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Vico’s Ring
39
cupy the middle part of the section (§§ 246-294), with detailed
discussion of the conditions of possibility of aristocratically-
governed polities, including Rome.
This brings us to the third highlight of the second part of
Book IV, designated
B’
, consisting of Vico’s refutation of
Bodin’s theory of the historical priority of monarchic rule
56
. This
provides a direct link to the “Elements”, § 255: «It is a vulgar
tradition that the first form of government in the world was mo-
narchical». In the next few paragraphs of the “Elements” Vico
explains that to the contrary, the first type of rule was patriar-
chal
57
. The “Elements”
58
were not the time or place to engage
with the mistaken view polemically, but Vico evidently came to
feel strongly about this particular issue so as to digress from the
existing subject, and “shoehorn” into it a rebuttal of Bodin, in a
mode of discourse that might have been more suitable for the
lost so-called
Scienza nuova in forma negativa.
The reason is not dif-
ficult to see: the forms of justice (and all that revolves around
them), as well as socio-political structures in given eras are inex-
tricably intertwined with cultural conditions and mentalities. As
Vico states in another pithy axiom: «Governments must conform
to the nature of the men governed» (§ 246). This thrusts us into
the thicket of Vico’s anthropology and the history-dependence
(“historicity”) of human mentality and attitude, and vice versa.
And more than any other era in history, it is the earliest, most
remote times and the people of those times that garner most of
Vico’s attention in the “Elements”, “Principles”, and “Method”.
If, following Bodin, it were allowed to adhere to the priority of
monarchical rule which is incompatible with the earliest state of
affairs, then Vico’s conceptualization of history could be in dan-
ger of collapsing like a house of cards
59
.
In view of the aforesaid, it is not difficult to read the final part
of Book II as a continuation of Book I. The specifics in Book
IV, furthermore, we surmise, are used by Vico to cast a spotlight
on certain parts of Book I. In § 980, he identified his topic as the