BODIN, bd-dan, Jean, French scholar and innovator in economic and political theory: b. Angers 1530; d. Laon 1596. He studied law in Toulouse and after a lectureship in that then notable school attempted without distin guished success the practice of law in Paris. This he presently abandoned for political and economic study, lightened by the favor of Henry III, with whom he was for a time in timately associated, as afterward with the King's brother, the Duc d'Alencon, whom he accompanied to England in his suit for the hand of Queen Elizabeth. His first book was a translation of Oppian's 'Cynegetigon,' a hunting manual, into Latin verse. The first of serious significance was the Wiscours sur les causes de l'extreme cherte qui est aujourdhui en France' (1574). This was an enlightened contribution to the theory of prices, a matter to which he recurred in the sixth book of his most notable work, 'The Republic,' and in a refutation of the assertion of Malestroit that there had been no rise in prices for three cen turies, the
in arrangement and inexact in citation, was the first attempt since Aristotle's 'Politics' to build a complete system of political science. Note worthy is the constancy with which the higher aims and purposes of society are kept in view. He declared public finance to be tithe sinews of the states and showed enlightened ideas on taxation and in the defense of the right of private property against the utopian theory of More. Governmental intervention in trade and commerce was approved. The study of the effect of climate on society and government was novel and influenced Montesquieu. In government he thought the will of the people should find orderly expression but that the sovereign should be "absolute and subject to no law." Finding on a visit to Oxford and Cambridge in 1581 that 'The Republic' was known there only in a bad Latin version, he published a translation of his own in 1586. That he was not wholly above the grosser superstition of his time appears from the be lief in witchcraft shown in his (Demonomanie des sorciers' (1580). He declared for the League in 1589, for Henry IV in 1594 and died of the plague in 1596. He left unpublished a 'Colloquium
first printed 1847, a conversation between a Catholic, Lu theran, Zwinglian, Jew, Mohammedan, Epi curean and Theist, looking to the widest toler ance consistent with public morals and the national well-being. Consult Barthelemy, 'Etude sur J. Bodin' (Paris 1876); Dunning, 'Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu' (New York 1905), and Fournol, (Bodin, pre decesseur de Montesquieu) (Paris 1896).