This is an authorized facsimile of the original book, and was produced in1971 by microfilm-xerography by University Microfilms, A Xerox Company, AnnArbor, Michigan, U. S. A. 

AN ESSAY on the HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY. 

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BY ADAM FERGUSON, L. L. D. 

CONTENTS

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PART I. OF THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN NATURE. 

SECTION I. Of the question relating to the State of Nature

SECTION II. Of the principles of Self Preservation

SECTION III. Of the principles of Union among Mankind

SECTION IV. Of the principles of War and Dissention

SECTION V. Of Intellectual Powers

SECTION VI. Of Moral Sentiment

SECTION VII. Of Happiness

SECTION VIII. The same subject continued

SECTION IX. Of National Felicity

SECTION X. The same subject continued

PART II. OF THE HISTORY OF RUDE NATIONS. 

SECTION I. Of the informations on this subject, which are derived fromAntiquity

SECTION II. Of Rude Nations prior to the Establishment of Property

SECTION III. Of rude Nations, under the impressions of Property andInterest

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PART III. OF THE HISTORY OF POLICY AND ARTS. 

SECTION I. Of the Influences of Climate and Situation

SECTION II. The History of Political Establishments

SECTION III. Of National Objects in general, and of Establishments andManners relating to them

SECTION IV. Of Population and Wealth

SECTION V. Of National Defence and Conquest

SECTION VI. Of Civil Liberty

SECTION VII. Of the History of Arts

SECTION VIII. Of the History of Literature

PART IV. OF CONSEQUENCES THAT RESULT FROM THE ADVANCEMENT OF CIVIL ANDCOMMERCIAL ARTS. 

SECTION I. Of the Separation of Arts and Professions

SECTION II. Of the Subordination consequent to the Separation of Arts andProfessions

SECTION III. Of the Manners of Polished and Commercial Nations

SECTION IV. The same subject continued

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PART V. OF THE DECLINE OF NATIONS. 

SECTION I. Of supposed National Eminence, and of the Vicissitudes of HumanAffairs

SECTION II. Of the Temporary Efforts and Relaxations of the National Spirit

SECTION III. Of Relaxations in the National Spirit incident to PolishedNations

SECTION IV. The same subject continued

SECTION V. Of National Waste

PART VI. OF CORRUPTION AND POLITICAL SLAVERY. 

SECTION I. Of corruption in general

SECTION II. Of Luxury

SECTION III. Of the Corruption incident to Polished Nations

SECTION IV. The same subject continued

SECTION V. Of Corruption, as it tends to Political Slavery

SECTION VI. Of the Progress and Termination of Despotism

AN ESSAY

ON THE

HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY. 

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PART FIRST. 

OF THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN NATURE. 

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SECTION I. 

OF THE QUESTION RELATING TO THE STATE OF NATURE. 

Natural productions are generally formed by degrees. Vegetables are raisedfrom a tender shoot, and animals from an infant state. The latter, beingactive, extend together their operations and their powers, and have aprogress in what they perform, as well as in the faculties they acquire. This progress in the case of man is continued to a greater extent than inthat of any other animal. Not only the individual advances from infancy tomanhood, but the species itself from rudeness to civilization. Hence thesupposed departure of mankind from the state of their nature; hence ourconjectures and different opinions of what man must have been in the firstage of his being. The poet, the historian, and the moralist frequentlyallude to this ancient time; and under the emblems of gold, or of iron, represent a condition, and a manner of life, from which mankind have eitherdegenerated, or on which they have greatly improved. On either supposition, the first state of our nature must have borne no resemblance to what menhave exhibited in any subsequent period; historical monuments, even of theearliest date, are to be considered as novelties; and the most commonestablishments of human society are to be classed among the encroachmentswhich fraud, oppression, or a busy invention, have made upon the reign ofnature, by which the chief of our grievances or blessings were equallywithheld. 

Among the writers who have attempted to distinguish, in the humancharacter, its original qualities, and to point out the limits betweennature and art, some have represented mankind in their first condition, aspossessed of mere animal sensibility, without any exercise of the facultiesthat render them superior to the brutes, without any political union, without any means of explaining their sentiments, and even withoutpossessing any of the apprehensions and passions which the voice and thegesture are so well fitted to express. Others have made the state of natureto consist in perpetual wars kindled by competition for dominion andinterest, where every individual had a separate quarrel with his kind, andwhere the presence of a fellow creature was the signal of battle. 

The desire of laying the foundation of a favourite system, or a fondexpectation, perhaps, that we may be able to penetrate the secrets ofnature, to the very source of existence, have, on this subject, led to manyfruitless inquiries, and given rise to many wild suppositions. Among thevarious qualities which mankind possess, we select one or a few particularson which to establish a theory, and in framing our account of what man wasin some imaginary state of nature, we overlook what he has always appearedwithin the reach of our own observation, and in the records of history. 

In every other instance, however, the natural historian thinks himselfobliged to collect facts, not to offer conjectures. When he treats of anyparticular species of animals, he supposes that their present dispositionsand instincts are the same which they originally had, and that theirpresent manner of life is a continuance of their first destination. Headmits, that his knowledge of the material system of the world consists ina collection of facts, or at most, in general tenets derived fromparticular observations and experiments. It is only in what relates tohimself, and in matters the most important and the most easily known, thathe substitutes hypothesis instead of reality, and confounds the provincesof imagination and reason, of poetry and science. 

But without entering any further on questions either in moral or physicalsubjects, relating to the manner or to the origin of our knowledge; withoutany disparagement to that subtilty which would analyze every sentiment, andtrace every mode of being to its source; it may be safely affirmed, thatthe character of man, as he now exists, that the laws of his animal andintellectual system, on which his happiness now depends, deserve ourprincipal study; and that general principles relating to this or any othersubject, are useful only so far as they are founded on just observation, and lead to the knowledge of important consequences, or so far as theyenable us to act with success when we would apply either the intellectualor the physical powers of nature, to the purposes of human life. 

If both the earliest and the latest accounts collected from every quarterof the earth, represent mankind as assembled in troops and companies; andthe individual always joined by affection to one party, while he ispossibly opposed to another; employed in the exercise of recollection andforesight; inclined to communicate his own sentiments, and to be madeacquainted with those of others; these facts must be admitted as thefoundation of all our reasoning relative to man. His mixed disposition tofriendship or enmity, his reason, his use of language and articulatesounds, like the shape and the erect position of his body, are to beconsidered as so many attributes of his nature: they are to be retained inhis description, as the wing and the paw are in that of the eagle and thelion, and as different degrees of fierceness, vigilance, timidity, orspeed, have a place in the natural history of different animals. 

If the question be put, What the mind of man could perform, when left toitself, and without the aid of any foreign direction? we are to look forour answer in the history of mankind. Particular experiments which havebeen found so useful in establishing the principles of other sciences, could probably, on this subject, teach us nothing important, or new: we areto take the history of every active being from his conduct in the situationto which he is formed, not from his appearance in any forced or uncommoncondition; a wild man therefore, caught in the woods, where he had alwayslived apart from his species, is a singular instance, not a specimen of anygeneral character. As the anatomy of an eye which had never received theimpressions of light, or that of an ear which had never felt the impulse ofsounds, would probably exhibit defects in the very structure of the organsthemselves, arising from their not being applied to their proper functions;so any particular case of this sort would only show in what degree thepowers of apprehension and sentiment could exist where they had not beenemployed, and what would be the defects and imbecilities of a heart inwhich the emotions that arise in society had never been felt. 

Mankind are to be taken in groupes, as they, have always subsisted. Thehistory of the individual is but a detail of the sentiments and thethoughts he has entertained in the view of his species: and everyexperiment relative to this subject should be made with entire societies, not with single men. We have every reason, however, to believe, that in thecase of such an experiment made, we shall suppose, with a colony ofchildren transplanted from the nursery, and left to form a society apart, untaught, and undisciplined, we should only have the same things repeated, which, in so many different parts of the earth, have been transactedalready. The members of our little society would feed and sleep, would herdtogether and play, would have a language of their own, would quarrel anddivide, would be to one another the most important objects of the scene, and, in the ardour of their friendships and competitions, would overlooktheir personal danger, and suspend the care of their self-preservation. Hasnot the human race been planted like the colony in question? Who hasdirected their course? whose instruction have they heard? or whose examplehave they followed?

Nature, therefore, we shall presume, having given to every animal its modeof existence, its dispositions and manner of life, has dealt equally withthe human race; and the natural historian who would collect the propertiesof this species, may fill up every article now as well as he could havedone in any former age. The attainments of the parent do not descend in theblood of his children, nor is the progress of man to be considered as aphysical mutation of the species. The individual, in every age, has thesame race to run from infancy to manhood, and every infant, or ignorantperson, now, is a model of what man was in his original state. He enters onhis career with advantages peculiar to his age; but his natural talent isprobably the same. The use and application of this talent is changing, andmen continue their works in progression through many ages together: theybuild on foundations laid by their ancestors; and in a succession of years, tend to a perfection in the application of their faculties, to which theaid of long experience is required, and to which many generations must havecombined their endeavours. We observe the progress they have made; wedistinctly enumerate many of its steps; we can trace them back to a distantantiquity, of which no record remains, nor any monument is preserved, toinform us what were the openings of this wonderful scene. The consequenceis, that instead of attending to the character of our species, were theparticulars are vouched by the surest authority, we endeavour to trace itthrough ages and scenes unknown; and, instead of supposing that thebeginning of our story was nearly of a piece with the sequel, we thinkourselves warranted to reject every circumstance of our present conditionand frame, as adventitious, and foreign to our nature. The progress ofmankind, from a supposed state of animal sensibility, to the attainment ofreason, to the use of language, and to the habit of society, has beenaccordingly painted with a force of imagination, and its steps have beenmarked with a boldness of invention, that would tempt us to admit, amongthe materials of history, the suggestions of fancy, and to receive, perhaps, as the model of our nature in its original state, some of theanimals whose shape has the greatest resemblance to ours. [Footnote:_Rousseau_ sur l'origine de l'inegalité parmi les hommes. ]

It would be ridiculous to affirm, as a discovery, that the species of thehorse was probably never the same with that of the lion; yet, in oppositionto what has dropped from the pens of eminent writers, we are obliged toobserve, that men have always appeared among animals a distinct and asuperior race; that neither the possession of similar organs, nor theapproximation of shape, nor the use of the hand, [Footnote: Traité del'esprit. ] nor the continued intercourse with this sovereign artist, hasenabled any other species to blend their nature or their inventions withhis; that, in his rudest state, he is found to be above them; and in hisgreatest degeneracy, never descends to their level. He is, in short, a manin every condition; and we can learn nothing of his nature from the analogyof other animals. If we would know him, we must attend to himself, to thecourse of his life, and the tenor of his conduct. With him the societyappears to be as old as the individual, and the use of the tongue asuniversal as that of the hand or the foot. If there was a time in which hehad his acquaintance with his own species to make, and his faculties toacquire, it is a time of which we have no record, and in relation to whichour opinions can serve no purpose, and are supported by no evidence. 

We are often tempted into these boundless regions of ignorance orconjecture, by a fancy which delights in creating rather than in merelyretaining the forms which are presented before it: we are the dupes of asubtilty, which promises to supply every defect of our knowledge, and, byfilling up a few blanks in the story of nature, pretends to conduct ourapprehension nearer to the source of existence. On the credit of a fewobservations, we are apt to presume, that the secret may soon be laid open, and that what is termed _wisdom_ in nature, may be referred to theoperation of physical powers. We forget that physical powers employed insuccession or together, and combined to a salutary purpose, constitutethose very proofs of design from which we infer the existence of God; andthat this truth being once admitted, we are no longer to search for thesource of existence; we can only collect the laws which the Author ofnature has established; and in our latest as well as our earliestdiscoveries, only perceive a mode of creation or providence before unknown. 

We speak of art as distinguished from nature; but art itself is natural toman. He is in some measure the artificer of his own frame, as well as ofhis fortune, and is destined, from the first age of his being, to inventand contrive. He applies the same talents to a variety of purposes, andacts nearly the same part in very different scenes. He would be alwaysimproving on his subject, and he carries this intention wherever he moves, through the streets of the populous city, or the wilds of the forest. Whilehe appears equally fitted to every condition, he is upon this accountunable to settle in any. At once obstinate and fickle, he complains ofinnovations, and is never sated with novelty. He is perpetually busied inreformations, and is continually wedded to his errors. If he dwells in acave, he would improve it into a cottage; if he has already built, he wouldstill build to a greater extent. But he does, not propose to make rapid andhasty transitions; his steps are progressive and slow; and his force, likethe power of a spring, silently presses on every resistance; an effect issometimes produced before the cause is perceived; and with all his talentfor projects, his work is often accomplished before the plan is devised. Itappears, perhaps, equally difficult to retard or to quicken his pace; ifthe projector complain he is tardy, the moralist thinks him unstable; andwhether his motions be rapid or slow, the scenes of human affairsperpetually change in his management: his emblem is a passing stream, not astagnating pool. We may desire to direct his love of improvement to itsproper object, we may wish for stability of conduct; but we mistake humannature, if we wish for a termination of labour, or a scene of repose. 

The occupations of men, in every condition, bespeak their freedom ofchoice, their various opinions, and the multiplicity of wants by which theyare urged: but they enjoy, or endure, with a sensibility, or a phlegm, which are nearly the same in every situation. They possess the shores ofthe Caspian, or the Atlantic, by a different tenure, but with equal ease. On the one they are fixed to the soil, and seem to be formed for, settlement, and the accommodation of cities: the names they bestow on anation, and on its territory, are the same. On the other they are mereanimals of passage, prepared to roam on the face of the earth, and withtheir herds, in search of new pasture and favourable seasons, to fallow thesun in his annual course. 

Man finds his lodgment alike in the cave, the cottage, and the palace; andhis subsistence equally in the woods, in the dairy, or the farm. He assumesthe distinction of titles, equipage, and dress; he devises regular systemsof government, and a complicated body of laws; or naked in the woods has nobadge of superiority but the strength of his limbs and the sagacity of hismind; no rule of conduct but choice; no tie with his fellow creatures butaffection, the love of company, and the desire of safety. Capable of agreat variety of arts, yet dependent on none in particular for thepreservation of his being; to whatever length he has carried his artifice, there he seems to enjoy the conveniences that suit his nature, and to havefound the condition to which he is destined. The tree which an American, onthe banks of the Oroonoko [Footnote: Lafitau, moeurs des sauvages. ], haschosen to climb for the retreat, and the lodgment of his family, is to hima convenient dwelling. The sopha, the vaulted dome, and the colonade, donot more effectually content their native inhabitant. 

If we are asked therefore, where the state of nature is to be found? we mayanswer, it is here; and it matters not whether we are understood to speakin the island of Great Britain, at the Cape of Good Hope, or the Straits ofMagellan. While this active being is in the train of employing his talents, and of operating on the subjects around him, all situations are equallynatural. If we are told, that vice, at least, is contrary to nature; we mayanswer, it is worse; it is folly and wretchedness. But if nature is onlyopposed to art, in what situation of the human race are the footsteps ofart unknown? In the condition of the savage, as well as in that of thecitizen, are many proofs of human invention; and in either is not anypermanent station, but a mere stage through which this' travelling being isdestined to pass. If the palace be unnatural, the cottage is so no less;and the highest refinements of political and moral apprehension, are notmore artificial in their kind, than the first operations of sentiment andreason. 

If we admit that man is susceptible of improvement, and has in himself aprinciple of progression, and a desire of perfection, it appears improperto say, that he has quitted the state of his nature, when he has begun toproceed; or that he finds a station for which he was not intended, while, like other animals, he only follows the disposition, and employs the powersthat nature has given. 

