CHAPTER I

It may be that divine providence, which often brings about good from the evil deeds of men, has, because of the sins of the people (for whose faults bishops are sometimes corrupted), allowed some called Roman bishops impermissibly and presumptuously to extend to both divine and human matters a wrongly usurped power, so that their inexcusable wickedness should be revealed, and the skill of experts — their laziness shaken off, examining the divine Scriptures more deeply — should bring to light hidden truths useful for governing and ruling the whole human race, truths by which a curb might be placed upon the wickedness of those supreme pontiffs who have tried to rule like tyrants.

Now just as sometimes from a true principle correctly understood countless truths are inferred, so sometimes from a false principle, or a true one misunderstood, are inferred countless errors; a wise man has said that given one anomaly many follow, and elsewhere it is said that a small error in the beginning is a big one in the end. I believe that this has happened with the power of the pope. For since in certain writings which many venerate as authoritative it is asserted that the pope has “fullness of power” on earth, some called supreme pontiffs, not knowing the true meaning of such words, have gone on, not only into errors, but even into the most blatant wrongs and iniquities.

Chap. I

Of government

1. A people is either under a state of civil government, or in a state of civil war; or neither under a state of civil government, nor in a state of civil war.

2. Civil government is an art whereby a people rule themselves, or are ruled by others.

3. The art of civil government in general is twofold: national or provincial.

4. National government is that by which a nation is governed independendy, or within itself.

5. Provincial government is that by which a province is governed dependendy, or by some foreign prince or state.

6. A people is neither governed by themselves, nor by others, but by reason of some external principle thereto forcing them.

7. Force is of two kinds, natural and unnatural.

8. Natural force consists in the vigour of principles, and their natural necessary operations.

9. Unnatural force is an external or adventitious opposition to the vigour of principles and their necessary working, which, from a violation of nature, is called violence.

10. National government is an effect of natural force, or vigour.

11. Provincial government is an effect of unnatural force, or violence.

12. The natural force which works or produces national government (of which only I shall speak hereafter) consists in riches.

13. The man that cannot live upon his own must be a servant; but he that can live upon his own may be a freeman.

14. […]

This volume presents the texts of James Harrington's first and last political writings, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) and A System of Politics (written c. 1661 and published posthumously in 1700), as they were prepared by the present editor for The Political Works of James Harrington (Cambridge University Press, 1977). The seventeenth-century spelling, punctuation and paragraph division of The Commonwealth of Oceana were modernized for that edition, as were those employed by John Toland and his printers for The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington (1700), the edition in which A System of Politics appeared for the first time. In 1977 as now, the intention was to produce an edition for the eye of the modern reader, leaving detailed textual criticism (if thought necessary; none has been undertaken so far) to be performed upon the published originals. (No manuscripts by Harrington are known to exist.) The 1977 edition also contained an introductory and interpretative essay of 150 pages; this has been drawn upon in writing the introduction to the present volume, which is nevertheless a new piece of work.

CHAPTER I

If the emperor wants to be what he is called, namely, a true emperor of the Romans, if he wants to be numbered among the successors of the first emperors, who on Christ's testimony exercised a true empire, granted and ordinate and not merely permitted, then he should not hesitate at all: he should hold without doubt, according to what has been shown above, that he should not acknowledge the Empire as being from the pope or regard himself as the pope's vassal for the Empire. It therefore seems superfluous, given what has been written above, to try to prove that the imperial power is distinct from the priestly power and in no way regularly dependent on it. But it will not be superfluous, indeed it will be useful and necessary, to answer the arguments by which some try to show, even by the sacred Scriptures, that the Roman Empire is from the pope. By the destruction of these arguments the temporal rights and liberties not only of emperors but of other kings and secular rulers, indeed of all mortals, will shine more clearly into light.

And, indeed, that it cannot be shown from Christ's words “You are Peter” etc. that the Empire is from the pope can be made clear from what was said in Book II, chapters 14, 16, 17, 19, and 20, and in Book IV, chapter 1.

William of Ockham, “the Invincible Doctor,” “the More than Subtle Doctor,” is a giant in the history of thought. In the later middle ages only Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus are of comparable stature. Ockham is, however, a highly controversial giant. By some accounts, his early work in theology and philosophy shattered an admirable synthesis of biblical faith and Greek reason achieved, preeminently by Aquinas, in a preceding golden age of scholasticism. In another view, this same work of Ockham's is a “harvest,” not a devastation, of earlier Christian reflection. Ockham thus joins Scotus as a leading figure in the fourteenth-century golden age of Oxford scholasticism. These contrary assessments agree in granting particular significance to Ockham's nominalism and his emphasis on divine omnipotence, but they disagree as to what that significance is. To critics who find Ockham destructive of the Thomistic synthesis, his frequent appeal to the principle that “God can bring about whatever it does not involve a contradiction for God to bring about” seems to menace God's rationality and the intelligibility of the universe. If everything is utterly contingent on God's will, what scope is there for reason, God's or our own? Yet, seen from another angle, the same emphasis on divine power draws a necessary line between subjects which human reason can fruitfully address (the universe God has actually chosen to create) and subjects on which philosophical speculation is largely vain (the divine nature and the things God might have willed but has not).

