Political and government : the elements of political science

My aim in this book is to introduce the citizen who has had no previous training in political science to its proper elements, in their most useful order, and with appropriate emphasis. The book is designed to be a first glimpse of a field of vast importance and universal interest, a glimpse, it is hoped, that will stimulate a general interest in the ever fresh problems of political science. The best books of political science are broad in scope, logical, and well grounded in the facts of political life. Like Plato and Aristotle, recent respected political scientists regard the field of politics as covering the most important problems of community living. The study of the form these important problems take is political science, and the study of political science, like the other sciences, rests on facts. Today we have increasingly accurate means of gathering and analyzing facts. Field surveys, sample polling, and intricate systems of punch- card tabulation and analysis are several of the techniques for studying human behavior that annually increase our reliable knowledge and make possible a better political science than had our predecessors. If we accept the good life as defined by great moral philosophers like Aquinas, Spinoza, or Jefferson, we have readier ways than they had of demonstrating how such a good life may be achieved. There are exciting possibilities in the future of political science, and it is hoped that this book will help to reveal them. The work is divided into two volumes. The first describes some great political scientists and their ideas, tells how scientists study political subjects, what those subjects are, and how the ordinary person can think correctly about politics. It proceeds to introduce the reader to some of the basic ele- ments of political behavior: leadership, political groupings, public opinion, representation, party organization, and the use of economic, psychological, and coercive pressures in polities - all of which occur very generally, on all levels of govern- ment, in all political institutions, and in the pursuit of all kinds of goals.