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The Missing Definition

A last feature missing in Figure 65 is the empty rectangular band in the center space above the frame of Figure 64, where the intended inscription was not inserted. While it is possible that the omission was an oversight, it may also be the case that Oresme may have intended that readers should "fill in the blank" with the word policie .[3] A key term in Aristotle's text derived from the Latin politia, policie is a neologism in French defined by the translator in the glossary of difficult words as a political system, form of government, or constitutional government:

Policie est l'ordenance du gouvernement de toute la communité ou multitude civile. Et policie est l'ordre des princeys ou offices publiques. Et est dit de polis en grec, qu'est multitude ou cité.

(Polity is the arrangement of the government of the whole community or city population. And polity is the arrangement of authority or public offices. And it comes from polis in Greek, which is population or city.)[4]

In addition to this general usage of the term, Oresme employs policie as a synonym for Timocracy, the third of the good forms of government after Kingship and Aristocracy. As Oresme notes in a gloss, Timocracy is used in Book VIII of the Ethics to connote the particular form of constitution in which the multitude rules for the common good.[5] In English, this third form of government is sometimes called a Republic or, more frequently, Polity. Here it seems preferable to use the latter term as a synonym for the more archaic Timocracy.


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Oresme's program for Figures 64 and 65 includes both meanings of policie . This double form of visual definition corresponds to the Aristotelian concept of definition as genus and species.[6] In Chapters 12 and 13 of Book IV Aristotle discusses Polity in a specific sense as the third of the good forms. Polity is a mixed constitution: a blend of Oligarchy and Democracy that avoids the extremes of these perverted forms.[7] Furthermore, Aristotle distinguishes between the social class that holds power according to wealth in the bad regimes: the poor rule in Democracy, and the rich in Oligarchy. But the economic group that holds sovereign power in Polity is the middle class. Thus, if the reader supplies the missing word for the inscription in Figure 64 as policie , examination of the headings for Chapters 12 and 13 would lead to definitions of that term. The first title reads: "Ou .xii.e chapitre il determine de une espece de policie appellee par le commun nom policie" (In the twelfth chapter he discusses one kind of government called by the common name of Polity).[8] The next heading states: "Ou .xiii.e chapitre il monstre comme ceste policie doit estre instituee" (In the thirteenth chapter he shows how this Polity must be instituted).[9]

Figures 64 and 65 also refer to the more general use of policie as a system of government. The index of noteworthy subjects offers references to the context of Oresme's terminology under the entry for policie : "La principal condition qui fait toute policie estre bonne en son espece et forte et durable—IV, 15, 16. Et de ce soubz cest mot moiens en richeces " (The basic condition that makes every polity in its individual way good, strong, and lasting—IV, 15, 16. And more about this under the heading moiens en richeches [the mean in wealth]).[10] This cross-reference leads to the entry under that heading:

La principal chose qui fait policie estre tres bonne en son espece et seure et durable est que les citoiens soient moiens sans ce que les uns excedent trop les autres en richeces, mes en proportion moienne. Et tant sunt plus loing de cest moien de tant est la policie moins bonne—IV, 16, 17.

(The principal thing that makes a polity very good of its kind and sure and lasting is that the citizens should be of average means, without some exceeding the others too much in wealth, but proportional to the mean. And the further they are from this mean, the less good is the polity—IV, 16, 17.)[11]

In this context, Oresme refers to Polity not as a specific constitution but as a generic system of government.


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