assembly, or a minister of state, has a department of business sufficiently defined to admit of an appropriate preparation and experience, differing from those which fit a man for any other department of active life. Thus, he ought to be cognizant of the internal affairs of the country, including under that term its revenue and expenditure, its agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, the prices of commodities, the fluctuations of public securities, the state of the currency, crime, pauperism, and other branches of national economy. He ought to understand the national character, to estimate public opinion and to follow its changes, and to form a correct judgment of the character of the persons who take a prominent part in public life. He ought, besides, to be acquainted with the foreign relations of the country, to know what are its engagements with other states, and to understand the national character of the countries with which his government is required to conduct pacific negotiations, or to carry on hostilities, as well as the characters of the princes, ministers, and leading statesmen, who preside over their affairs. He ought to know the forms of business and usages of state in all matters concerning the supreme government, and the proceedings of parliamentary bodies, where any such exist; and to have improved this knowledge by a long personal experience. Inasmuch as he is often unexpectedly called on to judge upon the most heterogeneous subjects, he ought to know the best and most usual means of obtaining special advice and information. He ought to be able, in such cases, to rely on the judgment of competent authorities in the respective departments, and to act confidently upon the opinion of others, through a knowledge of their moral and intellectual fitness to guide him. Hence, the capacity of selecting fit instruments, and of making good appointments, is eminently characteristic of a person at the head of a government. In addition to these qualifications, he ought to possess a competent knowledge of the history of his country, and of the working of its constitution; he ought to be acquainted, generally, with its legal system, and to understand the principles of the law of nations and of political and economical science. These several qualifications necessarily comprehend a wide field-inasmuch as it is a field co-extensive with the entire functions of a sovereign government, the essence of which is, that it is capable of including every subject. Nevertheless, if taken together, they present a definite idea, and serve to designate a mental training, which is so far special, that it is peculiar to this department of practice. 87 The politician, in taking any practical problem in hand, may further often derive useful and luminous suggestions from the analogies of medical practice. The practice of medicine, though subject to great uncertainty, has nevertheless been reduced into the form of an art, and is provided with a system of rules, which are constantly verified or corrected by the test of experience. Now the methods of the therapeutic art, which the physician applies to the treatment of the body natural, may often be applied, with the requisite adaptations, to the treatment of the body politic.(13) These analogies are necessarily limited to cases where some positive ill is either to be prevented or removed. They do not extend to those departments of political practice which consist in making the good better. In the first place, then, it is a sound maxim of political, not less than of medical, therapeutics, (4) that all specifics for a malady are suspicious, while panaceas are to be absolutely rejected. The physician is taught that he must not only understand the general nature of diseases, but that he must study the peculiarities of his patient's case, both as respects the origin and symptoms of his malady, and also his constitution and state of body. His remedies are to be applied so as to remove the cause of the disease, and restore the patient to health; for which purpose he is to observe the symptoms, and hence to form his plan of treatment. The circumstances in the patient's condition to which rational medicine looks, and from which plans of (13) On the analogy between the methods of political and medical art, see Zachariä vom Staate, vol. i. p. 174-8. An argument is derived from this analogy by Machiavel, Disc. iii. 1. (14) See Gregory's Conspectus Medicina Theoretica, c. 24, where the general principles of therapeutics are collected. treatment can be properly drawn, are described as being four in number: 1, very remote causes, which only predispose the body to disease; 2, remote exciting causes, which induce the disease; 3, the proximate cause; 4, the signs or symptoms of the disease, and the different states of the patient.