FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 331 



to the resistance of subjects, and the very impolite indifference with 

 which he speaks of cutting off kings' heads strokes of jacobinism 

 which could scarcely have been expected from the always slovenly 

 dressed doctor there is the strange absurdity of considering it as the 

 same thing whether " evils" are prevented, or are redressed after 

 they had been felt. Let us apply the same mode of arguing to a 

 more familiar case. " When I assert that it is no matter what regi- 

 men a man keeps, I consider, that if he eats or drinks too much, he 

 will make himself sick, or will be obliged to fast or take physic. 

 There is in the human constitution a remedial power, which, after a 

 certain process of suffering, will bring the machine right again." 



The exactness of this parallel cannot, I think, be disputed ; and, if 

 the maxim be false and absurd in the latter case, it must be the same 

 in the former. The government of a state, like the regimen of the 

 human body, is intended to prevent disorders, and preclude the 

 necessity of painful and dangerous remedies, which in themselves 

 are as much an evil as the diseases they are meant to cure. Though 

 the loyal James Howell, the letter-writer, said, coolly enough, after 

 the execution of Charles I., " I will attend with patience how 

 England will thrive, now thus she is let blood in the basilical vein, 

 and cured, as they say, of the king's evil ;" yet a man less loyal in 

 principle might regret the severity of the treatment, and wish that 

 a better balance of power at that period had rendered it unnecessary. 

 Mr. Pope, indeed, seems to encourage the same indifference to 

 political systems in his noted couplet, 



" For forms of government, let fools contest, 

 Whatever is best administered is best :" 



but his commentator, who justly observes that these lines, if so 

 understood, oppose his own express preceding words, contends that 

 therefore their meaning must be different ; though it does not 

 clearly appear what else they can mean. Doubtless the government 

 that is best administered, i. e. most for the substantial happiness of 

 the people, is best; I would have the people free free 'as the 

 birds of air ! but the question recurs, what kind of government is 

 most likely to be so administered? and surely all forms are not of 

 the same tendency in this respect. 



The position of the sagacious author of Rasselas is not less erro- 

 neous historically than logically. It is very far from being true that 

 " oppressed people" have always risen against their tyrants, and 

 still further that their insurrections have been successful. The 

 records of mankind rather exhibit a perpetual succession of 

 oppressions, some of whom indeed have revenged upon their 

 predecessors the evils they inflicted, but without any permanent 

 amelioration of the lot of the governed. If we look upon maritime 

 or continental Europe at the present day, and after upwards of six 

 thousand years of civil dissensions, what do we see but an acquies- 

 cence, nearly universal, in exercises of authority, so far from con- 

 ducing to the general good, that there is scarcely a point in which 

 they do not thwart private felicity. A neighbouring country worked 

 into the highest pitch of frenzy by long and too generally 