The latest efforts of human invention are but a continuation of certaindevices which were practised in the earliest ages of the world, and in therudest state of mankind. What the savage projects, or observes, in theforest, are the steps which led nations, more advanced, from thearchitecture of the cottage to that of the palace, and conducted the humanmind from the perceptions of sense, to the general conclusions of science. 

Acknowledged defects are to man in every condition matter of dislike. Ignorance and imbecility are objects of contempt: penetration and conductgive eminence and procure esteem. Whither should his feelings andapprehensions on these subjects lead him? To a progress, no doubt, in whichthe savage, as well as the philosopher, is engaged; in which they have madedifferent advances, but in which their ends are the same. The admirationwhich Cicero entertained for literature, eloquence, and civilaccomplishments, was not more real than that of a Scythian for such ameasure of similar endowments as his own apprehension could reach. "Were Ito boast, " says a Tartar prince, [Footnote: Abulgaze Bahadur Chan; Historyof the Tartars. ] "it would be of that wisdom I have received from God. For as, on the one hand, I yield to none in the conduct of war, in thedisposition of armies, whether of horse or of foot, and in directing themovements of great or small bodies; so, on the other, I have my talent inwriting, inferior perhaps only to those who inhabit the great cities ofPersia or India. Of other nations, unknown to me, I do not speak. "

Man may mistake the objects of his pursuit; he may misapply his industry, and misplace his improvements: If, under a sense of such possible errors, he would find a standard by which to judge of his own proceedings, andarrive at the best state of his nature, he cannot find it perhaps in thepractice of any individual; or of any nation whatever; not even in thesense of the majority, or the prevailing opinion of his kind. He must lookfor it in the best conceptions of his understanding, in the best movementsof his heart; he must thence discover what is the perfection and thehappiness of which he is capable. He will find, on the scrutiny, that theproper state of his nature, taken in this sense, is not a condition fromwhich mankind are for ever removed, but one to which they may now attain;not prior to the exercise of their faculties, but procured by their justapplication. 

Of all the terms that we employ in treating of human affairs, those of_natural_ and _unnatural_ are the least determinate in theirmeaning. Opposed to affectation, frowardness, or any other defect of thetemper or character, the natural is an epithet of praise; but employed tospecify a conduct which proceeds from the nature of man, can serve todistinguish nothing; for all the actions of men are equally the result oftheir nature. At most, this language can only refer to the general andprevailing sense or practice of mankind; and the purpose of every importantenquiry on this subject may be served by the use of a language equallyfamiliar and more precise. What is just, or unjust? What is happy orwretched, in the manners of men? What, in their various situations, isfavourable or adverse to their amiable qualities? are questions to which wemay expect a satisfactory answer; and whatever may have been the originalstate of our species, it is of more importance to know the condition towhich we ourselves should aspire, than that which our ancestors may besupposed to have left. 

SECTION II. 

OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF PRESERVATION. 

If in human nature there are qualities by which it is distinguished fromevery other part of the animal creation, this nature itself is in differentclimates and in different ages greatly diversified. The varieties merit ourattention, and the course of every stream into which this mighty currentdivides, deserves to be followed to its source. It appears necessary, however, that we attend to the universal qualities of our nature, before weregard its varieties, or attempt to explain differences consisting in theunequal possession or application of dispositions and powers that are insome measure common to all mankind. 

Man, like the other animals, has certain instinctive propensities, which;prior to the perception of pleasure or pain, and prior to the experience ofwhat is pernicious or useful, lead him to perform many functions whichterminate in himself, or have a relation to his fellow creatures. He hasone set of dispositions which tend to his animal preservation, and to thecontinuance of his race; another which lead to society, and by inlistinghim on the side of one tribe or community, frequently engage him in war andcontention with the rest of mankind. His powers of discernment, or hisintellectual faculties, which, under the appellation of _reason_, aredistinguished from the analogous endowments of other animals, refer to theobjects around him, either as they are subjects of mere knowledge, or asthey are subjects of approbation or censure. He is formed not only to know, but likewise to admire and to contemn; and these proceedings of his mindhave a principal reference to his own character, and to that of his fellowcreatures, as being the subjects on which he is chiefly concerned todistinguish what is right from what is wrong. He enjoys his felicitylikewise on certain fixed and determinate conditions; and either as anindividual apart, or as a member of civil society, must take a particularcourse, in order to reap the advantages of his nature. He is, withal, in avery high degree susceptible of habits; and can, by forbearance orexercise, so far weaken, confirm, or even diversify his talents, and hisdispositions, as to appear, in a great measure, the arbiter of his own rankin nature, and the author of all the varieties which are exhibited in theactual history of his species. The universal characteristics, in the meantime, to which we have now referred, must, when we would treat of any partof this history, constitute the first subject of our attention; and theyrequire not only to be enumerated, but to be distinctly considered. 

The dispositions which tend to the preservation of the individual, whilethey continue to operate in the manner of instinctive desires; are nearlythe same in man that they are in the other animals; but in him they aresooner or later combined with reflection and foresight; they give rise tohis apprehensions on the subject of property, and make him acquainted withthat object of care which he calls his interest. Without the instinctswhich teach the beaver and the squirrel, the ant and the bee, to make uptheir little hoards for winter, at first improvident, and where noimmediate object of passion is near, addicted to sloth, he becomes, inprocess of time, the great storemaster among animals. He finds in aprovision of wealth, which he is probably never to employ, an object of hisgreatest solicitude, and the principal idol of his mind. He apprehends arelation between his person and his property, which renders what he callshis own in a manner a part of himself, a constituent of his rank, hiscondition, and his character; in which, independent of any real enjoyment, he may be fortunate or unhappy; and, independent of any personal merit, hemay be an object of consideration or neglect; and in which he may bewounded and injured, while his person is safe, and every want of his natureis completely supplied. 

In these apprehensions, while other passions only operate occasionally, theinterested find the object of their ordinary cares; their motive to thepractice of mechanic and commercial arts; their temptation to trespass onthe laws of justice; and, when extremely corrupted, the price of theirprostitutions, and the standard of their opinions on the subject of goodand of evil. Under this influence, they would enter, if not restrained bythe laws of civil society, on a scene of violence or meanness, which wouldexhibit our species, by turns, under an aspect more terrible and odious, ormore vile and contemptible, than that of any animal which inherits theearth. 

Although the consideration of interest is founded on the experience ofanimal wants and desires, its object is not to gratify any particularappetite, but to secure the means of gratifying all; and it imposesfrequently a restraint on the very desires from which it arose, morepowerful and more severe than those of religion or duty. It arises from theprinciples of self preservation in the human frame; but is a corruption, orat least a partial result, of those principles, and is upon many accountsvery improperly termed _self-love_. 

Love is an affection which carries the attention of the mind beyond itself, and is the sense of a relation to some fellow creature as to its object. Being a complacency and a continued satisfaction in this object, it has, independent of any external event, and in the midst of disappointment andsorrow, pleasures and triumphs unknown to those who are guided by mereconsiderations of interest; in every change of condition, it continuesentirely distinct from the sentiments which we feel on the subject ofpersonal success or adversity. But as the care a man entertains for his owninterest, and the attention his affection makes him pay to that of another, may have similar effects, the one on his own fortune, the other on that ofhis friend, we confound the principles from which he acts; we suppose thatthey are the same in kind, only referred to different objects; and we notonly misapply the name of love, in conjunction with self, but, in a mannertending to degrade our nature, we limit the aim of this supposed selfishaffection to the securing or accumulating the constituents of interest, ofthe means of mere animal life. 

It is somewhat remarkable, that notwithstanding men value themselves somuch on qualities of the mind, on parts, learning, and wit, on courage, generosity, and honour, those men are still supposed to be in the highestdegree selfish or attentive to themselves, who are most careful of animallife, and who are least mindful of rendering that life an object worthy ofcare. It will be difficult, however, to tell why a good understanding, aresolute and generous mind, should not, by every man in his senses, bereckoned as much parts of himself, as either his stomach or his palate, andmuch more than his estate or his dress. The epicure, who consults hisphysician, how he may restore his relish for food, and, by creating anappetite, renew his enjoyment, might at least with an equal regard tohimself, consult how he might strengthen his affection to a parent or achild, to his country or to mankind; and it is probable that an appetite ofthis sort would prove a source of enjoyment not less than the former. 

By our supposed selfish maxims, notwithstanding, we generally exclude fromamong the objects of our personal cares, many of the happier and morerespectable qualities of human nature. We consider affection and courage asmere follies, that lead us to neglect, or expose ourselves; we make wisdomconsist in a regard to our interest; and without explaining what interestmeans, we would have it understood as the only reasonable motive of actionwith mankind. There is even a system of philosophy founded upon tenets ofthis sort, and such is our opinion of what men are likely to do uponselfish principles, that we think it must have a tendency very dangerous tovirtue. But the errors of this system do not consist so much in generalprinciples, as in their particular applications; not so much in teachingmen to regard themselves, as in leading them to forget, that their happiestaffections, their candour, and their independence of mind, are in realityparts of themselves. And the adversaries of this supposed selfishphilosophy, where it makes self-love the ruling passion with mankind, havehad reason to find fault, not so much with its general representations ofhuman nature, as with the obtrusion of a mere innovation in language for adiscovery in science. 

When the vulgar speak of their different motives, they are satisfied withordinary names, which refer to known and obvious distinctions. Of this kindare the terms _benevolence_ and _selfishness_, by the first ofwhich they express their friendly affections, and by the second theirinterest. The speculative are not always satisfied with this proceeding;they would analyze, as well as enumerate the principles of nature; and thechance is, that, merely to gain the appearance of something new, withoutany prospect of real advantage, they will attempt to change the applicationof words. In the case before us, they have actually found, that benevolenceis no more than a species of self-love; and would oblige us, if possible, to look out for a new set of names, by which we may distinguish theselfishness of the parent when he takes care of his child, from hisselfishness when he only takes care of himself. For, according to thisphilosophy, as in both cases he only means to gratify a desire of his own, he is in both cases equally selfish. The term _benevolent_, in themean time, is not employed to characterize persons who have no desires oftheir own, but persons whose own desires prompt them to procure the welfareof others. The fact is, that we should need only a fresh supply oflanguage, instead of that which by this seeming discovery we should havelost, in order to make our reasonings proceed as they formerly did. But itis certainly impossible to live and to act with men, without employingdifferent names to distinguish the humane from the cruel, and thebenevolent from the selfish. 

These terms have their equivalents in every tongue; they were invented bymen of no refinement, who only meant to express what they distinctlyperceived, or strongly felt. And if a man of speculation should prove, thatwe are selfish in a sense of his own, it does not follow that we are so inthe sense of the vulgar; or, as ordinary men would understand hisconclusion, that we are condemned in every instance to act on motives ofinterest, covetousness, pusillanimity, and cowardice; for such is conceivedto be the ordinary import of selfishness in the character of man. 

An affection or passion of any kind is sometimes said to give us aninterest in its object; and humanity itself gives an interest in thewelfare of mankind. This term _interest_, which commonly implieslittle more than our property, is sometimes put for utility in general, andthis for happiness; insomuch, that, under these ambiguities, it is notsurprising we are still unable to determine, whether interest is the onlymotive of human action, and the standard by which to distinguish our goodfrom our ill. 

So much is said in this place, not from a desire to partake in any suchcontroversy, but merely to confine the meaning of the term _interest_to its most common acceptation, and to intimate a design to employ it inexpressing those objects of care which refer to our external condition, andthe preservation of our animal nature. When taken in this sense, it willnot surely be thought to comprehend at once all the motives of humanconduct. If men be not allowed to have disinterested benevolence, they willnot be denied to have disinterested passions of another kind. Hatred, indignation, and rage, frequently urge them to act in opposition to theirknown interest, and even to hazard their lives, without any hopes ofcompensation in any future returns of preferment or profit. 

SECTION III. 

OF THE PRINCIPLES OF UNION AMONG MANKIND. 

Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed or quarrelled, in troopsand companies. The cause of their assembling, whatever it be, is theprinciple of their alliance or union. 

In collecting the materials of history, we are seldom willing to put upwith our subject merely as we find it. We are loth to be embarrassed with amultiplicity of particulars, and apparent inconsistencies. In theory weprofess the investigation of general principles; and in order to bring thematter of our inquiries within the reach of our comprehension, are disposedto adopt any system. Thus, in treating of human affairs, we would drawevery consequence from a principle of union, or a principle of dissention. The state of nature is a state of war, or of amity, and men are made tounite from a principle of affection, or from a principle of fear, as ismost suitable to the system of different writers. The history of ourspecies indeed abundantly shows, that they are to one another mutualobjects both of fear and of love; and they who would prove them to havebeen originally either in a state of alliance, or of war, have arguments instore to maintain their assertions. Our attachment to one division, or toone sect, seems often to derive much of its force from an animosityconceived to an opposite one: and this animosity in its turn, as oftenarises from a zeal in behalf of the side we espouse, and from a desire tovindicate the rights of our party. 

"Man is born in society, " says Montesquieu, "and there he remains. " Thecharms that detain him are known to be manifold. Together with the parentalaffection, which, instead of deserting the adult, as among the brutes, embraces more close, as it becomes mixed with esteem, and the memory of itsearly effects; we may reckon a propensity common to man and other animals, to mix with the herd, and, without reflection, to follow the crowd of hisspecies. What this propensity was in the first moment of its operation, weknow not; but with men accustomed to company, its enjoyments anddisappointments are reckoned among the principal pleasures or pains ofhuman life. Sadness and melancholy are connected with solitude; gladnessand pleasure with the concourse of men. The track of a Laplander on thesnowy shore, gives joy to the lonely mariner; and the mute signs ofcordiality and kindness which are made to him, awaken the memory ofpleasures which he felt in society. In fine, says the writer of a voyage tothe North, after describing a mute scene of this sort, "We were extremelypleased to converse with men, since in thirteen months we had seen no humancreature. " [Footnote: Collection of Dutch voyages. ]

But we need no remote observation to confirm this position: the wailings ofthe infant, and the languors of the adult, when alone; the lively joys ofthe one, and the cheerfulness of the other, upon the return of company, area sufficient proof of its solid foundations in the frame of our nature. 

In accounting for actions we often forget that we ourselves have acted; andinstead of the sentiments which stimulate the mind in the presence of itsobject, we assign as the motives of conduct with men, those considerationswhich occur in the hours of retirement and cold reflection. In this moodfrequently we can find nothing important, besides the deliberate prospectsof interest; and a great work, like that of forming society, must in ourapprehension arise from deep reflections, and be carried on with a view tothe advantages which mankind derive from commerce and mutual support. Butneither a propensity to mix with the herd, nor the sense of advantagesenjoyed in that condition, comprehend all the principles by which men areunited together. Those bands are even of a feeble texture, when compared tothe resolute ardour with which a man adheres to his friend, or to histribe, after they have for some time run the career of fortune together. Mutual discoveries of generosity, joint trials of fortitude redouble theardours of friendship, and kindle a flame in the human breast, which theconsiderations of personal interest or safety cannot suppress. The mostlively transports of joy are seen, and the loudest shrieks of despair areheard, when the objects of a tender affection are beheld in a state oftriumph or of suffering. An Indian recovered his friend unexpectedly on theisland of Juan Fernandes: he prostrated himself on the ground, at his feet. "We stood gazing in silence, " says Dampier, "at this tender scene. " If wewould know what is the religion of a wild American, what it is in his heartthat most resembles devotion; it is not his fear of the sorcerer, nor hishope of protection from the spirits of the air or the wood: it is theardent affection with which he selects and embraces his friend; with whichhe clings to his side in every season of peril; and with which he invokeshis spirit from a distance, when dangers surprise him alone. [Footnote:Charlevoix, Hist. Of Canada. ]

Whatever proofs we may have of the social disposition of man in familiarand contiguous scenes, it is possibly of importance, to draw ourobservations from the examples of men who live in the simplest condition, and who have not learned to affect what they do not actually feel. 

