EDITOR'S TABLE. 



849 



tics, and favor and foster states of mind 

 that exclude all considerations of a sci- 

 entific nature. This may be an unpal- 

 atable conclusion, but unpalatable con- 

 clusions are often true. We have to 

 face the disagreeable fact that it is under 

 the most liberal and perfected political 

 institutions, so called, that the incal- 

 culable element of personal caprice in 

 political affairs comes into greatest as- 

 cendency. "We speak of kingly rule as 

 the type of personal government, but 

 personal government is only seen in its 

 highest power and effect where each 

 citizen has become a sovereign. It is 

 only where the self-seeking of the sin- 

 gle monarch is multiplied by millions 

 in a nation of potential office-holders, 

 that the selfishness of personal politics 

 rises to its maximum influence. It is 

 only in a country where everybody is 

 eligible to office, where the incentives 

 to office-seeking are universal, where 

 politics has become such a national pas- 

 sion that the whole scheme of public 

 education is subordinated to it, that 

 personal aspirations and the interests 

 of selfish ambition will dominate unre- 

 stricted in the management of public 

 affairs. And it is undeniable that poli- 

 tics with us is coming to be more and 

 more a business, a vocation to be pur- 

 sued for profit and emolument by suc- 

 cessful office-seeking. Under such a 

 system the winning politician will not 

 be the man of intelligence, deliberation, 

 and principle, but the man skilled in 

 all the low arts which will insure po- 

 litical success. He will be the shrewd- 

 est operator of the partisan mob. Noth- 

 ing is more notorious than that under 

 the working of our popular political 

 institutions, the best men go to the 

 wall, and the worst men come to the 

 front. By the very conditions of the 

 case, it is the crafty operators, the long- 

 headed managers, caucus manipulators, 

 party intriguers, and brazen, indefati- 

 gable demagogues, who secure the of- 

 fices. From the General Government 

 down through all the ramifications of 

 vol. xxii. 54 



legislation and administration to the 

 petty town officials, the places are fill- 

 ed by partisan professionals, so that 

 the first presumption in regard to an 

 office-holder is that he is unfit for 

 the place. And such is the extent of 

 this field, and the intensity of the com- 

 petition in it, that the preparation for 

 it is of the most absorbing nature, so as 

 to afford a virtual guarantee that the 

 incumbents of office will be profoundly 

 ignorant of all that it is most important 

 for them to know. These are of course 

 not the men to appreciate the scientifie 

 elements and aspects of governmental 

 affairs. Such considerations are not 

 available for their purposes. Every- 

 thing like statesmanship, the forecast 

 of distant consequences in government 

 policy, will be excluded from their 

 minds by the pressure of immediate 

 interests, the advancement of personal 

 projects, and the achievement of po- 

 litical success in accordance with cur- 

 rent ideas. The politician looks out 

 first for himself, and all his study is to 

 get a better thing than he already has. 

 Only the one at the top can get no 

 higher, and his soul is devoured by the 

 ambition to be re-elected By the very 

 instinct of the situation, which involves 

 calculations of immediate effect, the pol- 

 itician will be comparatively indifferent 

 to all those slow-working agencies which 

 yield enduring results of the highest 

 value, and which it is the great object 

 of science to elucidate, and of genuine 

 statesmanship to recognize in govern- 

 ment policy. 



In dealing with the hindrances to 

 the due consideration of a science of 

 politics, the author of the work referred 

 to remarks as follows upon the adverse 

 tendencies which are to be met with 

 even under the best governments: 



The topic is naturally relegated to the 

 region of caprice and accident, or to that of 

 tentative experiment and spasmodic contriv- 

 ance. This intellectual consequence is in- 

 tensified by the fact that all governments 

 and not least those known at the present day 

 as the freest, and, on the whole, the sound- 



