INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE TWO SERIES OF LECTURES BY Sin J. R SEELEY, K. C. M. G., LiTT. D. 11FGIUS 1 ROFESHOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE KELLOW OF OONVILLE AND CAH-S COLLEGE FELLOW OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AND HONORARY MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MAKTINS STREET, 1919 First Edition 1896 R efinnted with additions 1896 Reprinted 1901, 1902, 1908, ign, 1914, 1910 PREFACE IX VIIL, as the connection of thought had been broken by the large transfer of matter from the 1891 course in Lecture VII. Further, I have not hesitated to make one or two minor consequential changes of phrase which appeared to be rendered necessary by the insertions that I have just described, in order to prevent slight inconsistencies between the earlier and later expressions of the writers views. I have also here and there omitted repetitions more suitable to an oral lecture than to a book, and once or twice altered the position of sentences and, generally speaking, have made such corrections as I thought it probable that the author would have made before publishing the lectures. In the books prepared by himself for publication, Seeley was, as I know, un sparing of pains in rewriting such portions as did not come up to his ideal. I have felt, therefore, that it would be unjust to his memory to let this posthumous book go forth without such correction of inadvertencies as I was able to make. No reader can feel more strongly than I do how inadequate a substitute this is for his own revision. In reading these lectures it is important to bear in mind that, being written for oral delivery, they were composed on a plan materiallydifferent from that which would be appropriate in a manual of political science designed to be read. Their aim was to impart a complete system, but to communicate X INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE a method, and to excite the hearers to an independent exercise of thought in applying it. It is from this point of view that the lecturers incisive and un sparing criticism of current notions and accepted generalisations should be judged since even those who may think it occasionally somewhat one-sided can hardly refuse to admit the stimulating quality of this criticism. I do not mean to suggest that Seeley ever artificially forced his ideas into a para doxical form such a procedure would have been incompatible with his habitual sincerity and his ideal of academic duty. But the conversations, always deeply interesting, which I from time to time had with him on different subjects at which he was work ing, led me to think that truth was apt to come to him in the garb of paradox using the word in its strict sense that the new ideas which his original and penetrating intellect developed had a natural tendency to assume, quite spontaneously, a form strongly opposed to the popular drift of thought on the subject and that it required a subsequent de liberate effort to qualify and reduce this opposition. As regards the general view that these lectures enforce and illustrate the two-sided doctrine 1 that the right method of studying political science is an essentially historical method, and 2 that the right method of studying political history is to study it as material for political science I think it may be said PREFACE XI that this was one of his deepest and most permanent convictions. Heannounced it in the inaugural lecture which he delivered on his accession to the Chair of History in Cambridge and it grew stronger and clearer as years went on, and assiduous study en larged his knowledge and deepened his insight into the development of historic polity...