Mere acquaintance and habitude nourish affection, and the experience ofsociety brings every passion of the human mind upon its side. Its triumphsand prosperities, its calamities and distresses, bring a variety and aforce of emotion, which can only have place in the company of our fellowcreatures. It is here that a man is made to forget his weakness, his caresof safety, and his subsistence; and to act from those passions which makehim discover his force. It is here he finds that his arrows fly swifterthan the eagle, and his weapons wound deeper than the paw of the lion, orthe tooth of the boar. It is not alone his sense of a support which isnear, nor the love of distinction in the opinion of his tribe, that inspirehis courage, or swell his heart with a confidence that exceeds what hisnatural force should bestow. Vehement passions of animosity or attachmentare the first exertions of vigour in his breast; under their influenceevery consideration, but that of his object, is forgotten; dangers anddifficulties only excite him the more. 

That condition is surely favourable to the nature of any being, in whichhis force is increased; and if courage be the gift of society to man, wehave reason to consider his union with his species as the noblest part ofhis fortune. From this source are derived, not only the force, but the veryexistence of his happiest emotions; not only the better part, but almostthe whole of his rational character. Send him to the desert alone, he is aplant torn from his roots: the form indeed may remain, but every facultydroops and withers; the human personage and the human character cease toexist. 

Men are so far from valuing society on account of its mere externalconveniencies, that they are commonly most attached where thoseconveniencies are least frequent; and are there most faithful, where thetribute of their allegiance is paid in blood. Affection operates with thegreatest force, where it meets with the greatest difficulties: in thebreast of the parent, it is most solicitous amidst the dangers anddistresses of the child; in the breast of a man, its flame redoubles wherethe wrongs or sufferings of his friend, or his country, require his aid. Itis, in short, from this principle alone that we can account for theobstinate attachment of a savage to his unsettled and defenceless tribe, when temptations on the side of ease and of safety might induce him to flyfrom famine and danger, to a station more affluent, and more secure. Hencethe sanguine affection which every Greek bore to his country, and hence thedevoted patriotism of an early Roman. Let those examples be compared withthe spirit which reigns in a commercial state, where men may be supposed tohave experienced, in its full extent, the interest which individuals havein the preservation of their country. It is here indeed, if ever, that manis sometimes found a detached and a solitary being: he has found an objectwhich sets him in competition with his fellow creatures, and he deals withthem as he does with his cattle and his soil, for the sake of the profitsthey bring. The mighty engine which we suppose to have formed society, onlytends to set its members at variance, or to continue their intercourseafter the bands of affection are broken. 

SECTION IV. 

OF THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR AND DISSENTION. 

"There are some circumstances in the lot of mankind, " says Socrates, "thatshow them to be destined to friendship and amity: Those are, their mutualneed of each other; their mutual compassion; their sense of mutual benefit;and the pleasures arising in company. There are other circumstances whichprompt them to war and dissention; the admiration and the desire which theyentertain for the same subjects; their opposite pretensions; and theprovocations which they mutually offer in the course of theircompetitions. "

When we endeavour to apply the maxims of natural justice to the solution ofdifficult questions, we find that some cases may be supposed, and actuallyhappen, where oppositions take place, and are lawful, prior to anyprovocation, or act of injustice; that where the safety and preservation ofnumbers are mutually inconsistent, one party may employ his right ofdefence, before the other has begun an attack. And when we join with suchexamples, the instances of mistake, and misunderstanding, to which mankindare exposed, we may be satisfied that war does not always proceed from anintention to injure; and that even the best qualities of men, theircandour, as well as their resolution, may operate in the midst of theirquarrels. 

There is still more to be observed on this subject. Mankind not only findin their condition the sources of variance and dissention; they appear tohave in their minds the seeds of animosity, and to embrace the occasions ofmutual opposition, with alacrity and pleasure. In the most pacificsituation, there are few who have not their enemies, as well as theirfriends; and who are not pleased with opposing the proceedings of one, asmuch as with favouring the designs of another. Small and simple tribes, whoin their domestic society have the firmest union, are in their state ofopposition as separate nations, frequently animated with the mostimplacable hatred. Among the citizens of Rome, in the early ages of thatrepublic, the name of a foreigner, and that of an enemy, were the same. Among the Greeks, the name of Barbarian, under which that peoplecomprehended every nation that was of a race, and spoke a language, different from their own, became a term of indiscriminate contempt andaversion. Even where no particular claim to superiority is formed, therepugnance to union, the frequent wars, or rather the perpetual hostilitieswhich take place among rude nations and separate clans, discover how muchour species is disposed to opposition, as well as to concert. 

Late discoveries have brought to our knowledge almost every situation inwhich mankind are placed. We have found them spread over large andextensive continents, where communications are open, and where nationalconfederacy might be easily formed. We have found them in narrowerdistricts, circumscribed by mountains, great rivers, and arms of the sea. They have been found in small islands, where the inhabitants might beeasily assembled, and derive an advantage from their union. But in allthose situations, alike, they were broke into cantons, and affected adistinction of name and community. The titles of _fellow citizen_ and_countrymen_, unopposed to those of _alien_ and _foreigner_, to whichthey refer, would fall into disuse, and lose their meaning. We loveindividuals on account of personal qualities; but we love our country, as it is a party in the divisions of mankind; and our zeal for itsinterest, is a predilection in behalf of the side we maintain. 

In the promiscuous concourse of men, it is sufficient that we have anopportunity of selecting our company. We turn away from those who do notengage us, and we fix our resort where the society is more to our mind. Weare fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrelunder the denominations of faction and party, without any material subjectof controversy. Aversion, like affection, is fostered by a continueddirection to its particular object. Separation and estrangement, as well asopposition, widen a breach which did not owe its beginnings to any offence. And it would seem, that till we have reduced mankind to the state of afamily, or found some external consideration to maintain their connectionin greater numbers, they will be for ever separated into bands, and form aplurality of nations. 

The sense of a common danger, and the assaults of an enemy, have beenfrequently useful to nations, by uniting their members more firmlytogether, and by preventing the secessions and actual separations in whichtheir civil discord might otherwise terminate. And this motive to unionwhich is offered from abroad, may be necessary, not only in the case oflarge and extensive nations, where coalitions are weakened by distance, andthe distinction of provincial names; but even in the narrow society of thesmallest states. Rome itself was founded by a small party which took itsflight from Alba; her citizens were often in danger of separating; and ifthe villages and cantons of the Volsci had been further removed from thescene of their dissentions, the Mons Sacer might have received a new colonybefore the mother country was ripe for such a discharge. She continued longto feel the quarrels of her nobles and her people; and kept open the gatesof Janus, to remind those parties of the duties they owed to their country. 

Societies, as well as individuals, being charged with the care of their ownpreservation, and having separate interests, which give rise to jealousiesand competitions, we cannot be surprised to find hostilities arise fromthis source. But were there no angry passions of a different sort, theanimosities which attend an opposition of interest, should bear aproportion to the supposed value of the subject. "The Hottentot nations, "says Kolben, "trespass on each other by thefts of cattle and of women; butsuch injuries are seldom committed, except with a view to exasperate theirneighbours, and bring them to a war. " Such depredations then, are not thefoundation of a war, but the effects of a hostile intention alreadyconceived. The nations of North America, who have no herds to preserve, norsettlements to defend, are yet engaged in almost perpetual wars, for whichthey can assign no reason, but the point of honour, and a desire tocontinue the struggle their fathers maintained. They do not regard thespoils of an enemy; and the warrior who has seized any booty, easily partswith it to the first person who comes in his way. [Footnote: SeeCharlevoix's History of Canada. ]

But we need not cross the Atlantic to find proofs of animosity, and toobserve, in the collision of separate societies, the influence of angrypassions, that do not arise from an opposition of interest. Human naturehas no part of its character of which more flagrant examples are given onthis side of the globe. What is it that stirs in the breasts of ordinarymen when the enemies of their country are named? Whence are the prejudicesthat subsist between different provinces, cantons, and villages, of thesame empire and territory? What is it that excites one half of the nationsof Europe against the other? The statesman may explain his conduct onmotives of national jealousy and caution, but the people have dislikes andantipathies, for which they cannot account. Their mutual reproaches ofperfidy and injustice, like the Hottentot depredations, are but symptoms ofan animosity, and the language of a hostile disposition, already conceived. The charge of cowardice and pusillanimity, qualities which the interestedand cautious enemy should, of all others, like best to find in his rival, is urged with aversion, and made the ground of dislike. Hear the peasantson different sides of the Alps, and the Pyrenees, the Rhine, or the Britishchannel, give vent to their prejudices, and national passions; it is amongthem that we find the materials of war and dissention laid without thedirection of government, and sparks ready to kindle into a flame, which thestatesman is frequently disposed to extinguish. The fire will not alwayscatch where his reasons of state would direct, nor stop where theconcurrence of interest has produced an alliance. "My father, " said aSpanish peasant, "would rise from his grave, if he could foresee a war withFrance. " What interest had he, or the bones of his father, in the quarrelsof princes?

These observations seem to arraign our species, and to give an unfavourablepicture of mankind; and yet the particulars we have mentioned areconsistent with the most amiable qualities of our nature, and often furnisha scene North America, who have no herds to preserve, nor settlements todefend, are yet engaged in almost perpetual wars, for which they can assignno reason, but the point of honour, and a desire to continue the struggletheir fathers maintained. They do not regard the spoils of an enemy; andthe warrior who has seized any booty, easily parts with it to the firstperson who comes in his way. [Footnote: See Charlevoix's History ofCanada. ]

But we need not cross the Atlantic to find proofs of animosity, and toobserve, in the collision of separate societies, the influence of angrypassions, that do not arise from an opposition of interest. Human naturehas no part of its character of which more flagrant examples are given onthis side of the globe. What is it that stirs in the breasts of ordinarymen when the enemies of their country are named? Whence are the prejudicesthat subsist between different provinces, cantons, and villages, of thesame empire and territory? What is it that excites one half of the nationsof Europe against the other? The statesman may explain his conduct onmotives of national jealousy and caution, but the people have dislikes andantipathies, for which they cannot account. Their mutual reproaches ofperfidy and injustice, like the Hottentot depredations, are but symptoms ofan animosity, and the language of a hostile disposition, already conceived. The charge of cowardice and pusillanimity, qualities which the interestedand cautious enemy should, of all others, like best to find in his rival, is urged with aversion, and made the ground of dislike. Hear the peasantson different sides of the Alps, and the Pyrenees, the Rhine, or the Britishchannel, give vent to their prejudices and national passions; it is amongthem that we find the materials of war and dissention laid without thedirection of government, and sparks ready to kindle into a flame, which thestatesman is frequently disposed to extinguish. The fire will not alwayscatch where his reasons of state would direct, nor stop where theconcurrence of interest has produced an alliance. "My father, " said aSpanish peasant, "would rise from his grave, if he could foresee a war withFrance. " What interest had he, or the bones of his father, in the quarrelsof princes?

These observations seem to arraign our species, and to give an unfavourablepicture of mankind; and yet the particulars we have mentioned areconsistent with the most amiable qualities of our nature, and often furnisha scene for the exercise of our greatest abilities. They are sentiments ofgenerosity and self denial that animate the warrior in defence of hiscountry; and they are dispositions most favourable to mankind, that becomethe principles of apparent hostility to men. Every animal is made todelight in the exercise of his natural talents and forces. The lion and thetyger sport with the paw; the horse delights to commit his mane to thewind, and forgets his pasture to try his speed in the field; the bull evenbefore his brow is armed, and the lamb while yet an emblem of innocence, have a disposition to strike with the forehead, and anticipate, in play, the conflicts they are doomed to sustain. Man too is disposed toopposition, and to employ the forces of his nature against an equalantagonist; he loves to bring his reason, his eloquence, his courage, evenhis bodily strength to the proof. His sports are frequently an image ofwar; sweat and blood are freely expended in play; and fractures or deathare often made to terminate the pastime of idleness and festivity. He wasnot made to live for ever, and even his love of amusement has opened a wayto the grave. 

Without the rivalship of nations, and the practice of war, civil societyitself could scarcely have found an object, or a form. Mankind might havetraded without any formal convention, but they cannot be safe without anational concert. The necessity of a public defence, has given rise to manydepartments of state, and the intellectual talents of men have found theirbusiest scene in wielding their national forces. To overawe, or intimidate, or, when we cannot persuade with reason, to resist with fortitude, are theoccupations which give its most animating exercise, and its greatesttriumphs, to a vigorous mind; and he who has never struggled with hisfellow creatures, is a stranger to half the sentiments of mankind. 

The quarrels of individuals, indeed, are frequently the operations ofunhappy and detestable passions, malice, hatred, and rage. If such passionsalone possess the breast, the scene of dissention becomes an object ofhorror; but a common opposition maintained by numbers, is always allayed bypassions of another sort. Sentiments of affection and friendship mix withanimosity; the active and strenuous become the guardians of their society;and violence itself is, in their case, an exertion of generosity, as wellas of courage. We applaud, as proceeding from a national or party spirit, what we could not endure as the effect of a private dislike; and, amidstthe competitions of rival states, think we have found, for the patriot andthe warrior, in the practice of violence and stratagem, the mostillustrious career of human virtue. Even personal opposition here does notdivide our judgment on the merits of men. The rival names of Agesilaus andEpaminondas, of Scipio and Hannibal, are repeated with equal praise; andwar itself, which in one view appears so fatal, in another is the exerciseof a liberal spirit; and in the very effects which we regret, is but onedistemper more, by which the Author of nature has appointed our exit fromhuman life. 

These reflections may open, our view into the state of mankind; but theytend to reconcile us to the conduct of Providence, rather than to make uschange our own; where, from a regard to the welfare of our fellowcreatures, we endeavour to pacify their animosities, and unite them by theties of affection. In the pursuit of this amiable intention, we may hope, in some instances, to disarm the angry passions of jealousy and envy; wemay hope to instil into the breasts of private men sentiments of candourtowards their fellow creatures, and a disposition to humanity and justice. But it is vain to expect that we can give to the multitude of a people asense of union among themselves, without admitting hostility to those whooppose them. Could we at once, in the case of any nation, extinguish theemulation which is excited from abroad, we should probably break or weakenthe bands of society at home, and close the busiest scenes of nationaloccupations and virtues. 

SECTION V. 

OF INTELLECTUAL POWERS. 

Many attempts have been made to analyze the dispositions which we have nowenumerated; but one purpose of science, perhaps the most important, isserved, when the existence of a disposition is established. We are moreconcerned in its reality, and in its consequences, than we are in itsorigin, or manner of formation. 

The same observation may be applied to the other powers and faculties ofour nature. Their existence and use are the principal objects of our study. Thinking and reasoning, we say, are the operations of some faculty; but inwhat manner the faculties of thought or reason remain, when they are notexerted, or by what difference in the frame they are unequal in differentpersons, are questions which we cannot resolve. Their operations alonediscover them; when unapplied, they lie hid even from the person to whomthey pertain; and their action is so much a part of their nature, that thefaculty itself, in many cases, is scarcely to be distinguished from a habitacquired in its frequent exertion. 

Persons who are occupied with different subjects, who act in differentscenes, generally appear to have different talents, or at least to have thesame faculties variously formed, and suited to different purposes. Thepeculiar genius of nations, as well as of individuals, may in this mannerarise from the state of their fortunes. And it is proper that we endeavourto find some rule, by which to judge of what is admirable in the capacitiesof men, or fortunate in the application of their faculties, before weventure to pass a judgment on this branch of their merits, or pretend tomeasure the degree of respect they may claim by their differentattainments. 

