George H. Sabine

What is a Political Theory

For many centuries the philosophy of Western Europe has included as one of its accustomed parts a study of the nature and well-being of civic societies, a kind of companion-piece to its study, in psychology and ethics, of the nature and well-being of the human individual. Like so much else in European philosophy, this interest in the political community was, at the beginning, a creature of Greek civilization. It began with that humanistic reaction, fostered by the Sophists and crystallized in the overpowering personality of Socrates, which so completely changed the course of Greek philosophy at the end of the fifth century before Christ. Political philosophy began in Athens at the same time with the birth of social studies, such as linguistics, the history and criticism of literature, the descriptive analysis of political and economic institutions, and a critical as distinguished from a merely narrative history. This humanistic relationship, which dominated philosophy for many centuries, was not dissolved even when the rise of the modern natural sciences in the seventeenth century restored subjects like physics and mathematics to a place of foremost interest in the minds of philosophical scholars. Perhaps marginal, in the sense that it has existed on the edges of the more precise and more technical disciplines, political philosophy has still maintained its standing as a subject of perennial philosophical concern. It is usually unprofitable to argue, speculatively and a priori, about the form or the purposes that a branch of science or philosophy ought to have. The discussion of scientific methods,

VIERECK, PETER. Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt Against Revolt, 1815-1949. Pp. xvii, 187. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949.

partment materials pertaining to matters dealt with in his final chapter, &dquo;Changeling Policy.&dquo; Because of this, it is inadequate. The author makes a discerning observation regarding the moribund condition of Zionism previous to the rise of Hitler. Dr. Manuel does not seem to have forced himself from the threadbare myth of the Zionists that haughty State Department bureaucrats animated by anti-Semitism pursued a policy in opposition to Zionism and to the sovereign will of the American people. The author’s judgment of men and events, if not his selection and presentation of materials, is at times warped by his conviction that opposition to Zionism was due to unworthy, if not nefarious, causes. Dr. Manuel apparently does not consider that the objectivity of his book tends to be vitiated by his statement in the concluding paragraph of the Introduction that: &dquo;... the tale has a happy ending. There is a small Israeli State and the United States ... had a hand in its creation.&dquo; WILLIAM YALE