existence is likewise closely connected with the occupation of a definite territory. Its continuous political existence is recognised through the unity of its national government and of its national territory. Beyond the limits of its territory, the legal operation of its government does not extend. Within those limits, its government is supreme. Identity of territory, indeed, (as we have already observed,) is not necessary to the continuity of a political society. The Athenians did not lose their nationality during the interval when they were expelled from their territory by Xerxes; and if the entire Phocæan community had emigrated when their town was taken by Harpagus, and had found a vacant territory on which to settle, they would have retained their political continuity.(6) Again, portions of old territory may be lost, and new acquisitions of territory may be made, by a state, without the loss of its national unity. But under the ordinary circumstances of a civilized, or even semi-civilized community, its political existence is combined both with a national government and a national territory.(69)

Political society, therefore, is essentially national.

The human race does not form one vast community under a single government it is distributed into innumerable fractional societies, of which perhaps the majority are under political rule; and of these again the majority form distinct nations, with a determined and appropriate territory. The several nations which together

(68) Hence Horace speaks of the civitas of the Phocæans leaving their native land. Phocæorum

Velut profugit exsecrata civitas,

Agros atque lares proprios habitandaque fana
Apris reliquit et rapacibus lupis,

Ire pedes quocunque ferent, quocunque per undas
Notus vocabit aut protervus Africus.'

(69) See Vatel, b. i. c. 18, 19.

Epod. xvi.

In rude ages, under the appellations of a community, a people, or a nation, was understood a number of men; and the state, while its members remained, was accounted entire. With polished and mercantile states, the case is sometimes reversed. The nation is a territory, cultivated and improved by its owners; destroy the possession, even while the master remains, the state is undone.'-Ferguson, ib. p. 381.

constitute the human race are distributed over the earth in distinct bodies: most of them under its own separate government, though entertaining certain relations with each other.

§ 8 A nation under a common government is a political body, and it is renewed by a perpetual succession. But the number of its members is not defined like that of a sovereign or subordinate political body within a state. The vacancies caused in the community by death or emigration are replenished by new births, or by the admission of new citizens; but the action of these opposite causes is not equally balanced, and consequently the total number of persons in the community is always fluctuating. Under ordinary circumstances, the successive generations by which the national existence is perpetuated consist of persons born within the national territory. Political society being essentially national, and the continuity of a nation depending on the perpetual succession of generations of men, we will next attempt to fix, with as much precision as we are able, the meaning of the word generation.

In strictness, it is only a family which has generations. Each of the successive descending steps in a pedigree represents a generation. A grandfather, a son, and a grandson, for example, are three generations. The same is true of the pedigree of a horse or dog, or of any other animal whose parentage can be determined. (7) A generation in chronology is the difference between the lives of each successive father and son. Thus, if a grandfather is born in 1700, and dies in 1760; if a son is born in 1725, and dies in 1775; and if a grandson is born in 1755,

(70) The pedigrees of the Arab horses are well known. See Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII. liv. vii.

The Arab horses, called kochlani, are said to be furnished with written pedigrees, going back for two thousand years; though the lives are defective for some centuries. They are reported to have all come originally from the stud of Solomon.-Niebuhr, Description d'Arabie, p. 142-3.

The pedigrees of animals which are recorded in such publications as the Racing Calendar, &c., are intended merely to show the direct descent of each animal, with reference to the question of breeding; but they are as authentic as those of the Heralds' College.

and dies in 1800, leaving a son born in 1782, there would be three generations between 1700 and 1782, consisting of twentyfive, thirty, and twenty-seven years; which would give an average of twenty-seven years and one-third to a generation. When chronologists reckoned time by generations, they formed an average value for their unit by this method of computation. (") It follows that if man never died, but in other respects his nature was the same as at present, the succession of generations would be computed in the same manner.

