NATURE AND LIMITS OF SCIENCE OF POLITICS. 727 



of any particular Government, and the more complicated and extensive 

 its essential mechanism, the more opportunity there is for the exhibi- 

 tion of personal or, at the most, of local self-seeking. So far as this 

 prevails, Politics becomes degraded into a mere vulgar struggle for 

 money, office, or power. All actual reference to scientific considera- 

 tions is excluded. The tone of public thought and sentiment becomes 

 proportionately infected, and all the claims which might otherwise be 

 asserted on behalf of Politics to take its place, by the side of other 

 sciences dealing with such moral elements as the human Will meet 

 with a skeptical repudiation. 



Where free representative institutions are not found, and absolu- 

 tism of one type or another prevails, the way is more open for a 

 deliberate choice of the policy to be pursued in any sudden emer- 

 gency. Such a case has presented itself, again and again, on the 

 occurrence of famines in British India. Could such a casualty occur 

 without being long foreseen in a country enjoying a popular constitu- 

 tion, the question of remedies would be instantly debated in every 

 kind of public assembly, and by all the organs of public opinion, with 

 a ferment of party zeal which would daily gain in heat and vehemence, 

 and would impel statesmen to select with over-much precipitation be- 

 tween the limited number of remedial measures which enjoyed, for 

 one cause or another, the popular favor. 



The legislation demanded in the case of a failure of the potato- 

 crop in Ireland has more than once illustrated this position. One 

 party advocates the institution of public works, of a purely wasteful 

 or superfluous kind, on an enormous scale ; another is in favor of in- 

 discriminate out-door relief ; a third recommends, with the late Lord 

 George Bentinck, the construction at the public cost of railways, with 

 the purpose at once of employing labor on a large scale and of distrib- 

 uting food. However much a judicious statesman may be opposed to 

 all these views, yet for fear of being reduced to nullity, and of having 

 to give place to opponents, he can only connect his own name with, 

 and invite the adhesion of his followers to, what seems on the whole 

 the least objectionable of the popular alternatives. The utmost he 

 can do is to combine different courses in such a way as that some 

 special evil of one may neutralize some greater evil of another, and to 

 introduce modifications which may escape general attention, but which 

 none the less go some way, at least, to qualify the mischievous opera- 

 tion of the scheme, a professed adoption of which can not be evaded. 



It will depend, of course, very largely on the constitutional cir- 

 cumstances of the country how far, even in the case of a pressing 

 emergency, the art of Politics may be made to comply with the re- 

 quirements of scientifically ascertained laws. Where a large and 

 promiscuous population has to be satisfied or must be appealed to by 

 statesmen for political support, the measures must be instantly intelli- 



