anch of our science, which we may call the _Biology of
Politics_, shows how absolute is the domain of law in polemical matters.
The law of human life is that men are born, grow, become strong and
vigorous, and then decay and die. This is the law of life, to which we
must all yield an enforced obedience. This same law is observed to be at
work in the heavenly bodies; and astronomy shows us that planets are
born, flourish, and at length die, just as our human bodies do. The moon
is, as you may have observed, a dead planet, such as our earth may be
some day. The same growth and decay are also manifest in national life.
First, there is the birth of the nation, which sometimes lies a long
time in a dormant state, and then wakes up to life and energy. China and
Russia are examples of dormant States, just waking from a long sleep of
childishness and ignorance. The next stage is the strong an healthy
period of its existence, which England is at present enjoying; and then,
after various stages of gradual decline, we come to the senile period of
national life, when every energy and faculty, every national feeling and
power of invention, are completely exhausted. As an example of this
depressing condition, we may mention Turkey and several of the effete
States of South America. Sometimes, when life is nearly extinct in the
human body, physicians have made use of the power of galvanism, in order
to revive the dying energies. This process of galvanizing a State into
life was tried by Lord Palmerston and others on the worn-out frame of
Turkey. But such attempts can only meet with partial and transitory
success; and where the loss of national power and faculty betokens the
senile period of the nation's existence, it is vain to attempt to
restore its former life and energy. The study of the biology of
politics presents many interesting and important details in this special
branch of knowledge; and I commend this part of our subject to the
special attention of the professor of physiology. The law of development
is observable in nations as in nature. Recent scientific discoveries
have tended to take away all ideas of _chance_ in the workings of
nature, and have substituted _law_ instead of it. It would be
unscientific and incorrect to speak of the world being formed by the
'fortuitous concourse of atoms.' So we cannot speak of a State being
generated in this manner. Laws--economical, geographical,
natural--preside over the formation of Sta