(1) These maxims may be transferred, with little alteration, to the conduct of the politician. When a political evil exists, he must examine its causes and symptoms, and form his plan of treatment accordingly; he must distinguish the predisposing causes from the positive direct causes which lead to it, and these, again, from the occasion, or accidental cause, from which it immediately springs. He must likewise observe the effects which are symptomatic of its operation. Thus, if an insurrection or popular disturbance occurs in any country, its outbreak at the particular time and place may be owing to some casual occurrence, of little moment in itself. This, however, is the immediate exciting cause. The disposition to disturbance may further be owing to some special causes of local mal-administration; for example, to some tax, or other fiscal burden, to which the people are subject. These may be the remote exciting causes. Lastly, there may be a certain state of the people, with respect to their ignorance, the relations of social classes, their historical recollections, or some similar permanent phenomena, which may predispose them to violent outbreaks. When the disturbance has occurred, it will produce certain consequences, symptomatic of its influence, which the practical politician must carefully watch. The physician is further informed that his cure must be accommodated to the state of each patient;(16) that he must attend to experience, (') and watch the results of his treatment as it proceeds. Sometimes his plan of treatment may be borrowed from the feelings and desires of the patient: he may (15) Gregory, ib. par. 959. (16) Curatio omnis accommodari debet singulari uniuscunque ægri conditioni.'-Gregory, ib. par. 962. (17) Tantum prodest scientia medica, quantum ad bona remedia bonamque curationem perducat; neque profecto aut leges philosophandi, aut quidem sensus communis, sinunt fidem adhibere ulli ratiocinationi, utcunque speciosa, cui experientia adversatur.'-Th. par. 964. prescribe the remedy which the patient wishes, simply because he wishes it.(18) This mode of treatment must often be pursued by the statesman, even in cases where his own judgment would prescribe a different course, because a community who are the subjects of his care are not so willing to submit to a treatment prescribed by the advice of others, and repugnant to their own wishes, as a patient who calls in the assistance of a physician. The It is likewise laid down in medical therapeutics, that different diseases, requiring different treatments, may co-exist in the same patient. The symptoms of the case may, indeed, co-indicate the same treatment; on the other hand, they may contraindicate, or point to opposite treatments. In the latter case, the most urgent symptom must first receive attention. co-existence of different evils, requiring different remedies, and even opposite modes of treatment, is of perpetual occurrence in politics, and gives rise to practical difficulties similar to those in medicine. Sometimes, indeed, these morbid appearances are common effects of the same cause, acting for a long time, and producing various results. It may be said generally, in politics as in medicine, that a symptomatic treatment is defective, and that an attempt should be made to remove the cause of the disease.(1) In proportion, however, as the case is complicated, the treatment must be symptomatic; where the disease is aggravated, and the evils to be removed are numerous and deep-seated, the symptoms must be dealt with as they occur, and be subjected to mitigating and palliative remedies. It is a characteristic difficulty, both of medical and political therapeutics, to discriminate between the cases which require a symptomatic or palliative, and those which require a curative or causal treatment.(29) In some cases, a (18) Ib. par. 960, 961. (19) 'Sæpe enim nullis aut tolli aut sublevari potest remediis molestissimum morbi signum, nisi prius sublata fuerit ejus morbi causa.'—1b. par. 970. (20) Nec major aut frequentior fere in arte medicâ reperitur difficultas, quam ut sciat clinicus quando et quousque mitiganda sint molestiora morbi signa, posthabitâ generali curatione mali, quæ sublatis ipsius causis absolvi debet.'-Ib. par. 971. symptomatic treatment is obviously necessary before a causal treatment can be adopted. Thus, if stupor is produced by a dis tension of the bloodvessels of the head, the physician must attempt to mitigate the symptom, before he could use any measures for restoring the general circulation to a healthy state. So, if a population is starving from want of food, the practical politician must attempt to relieve the starvation, before he can resort to general measures for preventing the recurrence of famines, by improving the agriculture and economical relations of the people, and infusing into them better habits of industry and forethought. Or, if violence is used by bodies of men, for the purpose of punishing the engrossers of corn during high prices, or of destroying machinery, these disturbances must be quelled, and their effects redressed, before any means can be taken for removing the ignorance and misapprehension out of which such movements arise. In cases such as these, the symptom must be mitigated before the cause can be extirpated; but it sometimes happens, where the symptom is less urgent, that time is merely lost by ineffectual attempts to mitigate the signs and effects of the malady, when, by a bold and decisive stroke, its cause might have been at once removed, and the source of the mischief have been cut off. On the other hand, where the evil may ultimately be cured, though the cure may be slow, a temporizing and palliating policy may be effectual in restoring health, when an attempt to remove the cause instantly would have necessitated a resort to the surgical knife, and the sacrifice of a limb.(21) With respect, indeed, to time, in the practice both of the politician and the physician, it may be remarked, that an early perception of the existence of any mischief, and promptitude in (21) 'Cum furor in cursu est, currenti cede furori. Ovid. Rem. Am. 119-26. |