Bacon. 51. Bacon ought to appear as a prominent name in political philosophy, if we had never met with it in any other. But we have anticipated much of his praise on this score; and it is sufficient to repeat generally that on such subjects he is among the most sagacious of mankind. It would be almost ridiculous to descend from Bacon, even when his giant shadow does but pass over our scene, to the feebler class of political moralists, such as Saavedra, author of Idea di un principe politico, a wretched effort of Spain in her degeneracy; but an Italian writer must not be neglected, from the remarkable circumstance that he is esteemed one of the first who have treated the science of political œconomy. |Political œconomy.| It must, however, be understood that, besides what may be found on the subject in the ancients, many valuable observations which must be referred to political œconomy occur in Bodin, that the Italians had, in the sixteenth century, a few tracts on coinage, that Botero touches some points of the science, and that in English there were, during the same age, pamphlets on public wealth, especially one entitled, A Brief Conceit of English Policy.[346]
[346] This bears the initials of W. S., which some have idiotically taken for William Shakspeare. I have some reason to believe, that there was an edition considerably earlier than that of 1584, but, from circumstances unnecessary to mention, cannot produce the manuscript authority on which this opinion is founded. It has been reprinted more than once, if I mistake not, in modern times.
Serra on the means of obtaining money without mines. 52. The author to whom we allude is Antonio Serra, a native of Cosenza, whose short treatise on the causes which may render gold and silver abundant in countries that have no mines, is dedicated to the Count de Lemos, “from the prison of Vicaria this tenth day of July, 1613.” It has hence been inferred, but without a shadow of proof, that Serra had been engaged in the conspiracy of his fellow citizen Campanella fourteen years before. The dedication is in a tone of great flattery, but has no allusion to the cause of his imprisonment, which might have been any other. He proposes, in his preface, not to discuss political government in general, of which he thinks that the ancients have treated sufficiently, if we well understood their works, and still less to speak of justice and injustice, the civil law being enough for this, but merely of what are the causes that render a country destitute of mines abundant in gold and silver, which no one has ever considered, though some have taken narrow views, and fancied that a low rate of exchange is the sole means of enriching a country.
His causes of wealth. 53. In the first part of this treatise, Serra divides the causes of wealth, that is, of abundance of money, into general and particular accidents (accidenti communi e proprj), meaning by the former circumstances which may exist in any country, by the latter such as are peculiar to some. The common accidents are four: abundance of manufactures, character of the inhabitants, extent of commerce, and wisdom of government. The peculiar are, chiefly, the fertility of the soil, and convenience of geographical position. Serra prefers manufacture to agriculture; one of his reasons is their indefinite capacity of multiplication; for no man whose land is fully cultivated by sowing a hundred bushels of wheat, can sow with profit a hundred and fifty; but in manufactures he may not only double the produce, but do this a hundred times over, and that with less proportion of expense. Though this is now evident, it is perhaps what had not been much remarked before.
His praise of Venice. 54. Venice, according to Serra, held the first place as a commercial city, not only in Italy, but Europe; “for experience demonstrates that all the merchandizes which come from Asia to Europe pass through Venice and thence are distributed to other parts.” But as this must evidently exclude all the traffic by the Cape of Good Hope, we can only understand Serra to mean the trade with the Levant. It is, however, worthy of observation, that we are apt to fall into a vulgar error in supposing that Venice was crushed, or even materially affected, as a commercial city, by the discoveries of the Portuguese. She was in fact more opulent, as her buildings of themselves may prove, in the sixteenth century than in any preceding age. The French trade from Marseilles to the Levant, which began later to flourish, was what impoverished Venice, rather than that of Portugal with the East Indies. This republic was the perpetual theme of admiration with the Italians. Serra compares Naples with Venice; one, he says, exports grain to a vast amount, the other imports its whole subsistence; money is valued higher at Naples, so that there is a profit in bringing it in, its export is forbidden; at Venice it is free; at Naples the public revenues are expended in the kingdom; at Venice they are principally hoarded. Yet Naples is poor and Venice rich. Such is the effect of her commerce and of the wisdom of her government, which is always uniform, while in kingdoms, and far more in vice-royalties, the system changes with the persons. In Venice the method of choosing magistrates is in such perfection, that no one can come in by corruption or favour, nor can any one rise to high offices who has not been tried in the lower.
Low rate of exchange not essential to wealth. 55. All causes of wealth, except those he has enumerated, Serra holds to be subaltern or temporary; thus the low rate of exchange is subject to the common accidents of commerce. It seems, however, to have been a theory of superficial reasoners on public wealth, that it depended on the exchanges far more than is really the case; and in the second part of this treatise Serra opposes a particular writer, named De Santis, who had accounted in this way alone for abundance of money in a state. Serra thinks that to reduce the weight of coin may sometimes be an allowable expedient, and better than to raise its denomination. The difference seems not very important. The coin of Naples was exhausted by the revenues of absentee proprietors, which some had proposed to withhold: a measure to which Serra justly objects. This book has been reprinted at Milan in the collection of Italian œconomists, and as it anticipates the principles of what has been called the mercantile theory, deserves some attention in following the progress of opinion. The once celebrated treatise of Mun, England’s Treasure by Foreign Trade, is supposed to have been written before 1640; but as it was not published till after the Restoration, we may postpone it to the next period.
Hobbes.—His political works. 56. Last in time among political philosophers before the middle of the century we find the greatest and most famous, Thomas Hobbes. His treatise De Cive was printed in 1642 for his private friends. It obtained however a considerable circulation and excited some animadversion. In 1647, he published it at Amsterdam with notes to vindicate and explain what had been censured. In 1650 an English treatise, with the Latin title, De Corpore Politico, appeared; and in 1651 the complete system of his philosophy was given to the world in the Leviathan. These three works bear somewhat the same relation to one another as the Advancement of Learning does to the treatise de Augmentis Scientiarum; they are in effect the same; the same order of subjects, the same arguments, and in most places either the same words or such variances as occurred to the second thoughts of the writer; but much is more copiously illustrated and more clearly put in the latter than in the former; while much also, from whatever cause, is withdrawn or considerably modified. Whether the Leviathan is to be reckoned so exclusively his last thoughts that we should presume him to have retracted the passages that do not appear in it, is what every one must determine for himself. I shall endeavour to present a comparative analysis of the three treatises, with some preference to the last.
Analysis of his three treatises. 57. Those, he begins by observing, who have hitherto written upon civil polity have assumed that man is an animal framed for society; as if nothing else were required for the institution of commonwealths than that men should agree upon some terms of compact which they call laws. But this is entirely false. That men do naturally seek each other’s society, he admits in a note on the published edition of De Cive; but political societies are not mere meetings of men, but unions founded on the faith of covenants. Nor does the desire of men for society imply that they are fit for it. Many may desire it who will not readily submit to its necessary conditions.[347] This he left out in the two other treatises, thinking it, perhaps, too great a concession to admit any desire of society in man.
[347] Societates autem civiles non sunt meri congressus, sed fœdera, quibus faciendis fides et pacta necessaria sunt.... Alia res est appetere, alia esse capacem. Appetunt enim illi qui tamen conditiones æquas, sine quibus societas esse non potest, accipere per superbiam non dignantur.
58. Nature has made little odds among men of mature age as to strength or knowledge. No reason, therefore, can be given why one should by any intrinsic superiority command others, or possess more than they. But there is a great difference in their passions; some through vain glory seeking pre-eminence over their fellows, some willing to allow equality, but not to lose what they know to be good for themselves. And this contest can only be decided by battle, showing which is the stronger.