British statesmen [antikvár]

MIDDLE TEMPLE HALL, 1738WHERE MANY BRITISH STATESMEN HAVE RECEIVED THEIR TRAINING IN THE LAWOil painting by Joseph NicholsIWHAT is a statesman ? The question is easily asked, but not so easily answered. Perhaps the best way of casting about for an answer is to attempt a distinction between the statesman and the politician. Etymologically, there is no great reason for separating the two terms. The one term came from the Latin language, the other from the Greek ; and if either of them carried from its original fountain a purer significance than the other, it was the Greek term " politician." To Aristotle " the politic man " was the highest type of statesman : a man with the power of directing public affairs in a " polis," or city, composed of free and equal members a man who had been a subject before he became a ruler, and thus understood the art of being a subject as well as the art of ruling : a man, accordingly, who bore his high office with modesty and offered a shining foil to " the despotic