Commonwealth

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Texts.
A collected edition of Bodin's works is in preparation. Jean Bodin. OEuvres 
philosophiques, texte établi, traduit, et publié par P. Mesnard (Corpus 
général des philosophes français). Of this series the first volume has 
appeared, Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (Paris, 1951). 
(This is prefaced by the most recent biography.)
For the Six books of the Commonwealth only sixteenth- and 
seventeenth-century editions are at present available. An abridged version 
by J. C. de Laire was published in 1755. Authorities.
H. J. L. Baudrillart, Jean Bodin et son temps (Paris, 1853). R. Chauviré, 
Jean Bodin, auteur de la République (Paris, 1914). E. Hancke, Bodin. Studien 
über die Begrijf der Souveränitat (Breslau, 1894). A. Garosci, Jean Bodin, 
Politica e diritto nel rinascimento francese (Milano, 1934).
E. Fournol, Bodin, prédécesseur de Montesquieu (Paris, 1896). J. 
Moreau-Reibel, Jean Bodin et le droit public comparé dans ses rapports avec 
la philosophie d'histoire (Paris, 1933). B. Reynolds, Proponents of limited 
monarchy in sixteenth century France.
François Hotman and Jean Bodin (Columbia University Studies in History, No, 
334). (New York, 1931). See also:
J. W. Allen, Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1928). P. 

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Mesnard, L'Essor de la philosophic politique au 16è siècle (Paris, 1936). G. 
H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory (London, 1937). G. Weill, Les 
théories sur le pouvoir royal en France pendant les guerres de religion 
(Paris, 1891).
1. This is most easily consulted in the translation by B. Reynolds (Columbia 
University Records of Civilization), New York, 1945.
2. This was first published, in an incomplete form, by Guhrauer in 1841. L. 
Noack published a complete version, Colloquium Heptaplomeres lie abditis 
rerum sublimium arcanis (Schwerin, 1857). An incomplete French version was 
published by R. Chauviré in 1914.
3. P. Duféy. Michel de L'Hôpital: OEuvres complètes (Paris, 1824-26), Vol. 
I, No. 4.
4. For a fuller account of this relationship, see my article, 'Jean Bodin 
and the medieval theory of climate', in Speculum, Vol. XXVIII, No 1, Jan. 
1953.
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BOOK I
The Final End of the Well-ordered Commonwealth [CH APTER I]
A COM MO NW EALTH may be defined as the rightly ordered government of a number 
of families, and of those things which are their common concern, by a 
sovereign power. We must start in this way with a definition because the 
final end of any subject must first be understood before the means of 
attaining it can profitably be considered, and the definition indicates 
what that end is. If then the definition is not exact and true, all that is 
deduced from it is valueless. One can, of course, have an accurate 
perception of the end, and yet lack the means to attain it, as has the 
indifferent archer who sees the bull's-eye but cannot hit it. With care and 
attention however he may come very near it, and provided he uses his best 
endeavours, he will not be without honour, even if he cannot find the exact 
centre of the target. But the man who does not comprehend the end, and 
cannot rightly define his subject, has no hope of finding the means of 
attaining it, any more than the man who shoots at random into the air can 
hope to hit the mark.
Let us consider more particularly the terms of this definition. We say in 
the first place right ordering to distinguish a commonwealth from a band of 
thieves or pirates. W ith them one should have neither intercourse, commerce, 
nor alliance. Care has always been taken in well-ordered commonwealths not 
to include robber-chiefs and their followers in any agreements in which 
honour is pledged, peace treated, war declared, offensive or defensive 
alliances agreed upon, frontiers defined, or the disputes of princes and 
sovereign lords submitted to arbitration, except under the pressure of an 
absolute necessity. Such desperate occasions however do not come within the 
bounds of normal conventions. The law has always distinguished robbers and 
pirates from those who are recognized to be enemies legitimately at war, in 
that they are members of some commonwealth founded upon that principle of 
justice that brigands and pirates seek to subvert. For this reason brigands 
cannot claim that the conventions of war, recognized by all peoples, should 
be observed in their case, nor are they entitled to those guarantees that 
the victors normally accord to the vanquished. ...

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It is true that we see brigands living amicably and sociably together, 
sharing the spoil fairly among themselves. Nevertheless the terms amity, 
society, share cannot properly be used of such associations. They should 
rather be called conspiracies, robberies, and spoliations. Such associations 
lack that which is the true mark of a community, a rightly ordered 
government in accordance with the laws of nature. This is why the ancients 
define a commonwealth as a society of men gathered together for the good and 
happy life. This definition however falls short on the one hand, and goes 
beyond the mark on the other. It omits the three principal elements of a 
commonwealth, the family, sovereign power, and that which is of common 
concern, while the term 'happy', as they understood it, is not essential. 
If it were, the good life would depend on the wind always blowing fair, a 
conclusion no right-thinking man would agree to. A commonwealth can be 
well-ordered and yet stricken with poverty, abandoned by its friends, beset 
by its enemies, and brought low by every sort of misfortune. Cicero saw 
this happen to the city of Marseilles in Provence, yet he thought it the 
best-ordered and most civilized city, without exception, of any in the 
world. On the same showing the commonw ealth that is well-situated, wealthy, 
populous, respected by its allies, feared by its enemies, invincible in 
war, impregnable, furnished with splendid buildings, and of great 
reputation, m ust be considered well-ordered, even if given over to every 
wickedness and abandoned to vicious habits. But there is surely no more 
fatal enemy to virtue than worldly success of this sort, fortunate as it is 
accounted to be, for they are contraries not to be reconciled. Therefore we 
do not include the term 'happy' as an essential term in our definition. We 
aim higher in our attempt to attain, or at least approximate, to the true 
image of a rightly ordered government. Not that we intend to describe a 
purely ideal and unrealizable commonw ealth, such as that imagined by Plato, 
or Thomas M ore the Chancellor of England. We intend to confine ourselves as 
far as possible to those political forms that are practicable. We cannot 
therefore be blamed if we do not succeed in describing the state which is 
rightly ordered absolutely, any more than the pilot, blown out of his course 
by a storm, or the doctor defeated by a mortal disease, is to be blamed, 
provided he has managed his ship or his patient in the right way. 
The conditions of true felicity are one and the same for the commonwealth 
and the individual. The sovereign good of the commonwealth in general, and 
of each of its citizens in particular lies in the intellective and 

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contemplative virtues, for so wise men have determined. It is generally 
agreed that the ultimate purpose, and therefore sovereign good, of the 
individual, consists in the constant contemplation of things human, natural, 
and divine. If we admit that this is the principal purpose whose fulfilment 
means a happy life for the individual, we must also conclude that it is the 
goal and the condition of well-being in the commonwealth too. Men of the 
world and princes however have never accepted this, each measuring his own