Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/748

728 and not too far removed in their conception from the average ken of mankind as represented then and there. The ulterior objects proposed must not belong to a too distant future: the pursuit of them must not involve what seem to most people excessive or disproportionate sacrifices: they must easily and obviously connect themselves with the common wants and feelings of the many at the moment, rather than with the (seemingly) problematical aspirations of a few in the indefinite future.

The case is different where popular government has not yet established itself, and where, in consequence, none of the above obstacles, even at a critical juncture calling for the immediate intervention of the legislator or administrator, are presented. But the exemption of the statesman or ruler from the checks of popular control of a constitutional kind by no means insures a deference to purely scientific demands. Timidity, rashness, prejudice, personal rivalries, and the still less worthy influences of calculating self-interest or of a narrow ambition, dwarf and vitiate a policy not less surely than do the impediments due to popular ignorance and incompetence. The statesman, in the one case as in the other, is bound to act—and this too without delay; and, though a scientific resolution can not be excluded, yet, from one cause or another, the temptations to deviate to this or that side are numerous and urgent. There have indeed been statesmen who have so far impressed their own personality on their policy, and communicated their views and aspirations to the bulk of the governing population that, at special exigencies, the public confidence previously won has enabled them to dictate a course scarcely comprehended by the people at large. Such a position was occupied on certain occasions by Count Cavour in Italy, Presidents Lincoln and Grant in the United States, even to some extent by Prince Bismarck in Germany, to a still greater extent by M. Thiers in France, conspicuously by the Duke of Marlborough for a time in England, and in modern times by Sir R. Peel, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone.

So also in Governments not controlled by representative institutions—such as those of almost all the States of Europe except England, up to very recent days—there have always been found exceptional rulers who, in spite of all temptations to indulge selfish prepossessions in favor of ease or aggrandizement, have availed themselves of the peculiar felicity of their situation to pursue a consistent and far-sighted policy, undisturbed by all casual occurrences or misadventures. To this class have belonged many well-known administrators of British India and of the Crown Colonies of Great Britain, as well as certain absolute sovereigns in ancient and modern times.

It appears, then, that not only does the imminent necessity for immediate action present serious obstacles to the pursuit of a policy founded on the teachings of critical observation and a wide-reaching