to
prove that monarchy is the best form of government [Footnote: Les six
livres de la Republique, 1576.], but in his attempt to substitute a new
theory of universal history for that which prevailed in the Middle Ages.
He rejected the popular conception of a golden age and a subsequent
degeneration of mankind; and he refuted the view, generally current
among medieval theologians, and based on the prophecies of Daniel, which
divided the course of history into four periods corresponding to the
Babylonian Persian, Macedonian, and Roman monarchies, the last of which
was to endure till the day of Judgement. Bodin suggests a division into
three great periods: the first, of about two thousand years, in which
the South-Eastern peoples were predominant; the second, of the same
duration, in which those whom he calls the Middle (Mediterranean)
peoples came to the front; the third, in which the Northern nations
who overthrew Rome became the leaders in civilisation. Each period is
stamped by the psychological character of the three racial groups. The
note of the first is religion, of the second practical sagacity, of the
third warfare and inventive skill. This division actually anticipates
the synthesis of Hegel. [Footnote: Hegel's division is (1) the Oriental,
(2) a, the Greek, b, the Roman, and (3) the Germanic worlds.] But the
interesting point is that it is based on anthropological considerations,
in which climate and geography are taken into account; and,
notwithstanding the crudeness of the whole exposition and the intrusion
of astrological arguments, it is a new step in the study of universal
history. [Footnote: Climates and geography. The fullest discussion
will be found in the Republique, Book v. cap. i. Here Bodin anticipated
Montesquieu. There was indeed nothing new in the principle; it had been
recognised by Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and other Greeks,
and in a later age by Roger Bacon.

But Bodin first developed and applied it methodically. This part of
his work was ignored, and in the eighteenth century Montesquieu's
speculations on the physical factors in history were applauded as a new
discovery.]

I have said that Bodin rejected the theory of the degeneration of man,
along with the tradition of a previous age of virtue and felicity.
[Footnote: See especially Methodus, cap. v. pp. 124, 130, 136.] The
reason which he alleged against it is important. The powers of nature
have always been uniform. It is i