Bodin, JEAN

Bodin, JEAN, a great political thinker of the 16th century, was born at Angers about 1530. After his studies in law at Toulouse, he settled in Paris. By Henry III. he was appointed king's attorney at Laon in 1576, and by the Duc d'Alençon he was carried as secretary to England in his journey to solicit the hand of Queen Elizabeth. In the States-general at Blois in 1576 Bodin asserted with great energy and eloquence the rights of the people and freedom of conscience. The later years of his life were spent at Laon, the inhabitants of which he was able to persuade to declare for the League in 1589, and for Henry IV. five years later. Here he died of the plague in 1596. Bodin's greatest work is Les Six Livres de la République (1576), of which the author issued a Latin version in 1586. According to Bodin, property and the family form the basis of society, and a limited monarchy is the best possible form of government. In opposition to certain contemporary Protestant writers on politics, he held that under no circumstances are citizens justified in rebelling against their ruler. One prince, however, may interfere in behalf of the oppressed subjects of another. Bodin's book is the greatest of its kind published during the 16th century; yet it had but little influence on contemporary opinion. His Methodus ad Facilem Historiarum Cognitionem (1566) is considered by some writers as having laid the foundation of the true philosophy of history. His famous Colloquium Heptaplomeres de Abditis Rerum Sublimium Arcanis, left in MS., and indeed not published until 1857 by Noack, is a conversation between a Jew, a Mohammedan, a Lutheran, a Zwinglian, a Roman Catholic, an Epicurean, and a Theist, who come to the conclusion that henceforward they will leave off disputing on religion, and live together in charity and toleration. Bodin, though so broad and liberal in his opinions as to earn the reputation of an atheist, was not before his age in his notions about witchcraft, as is evidenced by his Demonomanie des Sorciens (1580). See H. Baudrillart's Jean Bodin et son Temps (1853), and vol. i. of Flint's Philosophy of History in Europe (1874).