L. REVIEW, HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL, OF THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY: OR, INTRODUCTION TO A MORE COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM. PART IV. The Sociology of the Greeks Considered-The Ideas of Plato, Aristotle, and Polybius, critically examined-The Famous Remarks of Solon and An- acharsis, the Scythian, briefly commented upon-Some Remarks on the Constitution of Sparta and Athens, and on their Famous Lawgivers, Lycurgus and Solon-Conclud- ing General Observation....... II. REMARKS ON LANDED CREDIT. By WM. BROWN, of Cote des Neiges, Canada.... III. CANALS OF THE UNITED STATES. A Brief View of the Canals, their past History and present State-Like Causes produce like Effects-Certainty and Celerity, with sav- ig of Time, and this, too, every day in the year, are the Watch-words of Commerce, I,oduced by Railways, to the Decadence of Canals. By JOSEPH E. BLOOMFIELD, Esq., IV. CO IMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES. No. LXXI. CNCINNATI, OHIO. Cincinnati the Pioneer-Laying Off-Value of the Site -Tribu- try Territory-Advantages of a Central Situation-Population-Comparative Pop da- tion-Wealth of Cincinnati - Hamilton County-Concentration of Capital-Its Accumu lation-Manufactures-Value of-Leading Items-team Tonnage-Railroads-Cost- Mineral Region-Its Extent and Connection-Coal -Iron — Imports and Exports- Improved Condition of the City-Crops -Receipts of Leading Crops-Progress of Pro- duction-Hay Crops-Comparison with 1854-Effects of good Harvests...... V. SINGAPORE, PENANG, AND SUMATRA: THEIR COMMERCE AND PRODUC- Decisions in Admiralty on Appeal.. Decision in Admiralty on Appeal-Wages COMMERCIAL CHRONICLE AND REVIEW. Fall Business-Importations-Supply on the Market-Western Trade-Crops-Sales of Goods in the South-Elements of a Demand for Material-Current of Gold-Supply in Banks- Receipts of Gold-Bank Discounts-Influence of Taxes on Loans-Rise in Money-Rates for the Year-Bank Deposits-City Loan-State Loan-Kentucky Debt-Mississippi Bonds- Missouri Debt-Exchange-Sight Bills-Counter Exchange-Rates of Bills-Continental Bills-Export of Specie-Supply of Bars-Assay-office-Mint-Specie Basis at the West- National Imports and Exports-Balance due the Country-Interest due Abroad-Travelers' City Weekly Bank Returns-Banks of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Pitts- Rice Export from Savannah and Charleston... Lumber Exports of Savannah and Charleston.-British Colonial Trade.. Closing of the Port of Carthagena, New Granada.-Passports to Prussia and Germany.. Port Regulations of Havana.-Tobacco and Corn at Canary Islands.. JOURNAL OF MINING, MANUFACTURES, AND ART. Comb Manufacture of Newburyport.. Formation of Diamonds. -Remains of Ancient Salt Works in the Salines of Illinois How to tell the Character of past Seasons.-African Fibrous Plants Nativities--Population of Boston and New York Men Monkeys of Malacca-Their mode of Life, Marriage, Customs, etc Bank Committee of 1856-Report of Evidence taken before the Bank Act Committee, 1856. Days of Grace on Commercial Paper.--The Stomach and the Mind... 142-144 HUNT'S MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW. JANUARY, 1860. Art. I.-REVIEW, HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL, OF THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY:* OR, INTRODUCTION TO A MORE COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM. PART IV. THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE GREEKS CONSIDERED-THE IDEAS OF PLATO, ARISTOTLE, AND POLYBIUS, CRIT ICALLY EXAMINED THE FAMOUS REMARKS OF SOLON AND ANACHARSIS, THE SCYTHIAN, BRIEFLY COMMENTED UPON-SOME REMARKS ON THE CONSTITUTIONS OF SPARTA AND ATHENS, AND ON THEIR FAMOUS LAWGIVEES, LYCURGUS AND SOLON-CONCLUDING GENERAL OBSERVATION. THE Greeks, as they were the first European nation to cultivate science, were also the first, in point of eminence, in scientific as well as literary attainment, among the earlier nations of Europe, and indeed among all the ancient nations. As it has been said of the modern Germans, so it may be said of the ancient Greeks, that they have left no field of literature or science unexplored. Among such a people, as might reasonably be supposed, the science of Sociology did not escape a searching investigation, at least in some of its departments. It must be admitted, however, that their sociological ideas were rather crude and imperfect, and, as the earlier ideas in every science are apt to be, for the most part, superficial. The Social Philosophy of the Greeks was predicated, almost entirely, upon the idea that the social welfare of mankind is to be attributed to political causes. With this view, they prosecuted inquiries into the science of Politics with great zeal, and, in so far as the fundamental principles of government are concerned, with considerable success, though with * Entered according to an act of Congress, in the year 1859, by Gro. W. & JNO. A. WOOD, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the southern district of New York. + EERATA.-Owing to the miscarriage of the author's revised proof of the previous article of this review, some typographical errors occurred that are worthy of note. On page 661, last line, “Dr. Maistre " was published for De Maistre; on page 671, sixth line, “Kamayana" for Ramayana; on page 604, seventeenth line of second paragraph, "Superior" for Supreme; on page 665, last line, commonest" for communist; and other errors occurred, which, though very slight errors of type, produce very serious errors as to signification, and impediments as to the force of the author's language. very unsatisfactory results, in respect to the structure and organization. of government. An eminent author, the Abbe Barthelemi, better known as Anacharsis,* has observed that "two great questions employ the attention of the philosophers of Greece; the one concerning the manner in which the universe is governed, the other on the mode in which men ought to be governed." It is to this latter question that the Social Philosophy of the Greeks addressed itself almost exclusively. It considered with great particularity, and some measure of sagacity, how men ought to be governed, but gave little or no attention to the question how they can be rendered comfortable. The failure of the Grecian philosophers to consider the