330 



GOUTWEED 



GOVERNMENT 



careful avoidance of most of the common dissipa- 

 tions of youth. That the disease may be warded 

 oft' in this way there is ample evidence ; and it is 

 not less certain that there is no other way of living 

 secure from gout. The treatment of the fit, in so 

 far as it does not resolve itself into the celebrated 

 prescription of 'patience and flannel,' must be a 

 subject of medical prescription. Blisters, leeches, 

 and especially cold applications, though they may 

 give temporary relief, are studiously to be avoided ; 

 the last sometimes even lead to a fatal result. The 

 well-known virtues of Colchicum (q.v. ) are perhaps' 

 somewhat overrated by the public ; and its dangers 

 are not less striking than its virtues. It is certain, 

 however, that in cautious medical hands colchicum 

 is a remedy of great value in the gouty paroxysm ; 

 and of equal value perhaps are certain natural 

 mineral waters, as those of Vichy and Carlsbad. 

 Alkalies and their salts, especially potash and lithia 

 waters, as prepared artificially, with minute doses 

 of iodine and bromine, have likewise been much 

 recommended for the cure of gouty deposits. For 

 the distinctions of gout and rheumatism, and the 

 presumed relation between them in some cases, see 

 RHEUMATISM. See Sir Dyce Duckworth's Treatise 

 on Gout (1889). 



Goutweed. See BISHOPWEED. 



Govan, a police-burgh (since 1864) of Lanark 

 and Renfrew shires, on the south bank of the 

 Clyde, outside the municipal boundaries of Glasgow, 

 and about 3 miles west of its centre, but connected 

 with the city by continuous rows of buildings. Its 

 leading industry is shipbuilding. Govan Park, 40 

 acres in extent, was gifted in 1885 by Mrs Elder, at 

 a cost of 50,000. Pop. ( 1 836 ) 2122 ; ( 1871 ) 19,200 ; 

 (1881)50,492; (1891)61,364. 



Government. The term 'government' signi- 

 fies the administration of the public affairs of a 

 community ; in a secondary sense it denotes the 

 persons to whom that administration is committed, 

 or a select number of such persons in whom the 

 principal powers of management are vested. The 

 domain of government extends in theory over the 

 whole legislative and administrative business of 

 the country at home and abroad ; but some depart- 

 ments of our domestic affairs, such as the adminis- 

 tration of justice and the business of the perma- 

 nent civil service, are not treated in practice as 

 matters of government. According to the various 

 uses of the term, we speak of our constitutional 

 government or our system of government by party, 

 or the policy of a particular government, and we 

 draw a distinction, when necessary, between the 

 principal and the subordinate members of the 

 government of the day. There is a distinction in 

 kind between the administration of public affairs 

 and the management of any private concern ; but 

 we speak metaphorically or the domestic govern- 

 ment of a household ; or, with a nearer approach to 

 correctness, of the self-government of municipali- 

 ties and other civil districts in regard to their local 

 aftairs. There may also be small and imperfectly 

 developed communities, whether carried on under 

 a patriarchal rule or under the form of a village- 

 community, or in some other rudimentary form of 

 society, to which it would be difficult to apply the 

 terms of the art or practice of government with 

 anything like exactness. In the case of an ordinary 

 independent state the sphere of government in- 

 cludes the administration of public affairs at home 

 and the intercourse of t,he community with foreign 

 nations. These functions may be separated and 

 modified, as when a state forms part of a federal 

 union or confederation or combination of states, in 

 which the component communities have divested 

 themselves of some portions of their sovereign 

 power in favour of a central or combined authority, 



to which certain kinds of public affairs have been 

 delegated. The same remarks apply to dependent 

 and semi-independent states, including such as 

 have been brought under an empire, or have been 

 mediatised, or neutralised, or in any other way 

 have come under the protection or management of 

 a superior power or combination of powers. In 

 colonies the local authorities may be entitled to 

 exercise the rights of government almost as freely 

 as in the case of a protected state, subject only to 

 the reserved rights of the mother-country and the 

 supreme dominion of the home-government, if the 

 necessity for its exercise should occur. There is 

 indeed hardly any limit to the modes in which the 

 relations between superior and subordinate com- 

 munities may be constituted in matters of govern- 

 ment, subject to the observation that the rights 

 conferred on the inferior power may be so great 

 that they practically amount to independence, or 

 may be so closely "bound that they give hardly 

 more than the benefits of municipal self-govern- 

 ment. 



The origin of government may be found in the 

 social instincts of mankind. As soon as a com- 

 munity attains to great numbers, or a large extent 

 of territory, some form of regular authority will 

 be required and will necessarily be established. 

 Plato is accused of having seen no difference in 

 kind between a large household and a small state. 

 Aristotle, or the Aristotelian author of the Politics, 

 conceived the state as being ' prior to the indi- 

 vidual,' in the sense that it is the true object of 

 the social instinct implanted in all men, and only 

 requiring the legislator's wisdom to bring it to 

 perfection. Every community is established with 

 a view to some good end, and the state (which 

 embraces all other communities) must have been 

 established with the object of attaining the highest 

 good. This theory is nearly identical with the 

 modern opinions, in which a distinction has been 

 made without much real difference, that the state 

 was founded with the object of obtaining the 

 greatest happiness of the greatest number, and 

 that governments are intended to fulfil the higher 

 aspirations of humanity. Many other theories of 

 government have been advanced according to the 

 varying circumstances of different times. It was 

 found convenient in one age to secure a respect for 

 authority by an appeal to the divine right of 

 kings ; at another time thinkers have been content 

 to find the principles of government in following 

 the momentary wish of the majority. Hobbes 

 solved the difficulty by a new and arbitrary dogma. 

 Mankind, according to his view, seeking refuge 

 from the dangers of a state of nature, were led, not 

 by any social instinct, but by motives of fear and 

 prudence, to enter into a solemn compact by which 

 they finally renounced the freedom which belonged 

 to the individual man. The compact having once 

 been made, the state becomes the 'Leviathan,' or 

 all-powerful being, to whom absolute and unchang- 

 ing obedience is due. Locke and many later 

 writers took up the idea of a social contract as a 

 convenient image for describing the combined 

 action of mankind, but guarded their position by 

 declaring that the compact might at any time be 

 altered or reversed. 



We may leave these barren speculations as to 

 the origin of government with the remark that, 

 according to the more modern opinion, such 

 questions can only be solved, if at all, by the 

 methods of comparative history. It is of more 

 importance to inquire as to what are the essential 

 characteristics of government in the political 

 sense of the term. In the consideration of this 

 part of the subject the mere forms of govern- 

 ment may be disregarded. The correct answer to 

 the problem seems to be that government, in 



