ny, he
realized very clearly how much of unfortunate influence the political
status of the German people, with their many petty rulers and the
hampering of development consequent upon the trivial rivalries, the
constant bickerings, and the inordinate jealousies of these numerous
princelings, had upon his native country. Accordingly, towards the end
of his life he sketched what he thought would be the ideal political
status for the German people. As in everything that he wrote, he went
straight to the heart of the matter and, without mincing words, stated
just exactly what he thought ought to be done. Considering that this
scheme of Cusanus for the prosperity and right government of the German
people was not accomplished until more than four centuries after his
death, it is interesting, indeed, to realize how this clergyman of the
middle of the fifteenth century should have come to any such thought.
Nothing, however, makes it clearer than this, that it is not time that
fosters thinking, but that great men at any time come to great thoughts.
Cusanus wrote:

"The law and the kingdom should be placed under the protection
of a single ruler or authority. The small separate governments
of princes and counts consume a disproportionately large
amount of revenue without furnishing any real security. For
this reason we must have a single government, and for its
support we must have a definite amount of the income from
taxes and revenues yearly set aside by a representative
parliament and before this parliament (reichstag) must be
given every year a definite account of the money that was
spent during the preceding year."

Cusanus' life and work stand, then, as a type of the accomplishment, the
opportunities, the power of thought, the practical scholarship, the
mathematical accuracy, the fine scientific foresight of a scholar of
the fifteenth century. For us, in medicine, it is interesting indeed to
realize that it is from a man of this kind that a great new departure in
medicine with regard to the employment of exact methods of diagnosis had
its first suggestion in modern times. The origin of that suggestion is
typical. It has practically always been true that it was not the man who
had exhausted, or thought that he had done so, all previous medical
knowledge, who made advances in medicine for us. It has nearly always
been a young man early in his career, and at a time when, as ye