historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

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Chapter 8. The science of politics. The Institutiones politicae
who belong to that section cannot love the form of government. In this particular
case, ‘to love’ (amare) is directly connected to involvement of the self
(ego). To this syllogism we can connect Boxhorn’s observation that the most
peaceful commonwealths are those in which even the lower magistrates,
who Boxhorn describes as the representatives of the people, feel that they
are admitted to the administration of the commonwealth. Here, once again,
the Netherlands and ancient Rome, after the plebs had been given access to
administrative offices, serve as the prime examples. 164
In line with this reasoning is Boxhorn’s stand that, at least in theory, no
inhabitant of a commonwealth should be barred from obtaining an administrative
office, ‘for private individuals should not be denied what is held in
common’. 165 From this we can conclude that an administrative office is common
property, and that, at least in this case, Boxhorn sees the res publica, which
he defines in non-Ciceronian terms as a ‘body of many’, in the Ciceronian
sense of a res populi, the collective property of the people. 166
According to Boxhorn, the principle of ‘non-exclusion’ carries four major
benefits. First, it excites in people a greater love for the commonwealth,
because the fact that no one should be excluded from office demonstrates to
the people ‘the greatness of liberty’ that rests on a system of ruling and being
ruled in turn. 167 Second, it contributes to the concord within a commonwealth,
164 Ibidem, I.3, pp. 22-23. ‘Itaque in Regno Optimatum & Populi; in Optimatum regimine Populi; in
Democratia Optimum habenda ratio est; atque indè pacatissimae sunt Respublicae, in quibus & minores
Magistratus curam Reipublicae ad se pertinere sentiunt. In Belgio sanè nullus status exclusum se à
Republica queri potest. Comitia enim constituunt Nobiles & Civitatum delegati, qui posteriores sunt
quasi Optimates è populo, atque indè facillimè consensus vel in gravissimis rebus impetratur. Nam
si delegati consentiant in Tributa; populus id non potest impedire, quia omnem sui consensus vim in
eos transfundit. Ita & Respublica Romana turbata mirificè fuit, antequam plebs ad Reipublicae munia
admissa fuisset.’ For Rome, see also ibidem, I.8, p. 105, and chapter 7 of this thesis.
165 Ibidem, I.8, p. 105. ‘Nemo etiam à Magistratu excludendus, juxta §. 6. quia quod commune omnium
est, singulis non debet denegari.’ Ibidem, I.8.5, p. 97. ‘Via igitur ad honores munienda est inquilinis.’
166 If this is true, then one has to be careful of speaking of the state as an abstract entity, separated
and distinguishable from its citizens, since the Romans had no such conception of a res publica. See
Wood, Cicero’s Social and Political Thought, pp. 124-26. According to Aristotle, what defines a citizen is
‘that he shares in the administration of justice, and in offices’. Aristotle, Politics, 1275a1 [III:1], p. 62.
‘Thus’, as Richard Mulgan has explained, in the Aristotelian sense ‘full membership of a city implies
participation, or at least the right to participate, in the political duties of citizenship’. Mulgan, however,
also points out that Aristotle’s view on political participation was ambivalent; the good citizen could
also be good and live a virtuous life without fulfilling an office. Furthermore, Aristotle had described
his ideal state (books VII-VIII) as a polis in which men of equal virtue share in ruling and being ruled;
however, if there was someone, or a few people who would exceed the others in matters of virtue and
ability, they should rule instead of the whole citizen-body. Here we come across Aristotle’s notion of
distributive justice, giving each man his due, a principle also followed by Cicero. Aristotle, Politics,
1283b1-1284a1 [III:13], p. 81, and Richard Mulgan, “Aristotle and the Value of Political Participation”,
in Political Theory, Vol. 18, No. 2 (1990), pp. 195-215, esp. pp. 203-8, with quote on p. 206. For a more
elaborate discussion of this topic, see Nieuwstraten, “Why the Wealthy should rule”, pp. 126-49.
167 Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae, I.8, p. 105. ‘Accedit quod hoc faciat: I. ad Reip. amorem majorem
in omnibus excitandum: quippe sic ostenditur & magnitudo libertatis, quae in vicissitudine parendi
& imperandi consistit, & reprimitur Insolentia Magistratuum.’ Probably because where everyone is