Book Reviews: La Pensée Politique Depuis Montesquieu, John Millar of Glasgow, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait, The Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr, Nations and Empires, Christian Ethics and the Dilemmas of Foreign Policy, Introduction to the Philosophy of History, The Long Revolution, The Public Interest, La Pression des Groupes Internationaux: Esquisse D'un Cadre de Recherche, Organized Groups in British National Politics, The Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association, Defence by Committee: The British Committee of Imperial Defence 1885–1959, A Prime Minister Remembers: The war and Postwar Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Earl Attlee, Principles of Local Government Law, The Major Governments of Modern Europe, The Costs of Democracy, The Presidency: Crisis and Regeneration, The Cabinet and Congress, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership, Conflict of Interest and Federal Service, Britain in India, Pakistan—The Formative Phase, Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation, St. Antony's Papers No. 10. African Affairs No. 1, T
| Date | 01 October 1961 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1961.tb00775.x |
| Published date | 01 October 1961 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
BOOK
REVIEWS
LA
PENSBE POLITIQUE DEPUIS MONTESQUIEU.
By
FBLIX
PONTEIL.
(Sirey.
Pp.
xv+355.
22
N.F.)
M.
Ponteil
is
the author
of
a number of
books
most of which deal with nineteenthcentury
French
history.
His
latest work
is
a
textbook-type review of some
aspects
of modem political
thought-‘some aspects’
because
the title could
be
rather misleading. The selection of material
is
always
a
problem and
is
no
doubt especially difficult in a general survey of this kind. By what
criteria
are
some writers
to
be chosen for attention and others omitted, and the length and
detail of each exposition determined?
In
this
case
there
is,
fmt, a general theme about the
rise
of liberal-radical-socialist thought in reaction against the absolute monarchies of the eighteenth
century and about the
two
contrasting traditions of democracy which have emerged from this
development.
There
is,
secondly, the explicit intention to concentrate on the great names
so
as
to
be
able to examine their thought in more detail than would
be
possible if more of the less
important writers were
considered.
The
effect of the former
criterion,
the general pattern of development,
means
that on the whole
comparatively little attention
is
paid to conservative and right-wing political ideas. There is
some
discussion of
course;
but,
for example, the
space
devoted to Burke and the others hostile
to
the French Revolution, and
to
the nineteenthcentury traditionalists like Renan and BaA,
is
substantially
less
than that given to the
liberals
and revolutionaries of various kinds. Perhaps
this
does
not
matter
so
much, but one
is,
to
say
the least,
a
little startled by someof M. Ponteil’s
idea about
the
most
outstandiug
names
in the history of political thought since Montesquieu.
It
is
no
doubt very
salutary
for
the
reader
on
this side of the channel to
see
the political ideas
of
his
countrymen
through
continental
eyes and thus
reduced
to
their proper proportion and
significaMx
in
the
general
European
tradition. But it
is
surely more
than
an insular reaction
to
queation
the
scale
of values
that
does not mention
T.
H.
Green
or the idealists at
all
and that
dmusses
in
halfa
dozm
pages
the
whole utilitarian school while devoting
twice
as
much
space
to
Proudhon
and
Bakunin
alone.
This
scant
concern
with the most important systems of poli-
tical
ideas
that
this
country
produced
in
the nineteenth century-d when these
are,
on the
whole,
liberal-radical
ideas at
that-is
brought out further by the fact that minor French
writers
like
Pierre
Leroux
and
Phil$pe
Buchez
get more attention than
I.
S.
Mill
who
is,
indeed,
barcly
mentioned.
Even
the
whole
English
socidist movement
since
1800
(including the
rise
of
the
trade
unions)
gets
les
athtion
than
Cabet alone.
In
tbe
same
arbitrary way Hegel, al-
though
he
is
described
as
the
greatest
philosopher of the early nineteenth century,
is
dismissed
in
a
page.
Similarly, in
his
excursions into the field of
American
political ideas,
M.
Ponteil
gives
L.
F.
Ward,
W.
G.
Sunmer,
and
othus
like them their paragraph apiece, but there
is
nothing about
A.
F.
Bentley;
and
there
has
apparently
been
no
American
political thought
since
about
19OO-thm
is
no
refemm
at
all
to
great
names
like
Dewey
and Santayana.
Looking
back
to
Europe
again,
Croce.
de Jouvenel,
Sartre,
and other modem writers
of
international
si-
are
not mentioned-though, pediarly,
substantial
space
is
found
for an accouIlt of
the
‘liberal’
aspects
of
Arabic
and
Chinese
political thought.
This
type of consideration points
to
whatever value this book
may
have: within the limits
thus set it presents
summaries,
which
are
usually fair and,
in
an introductory way, adequate,
of
the
writers chosen for survey; and it
might
be
especially helpful for the lesser-known conti-
nentals.
