Excerpt from Nature of the State

It is wholly within the confines of this last-named field that the present treatise will lie. But even here, further subdivision suggests itself. First of all, Political Theory may be either particular or general; that is, as devoted to the theoretical ex planation of the nature of particular political types, or as occupied with the deduction of principles of universal applicability. Again, the History of Polit ical Theories may properly be held to constitute a distinct field of inquiry.

In this treatise we Shall be concerned with the general postulates of Political Science, and incident ally with the History oi Political Theories. History gives us, as it were, the third dimension to Political Science, and it will frequently be the case that we Shall be very greatly aided in arriving at the proper comprehension of the principles with which we are engaged by a comparative study of the varying aspects in which they have been viewed at differ ent times by different writers, and an examination of the extent to which the diverging views have been dependent upon the dissimilar political conditions by which their respective expounders have been sur rounded.

The task that we have assigned ourselves in attempting to determine the exact nature of the State, will be by no means an easy one, for here, as in all branches of speculative inquiry, there will be required the clearest conception of, and the most rigid adherence to, the connotations of the terms used. A further difficulty, and one not inherent in the task, is the fact that it will be necessary to use words to which common usage has attached very general and therefore vague and overlapping signifi cations. In this particular we shall be in much the Same situation as are political economists who are still struggling to obtain generally acceptable and precise definitions of their most important terms, such as value, rent, capital, and wealth.

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