Political science is not a sociological science of everything, a psychological study of all human behavior in all aspects, an anthropological inquiry into miscellaneous human customs, or a philosophy of history. Still less is it a study only of the state, which is a form of social organization resulting from one species of political action, or a study only of governments and the stage properties of law and administration.

Politics is concerned with a field of human behavior characterized by the recurrence of specific behavior patterns. These peculiarly political patterns, however, must not be treated simply as a series of incidents in mere temporal juxtaposition. Human history must be studied as natural history and physical phenomena have been studied, that is to say, with a view to the detection of a recurrence in these patterns, and, hence, of a process in accordance with which, in given total situations, given detailed behavior patterns recur. These patterns are “lines of conduct” of an individual or group character, pursued in relation to other individuals or groups, as a matter of human method in dealing with such situations, which situations arise partly from the nature of the non-human environment, partly from the historical combination of human factors. The resultant specific action or behavior recurs with the recurrence of the stimuli of the approximately recurrent situation; for example, a certain general situation known as “the outbreak of hostilities” has certain specific consequences in changes of individual conduct toward members of a given nation, and the need of putting through a domestic policy against opposition brings into play the ever similar methods of party organization.

In the course of the nineteenth century the breach between the Russian government and the intelligentsia grew steadily wider, until it would scarcely have been credible that the relations between them had once been those of patron and client. This had been in the brighter and more hopeful days of enlightened despotism, under Catherine II, and in some measure also under Alexander I. Now, however, other men were ruling, still despotic but no longer enlightened. The consequence was that the less tractable of the intellectuals became either voluntary or compulsory exiles. Much of nineteenth-century Russian history centers about these exiles, who huddled together in colonies wherever they were tolerated: in Zurich, in Paris, and in London. They constituted the principal bond, both physical and cultural, between Russia and the western world.

By tradition and training these exiles possessed a bent for cosmopolitan living; in their mental equipment they were decidedly eclectic. Now more than ever they were exposed to the diversity of intellectual influences in which western Europe was more than commonly rich in this post-revolutionary period. Detached from their own foundations, they yielded themselves the more readily to the new currents of thought. Hegelianism, Darwinism, positivism, socialism—wave after wave of “isms” passed over them. They absorbed something of each and tried to make a blending of all.

Short sessions are short enough—sixty-seven days of actual meetings in that of the Sixty-ninth Congress—but the public's memory is even shorter. It thinks of the recent session almost wholly in terms of the colorful Senate filibuster at the end and forgets that such occurrences are the rule rather than the exception in the short sessions of Congress. When Senator Reed of Pennsylvania was chided by Senator Pittman for “putting your will against the rest of the Senate,” he replied: “As I have a right to do”; and he could point his rejoinder by recalling Mr. Pittman's own obstructive action at the termination of Congress two years before. The system itself invites congestion and obstruction. Rapping for order and snapping “sit down” (the printed proceedings do not record this but give the extinguished Pat Harrison's expiring lament, “Oh, it is a shame to spoil a good speech like this!”), Mr. Dawes snatched the last two minutes from the Senate in order to say that “the Chair regards the results of the present legislative session as primarily due to the defective rules of the Senate” (p. 5687) With equal logic, and perhaps more soundly, one may find in the situation on March 4 reasons for sharpening the question why the Norris constitutional amendment to change the scheme of congressional sessions, which passed the Senate on February 14, 1926, and which was favorably reported in the House within the same month, was not allowed to come to a vote.

The county of Allegheny comprises the heart of the Pittsburgh district as usually understood, and includes the city itself, termed by the laws of the commonwealth a city of the second class; three cities of the third class, i.e., McKeesport, Clairton, and Duquesne; sixty-six boroughs and fifty-four townships (of which twenty-five are townships of the first class, governed by a board of commissioners, and twenty-nine are townships of the second class, under the control of a board of supervisors). During the years 1925–26, the boroughs of Carrick, Knoxville, and Westwood and the township of Lower St. Clair have, by the voluntary act of their people, united with the city of Pittsburgh. There are now existing within the county of Allegheny a total of one hundred twenty-four separate municipal units (exclusive of school districts), each operating under its own particular form of government.

Although in 1808 the Stein reforms granted Prussian cities a certain measure of self-government, and although the Prussian municipal code of 1853 brought about some degree of uniformity so far as the urban communities of the several provinces of Prussia were concerned (the rest of the German states following the example of Prussia by adopting codes no two of which were alike in their provisions), yet even in Prussia there was, and is, no uniform municipal code. There are indeed no fewer than nine systems of municipal government in that state. In 1923, however, a new municipal code was drafted which, if passed by the Landtag, will give the country a more balanced system of municipal government. In other German states, e.g., Bavaria, Württenberg, Baden, and Saxony, new municipal codes have been adopted since the revolution of 1918.

Opinions differ as to the significance of the work of the recent Imperial Conference. That it was the most successful of the conferences yet held does not mean much. For these conferences have in reality contributed little to the conditions of imperial coöperation. Meeting only once in four years, with necessarily little continuity of membership (only three members this year were present in 1923), and coming to problems with which they have had no continuity of contact, the representatives of the dominions can at best solemnly endorse general principles upon which all are agreed, at worst tender advice which in foreign affairs and in the economic sphere has often been ill considered. As Professor A. B. Keith wrote in “Imperial Unity and the Dominions,” “it may safely be predicted that if the dominion representatives are to have only such control of or intelligence of foreign politics in their relation to the Empire as they can pick up once in four years at a very much overcrowded conference, they are not likely to benefit the Empire very seriously by their advice.”

When, on January 29, 1927, Admiral Horthy, regent of Hungary, formally opened the reconstructed parliament, declaring that “the happy consolidation of the country permits the reëstablishment of the system of two chambers which corresponds to the national tradition,” a far-reaching step in constitutional restoration was completed. The revival of the oldest parliament in Europe marks the culmination of a political movement which has been in process for the last seven years, and definitely closes a phase, albeit a retrogressive one, in Hungarian constitutional development. The elections which preceded this latest phase of restoration, following hard upon the constitutional revamping of both chambers, are, therefore, significant; they provide, in addition, an interesting example of governmental pressure, upper class control, and oral voting in the midst of a world habituated to the concepts of popular sovereignty, universal suffrage, and the secret ballot.