The Political Economy of Juan de Mariana - Ludwig von Mises Institute

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
CERTAIN names in history cannot he mentioned without
arousing a sense of indignation. The Spanish
J esuit, Juan de Mariana, is, for example, considered hy
many the typical representative of that "Jesuitical teaching"
which threatens the lives of sovereign princes and
rulers. For these people Mariana and regicide are inseparahly
connected ideas. Until recently very few, even
among scholars, took the trouhle to inquire further ahout
this strange man who caused such a stir in his own day.
That he was one of the greatest of Spanish historians and
that he wrote learned treatises on divers other suhjects was
seldom noticed. Mariana taught one false and fatal doctrine
and that has sufficed to condemn him; he did one wrong,
and so all the good he accomplished has been overlooked.
Prantl, in J. K. Bluntschli's Deutsches Staatsworterbuch,
goes so far as to sum up Mariana's political philosophy in
these words: "... to put it briefly, the conclusion is that
a tyrant can be deprived of his power and of his life hy
anyone." 1 Nor is Ranke's judgment much fairer. He confines
himself to saying that Mariana shows a "manifest predilection"
to decide all questions concerning ruler and ruled
"without reserve to the advantage of the people and the
prejudice of the princely authority, and that he pronounces
encomiums replete with pathetic declamation" on Jacques
1 Kurz, das Resultat ist. ceDer Tyrann kann von Jedwedem der Herrschaft und de!!
Lebens beraubt werden." Deutsches Staatsworterbuch, Bd. 6, p. 539.
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