Universitas Hominum. As scholarly performances the controversial tracts described in the preceding article were quickly outmoded in the extraordinary intellectual rebirth that began in the latter years of the twelfth century and which made the thirteenth one of the most brilliant in the history of Europe. This new scholarly activity, in so far as it … Read more

The folk and its law. The church Fathers’ period, extending down to the sixth or seventh century, still belongs to antiquity. Despite the vast changes -social, economic, and political-which occurred in the first six Christian centuries, Seneca and St. Gregory were still both Romans. Both men lived within the circle of Roman political ideas; both … Read more

Seneca and the fathers of the church. In one respect- the belief in human equality- the idea of a common race, as the jurists developed it, broke sharply with the scale of values that prevailed in the city-state. In another respect, however, the two were quite continuous. For Cicero, as for Plato, to found or … Read more

Cicero and the roman lawyers. By the beginning of the first century before Christ the political processes which began with Alexander’s conquest of the East had in a large measure completed themselves. The whole Mediterranean world had been cast into the melting pot and had become in no small degree a single community. The city-state … Read more

The law of nature in the history of political philosophy the death of Aristotle in 322 marks the close of an era, as the life of his great pupil, who died the year before him, marks the beginning of a new era in politics and the history of European civilization. The failure of the city-state … Read more

The Twilight of the City State. The political philosophy of Plato and Aristotle was singularly devoid of immediate influence both of a practical and a theoretical kind. In fact, if it were judged by the part that it played in the two centuries following Aristotle’s death, it could only be described as a magnificent failure. … Read more