to the choice of a very small number of alternatives-all or nearly all of which may be either dishonourable or painful. For example, after the battle of Thermopyla, Themistocles and the Athenians had only to choose between a temporary abandonment of their country, and a submission to the Persian power. Similar alternatives were presented to the Russians with respect to Moscow, after the battle of Borodino. After Waterloo, Napoleon could only attempt escape, or surrender his person to the enemy.

§ 3 In the ordinary state of things, however, the course of political action is not limited, either by law, or by a moral necessity, to a small number of alternatives. The politician has, in general, a wide discretion, and a choice of numerous courses. This is particularly the case in the province of legislation, as to which, except in the forms of proceedings, positive law can impose no limit.

The path of the legislator is, indeed, to a considerable extent circumscribed by the existing state of legislation, and by the habits, opinions, and other circumstances, of the community over which his law is to have force. But, within these limits, there is in general a wide field for the exercise of practical sagacity and inventive resource. When, therefore, any legislative problem is proposed for solution, the ingenuity of the projector is taxed, and plans, schemes, arrangements, contrivances, adaptations of means to ends, are in request. When the various modes of dealing with a practical question have been brought together—when the most specious remedies for an admitted evil have been devised and collected, the second and final stage of the problem is reached, which consists in comparing these alternative courses, and selecting that one which is preferable to any other.

§ 4 It is in weighing and comparing these alternative Courses- -in recommending one for adoption-in attacking one which has been preferred by others, or in defending one which has been condemned by others-that deliberative oratory consists. If the debates of a deliberative assembly upon any legis lative or other practical question are examined, it will be found

that they invariably consist in the comparison of alternative courses, and in the preference or rejection of some of them.

A few examples may be adduced, rather in the way of illustration, than for the purpose of enforcing a truth so apparent:

Some of the earliest debates reported to have been held in antiquity must be considered as fictitious, but they serve as well as if they were true to exemplify the character of a deliberative discussion. No better instance can be found than the deliberation which forms the opening scene of the Iliad. Alarmed at the deaths in the Greek army from pestilence, and the anger of Apollo, Agamemnon convenes an assembly of the Greeks. In this assembly, Achilles proposes to consult a diviner as to the cause of the god's wrath, and the proper mode of propitiation. Upon this, Calchas, having received assurances that he may speak the truth without fear of Agamemnon's displeasure, declares both the cause of the calamity and the means of averting it—he recommends the restoration of Chryseis to her father, and the sending of a hecatomb to the island of Chryse. Agamemnon is reluctant to part with Chryseis, but at length consents to give her up, believing that this course is the best for the Greeks, and wishing to preserve the army from destruction.(') The measures for appeasing Apollo are then indicated in detail, and agreed upon; but Agamemnon insists on being provided with a substitute for Chryseis, and threatens to take Briseis from Achilles, which leads to the further action of the Iliad. Again: Herodotus introduces the seven Persian conspirators who killed Smerdis, as deliberating upon the form of government to be then introduced into the Persian empire. Otanes recommends democracy, Megabyzus recommends oligarchy, and Darius recommends monarchy. The other four conspirators are described as agreeing with Darius in the preference of the latter alternative. (2) The

(1)

ἀλλὰ καὶ ὡς ἐθέλω δόμεναι πάλιν, εἰ τό γ ̓ ἄμεινον.

βούλομ ̓ ἐγὼ λαὸν σῶν ἔμμεναι ἢ ἀπολέσθαι.—Iliad, i. 116-7. These two verses indicate the two alternatives presented to Agamemnon and the Greeks, viz. the retention of Chryseis, and the continuance of Apollo's anger: her restoration, and his consequent propitiation.

(2) Herod. iii. 80-3.

same historian likewise describes a deliberation, in a Persian council of state, respecting the proposed expedition against Greece; which Xerxes, and Mardonius, one of his advisers, recommend, and Artabanus, another councillor, dissuades.(*) The Persian deliberations in Herodotus must, indeed, be considered as not less fictitious than the debate of the Greek chieftains in the Iliad; but if we pass to deliberations of which an authentic contemporary record has been preserved, we shall find their character precisely similar. Let us take, for instance, the celebrated debate upon Mytilene, in the fourth year of the Peloponnesian war, as recorded by Thucydides. The Athenian assembly had decided to punish the revolt of the Mytileneans, by putting the adult males to death and by selling the women and children as slaves. After the order for carrying this decision into effect had been despatched, the people began to change their mind, and to repent that so cruel a decree had been passed. A second assembly was accordingly held, in which the question was discussed, whether the previous decision should be maintained, or its execution stayed, and a milder course of action adopted. The latter alternative prevailed.(*) So, in the debate in the Roman senate upon the punishment of the Roman citizens who were concerned in the Catilinarian conspiracy, two alternatives were proposed-one, by Cæsar, to confiscate their property, and to imprison them in some of the larger municipia; the other, by Cato, that they should suffer death as confessed traitors. The senate decided in favour of the latter course.(5)

