“Certainly they would be difficult to govern.”
“Would it be a gain in pleasure to the rest of the inhabitants or to themselves?”
“It would not be a gain to themselves,” said the clerk, recalling the pain which his companion bore, “but it might be good for the rest of the inhabitants.”
“Yes,” said the chief councillor, “that is where his strength lies; he is a very skilful physician or an impostor, and he has the people on his side from the cures he has effected. Can you tell me anything about his life?”
“I have heard from him that he was a student, and was exiled; and that in his place of exile he found out the new doctrines, and he left the place he was sentenced to. On his way I joined him.”
“So much we know, and it is within our power, according to the regulations, to compel him to go back, and to punish him for having left the region he was banished to.”
“If you have that power, why do you not send him back if you think it would be best for the state for him to disappear?”
“Ah, my good friend, you have heard a great deal of our public deliberations from your place in the council; but now that we are consulting together, I must tell you that there are deeper secrets in the art of government, which you will readily apprehend. Suppose we arrested this individual and sent him away, the people would not see the justice of it. They want him now, and they would say that the forms of law were being used to get rid of him. Of course if his partizans became violent something of this kind would have to be done. But it is only a decree that seems just in the eyes of the people that we can prudently carry out in such a case without attracting even more attention to him than there is at present.”
The clerk said nothing. The chief councillor went on:
“I am sorry that our conference has come to so little. I was hoping that I might have found in you a successor to the vacant seat in the chamber. I know you have the ability to fill it well. But before the advancements are made some proof of the wisdom of the successor is required. Hitherto you have not had the chance, but I thought that in this difficult case, where you have so much better opportunities of observation than any one else has, you might have shown your mental power and confirmed my opinion of you. Still, no doubt, on some future occasion you will have another opportunity when this affair, difficult as it is, is forgotten.”