To receive the informations of sense, is perhaps the earliest function ofan animal combined with an intellectual nature; and one greataccomplishment of the living agent consists in the force and sensibility ofhis animal organs. The pleasures or pains to which he is exposed from thisquarter, constitute to him an important difference between the objectswhich are thus brought to his knowledge; and it concerns him to distinguishwell, before he commits himself to the direction of appetite. He mustscrutinize the objects of one sense, by the perceptions of another; examinewith the eye, before he ventures to touch; and employ every means ofobservation, before he gratifies the appetites of thirst and of hunger. Adiscernment acquired by experience, becomes a faculty of his mind; and theinferences of thought are sometimes not to be distinguished from theperceptions of sense. 

The objects around us, beside their separate appearances, have theirrelations to each other. They suggest, when compared, what would not occurwhen they are considered apart; they have their effects, and mutualinfluences; they exhibit, in like circumstances, similar operations, anduniform consequences. When we have found and expressed the points in whichthe uniformity of their operations consists, we have ascertained a physicallaw. Many such laws, and even the most important, are known to the vulgar, and occur upon the smallest degrees of reflection; but others are hid undera seeming confusion, which ordinary talents cannot remove; and aretherefore the objects of study, long observation, and superior capacity. The faculties of penetration and judgment, are, by men of business, as wellas of science, employed to unravel intricacies of this sort; and the degreeof sagacity with which either is endowed, is to be measured by the successwith which they are able to find general rules, applicable to a variety ofcases that seemed to have nothing in common, and to discover importantdistinctions between subjects which the vulgar are apt to confound. 

To collect a multiplicity of particulars under general heads, and to refera variety of operations to their common principle, is the object ofscience. To do the same thing, at least within the range of his activeengagements, is requisite to the man of pleasure, or business; and it wouldseem, that the studious and the active are so far employed in the sametask, from observation and experience, to find the general views underwhich their objects may be considered, and the rules which may be usefullyapplied in the detail of their conduct. They do not always apply theirtalents to different subjects; and they seem to be distinguished chiefly bythe unequal reach and variety of their remarks, or by the intentions whichthey severally have in collecting them. 

Whilst men continue to act from appetites and passions, leading to theattainment of external ends, they seldom quit the view of their objects indetail, to go far in the road of general inquiries. They measure the extentof their own abilities, by the promptitude with which they apprehend whatis important in every subject, and the facility with which they extricatethemselves on every trying occasion. And these, it must be confessed, to abeing who is destined to act in the midst of difficulties, are the propertest of capacity and force. The parade of words and general reasonings, which sometimes carry an appearance of so much learning and knowledge, areof little avail in the conduct of life. The talents from which theyproceed, terminate in mere ostentation, and are seldom connected with thatsuperior discernment which the active apply in times of perplexity; muchless with that intrepidity and force of mind which are required in passingthrough difficult scenes. 

The abilities of active men, however, have a variety corresponding to thatof the subjects on which they are occupied. A sagacity applied to externaland inanimate nature, forms one species of capacity; that which is turnedto society and human affairs, another. Reputation for parts in any scene isequivocal, till we know by what kind of exertion that reputation is gained. No more can be said, in commending men of the greatest abilities, than thatthey understand well the subjects to which they have applied; and everydepartment, every profession, would have its great men, if there were not achoice of objects for the understanding, and of talents for the mind, aswell as of sentiments for the heart, and of habits for the activecharacter. 

The meanest professions, indeed, so far sometimes forget themselves, or therest of mankind, as to arrogate, in commending what is distinguished intheir own way, every epithet the most respectable claim as the right ofsuperior abilities. Every mechanic is a great man with the learner, and thehumble admirer, in his particular calling: and we can, perhaps with moreassurance pronounce what it is that should make a man happy and amiable, than what should make his abilities respected, and his genius admired. This, upon a view of the talents themselves, may perhaps be impossible. Theeffect, however, will point out the rule and the standard of our judgment. To be admired and respected, is to have an ascendant among men. The talentswhich most directly procure that ascendant, are those which operate onmankind, penetrate their views, prevent their wishes, or frustrate theirdesigns. The superior capacity leads with a superior energy, where everyindividual would go, and shews the hesitating and irresolute a clearpassage to the attainment of their ends. 

This description does not pertain to any particular craft or profession; orperhaps it implies a kind of ability, which the separate application of mento particular callings, only tends to suppress or to weaken. Where shall wefind the talents which are fit to act with men in a collective body, if webreak that body into parts, and confine the observation of each to aseparate track?

To act in the view of his fellow creatures, to produce his mind in public, to give it all the exercise of sentiment and thought, which pertain to manas a member of society, as a friend, or an enemy, seems to be the principalcalling and occupation of his nature. If he must labour, that he maysubsist, he can subsist for no better purpose than the good of mankind; norcan he have better talents than those which qualify him to act with men. Here, indeed, the understanding appears to borrow very much from thepassions; and there is a felicity of conduct in human affairs, in which itis difficult to distinguish the promptitude of the head from the ardour andsensibility of the heart. Where both are united, they constitute thatsuperiority of mind, the frequency of which among men, in particular agesand nations, much more than the progress they have made in speculation, orin the practice of mechanic and liberal arts, should determine the rate oftheir genius, and assign the palm of distinction and honour. 

When nations succeed one another in the career of discoveries andinquiries, the last is always the most knowing. Systems of science aregradually formed. The globe itself is traversed by degrees, and the historyof every age, when past, is an accession of knowledge to those who succeed. The Romans were more knowing than the Greeks; and every scholar of modernEurope is, in this sense, more learned than the most accomplished personthat ever bore either of those celebrated names. But is he on that accounttheir superior?

Men are to be estimated, not from what they know, but from what they areable to perform; from their skill in adapting materials to the severalpurposes of life; from their vigour and conduct in pursuing the objects ofpolicy, and in finding the expedients of war and national defence. Even inliterature, they are to be estimated from the works of their genius, notfrom the extent of their knowledge. The scene of mere observation wasextremely limited in a Grecian republic; and the bustle of an active lifeappeared inconsistent with study: but there the human mind, notwithstanding, collected its greatest abilities, and received its bestinformations, in the midst of sweat and of dust. 

It is peculiar to modern Europe, to rest so much of the human character onwhat may be learned in retirement, and from the information of books. Ajust admiration of ancient literature, an opinion that human sentiment, andhuman reason, without this aid, were to have vanished from the societies ofmen, have led us into the shade, where we endeavour to derive fromimagination and study what is in reality matter of experience andsentiment; and we endeavour, through the grammar of dead languages, and thechannel of commentators, to arrive at the beauties of thought andelocution, which sprang from the animated spirit of society, and were takenfrom the living impressions of an active life. Our attainments arefrequently limited to the elements of every science, and seldom reach tothat enlargement of ability and power, which useful knowledge should give. Like mathematicians, who study the Elements of Euclid, but, never think ofmensuration; we read of societies, but do not propose to act with men; werepeat the language of politics, but feel not the spirit of nations; weattend to the formalities of a military discipline, but know not how toemploy numbers of men to obtain any purpose by stratagem or force. 

But for what end, it may be said, point out an evil that cannot beremedied? If national affairs called for exertion, the genius of men wouldawake; but in the recess of better employment, the time which is bestowedon study, if even attended with no other advantage, serves to occupy withinnocence the hours of leisure, and set bounds to the pursuit of ruinousand frivolous amusements. From no better reason than this, we employ somany of our early years, under the rod, to acquire, what it is not expectedwe should retain beyond the threshold of the school; and whilst we carrythe same frivolous character in our studies that we do in our amusements, the human mind could not suffer more from a contempt of letters, than itdoes from the false importance which is given to literature, as a businessfor life, not as a help to our conduct, and the means of forming acharacter that may be happy in itself, and useful to mankind. 

If that time which is passed in relaxing the powers of the mind, and inwithholding every object but what tends to weaken and to corrupt, wereemployed in fortifying those powers, and in teaching the mind to recognizeits objects, and its strength, we should not, at the years of maturity, beso much at a loss for occupation; nor, in attending the chances of a gamingtable, misemploy our talents, or waste the fire which remains in thebreast. They, at least, who by their stations have a share in thegovernment of their country, might believe themselves capable of business;and, while the state had its armies and councils, might find objects enoughto amuse, without throwing a personal fortune into hazard, merely to curethe yawnings of a listless and insignificant life. It is impossible forever to maintain the tone of speculation; it is impossible not sometimes tofeel that we live among men. 

SECTION VI. 

OF MORAL SENTIMENT. 

Upon a slight observation of what passes in human life, we should be apt toconclude, that the care of subsistence is the principal spring of humanactions. This consideration leads to the invention and practice ofmechanical arts; it serves to distinguish amusement from business; and, with many, scarcely admits into competition any other subject of pursuit orattention. The mighty advantages of property and fortune, when stript ofthe recommendations they derive from vanity, or the more serious regards toindependence and power, only mean a provision that is made for animalenjoyment; and if our solicitude on this subject were removed, not only thetoils of the mechanic, but the studies of the learned, would cease; everydepartment of public business would become unnecessary; every senate housewould be shut up, and every palace deserted. 

Is man therefore, in respect to his object, to be classed with the merebrutes, and only to be distinguished by faculties that qualify him tomultiply contrivances for the support and convenience of animal life, andby the extent of a fancy that renders the care of animal preservation tohim more burthensome than it is to the herd with which he shares in thebounty of nature? If this were his case, the joy which attends on success, or the griefs which arise from disappointment, would make the sum of hispassions. The torrent that wasted, or the inundation that enriched, hispossessions, would give him all the emotion with which he is seized, on theoccasion of a wrong by which his fortunes are impaired, or of a benefit bywhich they are preserved and enlarged. His fellow creatures would beconsidered merely as they affected his interest. Profit or loss would serveto mark the event of every transaction; and the epithets _useful_ or_detrimental_ would serve to distinguish his mates in society, as theydo the tree which bears plenty of fruit, from that which only cumbers theground, or intercepts his view. 

This, however, is not the history of our species. What comes from a fellowcreature is received with peculiar emotion; and every language abounds withterms that express somewhat in the transactions of men, different fromsuccess and disappointment. The bosom kindles in company, while the pointof interest in view has nothing to inflame; and a matter frivolous initself, becomes important, when it serves to bring to light the intentionsand characters of men. The foreigner, who believed that Othello, on thestage, was enraged for the loss of his handkerchief, was not more mistaken, than the reasoner who imputes any of the more vehement passions of men tothe impressions of mere profit or loss. 

Men assemble to deliberate on business; they separate from jealousies ofinterest; but in their several collisions, whether as friends or asenemies, a fire is struck out which the regards to interest or safetycannot confine. The value of a favour is not measured when sentiments ofkindness are perceived; and the term _misfortune_ has but a feeblemeaning, when compared to that of _insult_ and _wrong_. 

As actors or spectators, we are perpetually made to feel the difference ofhuman conduct, and from a bare recital of transactions, which have passedin ages and countries remote from our own, are moved with admiration andpity, or transported with indignation and rage. Our sensibility on thissubject gives their charm in retirement, to the relations of history and tothe fictions of poetry; sends forth the tear of compassion, gives to theblood its briskest movement, and to the eye its liveliest glances ofdispleasure or joy. It turns human life into an interesting spectacle, andperpetually solicits even the indolent to mix, as opponents or friends, inthe scenes which are acted before them. Joined to the powers ofdeliberation and reason, it constitutes the basis of a moral nature; and, whilst it dictates the terms of praise and of blame, serves to class ourfellow creatures, by the most admirable and engaging, or the most odiousand contemptible denominations. 

It is pleasant to find men, who in their speculations deny the reality ofmoral distinctions, forget in detail the general positions they maintain, and give loose to ridicule, indignation, and scorn, as if any of thesesentiments could have place, were the actions of men indifferent; or withacrimony pretend to detect the fraud by which moral restraints have beenimposed, as if to censure a fraud were not already to take a part on theside of morality. [Footnote: Mandeville. ]

Can we explain the principles upon which mankind adjudge the preference ofcharacters, and upon which they indulge such vehement emotions ofadmiration or contempt? If it be admitted that we cannot, are the factsless true? Or must we suspend the movements of the heart, until they whoare employed in framing systems of science have discovered the principlefrom which those movements proceed? If a finger burn, we care not forinformation on the properties of fire: if the heart be torn, or the mindoverjoyed, we have not leisure for speculations on the subjects of moralsensibility. 

It is fortunate in this, as in other articles to which speculation andtheory are applied, that nature proceeds in her course, whilst the curiousare busied in the search of her principles. The peasant, or the child, canreason, and judge, and speak his language with a discernment, aconsistency, and a regard to analogy, which perplex the logician, themoralist, and the grammarian, when they would find the principle upon whichthe proceeding is founded, or when they would bring to general rule, whatis so familiar, and so well sustained in particular cases. The felicity ofour conduct is more owing to the talent we possess for detail, and to thesuggestion of particular occasions, than it is to any direction we can findin theory and general speculations. 

We must, in the result of every inquiry, encounter with facts which wecannot explain; and to bear with this mortification would save usfrequently a great deal of fruitless trouble. Together with the sense ofour existence, we must admit many circumstances which come to our knowledgeat the same time, and in the same manner; and which do, in reality, constitute the mode of our being. Every peasant will tell us, that a manhath his rights; and that to trespass on those rights is injustice. If weask him farther, what he means by the term _right?_ we probably forcehim to substitute a less significant, or less proper term, in the place ofthis; or require him to account for what is an original mode of his mind, and a sentiment to which he ultimately refers, when he would explainhimself upon any particular application of his language. 

The rights of individuals may relate to a variety of subjects, and becomprehended under different heads. Prior to the establishment of property, and the distinction of ranks, men have a right to defend their persons, andto act with freedom; they have a right to maintain the apprehensions ofreason, and the feelings of the heart; and they cannot for a momentassociate together, without feeling that the treatment they give or receivemay be just or unjust. It is not, however, our business here to carry thenotion of a right into its several applications, but to reason on thesentiment of favour with which that notion is entertained in the mind. Ifit be true, that men are united by instinct, that they act in society fromaffections of kindness and friendship; if it be true, that even prior toacquaintance and habitude, men, as such, are commonly to each other objectsof attention, and some degree of regard; that while their, prosperity isbeheld with indifference, their afflictions are considered withcommiseration; if calamities be measured by the numbers and the qualitiesof men they involve; and if every suffering of a fellow creature draws acrowd of attentive spectators; if, even in the case of those to whom we donot habitually wish any positive good, we are still averse to be theinstruments of harm; it should seem, that in these various appearances ofan amicable disposition, the foundations of a moral apprehension aresufficiently laid, and the sense of a right which we maintain forourselves, is by a movement of humanity and candour extended to our fellowcreatures. 

What is it that prompts the tongue when we censure an act of cruelty oroppression? What is it that constitutes our restraint from offences thattend to distress our fellow creatures? It is probably, in both cases, aparticular application of that principle, which, in presence of thesorrowful, sends forth the tear of compassion; and a combination of allthose sentiments, which constitute a benevolent disposition; and if not aresolution to do good, at least an aversion to be the instrument of harm. [Footnote: Mankind, we are told, are devoted to interest; and this, in allcommercial nations, is undoubtedly true. But it does not follow, that theyare, by their natural dispositions, averse to society and mutual affection:proofs of the contrary remain, even where interest triumphs most. What mustwe think of the force of that disposition to compassion, to candour, andgood will, which, notwithstanding the prevailing opinion that the happinessof a man consists in possessing the greatest possible share of riches, preferments, and honours, still keeps the parties who are in competitionfor those objects, on a tolerable footing of amity, and leads them toabstain even from their own supposed good, when their seizing it appears inthe light of a detriment to others? What might we not expect from the humanheart in circumstances which prevented this apprehension on the subject offortune, or under the influence of an opinion as steady and general as theformer, that human felicity does not consist in the indulgences of animalappetite, but in those of a benevolent heart; not in fortune or interest, but in the contempt of this very object, in the courage and freedom whicharise from this contempt, joined to a resolute choice of conduct, directedto the good of mankind, or to the good of that particular society to whichthe party belongs?]

