A body politic is a metaphor in which a nation is considered
to be a corporate entity, being likened to a human body. The word
"politic" in this phrase is a postpositive adjective; so it is
"a body of a politic nature" rather than "a politic of a bodily
nature". A body politic comprises all the people in a particular country
considered as a single group.
The analogy is typically continued by reference
to the apex of government as the head of state, but may be extended to other anatomical
parts, as in political readings of the Aesop's fable, "The Belly and the
Members". The metaphor also appears in the French language as the
corps-état. The metaphor developed in Renaissance times, as the medical
knowledge based upon the classical work of Galen was being challenged by new
thinkers such as William Harvey. Analogies were made between the supposed
causes of disease and disorder and their equivalents in the political field
which were considered to be plagues or infections which might be remedied by
purges and nostrums.
