The Nature of Political Science is a controversial matter. There is controversy as to whether political science is science or is an Art.
Mait land has regretted even the very title ‘science’ to the subject whereas Aristotle and others have definitely given this subjects to the position and status of science. Buckle says, “In the present State of knowledge, politics far from being a science is one of the most backward of all Arts.” He has thus even declined to assign the place of Art to so called ‘Science’. Leacock has said that, “Political science is definitely a science which deals with State and Government.” According to Gilchrist “It is a science of both State and Government and thus he has described it as a science.”
Garner says that “for our purpose a science may be described as a fairly unified mass of knowledge relating to a particular subject acquired by systematic observation, experience or study the facts of which have been coordinated, systematized and classified.”
According to Gattell “A science may be described as a mass of knowledge concerning a particular subjects, acquired by systematic observation, experience and study and analyzed and classified into a unified whole then political science may justly claim to be a science.”
Science has been defined as a systematic knowledge about a thing an Art, its political application. According to Garner, facts which have been systematized, coordinated and classified are science. Those who do not accept it is a science are of the opinion that its results are not universul end that like other physical and basic science it has no laboratory to experiments etc., and to deduce everlasting results. But those who put forth its claim as science vigorously repute the change and claim that vast world is the laboratory and human beings are objects. Since man is ever-charging and follows a code of ethical conduct, the results cannot be permanent like those of physical sciences where objects are without soul and have no ethics.
Since, Political science has not reached the standard of perfection of physical sciences and has much in common with the family of sciences, we can say that it is only partly a science. Similarly since all what we study in political science cannot be put to practice and much can and is actually being put into practice, we may say that it has much of Art in it as well.
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