But an aggregate of contemporary individuals of the same species cannot be properly said to form a generation, except by assuming that they, and also their children, are all born respectively at the same time. As a generation is the difference between the lives of a father and a son, it cannot be computed until the births of both are given. This is the sort of rough assumption which we make when we compare the present with the last generation; and when we speak of the rising generation, we mean the sum of living children who were born about the same time. Sometimes, when we speak of former generations, we mean merely all the persons who were alive at a particular period. All these expressions, however, are metaphorical, as no succession, in fact, takes place for an entire community, but only in single families. The births of the persons composing a community are successive, not simultaneous: they follow one another day by day, and year by year; the births of their sons arise in a similar manner, and thus it is impossible to fix any point of time at which a generation of a community begins or ends. (7) National existence is

(71) See Herod. ii. 142-3, who reckons three generations to a century. Heraclitus reckoned a generation at thirty years: Censorinus de Die Natali, c. 17; Plutarch. de Def. Orac. c. 11. Diodorus, ii. 55, adopts the same computation. Homer describes the great age of Nestor, by saying that he had outlived two generations of men, and was living with the third: Iliad, i. 250. Compare the anecdote in Plutarch, Cat. Maj. 15.

(72) Hume remarks that 'one generation of men does not go off the stage at once, and another succeed, as is the case with silkworms and butterflies.' 'Human society (he says) is in a perpetual flux, one man every hour going out of the world, another coming into it.'-Essays, part ii. Ess. 12, On the Original Contract.'

continuous, after the manner of a corporation. The continuity of a nation, as we have already observed, is maintained by a constant succession of new members, born or naturalised, who fill up the voids caused by death or emigration. Whereas a family is composed of a succession of single members, who succeed one another at definite intervals, called generations. The continuity of a family may be compared to that of a chain formed of single links, each of which can be measured: whereas the continuity of a nation may be compared to that of a woven cloth, the stitches of which interlace, so that its texture is not divisible into intervals or stages. It is only by treating the life of a nation as analogous to that of a succession of individuals, and thus considering a generation as a definite period of time, equivalent to a century, a decade, or a year, that we can speak of the successive generations of a nation. Understood in this sense, the word generation, as applied to a nation, conveys a distinct idea, and we may apply to the successive generations of national existence the verses in which Vincent Bourne describes the perpetual succession of years:

Interit annus,

Et subit alter,
Quem novus urget,
Et novus alter,
Intereuntem,
Interiturus. (73)

Nevertheless, we must guard against being misled by this figurative language; and we must not suppose that there are generations of a nation for any other than chronological purposes. For example, the notion that the laws or obligations of a govern

(73) Bourne's Corolla, stanza xi. The contrast between the recurrent changes of nature (such as the succession of the seasons and the phases of the moon), and the definitive mortality of man, is poetically illustrated by Horace, Carm. iv. 7. But the well-known verses of Moschus (iii. 106) on the perpetual renascence of vegetables (beautifully imitated by Jortin), are founded on a false antithesis. Plants, like man, have a limited life; and the suspension of their active powers during winter is analogous to hybernation in animals. A vegetable, like an animal species, is perpetuated by a succession of generations. The death and renewal of the leaf is an accidental and extraneous phenomenon.

L

ment are not binding on future generations, is founded on a misconception of the nature of national continuity.

$9 The preceding observations appear to be sufficient for characterising the nature of political government and political society, and for showing the distinctive qualities which render man alone, of all the inhabitants of the earth, a political animal. Having examined in a general manner the idea of political society, we will next inquire how much this idea involves, and what is the extent of the subjects which are properly included in the domain of politics.

Politics relate exclusively to the acts of man. Although political government is influenced by many physical conditions, and although a knowledge of outward nature, and of the useful arts, may be essential to political science and practice, yet politics, as such, are confined to human action; and view all other subjects with reference to this end.

Politics relate to human action so far as it concerns the public interests of a community, and is not merely private or ethical. Human action, thus defined, consists of-1, the acts and relations of a sovereign government, both with respect to its own subjects, and other sovereign governments; 2, the acts and relations of members of the political community, so far as they concern the government, or the community at large, or a considerable portion of it.

It seems to be agreed that politics include everything which relates to the construction of a sovereign government, and to its immediate acts, legislative, executive, or otherwise. Hence, jurisprudence is admitted to be a part of politics. Nor is it likely to be disputed that international law falls under the same head. For although international law is not law in the strict sense; yet, as it relates exclusively to the relations of sovereign governments, and without them could have no existence, it surely must be considered as a department of politics.

There are, however, other portions of the science of human action, as to which there is more difference of opinion respecting their inclusion or non-inclusion in the domain of politics.