; the Professors
appearing in my Judgment wholly out of their Senses; which is a Scene that never
fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy People were proposing Schemes for
persuading Monarchs to chuse Favourites upon the Score of their Wisdom, Capacity
and Virtue; of teaching Ministers to consult the publick Good; of rewarding
Merit, great Abilities, and eminent Services; of instructing Princes to know
their true Interest, by placing it on the same Foundation with that of their
People: Of chusing for Employments Persons qualified to exercise them; with many
other wild impossible Chimæras, that never entered before into the Heart of Man
to conceive; and confirmed in me the old Observation, that there is nothing so
extravagant and irrational which some Philosophers have not maintained for
Truth.
    But, however I shall so far do Justice to this Part of the Academy, as to
acknowledge that all of them were not so visionary. There was a most ingenious
Doctor who seemed to be perfectly versed in the whole Nature and System of
Government. This illustrious Person had very usefully employed his Studies in
finding out effectual Remedies for all Diseases and Corruptions, to which the
several Kinds of publick Administration are subject by the Vices or Infirmities
of those who govern, as well as by the Licentiousness of those who are to obey.
For Instance: Whereas all Writers and Reasoners have agreed, that there is a
strict universal Resemblance between the natural and the political Body; can
there be any thing more evident, than that the Health of both must be preserved,
and the Diseases cured by the same Prescriptions? It is allowed, that Senates
and great Councils are often troubled with redundant, ebullient, and other
peccant Humours; with many Diseases of the Head, and more of the Heart; with
strong Convulsions, with grievous Contractions of the Nerves and Sinews in both
Hands, but especially the Right: With Spleen, Flatus, Vertigoes and Deliriums;
with scrophulous Tumours full of foetid purulent Matter; with sower frothy
Ructations; with Canine Appetites and Crudeness of Digestion; besides many
others needless to mention. This Doctor therefore proposed, that upon the
meeting of a Senate, certain Physicians should attend at the three first Days of
their sitting, and at the Close of each Day's Debate, feel the Pulses of every
Senator; after which having maturely considered, and consulted upon the Nature
of the several Maladies, and the Methods of Cure; they should on the fourth Day
return to the Senate-House, attended by their Apothecaries stored with proper
Medicines; and before the Members sat, administer to each of them Lenitives,
Aperitives, Abstersives, Corrosives,