latter question resulted partly, no doubt, and in a great measure, from their disposition to depreciate and despise the wants of the body, and to aim chiefly at the elevation of the qualities of the soul. But it resulted, also, to a large extent, from their ignorance of the truth, that good government does not by any means necessarily insure the comfort or general welfare of the community. They did not progress far enough, either experimentally or speculatively, in Social Philosophy, to ascertain that even after good government has been secured, there yet remains a great deal to be done to insure a perfect social state, or one in which every member of the community is in a condition (as to material comfort) fit for the healthful enjoyment of rational existence. They failed, therefore, to discover those great fundamental laws of Sociology which tend at once to secure good government, and the social welfare of the governed, and without which it would be in vain, or at least of little avail, to give to a people the best of governments. Nor is it to be wondered at that even the greatest philosophers of Greece should have been blinded as to the ulterior and more fundamental causes of social prosperity, and been induced to attach undue importance to governmental causes, in view of the wretched systems of government which prevailed in almost every part of Greece during their times. Political science was then in its infancy; and the Greeks were not a people whose genius was so well adapted as that of the modern Anglo-Saxons to work out the great problem, which so much engaged their attention, what is the best government for a State; which, whatever confused and inaccurate ideas the Grecian philosophers or others may have entertained respecting it, cannot perhaps be more correctly defined than as that government which insures stability and order in the State, with the least sacrifice to the individual liberty of the citizens; or, in other words, as that government which renders a very large share of individual liberty, consistent with order and stability in the industrial as well as the political affairs of the State. This problem, indeed, was not one of very easy solution. Mankind arrive at perfection, or rather at proficiency, in government, as they do in the mechanical arts, only by long teaching and rigid discipline in the severe school of experience. From the rude attempt of the Cretan sage to give to his people a model government, some 1,200 years before the Christian era, the struggle for this perfection of government may be traced in * It may be superfluous to remark that the Abbe Barthelemi, a French Jesuit of the eighteenth century, was the author of the work which has attained so much celebrity as "The Travels of Anacharsis," which was first published in 1788. its onward course, through many nations, and under various circumstances -now advancing, and then retrograding, but on the whole decidedly progressing, in its long career, for the period of some 3,000 years, down to the 4th day of March, A. D., 1789, when the American system of government was established by the inauguration of the federal constitution, and the federal government commenced its operation under the administration of GEORGE WASHINGTON. In the commencement of this great and protracted struggle, which took its rise in Greece, political ideas were very rude and undigested. Politics in Greece may indeed be said to have been in a state of chaos, even in the most enlightened period of their country. Having thrown off that patriarchal or kingly form of political organization, which prevails in the earlier age of every nation, the States of Greece had not been able to organize government upon the principles of republicanism, at which they aimed, upon any except very rude and disorderly bases. Politics in Greece were in a transition state, which was necessarily, to a great extent, a state of disorder and confusion. The political systems of Greece, scarcely excepting that of Sparta, which was decidedly the best of them all, were remarkably rude, imperfect, and defective. The principle of representation, indispensable to the operations of the republican system, upon any enlarged plan, was almost wholly unrecognized by them, except in the case of the ordinary magistracy, of foreign ambassadors, and delegates to the Amphyctionic council. The idea of unity in the head of the executive department of gov ernment was unappreciated. The highest legislative and judicial authorities of the State were the primary assemblies of the people. There was no well-defined distinction between the legislative and judicial powers of the State, and still less between the fundamental, organic laws of the State and the ordinary statute laws. Indeed, the republics of Greece were not only without any distinctly recognized organic law, but also, to a great extent, without any well-defined code of jurisprudence; so that the most fundamental questions of State, as well as those common questions which should be entirely referred to ordinary judicial tribunals, were decided, in many cases, by the legislative body, and that, too, the worst of all legislative bodies, the primary assembly of the people. Accordingly, we find Aristotle, in his celebrated treatise on Politics, gravely recommending that the supreme power of the State be lodged in laws duly enacted, rather than left to the caprice of any one man, or a few, or the many, as it the propriety of such a method admitted of the least possible doubt. In such a crude and disorderly condition of Politics, it is obvious that deplorable mismanagement must have prevailed, and frequent disorders arisen. Nor need we wonder that almost every State in Greece was repeatedly the prey of a licentious democracy or a rapacious tyranny. In view of the many great evils which undoubtedly resulted from the imperfect and positively defective political systems which generally prevailed in Greece, it was natural enough that it should be supposed, even by its wisest men, that were society relieved from these evils entirely, it would be relieved of all its important evils. Such, at least, seems to have been their supposition; and it may be safely asserted that the social philosophers of Greece, if they did not consider government as the essential or most prominent cause of the social ills of humanity, evidently sup |