It may be difficult, however, to enumerate the motives of all the censuresand commendations which are applied to the actions of men. Even while wemoralize, every disposition of the human mind may have its share in formingthe judgment, and in prompting the tongue. As jealousy is often the mostwatchful guardian of chastity, so malice is often the quickest to spy thefailings of our neighbour. Envy, affectation, and vanity, may dictate theverdicts we give, and the worst principles of our nature may be at thebottom of our pretended zeal for morality; but if we only mean to inquire, why they who are well disposed to mankind apprehend, in every instance, certain rights pertaining to their fellow creatures, and why they applaudthe consideration that is paid to those rights, we cannot assign a betterreason, than that the person who applauds, is well disposed to the welfareof the parties to whom his applauses refer. Applause, however, is theexpression of a peculiar sentiment; an expression of esteem the reverse ofcontempt. Its object is perfection, the reverse of defect. This sentimentis not the love of mankind; it is that by which we estimate the qualitiesof men, and the objects of our pursuit; that which doubles the force ofevery desire or aversion, when we consider its object as tending to raiseor to sink our nature. 

When we consider, that the reality of any amicable propensity in the humanmind has been frequently contested; when we recollect the prevalence ofinterested competitions, with their attendant passions of jealousy, envy, and malice; it may seem strange to allege, that love and compassion are, next to the desire of elevation, the most powerful motives in the humanbreast: That they urge, on many occasions, with the most irresistiblevehemence; and if the desire of self preservation be more constant, andmore uniform, these are a more plentiful source of enthusiasm, satisfaction, and joy. With a power not inferior to that of resentment andrage, they hurry the mind into every sacrifice of interest, and bear itundismayed through every hardship and danger. 

The disposition on which friendship is grafted, glows with satisfaction inthe hours of tranquillity, and is pleasant, not only in its triumphs, buteven in its sorrows. It throws a grace on the external air, and, by itsexpression on the countenance, compensates for the want of beauty, or givesa charm which no complexion or features can equal. From this source thescenes of human life derive their principal felicity; and their imitationsin poetry, their principal ornament. Descriptions of nature, evenrepresentations of a vigorous conduct, and a manly courage, do not engagethe heart, if they be not mixed with the exhibition of generous sentiments, and the pathetic, which is found to arise in the struggles, the triumphs, or the misfortunes of a tender affection. The death of Polites, in theAeneid, is not more affecting than that of many others who perished in theruins of Troy; but the aged Priam was present when this last of his sonswas slain; and the agonies of grief and sorrow force the parent from hisretreat, to fall by the hand that shed the blood of his child. The patheticof Homer consists in exhibiting the force of affections, not in excitingmere terror and pity; passions he has never perhaps, in any instance, attempted to raise. 

With this tendency to kindle into enthusiasm, with this command over theheart, with the pleasure that attends its emotions, and with all itseffects in meriting confidence and procuring esteem, it is not surprising, that a principle of humanity should give the tone to our commendations andour censures, and even where it is hindered from directing our conduct, should still give to the mind, on reflection, its knowledge of what isdesirable in the human character. _What hast thou done with thy brotherAbel?_ was the first expostulation in behalf of morality; and if thefirst answer has been often repeated, mankind have notwithstanding, in onesense, sufficiently acknowledged the charge of their nature. They havefelt, they have talked, and even acted, as the keepers of their fellowcreatures: they have made the indications of candour and mutual affectionthe test of what is meritorious and amiable in the characters of men: theyhave made cruelty and oppression the principal objects of their indignationand rage: even while the head is occupied with projects of interest, theheart is often seduced into friendship; and while business proceeds on themaxims of self preservation, the careless hour is employed in generosityand kindness. 

Hence the rule by which men commonly judge of external actions, is takenfrom the supposed influence of such actions on the general good. To abstainfrom harm, is the great law f natural justice; to diffuse happiness, is thelaw of morality; and when we censure the conferring a favour on one or afew at the expense of many, we refer to public utility, as the great objectat which the actions of men should be aimed. 

After all, it must be confessed, that if a principle of affection tomankind be the basis of our moral approbation and dislike, we sometimesproceed in distributing applause or censure, without precisely attending tothe degree in which our fellow creatures are hurt or obliged; and that, besides the virtues of candour, friendship, generosity, and public spirit, which bear an immediate reference to this principle, there are others whichmay seem to derive their commendation from a different source. Temperance, prudence, fortitude, are those qualities likewise admired from a principleof regard to our fellow creatures? Why not, since they render men happy inthemselves, and useful to others? He who is qualified to promote thewelfare of mankind, is neither a sot, a fool, nor a coward. Can it be moreclearly expressed, that temperance, prudence, and fortitude, are necessaryto the character we love and admire? I know well why I should wish for themin myself; and why likewise I should wish for them in my friend, and inevery person who is an object of my affection. But to what purpose seek forreasons of approbation, where qualities are so necessary to our happiness, and so great a part in the perfection of our nature? We must cease toesteem ourselves, and to distinguish what is excellent, when suchqualifications incur our neglect. 

A person of an affectionate mind, possessed of a maxim, that he himself, asan individual, is no more than a part of the whole that demands his regard, has found, in that principle, a sufficient foundation for all the virtues;for a contempt of animal pleasures, that would supplant his principalenjoyment; for an equal contempt of danger or pain, that come to stop hispursuits of public good. "A vehement and steady affection magnifies itsobject, and lessens every difficulty or danger that stands in the way. ""Ask those who have been in love, " says Epictetus, "they will know that Ispeak the truth. "

"I have before me, " says another eminent moralist, [Footnote: PersianLetters. ] "an idea of justice, which if I could follow in every instance, Ishould think myself the most happy of men. " And it is of consequence totheir happiness, as well as to their conduct, if those can be disjoined, that men should have this idea properly formed. It is perhaps but anothername for that good of mankind, which the virtuous are engaged to promote. If virtue be the supreme good, its best and most signal effect is, tocommunicate and diffuse itself. 

To distinguish men by the difference of their moral qualities, to espouseone party from a sense of justice, to oppose another even with indignationwhen excited by iniquity, are the common indications of probity, and theoperations of an animated, upright, and generous spirit. To guard againstunjust partialities, and ill grounded antipathies; to maintain thatcomposure of mind, which, without impairing its sensibility or ardour, proceeds in every instance with discernment and penetration, are the marksof a vigorous and cultivated spirit. To be able to follow the dictates ofsuch a spirit through all the varieties of human life, and with a mindalways master of itself, in prosperity or adversity, and possessed of allits abilities, when the subjects in hazard are life, or freedom, as much asin treating simple questions of interest, are the triumphs of magnanimity, and true elevation of mind. "The event of the day is decided. Draw thisjavelin from my body now, " said Epaminondas, "and let me bleed. "

In what situation, or by what instruction, is this wonderful character tobe formed? Is it found in the nurseries of affectation, pertness, andvanity, from which fashion is propagated, and the genteel is announced? Ingreat and opulent cities, where men vie with each other in equipage, dress, and the reputation of fortune? Is it within the admired precincts of acourt, where we may learn to smile without being pleased, to caress withoutaffection, to wound with the secret weapons of envy and jealousy, and torest our personal importance on circumstances which we cannot always withhonour command? No: but in a situation where the great sentiments of theheart are awakened; where the characters of men, not their situations andfortunes, are the principal distinction; where the anxieties of interest, or vanity, perish in the blaze of more vigorous emotions; and where thehuman soul, having felt and recognised its objects, like an animal who hastasted the blood of his prey, cannot descend to pursuits that leave itstalents and its force unemployed. 

Proper occasions alone operating on a raised and a happy disposition, mayproduce this admirable effect, whilst mere instruction may, always findmankind at a loss to comprehend its meaning, or insensible to its dictates. The case, however, is not desperate, till we have formed our system ofpolitics, as well as manners; till we have sold our freedom for titles, equipage, and distinctions; till we see no merit but prosperity and power, no disgrace but poverty and neglect. What charm of instruction can cure themind that is stained with this disorder? What syren voice can awaken adesire of freedom, that is held to be meanness and a want of ambition? Orwhat persuasion can turn the grimace of politeness into real sentiments ofhumanity and candour?

SECTION VII. 

OF HAPPINESS. 

Having had under our consideration the active powers and the moralqualities which distinguish the nature of man, is it still necessary thatwe should treat of his happiness apart? This significant term, the mostfrequent, and the most familiar, in our conversation, is, perhaps, onreflection, the least understood. It serves to express our satisfaction, when any desire is gratified; it is pronounced with a sigh, when our objectis distant: it means what we wish to obtain, and what we seldom stay toexamine. We estimate the value of every subject by its utility, and itsinfluence on happiness; but we think that utility itself, and happiness, require no explanation. 

Those men are commonly esteemed the happiest, whose desires are mostfrequently ratified. But if, in reality, the possession of what theydesire, and a continued fruition, were requisite to happiness, mankind forthe most part would have reason to complain of their lot. What they calltheir enjoyments, are generally momentary; and the object of sanguineexpectation, when obtained, no longer continues to occupy the mind: a newpassion succeeds, and the imagination, as before, is intent on a distantfelicity. 

How many reflections of this sort are suggested by melancholy, or by theeffects of that very languor and inoccupation into which we would willinglysink, under the notion of freedom from care and trouble?

When we enter on a formal computation of the enjoyments or sufferings whichare prepared for mankind, it is a chance but we find that pain, by itsintenseness, its duration, or frequency, is greatly predominant. Theactivity and eagerness with which we press from one stage of life toanother, our unwillingness to return on the paths we have trod, ouraversion in age to renew the frolics of youth, or to repeat in manhood theamusements of children, have been accordingly stated as proofs, that ourmemory of the past, and our feeling of the present, are equal subjects ofdislike and displeasure. [Footnote: Maupertuis; Essai de Morale. ]

This conclusion, however, like many others, drawn from our supposedknowledge of causes, does not correspond with experience in every street, in every village, in every field, the greater number of persons we meet, carry an aspect that is cheerful or thoughtless, indifferent, composed, busy or animated. The labourer whistles to his team, and the mechanic is atease in his calling; the frolicksome and gay feel a series of pleasures, ofwhich we know not the source; even they who demonstrate the miseries ofhuman life, when intent on their argument, escape from their sorrows, andfind a tolerable pastime in proving that men are unhappy. 

The very terms _pleasure_ and _pain, _ perhaps, are equivocal; butif they are confined, as they appear to be in many of our reasonings, tothe mere sensations which have a reference to external objects, either inthe memory of the past, the feeling of the present, or the apprehension ofthe future, it is a great error to suppose, that they comprehend all theconstituents of happiness or misery; or that the good humour of an ordinarylife is maintained by the prevalence of those pleasures, which have theirseparate names, and are, on reflection, distinctly remembered. 

The mind, during the greater part of its existence, is employed in activeexertions, not in merely attending to its own feelings of pleasure or pain;and the list of its faculties, understanding, memory, foresight, sentiment, will, and intention, only contains the names of its different operations. 

If, in the absence of every sensation to which we commonly give the nameseither of _enjoyment_ or _suffering, _ our very existence may haveits opposite qualities of _happiness_ or _misery;_ and if what wecall _pleasure_ or _pain, _ occupies but a small part of humanlife, compared to what passes in contrivance and execution, in pursuits andexpectations, in conduct, reflection, and social engagements; it mustappear, that our active pursuits, at least on account of their duration, deserve the greater part of our attention. When their occasions havefailed, the demand is not for pleasure, but for something to do; and thevery complaints of a sufferer are not so sure a mark of distress, as thestare of the languid. 

We seldom, however, reckon any task, which we are bound to perform, amongthe blessings of life. We always aim at a period of pure enjoyment, or atermination of trouble; and overlook the source from which most of ourpresent satisfactions are really drawn. Ask the busy, where is thehappiness to which they aspire? they will answer, perhaps, that it is to befound in the object of some present pursuit. If we ask, why they are notmiserable in the absence of that happiness? they will say, that they hopeto attain it. But is it hope alone that supports the mind is the midst ofprecarious and uncertain prospects? And would assurance of success fill theintervals of expectation with more pleasing emotions? Give the huntsman hisprey, give the gamester the gold which is staked on the game, that the onemay not need to fatigue his person, nor the other to perplex his mind, andboth will probably laugh at our folly: the one will stake his money anew, that he may be perplexed; the other will turn his stag to the field, thathe may hear the cry of the dogs, and follow through danger and hardship. Withdraw the occupations of men, terminate their desires, existence is aburden, and the iteration of memory is a torment. 

The men of this country, says one lady, should learn to sew and to knit; itwould hinder their time from being a burden to themselves, and to otherpeople. That is true, says another; for my part, though I never lookabroad, I tremble at the prospect of bad weather; for then the gentlemencome moping to us for entertainment; and the sight of a husband indistress, is but a melancholy spectacle. 

The difficulties and hardships of human life are supposed to detract fromthe goodness of God; yet many of the pastimes men devise for themselves arefraught with difficulty and danger The great inventor of the game of humanlife, knew well how to accommodate the players. The chances are matter ofcomplaint; but if these were removed, the game itself would no longer amusethe parties. In devising, or in executing a plan, in being carried on thetide of emotion and sentiment, the mind seems to unfold its being, and toenjoy itself. Even where the end and the object are known to be of littleavail, the talents and the fancy are often intensely applied, and businessor play may amuse them alike. We only desire repose to recruit our limitedand our wasting force: when business fatigues, amusement is often but achange of occupation. We are not always unhappy, even when we complain. There is a kind of affliction which makes an agreeable state of the mind;and lamentation itself is sometimes an expression of pleasure. The painterand the poet have laid hold of this handle, and find, among the means ofentertainment, a favourable reception for works that are composed to awakenour sorrows. 

To a being of this description, therefore, it is a blessing to meet withincentives to action, whether in the desire of pleasure, or the aversion topain. His activity is of more importance than the very pleasure he seeks, and languor a greater evil than the suffering he shuns. 

The gratifications of animal appetite are of short duration; and sensualityis but a distemper of the mind, which ought to be cured by remembrance, ifit were not perpetually inflamed by hope. The chase is not more surelyterminated by the death of the game, than the joys of the voluptuary by themeans of completing his debauch. As a band of society, as a matter ofdistant pursuit, the objects of sense make an important part in the systemof human life. They lead us to fulfil the purposes of nature, in preservingthe individual, and in perpetuating the species; but to rely on their useas a principal constituent of happiness, were an error in speculation, andwould be still more an error in practice. Even the master of the seraglio, for whom all the treasures of empire are extorted from the hoards of itsfrighted inhabitants, for whom alone the choicest emerald and the diamondare drawn from the mine, for whom every breeze is enriched with perfumes, for whom beauty is assembled from every quarter, and, animated by passionsthat ripen under the vertical sun, is confined to the grate for his use, isstill, perhaps, more wretched than the very herd of the people, whoselabours and properties are devoted to relieve him of trouble, and toprocure him enjoyment. 

Sensuality is easily overcome by any of the habits of pursuit which usuallyengage an active mind. When curiosity is awake, or when passion is excited, even in the midst of the feast when conversation grows warm, grows jovial, or serious, the pleasures of the table we know are forgotten. The boycontemns them for play, and the man of age declines them for business. 

