Empiri cism. writers. The State is a moral organism and not the product of mere cold Logic: Public Law is not a collection of speculative opinions. This method leads to unfruitful results in theory, and when transferred to practice gives a most dangerous influence to fixed ideas and tends to break up and destroy existing political institutions. In times of revolution men's passions are set free and they are attracted by these abstract doctrines, the more so that they hope by their aid to break through the bounds of law: and this sort of ideology easily obtains a terrible force, and, incapable of creating a new organism, throws down everything before it with the energy of a demon. The truth of this observation is proved in a fearful way by certain phases of the French Revolution. Napoleon was right when he said: The Metaphysicians, the Ideologists have destroyed France.' The ideological acceptation of Liberty and Equality' has filled France with ruins and drenched it with blood. The doctrinaire application of the monarchical principle,' has repressed the political freedom of Germany and hindered the growth of her power. The carrying out of the abstract principle of nationality has threatened the peace of all Europe. The truest and most fruitful ideas become mischievous if they are taken up by ideologists and then transferred to practice by narrow fanatics. 6 ་ The exclusively empirical method is one-sided in the opposite way; it holds to the mere outward form, to the letter of the law or to the apparent fact. This method in science is valuable at the most in amassing material in compilations; in actual politics it frequently gains many adherents, especially among the officials of a bureaucracy. Empiricism does not often, like ideology, directly endanger the whole State; but it makes the bright sword of justice rust, hinders the public welfare in all sorts of ways, causes a quantity of small injuries, weakens the moral vigour and enfeebles the health of the State in such wise that in critical times its salvation is made always difficult and sometimes impossible. While the practical application of mere ideology brings the State into the acute crisis of political fever, this mere empiricism rather produces chronic maladies. torical method. The advantage of the historical over the merely empirical The hismethod is that it does not thoughtlessly and servilely honour actual institutions and actual facts, but recognises, explains, and interprets the inner connection between Past and Present, the organic development of national life and the moral idea as revealed in its history. This method certainly starts from the actual phenomena, but regards them as living, not as dead. Akin to the truly historical is the truly philosophical The philomethod, which is not one of mere abstract speculation but of sophical. 'concrete thinking'a (concret denkt), i.e. it unites together Ideas and Facts (Idee und Realität). While the historical method is based upon the course of outward events and their evolution, the philosophical starts from the knowledge of the human mind, and from that point of view considers the revelation of the spirit of man in history. est writers. Most of those who have attained to a higher scientific These standpoint have through natural temperament gone in either methods united by the one or the other direction. Only a few have had the the greatgenius to unite both. Among these Aristotle especially deserves our admiration. His Politics,' although written in that youthful period of the world's history which preceded the more advanced development of the State, has yet remained for two thousand years one of the purest sources of political wisdom. Cicero imitated, in the form of his reasoning and his mode of exposition, the philosophical manner of the more richly gifted Greeks, but the best part of the material of his work he rightly took from the practical politics of Rome. Among modern writers, Bodin, Vico, and Bacon may be named as early representatives of the philosophic-historical method. Burke, who resembles Cicero in the grandeur and charm of his eloquence, resembles him also in the way in which he grasped the principles of political wisdom from the history and life of his country, and expressed them with the dignity of philosophy and the splendour of genius. Machiavelli, a [For an explanation of this phrase of German philosophy see Wallace's Translation of Hegel's Logic, Prolegomena, Ch. x.] The historical and philosophical inethods who has stored up in his works the abundant and sad experience of a profound and shrewd knowledge of mankind, and Montesquieu who looked on the world with a frank, cheerful, glance and abounds in acute remarks and exact observations, sometimes adopt one method, sometimes the other. Yet the former is more given to the historical, the latter to the philosophical. On the other hand, Rousseau and Bentham, like most of the Germans, keep rather to the philosophical method, but, more often than their great model Plato, they fall into the one-sided error of mere ideology. It is thus clear that the two methods, the historical and philosophical, do not conflict: they rather supplement and correct one another. He assuredly takes a limited and narrow view of history who thinks that with him history is at an ment and end and no new legal conception (Recht) can arise; and he is each other. a vain and foolish philosopher who thinks that he is the supple correct beginning and end of all truth. The genuine historian as such is compelled to recognise the value of philosophy, and the true philosopher must equally take counsel of history. Each of the two methods has its peculiar advantages and its peculiar weaknesses and dangers. The chief advantage of the historical method is the abundance and the positive character of its results; for history is full of the complexity of life and at the same time is thoroughly positive. Whatever the most prolific thinker may think out in his head will always be only a poor fragment compared with the thoughts which are revealed in the history of mankind, and will generally attain only an uncertain and misty shape. But, on the other hand, there is the danger that, in following the paths of history, we may forget and lose unity in abundant multiplicity; we may be oppressed by the weight of the material, overwhelmed by the mass of historical experience, and above all, attracted and enchained by the past, we may lose the fresh outlook on the life of the present and the future. Certainly these are by no means necessary consequences of the historical method, but [So in German (ed. 1875). The French Transl. (2nd edit.) reverses the remark.] history itself shows us how often men who have given themselves ardently to the study of it go wrong in this way. The advantages of the philosophical method, on the contrary, are purity, harmony and unity of system, fuller satisfaction of the universal striving of man towards perfection, ideality. Its results have an especially human character, an especially ideal stamp. And yet, in turn, it has its peculiar dangers philosophers, in their striving after unity-which they often regard as their sole aim,-overlook the inner complexity of nature, and the rich content of actual existence; following the swift flight of free thought, not infrequently, instead of discovering real laws, they find barren formulæ, empty husks, and take to playing with these; misunderstanding the natural development, they pluck unripe fruit, plant trees without roots in the ground, and sink into the delusions of ideology. Only a few philosophical spirits have succeeded in avoiding these errors. Note. In what I wrote in 1841 on 'The modern schools of Jurisprudence in Germany' (Die neueren Rechtsschulen der deutschen Juristen, 2nd edit. Zürich, 1862), these and similar ideas have been followed out in closer connection with German scientific study. Long ago, however, the English Lord Chancellor, Bacon, censured the errors of the Law of Nature and the positive jurisprudence as studied in his time and expected the necessary reform in the science of law from the combination of history with philosophy. [Cp. De Augm. Scient. viii. c. 3. But see Flint's Vico p. 151.] CHAPTER III. GENERAL AND SPECIAL POLITICAL SCIENCE. PECIAL Political Science is limited to a particular nation SPECI and a single State, e. g. the ancient Roman Republic, the modern English Constitution, the German Empire of to-day. General Political Science, on the other hand, rests upon a universal conception of THE State. The particular State is based on a particular people, the State in general on mankind1. The general theory of the State, and especially general Public Law, is very often held to be the product of pure speculation, and the attempt is made to deduce it, by mere logical consequences, from a speculative view of the world.Thus there have arisen various systems of Natural or Philosophical Public Law,' as distinct from that which is Positive and Historical. I understand the difference otherwise. The State must be philosophically comprehended as well as historically. Neither General nor Special Public Law can dispense with this twofold work. The special theory of the State presupposes the general, as 1 The same idea is at the base of the Roman view. L. 9 (Gaius) D. de Justitia et Jure: 'Omnes populi, qui legibus et moribus reguntur, partim suo proprio, partim communi omnium hominum jure utuntur. Nam quod quisque populus ipse sibi jus constituit, id ipsius proprium civitatis est, vocaturque jus civile; quod vero naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit, id apud omnes peraeque custoditur, vocaturque jus gentium, quasi quo jure omnes gentes utuntur.' [Justinian Inst. Lib. I. Tit. ii. § 1.] |