CHAPTER I

Since I am about to investigate many matters concerning the power of the pope, I have decided, because of the error of some who fear papal power more than God's, to inquire first whether thorough examination of the nature and extent of the pope's power is permissible and without danger of just accusation. There are some — too ready to please men, by whose will they can be now raised, now lowered — who dare assert that no one is permitted to inquire about the pope's power by disputation. They rely on this, that according to the canon and civil laws no one is permitted “to dispute about the ruler's jurisdiction” (C, De crimine sacrilegii, 1. Disputare; 17, q. 4, c. Nemini, and Committunt); therefore, a fortiori, it is not permissible to dispute about the power of the supreme pontiff, lest one commit the crime of sacrilege.

If they were content with only general and ambiguous words such as “it is not permissible to dispute about the pope's power,” they could not be convicted of error. But their actions show clearly that they understand the words badly, for they absolutely refuse to make a thorough examination of questions about the pope's power raised in their presence, and they rebuke those who raise or examine such questions. One must therefore hold this.

Ockham seems to me a careful and skilful writer. He does not seem to have aimed at literary distinction, however; his one aim seems to have been to convince the Christian world of certain vital truths, especially that John XXII and Benedict XII had become heretics and ought to be removed from office. His political and literary tactics seem well adapted to his purpose. (On the political tactics see the note at the end of Book vi.) The Franciscans needed to win readers among people initially hostile or indifferent to their views. The form of the “recitative” works, those which merely compare positions and arguments without asserting any conclusions, made it easier for neutral or pro-papal copyists, librarians, and readers to copy, keep, and read the book, since disputation and the consideration of opposed viewpoints, including those opposed to the truth, was recognized as legitimate.

The first of the “recitative” writings, the OND, was a detailed commentary on a text, namely John XXII's Quia vir. The difficulty of this form is to introduce the points the writer wishes to make within a framework determined by the opponent's text; Ockham manages this, in my opinion, with great skill. It was also an achievement to write a telling piece of polemic without at any point asserting any opinion of his own about the matters at issue. The price of this achievement is frequent reference to the opinions of the parties to the controversy.

CHAPTER I

If the skilful investigator of imperial rights takes careful note of what has gone before, he will not doubt that imperial rights are to be defended chiefly by means of sacred literature, and that rash action against those rights falls, not only into iniquity, injustice, and error, but also into the wickedness of heresy. From this it is clear that Catholics must not neglect this subject, but must examine it with the greatest attention. Therefore, making another beginning, before answering other arguments by which some try to prove that the Empire is from the pope, I must support the opposite truth more strongly, and afterwards show who it is that the Roman Empire is from.

That the Roman Empire is not from the pope is shown as follows. The Empire existed before the papacy, as is plainly certain from sacred literature, because it existed before the birth of Christ: for Octavian was true Augustus before Christ was born of his mother, as is clear from Luke, chapter 2. Therefore the Empire was not from the pope.

Further, the Empire existed among unbelievers before it existed among believers, as the Scriptures, both the gospels and the apostolic writings, make clear: for Christ and the apostles and blessed John the Baptist regarded the Roman emperor as a true emperor.

Harrington's life and writings

Not much is known of James Harrington (1611–77) beyond what his published works tell us. There are next to no surviving personal papers or manuscripts of his various writings. Not all of these were published in his lifetime, however; a number of his works, including A System of Politics, are stated by John Toland (1670–1722) to have been preserved in manuscript by Harrington's sister Dorothy BeUingham and published by Toland in the first collected edition of 1700. These manuscripts no longer seem to exist, and since we know that Toland extensively rewrote the memoirs of Edmund Ludlow before publishing them, caution is in order. The Commonwealth of Oceana, on the other hand, was printed in 1656, and most of what we consider Harrington's major works between that year and 1660. In all these cases we can compare what he published with what Toland edited, and find the latter to have been no unreliable editor where printed originals already existed.

But we are also dependent on Toland – together with John Aubrey and Anthony Wood – for most of our information about Harrington's personal life. He was a country gendeman, of an old family with Yorkist antecedents established in Northamptonshire and Lincoln shire. Notwithstanding his criticisms of primogeniture, he was an eldest son with younger brothers; but he remained unmarried until late in life and seems to have played no part in county or national politics, before or during the First Civil War.

Editorial preface

The first volume of the Encyclopéedic announced that Diderot was the author of the work's unsigned articles, and the editor of articles marked with an asterisk. The second volume, however, stated that unsigned articles could be by different authors, including persons who did not wish their identity to be known, while Diderot's asterisk was to prove scarce after the publication of volume VIII, and to vanish altogether after volume x. In the absence of surviving manuscript or other evidence, the correct attribution to their authors of Encyclopédic articles has therefore proved difficult and sometimes a matter for conjecture. Diderot seems to have been responsible for over 5,000 articles or editorial additions in all (many of just two or three lines), of which more than 3,000 appeared in the first two volumes alone. Even when their authorship is not in question, the originality of these contributions often remains doubtful, especially with regard to two subjects on which he wrote extensively: synonyms, for which he drew heavily on the work of the abbé Girard; and the history of philosophy, for which he relied largely on Brucker. Sometimes Diderot cited his source, merely adding a few comments of his own; sometimes he so modified the original text as to make a wholly novel point, not least by diverting his readers' attention to a second article, which informs the real sense of the first.