POLITICS A LECTURE DELIVERED AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE SERIES ON SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND ART FEBRUARY 12, 1908 POLITICS BY CHARLES AUSTIN BEARD ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF POLITICS New York THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1908 POLITICS EVERY science begins by laying hold of some definite and tangible facts, and advances by tracing their myriad relations until they are lost in the great complex of things. So politics starts with the government which, in final analysis, is a determinate number of persons in a political community charged with certain public duties, and it advances to a consideration of the phenomena which condition the organization and operations of the government. It is evident at a casual glance that official performances are not really separable from other actions of the governmental agents themselves or from many of the actions of citizens at large. For instance, the declaration of war against Spain was a political act, but clearly it was only an incident in the sum total of events which led up to the armed conflict. For months before the official proceeding, social forces had been gathering strength, and impinging on the minds of persons charged with transmuting the feeling and will of the nation into the legal state of war. It was by a mere formal process that social realities passed over into political facts. To cite another example, an alderman voting in a regularly constituted assembly in favor of purchasing a plot of land for a park performs a political act in the strict sense of the word; if he gives a friend a quiet suggestion to engage in real estate trans |