The advice of the Spanish privy-councillors upon the subject of the Netherlands, tendered to Philip II. (as reported by Bentivoglio) revolves about two alternative courses: viz., whether an attempt should be made to retain the existing relation between that province and Spain-or whether the Netherlands should be erected into an independent state, attached to the Spanish crown.()

(3) Herod. vii. 8-11.

(5) Sallust. Cat. c. 50-5.

(4) Thục. iii. 36-49.

(6) See Bentivoglio, Della Guerra di Fiandra, parte iii. lib. 4, vol. iv. p. 247; ed. Milan. Compare Watson's Philip II. b. 24, vol. 3, p. 326-30.

Again: the deliberations of the Venetian senate, in 1793, upon the measures to be taken with reference to the probability of an invasion by the French, turned upon the choice between inaction and an armed neutrality—the former of which courses was preferred.(7)

The recorded debates of the English parliament, as well as of the legislative bodies of other modern states, will in like manner be found to consist, for the most part, of the discussion of rival alternative courses, proposed or suggested by various speakers. All propositions for a change of policy-for reforms in the constitution of parliament, the church, the courts of justice, the army and navy, the administrative departments, or for amendments of the law, necessarily involve, in the first place, the comparison between the retention of the existing state of things without alteration, and the proposed remedy-and, secondly, they involve in general a comparison of several remedies. The first step is to decide that a change is expedient; the next is, to select out of several alternative remedies, proposed by different persons, that which is best suited to the circumstances of the case.

§ 5 The process of deliberation, with respect to any future political step, which a person goes through silently in his own mind, is precisely parallel to that which is conducted, vivá voce, by several persons in a consultative assembly. The chief difference is, that the criticism on the successive plans, which in the former case proceeds from our own reflections, is in the latter suggested by a plurality of counsellors. Hence, Shakspeare compares the conflicting thoughts and oscillations of resolution, in a person about to execute some bold and dangerous design, with the dissensions of a council:

Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of a man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection.(8)

(7) Botta, Storia d'Italia dal 1789 al 1814, lib. iii.
(8) Julius Cæsar, act ii. sc. 1.

The description given by Quintus Curtius of the hesitation of Alexander in his Asiatic campaign, when he was stopped by a hill-fort, will serve to illustrate this internal debate: Ille, ut erat animi semper obluctantis difficultatibus, cum et progredi arduum, et reverti periculosum esset, versabat se ad omnes cogitationes; aliud atque aliud (ita ut fieri solet ubi prima quæque damnamus) subjiciente animo. Hæsitanti, quod ratio non potuit, fortuna consilium subministravit.'(")

Accordingly, deliberation can be predicated not less of solitary meditation than of joint consultation in an assembly. This is the sense of the word in the fine verses of Milton, which Sir James Mackintosh applied to Mr. Pitt :

Deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat, and public care.

The deliberation of an individual as to his own future conduct in some matter of private concern is, again, similar to his deliberations upon political affairs. No better exemplification of such a course of reflection can be found, than the soliloquies in which dramatic writers represent their personages communing with themselves, and thinking aloud for the benefit of the audience, many of which will occur to the reader. Thus, Medea, in Euripides, enumerates the different means by which she may put her husband and his paramour to death-either by setting fire to their palace, or by secret assassination, or by poison, or by openly stabbing them with a sword-and doubts which she shall adopt.(10) The two celebrated soliloquies, in which Ajax and Hamlet resolve the question of suicide in different directions, may be referred to as furnishing an apt illustration of the manner in which the mind compares, and decides between, alternative courses in a case of individual conduct. Ajax asks himself, first, whether he shall leave the Grecian army, and return ingloriously to his father at Salamis; or, next, whether he shall attack the Trojans single-handed, and seek a warrior's death in the encounHe rejects each of these alternatives, for different reasons,

ter.

(9) vi. 6.

(10) Med. 376-93.