When we reckon the circumstances that correspond to the nature of anyanimal, or to that of man in particular, such as safety, shelter, food, andthe other means of enjoyment, or preservation, we sometimes think that wehave found a sensible and a solid foundation on which to rest his felicity. But those who are least disposed to moralize, observe, that happiness isnot connected with fortune, although fortune includes at once all the meansof subsistence, and the means of sensual indulgence. The circumstances thatrequire abstinence, courage, and conduct, expose us to hazard, and are indescription of the painful kind; yet the able, the brave, and the ardent, seem most to enjoy themselves when placed in the midst of difficulties, andobliged to employ the powers they possess. 

Spinola being told, that Sir Francis Vere died of having nothing to do, said, "That was enough, to kill a general. " [Footnote: Life of LordHerbert. ] How many are there to whom war itself is a pastime, who choosethe life of a soldier, exposed to dangers and continued fatigues; of amariner, in conflict with every hardship, and bereft of every conveniency;of a politician, whose sport is the conduct of parties and factions; andwho, rather than be idle, will do the business of men and of nations forwhom he has not the smallest regard? Such men do not choose pain aspreferable to pleasure, but they are incited by a restless disposition tomake continued exertions of capacity and resolution; they triumph in themidst of their struggles; they droop, and they languish, when the occasionof their labour has ceased. 

What was enjoyment, in the sense of that youth, who, according to Tacitus, loved danger itself, not the rewards of courage? What is the prospect ofpleasure, when the sound of the horn or the trumpet, the cry of the dogs, 'or the shout of war, awaken the ardour of the sportsman and the soldier?The most animating occasions of human life, are calls to danger andhardship, not invitations to safety and case: and man himself, in hisexcellence, is not an animal of pleasure, nor destined merely to enjoy whatthe elements bring to his use; but like his associates the dog and thehorse, to follow the exercises of his nature, in preference to what arecalled its enjoyments; to pine in the lap of case, and of affluence, and toexult in the midst of alarms that seem to threaten his being, in all which, his disposition to action only keeps pace with the variety of powers withwhich he is furnished; and the most respectable attributes of his nature, magnanimity, fortitude, and wisdom, carry a manifest reference to thedifficulties with which he is destined to struggle. 

If animal pleasure becomes insipid when the spirit is roused by a differentobject, it is well known, likewise, that the sense of pain is prevented byany vehement affection of the soul. Wounds received in a heat of passion, in the hurry, the ardour, or consternation of battle, are never felt tillthe ferment of the mind subsides. Even torments, deliberately applied, andindustriously prolonged, are borne with firmness, and with an appearance ofease, when the mind is possessed with some vigorous sentiment, whether ofreligion, enthusiasm, or love to mankind. The continued mortifications ofsuperstitious devotees in several ages of the Christian church; the wildpenances, still voluntarily borne, during many years, by the religionistsof the east; the contempt in which famine and torture are held by mostsavage nations; the cheerful or obstinate patience of the soldier in thefield; the hardships endured by the sportsman in his pastime, show how muchwe may err in computing the miseries of men, from the measures of troubleand of suffering they seem to incur. And if there be a refinement inaffirming that their happiness is not to be measured by the contraryenjoyments, it is a refinement which was made by Regulus and Cincinnatusbefore the date of philosophy. Fabricius knew it while he had heardarguments only on the opposite side. [Footnote: Plutarch in Vit. Pyrrh. ] Itis a refinement, which every boy knows at his play, and every savageconfirms, when he looks from his forest on the pacific city, and scorns theplantation, whose master he cares not to imitate. 

Man, it must be confessed, notwithstanding all this activity of his mind, is an animal in the full extent of that designation. When the body sickens, the mind droops; and when the blood ceases to flow, the soul takes itsdeparture. Charged with the care of his preservation, admonished by a senseof pleasure or pain, and guarded by an instinctive fear of death, naturehas not intrusted his safety to the mere vigilance of his understanding, nor to the government of his uncertain reflections. 

The distinction betwixt mind and body is followed by consequences of thegreatest importance; but the facts to which we now refer, are not foundedon any tenets whatever. They are equally true, whether we admit or reject, the distinction in question, or whether we suppose, that this living agentis formed of one, or is an assemblage of separate natures. And thematerialist, by treating of man as of an engine, cannot make any change inthe state of his history. He is a being, who, by a multiplicity of visibleorgans, performs a variety of functions. He bends his joints, contracts orrelaxes his muscles in our sight. He continues the beating of the heart inhis breast, and the flowing of the blood to every part of his frame. Heperforms other operations which we cannot refer to any corporeal organ. Heperceives, he recollects, and forecasts; he desires, and he shuns; headmires, and contemns. He enjoys his pleasures, or he endures his pain. Allthese different functions, in some measure, go well or ill together. Whenthe motion of the blood is languid, the muscles relax, the understanding istardy, and the fancy is dull: when distemper assails him, the physicianmust attend no less to what he thinks, than, to what he eats, and examinethe returns of his passion, together with the strokes of his pulse. 

With all his sagacity, his precautions, and his instincts, which are givento preserve his being, he partakes in the fate of other animals, and seemsto be formed only that he may die. Myriads perish before they reach theperfection of their kind; and the individual, with an option to owe theprolongation of his temporary course to resolution and conduct, or toabject fear, frequently chooses the latter, and, by a habit of timidity, embitters the life he is so intent to preserve. 

Man, however, at times, exempted from this mortifying lot, seems to actwithout any regard to the length of his period. When he thinks intensely, or desires with ardour, pleasures and pains from any other quarter assailhim in vain. Even in his dying hour, the muscles acquire a tone from hisspirit, and the mind seems to depart in its vigour, and in the midst of astruggle to obtain the recent aim of its toil. Muley Moluck, borne on hislitter, and spent with disease, still fought the battle, in the midst ofwhich he expired; and the last effort he made, with a finger on his lips, was a signal to conceal his death; [Footnote: Verlot's Revolutions ofPortugal] the precaution, perhaps, of all which he had hitherto taken, themost necessary to prevent a defeat. 

Can no reflections aid us in acquiring this habit of the soul, so useful incarrying us through many of the ordinary scenes of life? If we say, thatthey cannot, the reality of its happiness is not the less evident. TheGreeks and the Romans considered contempt of pleasure, endurance of pain, and neglect of life, as eminent qualities of a man, and a principal subjectof discipline. They trusted, that the vigorous spirit would find worthyobjects on which to employ its force; and that the first step towards aresolute choice of such objects, was to shake off the meanness of asolicitous and timorous mind. 

Mankind, in general, have courted occasions to display their courage, andfrequently, in search of admiration, have presented a spectacle, which tothose who have ceased to regard fortitude on its own account, becomes asubject of horror. Scevola held his arm in the fire, to shake the soul ofPorsenna. The savage inures his body to the torture, that in the hour oftrial he may exult over his enemy. Even the Mussulman tears his flesh towin the heart of his mistress, and comes in gaiety streaming with blood, toshew that he deserves her esteem. [Footnote: Letters of the RightHonourable Lady M----y W------ M-------e. ]

Some nations carry the practice of inflicting, or of sporting with pain, toa degree that is either cruel or absurd; others regard every prospect ofbodily suffering as the greatest of evils; and in the midst of theirtroubles, embitter every real affliction, with the terrors of a feeble anddejected imagination. We are not bound to answer for the follies of either, nor, in treating a question which relates to the nature of man, make anestimate of its strength or its weakness, from the habits or apprehensionspeculiar to any nation or age. 

SECTION VIII. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 

Whoever has compared together the different conditions and manners of men, under varieties of education or fortune, will be satisfied, that meresituation does not constitute their happiness or misery; nor a diversity ofexternal observances imply any opposition of sentiments on the subject ofmorality. They express their kindness and their enmity, in differentactions; but kindness or enmity is still the principal article ofconsideration in human life. They engage in different pursuits, oracquiesce in different conditions; but act from passions nearly the same. There is no precise measure of accommodation required to suit theirconveniency, nor any degree of danger or safety under which they arepeculiarly fitted to act. Courage and generosity, fear and envy, are notpeculiar to any station or order of men; nor is there any condition inwhich some of the human race have not shown, that it is possible to employ, with propriety, the talents and virtues of their species. 

What, then, is that mysterious thing called _Happiness_ which may haveplace in such a variety of stations, and to which circumstances, in one ageor nation thought necessary, are in another held to be destructive or of noeffect? It is not the succession of mere animal pleasures, which, apartfrom the occupation or the company in which they engage us, can fill up buta few moments in human life. On too frequent a repetition, those pleasuresturn to satiety and disgust; they tear the constitution to which they areapplied in excess, and, like the lightning of night, only serve to darkenthe gloom through which they occasionally break. Happiness is not thatstate of repose, or that imaginary freedom from care, which at a distanceis so frequent an object of desire, but with its approach brings a tedium, or a languor, more unsupportable than pain itself. If the precedingobservations on this subject be just, it arises more from the pursuit, thanfrom the attainment of any end whatever; and in every new situation towhich we arrive, even in the course of a prosperous life, it depends moreon the degree in which our minds are properly employed, than it does on thecircumstances in which we are destined to act, on the materials which areplaced in our hands, or the tools with which we are furnished. 

If this be confessed in respect to that class of pursuits which aredistinguished by the name of _amusement_, and which, in the case ofmen who are commonly deemed the most happy, occupy the greater part ofhuman life, we may apprehend, that it holds, much more than is commonlysuspected, in many cases of business, where the end to be gained, and notthe occupation, is supposed to have the principal value. 

The miser himself, we are told, can sometimes consider the care of hiswealth as a pastime, and has challenged his heir, to have more pleasure inspending, than he in amassing his fortune. With this degree of indifferenceto what may be the conduct of others; with this confinement of his care towhat he has chosen as his own province, more especially if he has conqueredin himself the passions of jealousy and envy, which tear the covetous mind;why may not the man whose object is money, be understood to lead a life ofamusement and pleasure, not only more entire than that of the spendthrift, but even as much as the virtuoso, the scholar, the man of taste, or any ofthat class of persons who have found out a method of passing their leisurewithout offence, and to whom the acquisitions made, or the works produced, in their several ways, perhaps, are as useless as the bag to the miser, orthe counter to those who play from mere dissipation at any game of skill orof chance?

We are soon tired of diversions that do not approach to the nature ofbusiness; that is, that do not engage some passion, or give an exerciseproportioned to our talents, and our faculties. The chace and the gamingtable have each their dangers and difficulties, to excite and employ themind. All games of contention animate our emulation, and give a species ofparty zeal. The mathematician is only to be amused with intricate problems, the lawyer and the casuist with cases that try their subtilty, and occupytheir judgment. 

The desire of active engagements, like every other natural appetite, may becarried to excess; and men may debauch in amusements, as well as in the useof wine, or other intoxicating liquors. At first, a trifling stake, and theoccupation of a moderate passion, may have served to amuse the gamester;but when the drug becomes familiar, it fails to produce its effect: Theplay is made deep, and the interest increased, to awaken his attention; heis carried on by degrees, and in the end comes to seek for amusement, andto find it only in those passions of anxiety, hope, and despair, which areroused by the hazard into which he has thrown the whole of his fortunes. 

If men can thus turn their amusements into a scene more serious andinteresting than that of business itself, it will be difficult to assign areason why business, and many of the occupations of human life, independentof any distant consequences of future events, may not be chosen as anamusement, and adopted on account of the pastime they bring. This is, perhaps, the foundation, on which, without the aid of reflection, thecontented and the cheerful have rested the gaiety of their tempers. It is, perhaps, the most solid basis of fortitude which any reflection can lay;and happiness itself is secured by making a certain species of conduct ouramusements; and, by considering life in the general estimate of its value, as well on every particular occasion, as a mere scene for the exercise ofthe mind, and the engagements of the heart. "I will try and attempt everything, " says Brutus; "I will never cease to recal my country from thisstate of servility. If the event be favourable, it will prove matter of joyto us all; if not, yet I, notwithstanding, shall rejoice. " Why rejoice in adisappointment? Why not be dejected, when his country was overwhelmed?Because sorrow, perhaps, and dejection, can do no good. Nay, but they mustbe endured when they come. And whence should they come to me? might theRoman say: I have followed my mind, and can follow it still. Events mayhave changed the situation in which I am destined to act; but can theyhinder my acting the part of a man? Shew me a situation in which a man canneither act nor die, and I will own he is wretched. 

Whoever has the force of mind steadily to view human life under thisaspect, has only to choose well his occupations, in order to command thatstate of enjoyment, and freedom of soul, which probably constitute thepeculiar felicity to which his active nature is destined. 

The dispositions of men, and consequently their occupations, are commonlydivided into two principal classes; the selfish, and the social. The firstare indulged in solitude; and if they carry a reference to mankind, it isthat of emulation, competition, and enmity. The second incline us to livewith our fellow creatures, and to do them good; they tend to unite themembers of society together; they terminate in a mutual participation oftheir cares and enjoyments, and render the presence of men an occasion ofjoy. Under this class may be enumerated the passions of the sexes, theaffections of parents and children, general humanity, or singularattachments; above all, that habit of the soul by which we considerourselves as but a part of some beloved community, and as but individualmembers of some society, whose general welfare is to us the supreme objectof zeal, and the great rule of our conduct. This affection is a principleof candour, which knows no partial distinctions, and is confined to nobounds; it may extend its effects beyond our personal acquaintance; it may, in the mind, and in thought, at least, make us feel a relation to theuniverse, and to the whole creation of God. "Shall any one, " saysAntoninus, "love the city of Cecrops, and you not love the city of God?"

No emotion of the heart is indifferent. It is either an act of vivacity andjoy, or a feeling of sadness; a transport of pleasure, or a convulsion ofanguish; and the exercises of our different dispositions, as well as theirgratifications, are likely to prove matter of the greatest importance toour happiness or misery. 

The individual is charged with the care of his animal preservation. He mayexist in solitude, and, far removed from society, perform many functions ofsense, imagination, and reason. He is even rewarded for the properdischarge of those functions; and all the natural exercises which relate tohimself, as well as to his fellow creatures, not only occupy withoutdistressing him, but, in many instances, are attended with positivepleasures, and fill up the hours of life with agreeable occupation. 

There is a degree, however, in which we suppose that the care of ourselvesbecomes a source of painful anxiety and cruel passions; in which itdegenerates into avarice, vanity, or pride; and in which, by fosteringhabits of jealousy and envy, of fear and malice, it becomes as destructiveof our own enjoyments, as it is hostile to the welfare of mankind. Thisevil, however, is not to be charged upon any excess in the care ofourselves, but upon a mere mistake in the choice of our objects. We lookabroad for a happiness which is to be found only in the qualities of theheart: we think ourselves dependent on accidents; and are therefore kept insuspense and solicitude. We think ourselves dependent on the will of othermen; and are therefore servile and timid: we think our felicity is placedin subjects for which our fellow creatures are rivals and competitors; andin pursuit of happiness, we engage in those scenes of emulation, envy, hatred, animosity, and revenge, that lead to the highest pitch of distress. We act, in short, as if to preserve ourselves were to retain our weakness, and perpetuate our sufferings. We charge the ills of a distemperedimagination, and a corrupt heart, to the account of our fellow creatures, to whom we refer the pangs of our disappointment or malice; and while wefoster our misery, are surprised that the care of ourselves is attendedwith no better effects. But he who remembers that he is by nature arational being, and a member of society; that to preserve himself, is topreserve his reason, and to preserve the best feelings of his heart; willencounter with none of these inconveniencies; and in the care of himself, will find subjects only of satisfaction and triumph. 

