present day, he has no competitor as a Rabbinical writer. He was an original thinker, as well as a sagacious commentator. He probed to the bottom the entire philosophy of nations; and his reasonings and opinions were so just and important, that he was a great favourite with the most subtile and active minds who figured in the Scholastic ages. For many centuries, his writings were appealed to, not only on matters relating to the laws of Moses; but likewise for the valuable principles and illustrations scattered through them, in every direction, on the abstract nature of legal and civil polity generally. For simplicity, elegance, and perspicuity of style, and for methodical arrangement, the Digest of Maimonides is allowed by Claveringius and Prideaux, to vie with the Roman Civil Code, and with every other legal system known in his day.

The intellect of Maimonides was at once capacious, active, enterprising, and tenacious. It was singularly fitted to penetrate into the most profound and sublime speculations.

As a specimen of the clear and popular mode of commenting on the Laws of Moses, adopted by Maimonides, we may refer to the dissertation on the Rights of the Poor. This contains ten chapters; and the whole has been rendered into the English language, by Mr. Peppercorne, London, 1840.

For nearly a century and half after the death of Maimonides, his philosophical writings on the abstract nature of law, and his views on the human soul, were subjects of keen and bitter controversy among the Jewish Doctors, in all parts of the continent of Europe, and likewise in the chief scats of learning in the East.

CHAPTER X.

THE POLITICAL LITERATURE DIRECTLY EMANATING FROM THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY, FROM 1000,

TO THE YEAR 1400.

The Scholastic philosophy, taken as a whole, was more of a theological and mental, than of a political character. As it treated, however, at some length, and under various theoretical aspects, of the leading principles of ethics, we find more or less attention given to the fundamental maxims of civil government, by the most learned and distinguished of the scholastic writers.

Almost all the Scholastic thinkers took Aristotle's politics as a guide or text book; qualifying, however, many of his principles and views by the direct declarations of Scripture, or the ritual enactments of the Jewish Law. There are very few of these authors who do not touch on some of the more important axioms of political science; though they may not enter very formally into their full illustration and development. On this account, politics, as a science, appears in the voluminous writings of these philosophers, as occupying a very subordinate rank in their subtile discussions. And this, in a certain sense, is

true; for, as we have just noticed, religious and metaphysical inquiries were invested in their eyes with a more lively interest, than the principles of the social contract. But still, it must be remembered, that the grand object of all scholastic discussions for many centuries, was man; and this necessarily led him to be viewed sometimes in his social and political, as well as in his theological and mental character.

It must be borne in mind, that the scholastic writers greatly aided the cause of religious and civil liberty and enlightenment, by their claiming unreserved intellectual discussion. They laid down the principle, that human reason was adequate to enter upon the examination of all political questions, as well as upon others connected with every branch of human enquiry. We have direct testimony to the growing spirit of mental liberty in the declarations of Abelard, who tells us, in his, "Introduction to Theology," that his pupils demanded him to give them "such philosophical arguments as were fit to satisfy their minds; begged he would instruct them, not merely to repeat what he taught them, but to understand it; for no one can believe that which he does not comprehend, and it is absurd to set out to preach to others concerning things which neither those who teach nor those who learn can understand."

The scholastic philosophy gave a unity of design, and a scientific arrangement to political speculations, with which they had not previously been invested, since the days of Plato and Aristotle. The schoolman took up the science of government, and formally installed it as a distinct branch of knowledge in their collegiate curriculum. This exercised a great and

marked influence, both directly and indirectly, on its future progress and prospects. Its principles were more gradually and distinctly separated from the other elements of human nature; they were more minutely scrutinized, and more fully illustrated and tested by appeals to well established facts and observations. Students in all the popular universities in Europe, carried along with them, in conjunction with other special objects of learning and study, many of the primary elements of civil polity; and these, like good seed, thrown into a favourable soil, often yielded a valuable return to the common stock of useful knowledge on what was most important to the community at large. The leading maxims of political philosophy came likewise to be viewed under various aspects; truth was elicited by discussion; and information extended and applied to existing circumstances, by repeated attempts at scientific classification, and methodical arrangement.

The scholastic speculations on politics were of an abstract or transcendental character. Fact and observation were but of a secondary import in the eyes of the schoolmen. They uniformly conceived there was a wide and palpable distinction between experiment, and those vital principles by which they are rendered intelligible, and converted into a constituent portion of our mental knowledge. Politics, when viewed from a certain point, seem to resolve themselves into a series of active and impulsive instincts, which guide mankind, in their complicated and aggregate unions, to secure and maintain both their individual and collective existence; and to a certain extent a knowledge of those instinctive desires and feelings is indispensable

to both the theoretical and practical politician. But the entire spirit of the scholastic philosophy stoutly maintains, that they by no means constitute the science of government. This is baised on abstract and intuitive principles, chiefly of a moral and theological cast. The instinctive impulses of nature, which enter so largely and generally into all political and social manifestations, can never form a science; they cannot yield a single rational idea or conception. The material elements with which the scientific politician has to deal, are merely like the stones destined for the erection of a building, which can be reared into a noble and useful structure, only by the constant presence and action of an exalted and harmonious conception in the mind of the designer or architect. This mental or spiritual principle is the life and soul of political reasoning and science; and it is only by its gradual development that mankind can, in the opinion the Scholastic Doctors, improve their civil and social institutions, and make positive advancement in the path of intelligence, morality, and social enjoyment. They every way propound the maxim, in their several publications, that sound philosophy of government must ultimately rest on just and adequate ideas of the Divine Author of the Universe, viewed in relation to these abstract conceptions of right, obligation, and duty, which He has implanted in the human breast.

The range of the scholastic politics, was necessarily, however, narrow and confined, both from the limited. sphere of the schoolmen's general studies and modes of thinking, and likewise from the want of the art of printing. These causes materially retarded the progress of knowledge on public questions, and on