The
bibliography might
also
be useful in
this
connexion though there are some
astonishing
omissions (for
instance,
although the references
are
supposed to
be
the most
essen-
tial
and useful and include English
material,
Talmon, Becker, Brinton, Leslie Stephen, and Cole
are
among
key authorities
omitted).
Beyond
this
I
do not feel that the book can
be
recom-
mended.
It follows that
the
effort of study would rarely
be
worth while. Beyond the defects of
..
5M0.8
Y
314
REVIEWS
selection, there
is,
in
the 6rst place, little attempt to
be
critical or
in
any
real way to discuss
the chosen authors
in
the context of the background factors which influenced their ideas. And
secondly, there are other, more satisfactory, works available. For the student who has
no
French
or German there are adequate surveys of
a
general kind
in
English
(e.g.
J.
P.
Mayer
on
Political
Thought
in
France),
while for those who
are
not thus limited there
are
fuller accounts (like
Leroy’s
Histoire des idPes sociales en France).
Further, at the practical level, there
is
no index
and no system of footnote references. It remains to note,
as
another blemish, that there are far
too many typographical errors.
University
of
Hull
W.
H.
GREENLEAF
JOHN
MILLAR
OF
GLASGOW.
ByWILLIAM
C.
LEHMANN.
(Cam-
bridge
University
Press.
Pp.
xvi+430.
60s.)
John
Millar, a student
of
Adam Smith, became
his
colleague
in
1761,
when at the age of
twenty-six he became Professor of Civil Law at Glasgow.
To
this chair, undistinguished when
he received it,
Millar
gave a great reputation.
An
outstanding teacher, he made law a liberal
study. Influenced by Montesquieu, Hume,
Kames,
and Smith, War wrote two books
in
which he made important contributions
to
comparative historical sociology.
Dr. Lehmann has made a useful collection
of
Millar’s
writings
and provided a long intro-
duction. This is a solid
if
unimaginative work of scholarship. Having mastered the rather
meagre
sources,
Dr. Lehmann makes a dull story of
Millar’s
life.
As
a biographer Dr.
Lehmann
is painstaking, ponderous, and unselective, possessing both the
virtues
and the
vim
of
thorough-
ness. His style, while often unobjectionable, falls sometimes intotiredmetaphor (e.g. menshelter
from the waves
of
the storm
in
an ivory tower, p.
54)
or
superlluous
self-commentary (e.g.
‘Next, it should be noted here that.
.
.’).
Dr.
Lehmann
is
a
better intelle&ual historian than he
is
a
biographer. Competently he analyses Millar’s ideas, refers them
to
their context
in
the
Scottish Enlightenment, and traces their influence (e.g. on
James
Mill).
Millar, as Dr.
Lehmann
points
out, was
a
member of the Scottish movement which combined
empiricism with idealism and
a
care
for history. Many thinkers,
in
Scotland and outside it,
wished to explain why societies differed from each other, while human nature remained
con-
stant, by generalizing about the forces which mould societies.
Millar
was
firmly
in
the tradition
of those who wished to make a science of
social
studies.
‘
By tracing.
.
.
the natural history of
legal establishments, we may
be
enabled
to
account for the different
aspects
which they assume
in different ages and countries, to discover the
peculiarity
of situation which has,
in
any
case,
retarded or promoted their improvement, and
to
obtain, at the same the, satisfactory evidence
of the uniformity
of
those
internal
principles which
are
productive of such various and appa-
rently inconsistent operations.’ He tried to show how different
types
of
economic activity pro-
duce different types
of
social relations and political systems. The nature
of
morals, mores,
ranks, and authority
in
a society depends
on
the predominant occupation there. Following
Harrington and anticipating Marx, Millar believed privilege
is
based
on
wealth.
Sometimes Millar’s arguments may to some degree have
been
rationalizations
of
his
own
prejudices. For example, his theory that advancement
in
commerceandindustryleads
to greater
love of liberty justified too neatly, perhaps, the dogma
of
Whig
history that
liberty
must in-
evitably triumph. But often Millar’s methods were more sophisticated and his arguments more
subtle than those of his more celebrated predecessors. He
qualified
his
generalizations, proli-
ferated concrete examples, and felt the necessity
to
establish the reliability
of
his
sources.
Because
of
Millar’s role
in
the development of empirical methods
in
social sciences, it
is
irritating that Dr.
Lehmann,
in
an otherwise scholarly edition
of
Millar’s works, should have
decided to omit or truncate some of Millar’s footnotes that contain long
lists
of authorities.
University
of
Lcicester
JOHN
DAY
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