The division of our appetites into benevolent and selfish, has probably, insome degree, helped to mislead our apprehension on the subject of personalenjoyment and private good; and our zeal to prove that virtue isdisinterested, has not greatly promoted its cause. The gratification of aselfish desire, it is thought, brings advantage or pleasure to ourselves;that of benevolence terminates in the pleasure or advantage of others:whereas, in reality, the gratification of every desire is a personalenjoyment, and its value being proportioned to the particular quality orforce of the sentiment, it may happen that the same, person may reap agreater advantage from the good fortune he has procured to another, thanfrom that he has obtained for himself. 

While the gratifications of benevolence, therefore, are as much our own asthose of any other desire whatever, the mere exercises of this dispositionare, on many accounts, to be considered as the first and the principalconstituent of human happiness. Every act of kindness, or of care, in theparent to his child; every emotion of the heart, in friendship or in love, in public zeal, or general humanity, are so many acts of enjoyment andsatisfaction. Pity itself, and compassion, even grief and melancholy, whengrafted on some tender affection, partake of the nature of the stock; andif they are not positive pleasures, are at least pains of a peculiarnature, which we do not even wish to exchange but for a very realenjoyment, obtained in relieving our object. Even extremes in this class ofour dispositions, as they are the reverse of hatred, envy, and malice, sothey are never attended with those excruciating anxieties, jealousies, andfears, which tear the interested mind; or if, in reality, any ill passionarise from a pretended attachment to, our fellow creatures, that attachmentmay, be safely condemned, as not genuine. If we be distrustful or jealous, our pretended affection is probably no more than a desire of attention andpersonal consideration; a motive which frequently inclines us to beconnected with our fellow creatures; but to which we are as frequentlywilling to sacrifice their happiness. We consider them as the tools of ourvanity, pleasure, or interest; not as the parties on whom we may bestow theeffects of our good will, and our love. 

A mind devoted to this class of its affections, being occupied with anobject that may engage it habitually, is not reduced to court theamusements or pleasures with which persons of an ill temper are obliged torepair their disgusts: and temperance becomes an easy task whengratifications of sense are supplanted by those of the heart. Courage, too, is most easily assumed, or is rather inseparable from that ardour of themind, in society, friendship, or in public action, which makes us forgetsubjects of personal anxiety or fear, and attend chiefly to the object ofour zeal or affection, not to the trifling inconveniences, dangers, orhardships, which we ourselves may encounter in striving to maintain it. 

It should seem, therefore, to be the happiness of man, to make his socialdispositions the ruling spring of his occupations; to state himself as themember of a community, for whose general good his heart may glow with anardent zeal, to the suppression of those personal cares which are thefoundation of painful anxieties, fear, jealousy, and envy; or, as Mr. Popeexpresses the same sentiment. 

 "Man, like the generous vine, supported lives; The strength he gains, is from th' embrace he gives. " [Footnote: The same maxim will apply throughout every part of nature. _To love, is to enjoy pleasure: to hate, is to be in pain. _]

We commonly apprehend, that it is our duty to do kindnesses, and ourhappiness to receive them; but if, in reality, courage, and a heart devotedto the good of mankind, are the constituents of human felicity, thekindness which is done infers a happiness in the person from whom itproceeds, not in him on whom it is bestowed; and the greatest good whichmen possessed of fortitude and generosity can procure to their fellowcreatures, is a participation of this happy character. 

If this be the good of the individual, it is likewise that of mankind; andvirtue no longer imposes a task by which we are obliged to bestow uponothers that good from which we ourselves refrain; but supposes, in thehighest degree, as possessed by ourselves, that state of felicity which weare required to promote in the world. "You will confer the greatest benefiton your city, " says Epictetus, "not by raising the roofs, but by exaltingthe souls of your fellow citizens; for it is better that great souls shouldlive in small habitations, than that abject slaves should burrow in greathouses. " [Footnote: Mrs. Carter's translation of the works of Epictetus. ]

To the benevolent, the satisfaction of others is a ground of enjoyment; andexistence itself, in a world that is governed by the wisdom of God, is ablessing. The mind, freed from cares that lead to pusillanimity andmeanness, becomes calm, active, fearless, and bold; capable of everyenterprise, and vigorous in the exercise of every talent, by which thenature of man is adorned. On this foundation was raised the admirablecharacter, which, during a certain period of their story, distinguished thecelebrated nations of antiquity, and rendered familiar and ordinary intheir manners, examples of magnanimity, which, under governments lessfavourable to the public affections, rarely occur; or which, without beingmuch practised, or even understood, are made subjects of admiration andswelling panegyric. "Thus, " says Xenophon, "died Thrasybulus; who indeedappears to have been a good man. " What valuable praise, and how significantto those who know the story of this admirable person! The members of thoseillustrious states, from the habit of considering themselves as part of acommunity, or at least as deeply involved with some order of men in thestate, were regardless of personal considerations: they had a perpetualview to objects which excite a great ardour in the soul; which led them toact perpetually in the view of their fellow citizens, and to practise thosearts of deliberation, elocution, policy, and war, on which the fortunes ofnations, or of men, in their collective body, depend. To the force of mindcollected in this career, and to the improvements of wit which were made inpursuing it, these nations owed, not only their magnanimity, and thesuperiority of their political and military conduct, but even the arts ofpoetry and literature, which among them were only the inferior appendagesof a genius otherwise excited, cultivated, and refined. 

To the ancient Greek, or the Roman, the individual was nothing, and thepublic every thing. To the modern, in too many nations of Europe, theindividual is every thing, and the public nothing. The state is merely acombination of departments, in which consideration, wealth, eminence, orpower, are offered as the reward of service. It was the nature of moderngovernment, even in its first institution, to bestow on every individual afixed station and dignity, which he was to maintain for himself. Ourancestors, in rude ages, during the recess of wars from abroad, fought fortheir personal claims at home, and by their competitions, and the balanceof their powers, maintained a kind of political freedom in the state, whileprivate parties were subject to continual wrongs and oppressions. Theirposterity, in times more polished, have repressed the civil disorders inwhich the activity of earlier ages chiefly consisted; but they employ thecalm they have gained, not in fostering a zeal for those laws, and thatconstitution of government, to which they owe their protection, but inpractising apart, and each for himself, the several arts of personaladvancement, or profit, which their political establishments may enablethem to pursue with success. Commerce, which may be supposed to comprehendevery lucrative art, is accordingly considered as the great object ofnations, and the principal study of mankind. 

So much are we accustomed to consider personal fortune as the sole objectof care, that even under popular establishments, and in states wheredifferent orders of men are summoned to partake in the government of theircountry, and where the liberties they enjoy cannot be long preserved, without vigilance and activity on the part of the subject; still they, who, in the vulgar phrase, have not their fortunes to make, are supposed to beat a loss for occupation, and betake themselves to solitary pastimes, orcultivate what they are pleased to call a taste for gardening, building, drawing, or music. With this aid, they endeavour to fill up the blanks of alistless life, and avoid the necessity of curing their languors by anypositive service to their country, or to mankind. 

The weak or the malicious are well employed in any thing that is innocent, and are fortunate in finding any occupation which prevents the effects of atemper that would prey upon themselves, or upon their fellow creatures. Butthey who are blessed with a happy disposition, with capacity and vigour, incur a real debauchery, by having any amusement that occupies an impropershare of their time; and are really cheated of their happiness, in beingmade to believe, that any occupation or pastime is better fitted to amusethemselves, than that which at the same time produces some real good totheir fellow creatures. 

This sort of entertainment, indeed, cannot be the choice of the mercenary, the envious, or the malicious. Its value is known only to persons of anopposite temper; and to their experience alone, we appeal. Guided by meredisposition, and without the aid of reflection, in business, in friendship, and in public life, they often acquit themselves well; and borne withsatisfaction on the tide of their emotions and sentiments, enjoy thepresent hour, without recollection of the past, or hopes of the future. Itis in speculation, not in practice, they are made to discover, that virtueis a task of severity and self denial. 

SECTION IX. 

OF NATIONAL FELICITY. 

Man is, by nature, the member of a community; and when considered in thiscapacity, the individual appears to be no longer made for himself. He mustforego his happiness and his freedom, where these interfere with the goodof society. He is only part of a whole; and the praise we think due to hisvirtue, is but a branch of that more general commendation we bestow on themember of a body, on the part of a fabric, or engine, for being well fittedto occupy its place, and to produce its effect. 

If this follow from the relation of a part to its whole, and if the publicgood be the principal object with individuals, it is likewise true, thatthe happiness of individuals is the great end of civil society; for, inwhat sense can a public enjoy any good, if its members, considered apart, be unhappy?

The interests of society, however, and of its members, are easilyreconciled. If the individual owe every degree of consideration to thepublic, he receives, in paying that very consideration, the greatesthappiness of which his nature is capable; and the greatest blessing thepublic can bestow on its members, is to keep them attached to itself. Thatis the most happy state, which is most beloved by its subjects; and theyare the most happy men, whose hearts are engaged to a community, in whichthey find every object of generosity and zeal, and a scope to the exerciseof every talent, and of every virtuous disposition. 

After we have thus found general maxims, the greater part of our troubleremains, their just application to particular cases. Nations are differentin respect to their extent, numbers of people, and wealth; in respect tothe arts they practise, and the accommodations they have procured. Thesecircumstances may not only affect the manners of men; they even, in ouresteem, come into competition with the article of manners itself; aresupposed to constitute a national felicity, independent of virtue; and givea title, upon which we indulge our own vanity, and that of other nations, as we do that of private men, on the score of their fortunes and honours. 

But if this way of measuring happiness, when applied to private men, beruinous and false, it is so no less when applied to nations. Wealth, commerce, extent of territory, and the knowledge of arts, are, whenproperly employed, the means of preservation, and the foundations of power. If they fail in part, the nation is weakened; if they were entirelywithheld, the race would perish: Their tendency is to maintain numbers ofmen, but not to constitute happiness. They will accordingly maintain thewretched as well as the happy. They answer one purpose, but are nottherefore sufficient for all; and are of little significance, when onlyemployed to maintain a timid, dejected, and servile people. 

Great and powerful states are able to overcome and subdue the weak;polished and commercial nations have more wealth, and practise a greatervariety of arts, than the rude: but the happiness of men, in all casesalike, consists in the blessings of a candid, an active, and strenuousmind. And if we consider the state of society merely as that into whichmankind are led by their propensities, as a state to be valued from itseffect in preserving the species, in ripening their talents, and excitingtheir virtues, we need not enlarge our communities, in order to enjoy theseadvantages. We frequently obtain them in the most remarkable degree, wherenations remain independent, and are of a small extent. 

To increase the numbers of mankind, may be admitted as a great andimportant object; but to extend the limits of any particular state, is not, perhaps, the way to obtain it: while we desire that our fellow creaturesshould multiply, it does not follow, that the whole should, if possible, beunited under one head. We are apt to admire the empire of the Romans, as amodel of national greatness and splendour; but the greatness we admire, inthis case, was ruinous to the virtue and the happiness of mankind; it wasfound to be inconsistent with all the advantages which that conqueringpeople had formerly enjoyed in the articles of government and manners. 

The emulation of nations proceeds from their division. A cluster of states, like a company of men, find the exercise of their reason, and the test oftheir virtues, in the affairs they transact, upon a foot of equality, andof separate interest. The measures taken for safety, including great partof the national policy, are relative in every state to what is apprehendedfrom abroad. Athens was necessary to Sparta in the exercise of her virtue, as steel is to flint in the production of fire; and if the cities of Greecehad been united under one head, we should never have heard of Epaminondasor Thrasybulus, of Lycurgus or Solon. 

When we reason in behalf of our species, therefore, although we may lamentthe abuses which sometimes arise from independence, and opposition ofinterest; yet, whilst any degrees of virtue remain with mankind, we cannotwish to crowd, under one establishment, numbers of men who may serve toconstitute several; or to commit affairs to the conduct of one senate, onelegislative or executive power, which, upon a distinct and separatefooting, might furnish an exercise of ability, and a theatre of glory tomany. 

This may be a subject upon which no determinate rule can be given; but theadmiration of boundless dominion is a ruinous error; and in no instance, perhaps, is the real interest of mankind more entirely mistaken. 

The measure of enlargement to be wished for in any particular state, isoften to be taken from the condition of its neighbours. Where a number ofstates are contiguous, they should be near an equality, in order that theymay be mutually objects of respect and consideration, and in order thatthey may possess that independence in which the political life of a nationconsists. When the kingdoms of Spain were united, when the great fiefs inFrance were annexed to the crown, it was no longer expedient for thenations of Great Britain to continue disjoined. 

The small republics of Greece, indeed, by their subdivisions, and thebalance of their power, found almost in every village the object ofnations. Every little district was a nursery of excellent men, and what isnow the wretched corner of a great empire, was the field on which mankindhave reaped their principal honours. But in modern Europe, republics of asimilar extent are like shrubs, under the shade of a taller wood, choakedby the neighbourhood of more powerful states. In their case, a certaindisproportion of force frustrates, in a great measure, the advantage ofseparation. They are like the trader in Poland, who is the more despicable, and the less secure, that he is neither master nor slave. 

Independent communities, in the mean time, however weak, are averse to acoalition, not only where it comes with an air of imposition, or unequaltreaty, but even where it implies no more than the admission of new membersto an equal share of consideration with the old. The citizen has nointerest in the annexation of kingdoms; he must find his importancediminished, as the state is enlarged. But ambitious men, under theenlargement of territory, find a more plentiful harvest of power, and ofwealth, while government itself is an easier task. Hence the ruinousprogress of empire; and hence free nations, under the show of acquiringdominion, suffer themselves, in the end, to be yoked with the slaves theyhad conquered. 

Our desire to augment the force of a nation is the only pretext forenlarging its territory; but this measure, when pursued to extremes, seldomfails to frustrate itself. 

Notwithstanding the advantage of numbers, and superior resources in war, the strength of a nation is derived from the character, not from thewealth, nor from the multitude of its people. If the treasure of a statecan hire numbers of men, erect ramparts, and furnish the implements of war;the possessions of the fearful are easily seized; a timorous multitudefalls into rout of itself; ramparts may be scaled where they are notdefended by valour; and arms are of consequence only in the hands of thebrave. The band to which Agesilaus pointed as the wall of his city, made adefence for their country more permanent, and more effectual, than the rockand the cement with which other cities were fortified. 

We should owe little to that statesman, who were to contrive a defence thatmight supersede the external uses of virtue. It is wisely ordered for man, as a rational being, that the employment of reason is necessary to hispreservation; it is fortunate for him, in the pursuit of distinction, thathis personal consideration depends on his character; and it is fortunatefor nations, that, in order to be powerful and safe, they must strive tomaintain the courage, and cultivate the virtues, of their people. By theuse of such means, they at once gain their external ends, and are happy. 

Peace and unanimity are commonly considered as the principal foundations ofpublic felicity; yet the rivalship of separate communities, and theagitations of a free people, are the principles of political life, and theschool of men. How shall we reconcile these jarring and opposite tenets? Itis, perhaps, not necessary to reconcile them. The pacific may do what theycan to allay the animosities, and to reconcile the opinions, of men; and itwill be happy if they can succeed in repressing their crimes, and incalming the worst of their passions. Nothing, in the mean time, butcorruption or slavery can suppress the debates that subsist among men ofintegrity, who bear an equal part in the administration of state. 

