When Vico accused Grotius and the school of natural rights of commencing their history half-way, with the civilised ages, and overlooking the earlier periods, the accusation, in its bearing upon the philosophy of practice, may be translated into a charge of ignoring the ideal moment of force and confining the attention to justice, equity and morality. The moment of force, constituting the other and earlier "half," was the field chosen by Hobbes, before him by Machiavelli, and still earlier by Epicurus, all of whom treated of this moment alone, "with impiety towards God, infamy to rulers and injustice towards nations." Hence the conclusion is easy, that in refuting the utilitarians and the theorists of force, Vico was at the same time recognising and absorbing the need which they represented, their only mistake having been that they developed this need in an abstract and one-sided way. His "state of nature" is in some respects like that of Hobbes, with the difference that mankind transcends the latter owing to the recognition of utility, the former owing to the religious and moral consciousness. But Vico does not on this account express any gratitude to Hobbes or Spinoza, Machiavelli or Epicurus, since he believed himself to have found in a classical author all the materials and the stimulus he required, all the counter-poise necessary to the Platonic philosophy. This was one of his "four authors," the one of whom we said earlier that we had still to see the use which Vico made, namely Tacitus. This writer for his part contemplates with his unequalled metaphysical powers man as he is, while Plato contemplates him as he ought to be. Just as Plato in his universal science explores every corner of nobility, so Tacitus "descends into every scheme of utility," in order that among the infinite chaotic chances of malice and fortune the man of practical wisdom may act well. To the union in his mind of Greek philosopher and Roman historian, which he interprets, as is easily seen, in the manner usual among the "Tacitean" politicians of the seventeenth century, Vico attributes his own success in sketching a real idea of eternal history, "which the wise man would construct both of esoteric wisdom such as Plato's, and of common wisdom such as that of Tacitus." To Tacitus, finally, he owed the impulse towards the supreme task of making concrete his ideal, and realising the republic of Plato in the "dregs of Romulus." CHAPTER IX THE HISTORICAL ASPECT OF LAW