lege, and of Marischal College, Aberdeen, in favour of the Abolition of Religious Tests in the Univer- ART. VII. The Claims of Labour: an Essay on the Duties of THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, JANUARY, 1845. No. CLXIII. Part ART. I.-Political Philosophy. In Three Parts. Part First. THE HIS work was published, as may be seen by the dates, at successive periods. On the appearance of the first Number, we expressed our satisfaction at a beginning being made to supply a great deficiency in our Political Literature; and we promised to examine and report on the whole work when it should be concluded. If any apology for our not having sooner performed this promise be due, either to the public or to the distinguished author, it is to be found, partly in the great extent and difficulty of the subject, and partly in the manner in which he has treated it. The influence on human affairs of different forms of government, may be considered historically, theoretically, or practically; or, in other words, may be made the subject of a history, a science, or an art. The writer may describe the nature, and relate the origin, the growth, and the fate of the principal political constitutions which have actually existed. He may tell the causes some the result of design, but more of accident-through which the early simple governments, in some cases, were pre VOL. LXXXI. NO. CLXIII. A served unaltered; in others were changed from one pure form into another; and in others became mixed. He may show how the mixed forms gradually grew more and more complicated; until at length the system of divided powers, of balances, and of checks became unmanageable, and the machine, unfit to resist attack, or perhaps even to bear the friction of its own ordinary working, was broken up by foreign conquest or by revolution. This is the historical treatment of the subject. Or, instead of relating what has existed, he may show what is capable of existing. He may explain the different modes in which the supreme power may be distributed or collected, the effects which it is the tendency of each form to produce, and the modifications to which that tendency is subject from intrinsic and extrinsic accidents-from the intrinsic influence of race, religion, climate, and situation, and the extrinsic action of one nation upon another. This is the scientific treatment. Or, lastly, assuming that those who have the power of creating or altering the constitution of a nation have some given end in view-its power, its wealth, its freedom, its tranquillity, or its intelligence he may show what is the constitution under which, in any particular case, any one or more of these objects is most likely to be effected, what are the incidental sacrifices, and how these sacrifices may be diminished. This may be called practical politics, or the art, as distinguished from the science and the history of government. Whichever of these three modes of treating the vast subject of government were adopted, it could not be considered adequately except at great length. Lord Brougham has united them, and has therefore been forced to compress into one treatise the matter of three. This, of course, has rendered his work more complete in its outline, and less so in its details; and has also impaired the continuity and cohesion of its parts. It has rendered it more useful as a book, and less perfect as a treatise. It is a sacrifice of artistical merit to utility. By far the largest portion of the work is purely historical. Of the twenty chapters of the first volume, the last ten are devoted to the history of Monarchy in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden; and the greater part of the remainder is employed in the history of the Asiatic despotisms, and of the Feudal System. The second volume contains twentyeight chapters, of which only the first six treat of the nature and consequences of Aristocratic government; the remaining twentytwo being histories of the aristocracies of Poland, Hungary, Rome, Ancient Greece, Modern Italy, and Switzerland. The third volume contains thirty-five chapters, of which the first twenty-one treat of Democracy and mixed government; and the rest contain the constitutional histories of England, the United States, France, Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland. Throughout are dispersed disquisitions as to the influence on human happiness of different administrative institutions, and precepts as to the modes by which they may be best adapted to given political forms; and frequently, after noticing the defects of existing institutions, the means of remedying them are pointed out. For this mixture of narrative, of philosophical exposition, and of positive precept, so far as we are merely a part of the public, we are grateful; but, as Reviewers, we feel that it gives us only a choice of difficulties. Any thing like a general view of the whole work would be a condensed and yet meagre abstract; and if we select portions, and give to them their due consideration, a very few will be all to which we can afford any attention. The historical part we shall not criticize-not certainly because we undervalue it-it is executed with great research and sagacity, and contains many brilliant and clear condensations, many striking comparisons and contrasts, and much valuable criticism, both historical and political-but simply because we have not room for it. From the practical portion, we shall select for examination a very few of the most important, or the most remarkable passages. Of the scientific portion, we shall endeavour to give an outline as full as is consistent, not with the importance of the subject, or of the treatise, but with our confined limits. In the first chapter, Lord Brougham enquires into the origin of civil governments. He disposes summarily but efficiently of the rival theories of original contract, proprietary right, and prescription; and asserts that the rational foundation of all government the origin of a right to govern, and a correlative duty to obey-is expediency-the general benefit of the community. In the second chapter, after stating the generally admitted proposition, that in every state there must be a supreme power, an individual or a body possessing authority in itself, legally absolute and uncontrolled, and that this authority may be exercised by acts, either legislative or executive, he proceeds, in the following passages, to give an outline of his subject, and to mark its principal divisions: There are three great divisions under which governments, where they are of the simple and unmixed form, may be classed according to the hands in which the supreme power is lodged. It may be vested in a single person, or it may be vested in a particular class different from the bulk of the community, or it may be vested in the community at large. In the first case, the government is called a Monarchy; in the second, an Aristocracy; in the third, a Democracy. In order that any one of these forms of government should be pure, the supreme power should be vested in one of these three bodies or authorities exclusively, and without any control or check from any other. A pure or absolute monarchy implies that the sovereign should have the whole power, legislative and executive, in his own person. If his power is shared, or if his functions are exercised subject to any control or check, the government is no longer purely monarchical, but in some degree mixed. In like manner, if the aristocracy shares its authority with the people at large, or allows any check over its operations to the people at large, or to any individual functionary over whose creation it has no control, the government is no longer a pure but a mixed Aristocracy— and so of a Democracy. ، It must, however, be kept in mind, that in order to detract from the purity of any of these forms, the supreme power itself must be actually divided, and not merely an arrangement made voluntarily by the party having the supreme power, and which only subsists during that party's pleasure. In a Monarchy, the choice by the sovereign of a council to aid him in his office, or to exercise a portion of his power, does not detract from his power, and does not render the government a mixed one. [So], if the Sovereign can do whatever he pleases, except that the judges of his own nomination act for life-in other words, if all he is prevented from doing is judging causes in his own person-if he is independent of all other control in his legislative and executive functions, and only restrained by being obliged to judge through persons of his own nomination, even if these are named by him for life-we call it an Absolute, and not a Mixed Monarchy. The limitations arising from this judicial arrangement are plainly little more than nominal, because he may choose such tools as he can rely upon, and has no one to control or watch his choice. 6 Again, the purity of the Democratic form is not diminished, by arrangements made for the purpose of enabling a people inhabiting an extensive territory to administer its own affairs. It may delegate for this purpose the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial power to individuals as to bodies; it may be satisfied that these should be vested in certain portions of the community, and none remain in the nation at large, except the choice of those ruling portions; and still the government is purely Democratic, and not at all mixed, because no body or individual exists in the community having power independent of the people and because the people have not shared their own power with others over whom they have no control, but only deputed others to exercise their authority. * We doubt whether Lord Brougham adopts a convenient nomenclature, when he applies the epithet pure to a monarchy in which there are irremovable functionaries, or to a democracy in which the people act through representatives. How can an absolute monarch be prevented from judging causes in his own person? How can he be obliged to allow the judges whom he finds, or whom he has nominated, to retain their offices for life? The power that restrains or coerces him must at least be equal to * Vol. i. p. 73 to 77. |