James Harrington

Born Jan. 7, 1611, in Upton; died Sept. 11, 1677, in London. English publicist and ideologist of the new nobility and the bourgeoisie.

In his works (for example, The Republic of Oceana, 1656, Advantages of Popular Government, 1657, and The Art of Legislation, 1659), Harrington spoke out against the threat of restoration of the feudal monarchy in England. He devised a constitution for a republic of the bourgeoisie and nobility, which he considered the best form of state for protecting the achievements of the mid-17th century English Bourgeois Revolution from encoachments of the feudal aristocracy, the Stuarts, and the broad popular masses. During 1658-60, Harrington headed a republican group that tried to implement his constitution. Applying Bacon’s inductive method, he proved that the forms of the state and its institutions were dependent on the distribution of property in society.