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THE PLACE OF ORIENT AL THOUGHT IN THE FIELD OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IT is greatly to be regretted that while the average Indian student of Political Science knows all about the theories of Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas and Dante, Bodin and Hobbes, Rousseau and Green, he is generally ignorant of the great political thinkers of the East, thinkers who not merely propounded theories for the school-room or the college hall but who actually advised monarchs as to the best way of carrying on the government of their country.
With the cares of a State almost co-extensive with the civilized Middle East;he found time to make him• self master of all that was useful and interesting in the history of the surrounding lands, and lived to apply its lessons to his pet theories of government barely a year before his death which occurred at the hands of an assassin in 1092.
when there arose from the town of Tunis a man of remark able knowledge and industry as well as of historical and political acumen, perhaps the first scientific historian of the modern world, one who has left an indelible mark on the annals of the science of history, Ibn KhaldO.
At the outset of his Prolegomena he describes the im• portance of the Science of History and says that it is this science whereby we get to know the ways of the ancients, the moral condition of ages gone by, the teachings of Divine Messengers and the politics and diplomacy of states which have passed away, and with the help of facts thus collected, we can choose the path best suited to us.