Less than justice has been done to Sir William Temple as a political scientist. It is true that his reputation now stands higher than it did in the nineteenth century when Courtenay, his biographer, observed, “Neither in science nor in politics, were his opinions founded upon an accurate combination of facts and principles,” and added, “Of Political Economy Temple knew nothing” and when Macaulay dismissed the essay on government as “exceedingly childish.” Three modern studies have done much to revise this unflattering estimate, but some aspects of Temple's political thought have remained unconsidered or confused. Professor Herriott in his analysis of Temple's ideas on government has pointed out the novelty of those ideas but has given little attention to the significance of Temple's approach and method. Dr. Marburg's excellent book, though it does not deal primarily with Temple's political ideas, has made a valuable contribution towards their understanding. But her views on Temple's attitude to science and his use of its method are open to question. Professor Woodbridge, in his recent very full study of Temple, praises “the astonishing originality” of the essay On the Original and Nature of Government, and remarks as its great merit that its argument is based “upon historical probability, observation and experience,” but he does not emphasize the inductive aspect of Temple's work nor discuss the relation of his political thought to the scientific movement. Apart from Professor G. N. Clark's explicit but passing references to Temple's significance as one of the first of the inductive political thinkers, the extent to which Temple participated in the prevailing scientific climate of opinion and was influenced by it has been generally overlooked or greatly underestimated.