The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns (1819)

Benjamin Constant, like Immanuel Kant, analyzed politics from a double perspective. Kant divided his Metaphysics of Morals into what he called the “Doctrine of Right,” about how human behavior affects other people, which is the business of the state, and the “Doctrine of Virtue,” which relates to…

Principles of Politics, first published in 1815, is a “microcosm of [Constant’s] whole political philosophy and an expression of his political experience,” says Nicholas Capaldi in his Introduction. In Principles, Constant “explores many subjects: law, sovereignty, and representation; power and…

Constant worked on this study of humanity’s religious forms and development throughout his life, eventually publishing five volumes between 1824 and 1831. His aims were to relate religious forms to their historical contexts and civilizational developments, to show partisans of the new…

The Commentary is Constant’s most extensive treatment of economic matters. It is a response to a multi-volume work by the Italian jurist Gaetano Filangiero, The Science of Legislation (1780-88). Constant defends limited government and a policy of laissez-faire.

Between the French Revolution and the First World War France produced an impressive group of classical liberal and conservative writers. They focused on the problems of creating a constitutional limited government, the issue of free trade, French imperialism and colonialism, the history of the…