39. In the second book Mariana treats of the proper education of a prince; and in the third on the due administration of his government, inveighing vehemently against excessive taxation, and against debasement of the coin, which he thinks ought to be the last remedy in a public crisis. The whole work, even in its reprehensible exaggerations, breathes a spirit of liberty and regard to the common good. Nor does Mariana, though a Jesuit, lay any stress on the papal power to depose princes, which, I believe, he has never once intimated through the whole volume. It is absolutely on political principles that he reasons, unless we except that he considers impiety as one of the vices which constitute a tyrant.[1079]
[1079] Bayle, art. Mariana, notes G, H, and I, has expatiated upon this notable treatise, which did the Jesuits infinite mischief, though they took pains to disclaim any participation in the doctrine.
Popular theories in England. 40. Neither of the conflicting parties in Great Britain had neglected the weapons of their contemporaries; the English Protestants under Mary, the Scots under her unfortunate namesake, the Jesuits and Catholic priests under Elizabeth, appealed to the natural rights of men, or to those of British citizens. Poynet, Goodman, Knox are of the first description; Allen and Persons of the second. Yet this was not done, by the latter at least, so boldly and so much on broad principles as it was on the continent; and Persons in his celebrated Conference, under the name of Doleman, tried the different and rather inconsistent path of hereditary right. The throne of Elizabeth seemed to stand in need of a strongly monarchical sentiment in the nation. || Yet we find that the popular origin of government, and the necessity of popular consent to its due exercise, are laid down by Hooker in the first and eighth books of the Ecclesiastical Polity, with a boldness not very usual in her reign, and, it must be owned, with a latitude of expression that leads us forward to the most unalloyed democracy. This theory of Hooker, which he endeavoured in some places to qualify with little success or consistency, though it excited not much attention at the time, became the basis of Locke’s more celebrated Essay on Government, and, through other stages, of the political creed which actuates at present, as a possessing spirit, the great mass of the civilised world.[1080]
[1080] Bilson, afterwards bishop of Winchester, in his “Difference between Christian Subjection and Unchristian Rebellion,” published in 1585, argues against the Jesuits, that Christian subjects may not bear arms against their princes for any religious quarrel, but admits, “if a prince should go about to subject his kingdom to a foreign realm, or change the form of the commonwealth from impery to tyranny, or neglect the laws established by common consent of prince and people to execute his own pleasure, in these and other cases which might be named, if the nobles and commons join together to defend their ancient and accustomed liberty, regiment, and laws, they may not well be counted rebels,” p. 520.
Political memoirs. 41. The bold and sometimes passionate writers, who perhaps will be thought to have detained us too long, may be contrasted with another class more cool and prudent, who sought rather to make the most of what they found established in civil polity, than to amend or subvert it. The condition of France was such as to force men into thinking, where nature had given them the capacity of it. In some of the memoirs of the age, such as those of Castelnau or Tavannes, we find an habitual tendency to reflect, to observe the chain of causes, and to bring history to bear on the passing time. De Comines had set a precedent; and the fashion of studying his writings and those of Machiavel conspired with the force of circumstances to make a thoughtful generation. |La Noue.| The political and military discourses of La Noue, being thrown into the form of dissertation, come more closely to our purpose than merely historical works. They are full of good sense, in a high moral tone, without pedantry or pretension, and throw much light on the first period of the civil wars. The earliest edition is referred by the Biographie Universelle to 1587, which I believe should be 1588; but the book seems to have been finished long before.
Lipsius. 42. It would carry us beyond the due proportions of this chapter were I to seek out every book belonging to the class of political philosophy, and we are yet far from its termination. The Politica of Justus Lipsius deserve little regard; they are chiefly a digest of Aristotle, Tacitus, and other ancient writers. Charron has incorporated or abridged the greater part of this work in his own. In one passage Lipsius gave great and just offence to the best of the Protestant party, whom he was about to desert, by recommending the extirpation of heresy by fire and sword. |Botero.| A political writer of the Jesuit school was Giovanni Botero, whose long treatise, Ragione di Stato, 1589, while deserving of considerable praise for acuteness, has been extolled by Ginguéné, who had never read it, for some merits it is far from possessing.[1081] The tolerant spirit, the maxims of good faith, the enlarged philosophy, which on the credit of a Piedmontese panegyrist, he ascribes to Botero will be sought in vain. This Jesuit justifies the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and all other atrocities of that age; observing that the duke of Alba made a mistake in the public execution of Horn and Egmont, instead of getting rid of them privately.[1082] Conservation is with him, as with Machiavel, the great end of government, which is to act so as neither to deserve nor permit opposition. The immediate punishment of the leaders of sedition, with as much silence and secrecy as possible, is the best remedy where the sovereign is sufficiently powerful. In cases of danger, it is necessary to conquer by giving way, and to wait for the cooling of men’s tempers, and the disunion that will infallibly impair their force; least of all should he absent himself, like Henry III., from the scene of tumult, and thus give courage to the seditious, while he diminishes their respect for himself.
[1081] Vol. viii. p. 210.
[1082] Poteva contentarsi di sbrigarsene con dar morte quanto si può segretamente fosse possibile. This is in another treatise by Botero, Relazioni Universali dè Capitani Illustri.
His remarks on population. 43. Botero had thought and observed much; he is, in extent of reading, second only to Bodin, and his views are sometimes luminous. The most remarkable passage that has occurred to me is on the subject of population. No encouragement to matrimony, he observes, will increase the numbers of the people without providing also the means of subsistence, and without due care for breeding children up. If this be wanting, they either die prematurely, or grow up of little service to their country.[1083] Why else, he asks, did the human race reach, three thousand years ago, as great a population as exists at present? Cities begin with a few inhabitants, increase to a certain point, but do not pass it, as we see at Rome, at Naples, and in other places. Even if all the monks and nuns were to marry, there would not, he thinks, be more people in the world than there are; two things being requisite for their increase—generation and education (or what we should perhaps rather call rearing), and if the multiplication of marriages may promote the one, it certainly hinders the other.[1084] Botero must here have meant, though he does not fully express it, that the poverty attending upon improvident marriages is the great impediment to rearing their progeny.