria. This leads us to know the value of these means and the best possible way of using them.

17. We can now indicate the general subdivisions of the first part in the following schema:

Notes

(1) Cf. Introduzione alla Filosofia.

(2) Another name for this teaching is political philosophy (just as we say moral philosophy) or philosophical politics.

(3) One minister of State, who was also a great philosopher, proffered a true, acute comment on the various opportunities, provided by different social positions, for coming to know one kind of thing rather than another, and for comprehending one part rather than another of the art of government. He speaks of the heads of nations as follows: `Kings are unfortunate Stylites, condemned by providence to lead their lives perched on columns from which they can never descend. They cannot see, as we can, what is happening down here. On the other hand, their vision extends further than ours. They have a certain interior tact, a certain instinct, which serves them as a better guide than the advice of those around them.

(4) Ep. 90.

(5) Rep., 5.

(6) Macrob., Saturn. 19. It has been noted that only three sentiments permeate and dominate the Egyptian monuments that have come down to us: 1. respect for the supreme Being; 2. respect for the king as the image of the supreme Being; 3. respect for the souls of the dead. A visit to any museum of Egyptian antiquities will provide ample proof of this observation.

(7) Xenoph., Cyrop. I, 2, and Plat., Alcib. 1.

(8) Cf. Hyde, De Religione veterum Persarum, Oxford, 1700, where a Latin version of the Sad-der can be found.

(9) Cyrop. 1.

(10) Nevertheless, I think Mengotti exaggerates when he maintains that the oracle itself was the work of Greek politics. Politics never went so far as to found oracles; advantage was taken of popular opinions and beliefs. The Delphic oracle sprang from superstition, not from politics. The documents used by Mengotti in his dissertation prove no more than this.

(11) De universi juris uno principio, etc., p. 2 ss.

(12) The maxim practised in Rome's most flourishing period is found in Livy who reports part of a speech before the Senate by Camillus' grandson in favour of the Latins, whom he had completely defeated: `"Rule" means that those who obey are glad to do so.'

(13) `There were then two kings,' says Livy, `who helped to develop the city, the first through war, the second peacefully. — The city was thus strengthened and tempered by the arts of war and peace.'

(14) From Cures, a Sabine city.

(15) Plut. in Num. It was Numa Pompilius who so profoundly impressed on the Romans the religious character which they never afterwards lost and of which Cicero wrote: `We may indeed love ourselves exaggeratedly. Nevertheless, although fewer indeed than the Spaniards, weaker than the Gauls, less cunning than the Phoenicians, cruder than the Greeks, we have overcome all peoples and nations by our realisation that all things are ruled and governed by piety and religion and by that wisdom alone which springs from the divinity of the immortal gods' (De harus. resp. n. 19). We add the comment of an economist: `When Numa Pompilius set up an altar to Good Faith, that is, a code of morality, he was more aware than modern economists of the meaning of economy' (Melchiorre Gioia, N. Prospetto delle Scienze Economiche, tom. 1, p. 286).

(16) Rep., 5.

Chapter 1