A perfect agreement in matters of opinion is not to be obtained in the mostselect company; and if it were, what would become of society? "TheSpartan legislator, " says Plutarch, "appears to have sown the seeds ofvariance and dissention among his countrymen: he meant that good citizensshould be led to dispute; he considered emulation as the brand by whichtheir virtues were kindled; and seemed to apprehend, that a complaisance, by which men submit their opinions without examination, is a principalsource of corruption. "

Forms of government are supposed to decide of the happiness or misery ofmankind. But forms of government must be varied, in order to suit theextent, the way of subsistence, the character, and the manners of differentnations. In some cases, the multitude may be suffered to govern themselves;in others they must be severely restrained. The inhabitants of a village, in some primitive age, may have been safely entrusted to the conduct ofreason, and to the suggestion of their innocent views; but the tenants ofNewgate can scarcely be trusted, with chains locked to their bodies, andbars of iron fixed to their legs. How is it possible, therefore, to findany single form of government that would suit mankind in every condition?

We proceed, however, in the following section, to point out thedistinctions, and to explain the language which occurs in this place, onthe head of different models for subordination and government. 

SECTION X. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 

It is a common observation, that mankind were originally equal. They haveindeed by nature equal right to their preservation, and to the use of theirtalents; but they are fitted for different stations; and when they areclassed by a rule taken from this circumstance, they suffer no injustice onthe side of their natural rights. It is obvious, that some mode ofsubordination is as necessary to men as society itself; and this, not onlyto attain the ends of government, but to comply with an order establishedby nature. 

Prior to any political institution whatever, men are qualified by a greatdiversity of talents, by a different tone of the soul, and ardour of thepassions, to act a variety of parts. Bring them together, each will findhis place. They censure or applaud in a body; they consult and deliberatein more select parties; they take or give an ascendant as individuals; andnumbers are by this means fitted to act in company, and to preserve theircommunities, before any formal distribution of office is made. We areformed to act in this manner; and if we have any doubts with relation tothe rights of government in general, we owe our perplexity more to thesubtilties of the speculative, than to any uncertainty in the feelings ofthe heart. Involved in the resolutions of our company, we move with thecrowd before we have determined the rule by which its will is collected. Wefollow a leader, before we have settled the ground of his pretensions, oradjusted the form of his election; and it is not till after mankind havecommitted many errors in the capacities of magistrate and subject, thatthey think of making government itself a subject of rules. 

If, therefore, in considering the variety of forms under which societiessubsist, the casuist is pleased to inquire, what title one man, or anynumber of men, have to control his actions? he may be answered, none atall, provided that his actions have no effect to the prejudice of hisfellow creatures; but if they have, the rights of defence, and theobligation to repress the commission of wrongs, belong to collectivebodies, as well as to individuals. Many rude nations, having no formaltribunals for the judgment of crimes, assemble, when alarmed by anyflagrant offence, and take their measures with the criminal as they wouldwith an enemy. But will this consideration, which confirms the title tosovereignty, where it is exercised by the society in its collectivecapacity, or by those to whom the powers of the whole are committed, likewise support the claim to dominion, wherever it is casually lodged, oreven where it is only maintained by force?

This question may be sufficiently answered, by observing, that a right todo justice, and to do good, is competent to every individual, or order ofmen; and that the exercise of this right has no limits but in the defect ofpower. Whoever, therefore, has power, may employ it to this extent; and noprevious convention is required to justify his conduct. But a right to dowrong, or to commit injustice, is an abuse of language, and a contradictionin terms. It is no more competent to the collective body of a people, thanit is to any single usurper. When we admit such a prerogative in the caseof any sovereign, we can only mean to express the extent of his power, andthe force with which he is enabled to execute his pleasure. Such aprerogative is assumed by the leader of banditti at the head of his gang, or by a despotic prince at the head of his troops. When the sword ispresented by either, the traveller or the inhabitant may submit from asense of necessity or fear; but he lies under no obligation from a motiveof duty or justice. 

The multiplicity of forms, in the mean time, which different societiesoffer to our view, is almost infinite. The classes into which theydistribute their members, the manner in which they establish thelegislative and executive powers, the imperceptible circumstances by whichthey are led to have different customs, and to confer on their governorsunequal measures of power and authority, give rise to perpetualdistinctions between constitutions the most nearly resembling each other, and give to human affairs a variety in detail, which, in its full extent, no understanding can comprehend, and no memory retain. 

In order to have a general and comprehensive knowledge of the whole, wemust be determined on this, as on every other subject, to overlook manyparticulars and singularities, distinguishing different governments; to fixour attention on certain points, in which many agree; and thereby establisha few general heads, under which the subject may be distinctly considered. When we have marked the characteristics which form the general points ofcoincidence; when we have pursued them to their consequences in the severalmodes of legislation, execution, and judicature, in the establishmentswhich relate to police, commerce, religion, or domestic life; we have madean acquisition of knowledge, which, though it does not supersede thenecessity of experience, may serve to direct our inquiries, and, in themidst of affairs, give an order and a method for the arrangement ofparticulars that occur to our observation. 

When I recollect what the President Montesquieu has written, I am at a lossto tell, why I should treat of human affairs; but I too am instigated by myreflections, and my sentiments; and I may utter them more to thecomprehension of ordinary capacities, because I am more on the level ofordinary men. If it be necessary to pave the way for what follows on thegeneral history of nations, by giving some account of the heads under whichvarious forms of government may be conveniently ranged, the reader shouldperhaps be referred to what has been already delivered on the subject bythis profound politician and amiable moralist. In his writings will befound, not only the original of what I am now, for the sake of order, tocopy from him, but likewise probably the source of many observations, which, in different places, I may, under the belief of invention, haverepeated, without quoting their author. 

The ancient philosophers treated of government commonly under three heads;the Democratic, the Aristocratic, and the Despotic. Their attention waschiefly occupied with the varieties of republican government, and they paidlittle regard to a very important distinction, which Mr. Montesquieu hasmade, between despotism and monarchy. He too has considered government asreducible to three general forms; and, "to understand the nature of each, "he observes, "it is sufficient to recal ideas which are familiar with menof the least reflection, who admit three definitions, or rather threefacts: that a republic is a state in which the people in a collective body, or a part of the people, possess the sovereign power; that monarchy is thatin which one man governs, according to fixed and determinate laws; and adespotism is that in which one man, without law, or rule of administration, by the mere impulse of will or caprice, decides, and carries every thingbefore him. "

Republics admit of a very material distinction, which is pointed out in thegeneral definition; that between democracy and aristocracy. In the first, supreme power remains in the hands of the collective body. Every office ofmagistracy, at the nomination of this sovereign, is open to every citizen;who, in the discharge of his duty, becomes the minister of the people, andaccountable to them for every object of his trust. 

In the second, the sovereignty is lodged in a particular class, or order ofmen; who, being once named, continue for life; or, by the hereditarydistinctions of birth and fortune, are advanced to a station of permanentsuperiority. From this order, and by their nomination, all the offices ofmagistracy are filled; and in the different assemblies which theyconstitute, whatever relates to the legislation, the execution, orjurisdiction, is finally determined. 

Mr. Montesquieu has pointed out the sentiments or maxims from which menmust be supposed to act under these different governments. 

In democracy, they must love equality; they must respect the rights oftheir fellow citizens; they must unite by the common ties of affection tothe state. 

In forming personal pretensions, they must be satisfied with that degree ofconsideration they can procure by their abilities fairly measured withthose of an opponent; they must labour for the public without hope ofprofit; they must reject every attempt to create a personal dependence. Candour, force, and elevation of mind, in short, are the props ofdemocracy; and virtue is the principle of conduct required to itspreservation. 

How beautiful a pre-eminence on the side of popular government! And howardently should mankind wish for the form, if it tended to establish theprinciple, or were, in every instance, a sure indication of its presence!

But perhaps we must have possessed the principle, in order, with any hopesof advantage, to receive the form; and where the first is entirelyextinguished, the other may be fraught with evil, if any additional evildeserves to be shunned where men are already unhappy. 

At Constantinople or Algiers, it is a miserable spectacle when men pretendto act on a foot of equality: they only mean to shake off the restraints ofgovernment, and to seize as much as they can of that spoil, which, inordinary times, is engrossed by the master they serve. 

It is one advantage of democracy, that the principal ground of distinctionbeing personal qualities, men are classed according to their abilities, andto the merit of their actions. Though all have equal pretensions to power, yet the state is actually governed by a few. The majority of the people, even in their capacity of sovereign, only pretend to employ their senses;to feel, when pressed by national inconveniencies, or threatened by publicdangers; and with the ardour which is apt to arise in crowded assemblies, to urge the pursuits in which they are engaged, or to repel the attackswith which they are menaced. 

The most perfect equality of rights can never exclude the ascendant ofsuperior minds, nor the assemblies of a collective body govern without thedirection of select councils. On this as count, popular government may beconfounded with aristocracy. But this alone does not constitute thecharacter of aristocratical government. Here the members of the state aredivided, at least, into two classes; of which one is destined to command, the other to obey. No merits or defects can raise or sink a person from oneclass to the other. The only effect of personal character is, to procure tothe individual a suitable degree of consideration with his own order, notto vary his rank. In one situation he is taught to assume, in another toyield the pre-eminence. He occupies the station of patron or client, and iseither the sovereign or the subject of his country. The whole citizens mayunite in executing the plans of state, but never in deliberating on itsmeasures, or enacting its laws. What belongs to the whole people underdemocracy, is here confined to a part. Members of the superior order areamong themselves, possibly, classed according to their abilities, butretain a perpetual ascendant over those of inferior station. They are atonce the servants and the masters of the state, and pay, with theirpersonal attendance and with their blood, for the civil or military honoursthey enjoy. 

To maintain for himself, and to admit in his fellow citizen, a perfectequality of privilege and station, is no longer the leading maxim of themember of such a community. The rights of men are modified by theircondition. One order claims more than it is willing to yield; the othermust be ready to yield what it does not assume to itself; and it is withgood reason that Mr. Montesquieu gives to the principle of such governmentsthe name of _moderation_, not of _virtue_. 

The elevation of one class is a moderated arrogance; the submission of theother a limited deference. The first must be careful, by concealing theinvidious part of their distinction, to palliate what is grievous in thepublic arrangement, and by their education, their cultivated manners, andimproved talents, to appear qualified for the stations they occupy. Theother, must be taught to yield, from respect and personal attachment, whatcould not otherwise be extorted by force. When this moderation fails oneither side, the constitution totters. A populace enraged to mutiny, mayclaim the right of equality to which they are admitted in democraticalstates; or a nobility bent on dominion, may choose among themselves, orfind already pointed out to them, a sovereign, who, by advantages offortune, popularity, or abilities, is ready to seize for his own family, that envied power which has already carried his order beyond the limits ofmoderation, and infected particular men with a boundless ambition. Monarchies have accordingly been found with the recent marks ofaristocracy. There, however, the monarch is only the first among thenobles; he must be satisfied with a limited power; his subjects are rangedinto classes; he finds on every quarter a pretence to privilege thatcircumscribes his authority; and he finds a force sufficient to confine hisadministration within certain bounds of equity and determinate laws. Undersuch governments, however, the love of equality is preposterous, andmoderation itself is unnecessary. The object of every rank is precedency, and every order may display its advantages to their full extent. Thesovereign himself owes great part of his authority to the sounding titlesand the dazzling equipage which he exhibits in public. The subordinateranks lay claim to importance by a like exhibition, and for that purposecarry in every instant the ensigns of their birth, or the ornaments oftheir fortune. What else could mark out to the individual the relation inwhich he stands to his fellow subjects, or distinguish the numberless ranksthat fill up the interval between the state of the sovereign and that ofthe peasant? Or what else could, in states of a great extent, preserve anyappearance of order, among members disunited by ambition and interest, anddestined to form a community, without the sense of any common concern?

Monarchies are generally found where the state is enlarged, in populationand in territory, beyond the numbers and dimensions that are consistentwith republican government. Together with these circumstances, greatinequalities arise in the distribution of property; and the desire ofpre-eminence becomes the predominant passion. Every rank would exercise itsprerogative, and the sovereign is perpetually tempted to enlarge his own;if subjects, who despair of precedence, plead for equality, he is willingto favour their claims, and to aid them in reducing pretensions, with whichhe himself is, on many occasions, obliged to contend. In the event of sucha policy, many invidious distinctions and grievances peculiar tomonarchical government, may, in appearance, be removed; but the state ofequality to which the subjects approach is that of slaves, equallydependent on the will of a master, not that of freemen, in a condition tomaintain their own. 

The principle of monarchy, according to Montesquieu, is honour. Men maypossess good qualities, elevation of mind, and fortitude; but the sense ofequality, that will hear no encroachment on the personal rights of themeanest citizen; the indignant spirit, that will not court a protection, nor accept as a favour what is due as a right; the public affection, whichis founded on the neglect of personal considerations, are neitherconsistent with the preservation of the constitution, nor agreeable to thehabits acquired in any station assigned to its members. 

Every condition is possessed of peculiar dignity, and points out apropriety of conduct, which men of station are obliged to maintain. In thecommerce of superiors and inferiors, it is the object of ambition, and ofvanity, to refine on the advantages of rank; while, to facilitate theintercourse of polite society, it is the aim of good breeding to disguise, or reject them. 

Though the objects of consideration are rather the dignities of stationthan personal qualities; though friendship cannot be formed by mereinclination, nor alliances by the mere choice of the heart; yet men sounited, and even without changing their order, are highly susceptible ofmoral excellence, or liable to many different degrees of corruption. Theymay act a vigorous part as members of the state, an amiable one in thecommerce of private society; or they may yield up their dignity ascitizens, even while they raise their arrogance and presumption as privateparties. 

In monarchy, all orders of men derive their honours from the crown; butthey continue to hold them as a right, and they exercise a subordinatepower in the state, founded on the permanent rank they enjoy, and on theattachment of those whom they are appointed to lead and protect. Thoughthey do not force themselves into national councils and public assemblies, and though the name of senate is unknown, yet the sentiments they adoptmust have weight with the sovereign; and every individual, in his separatecapacity, in some measure, deliberates for his country. In whatever doesnot derogate from his rank, he has an arm ready to serve the community; inwhatever alarms his sense of honour, he has aversions and dislikes, whichamount to a negative on the will of his prince. 

Entangled together by the reciprocal ties of dependence and protection, though not combined by the sense of a common interest, the subjects ofmonarchy, like those of republics, find themselves occupied as the membersof an active society, and engaged to treat with their fellow creatures on aliberal footing. If those principles of honour which save the individualfrom servility in his own person, or from becoming an engine of oppressionin the hands of another, should fail; if they should give way to the maximsof commerce, to the refinements of a supposed philosophy, or to themisplaced ardours of a republican spirit; if they are betrayed by thecowardice of subjects, or subdued by the ambition of princes; what mustbecome of the nations of Europe?

Despotism is monarchy corrupted, in which a court and a prince inappearance remain, but in which every subordinate rank is destroyed; inwhich the subject is told, that he has no rights; that he cannot possessany property, nor fill any station independent of the momentary will of hisprince. These doctrines are founded on the maxims of conquest; they must beinculcated with the whip and the sword; and are best received under theterror of chains and imprisonment. Fear, therefore, is the principle whichqualifies the subject to occupy his station; and the sovereign, who holdsout the ensigns of terror so freely to others, has abundant reason to givethis passion a principal place with himself. That tenure which he hasdevised for the rights of others, is soon applied to his own; and from hiseager desire to secure, or to extend his power, he finds it become, likethe fortunes of his people, a creature of mere imagination and unsettledcaprice. 

Whilst we thus, with so much accuracy, can assign the ideal limits that maydistinguish constitutions of government, we find them, in reality, both inrespect to the principle and the form, variously blended together. In whatsociety are not men classed by external distinctions, as well as personalqualities? In what state are they not actuated by a variety of principles;justice, honour, moderation, and fear? It is the purpose of science not todisguise this confusion in its object, but, in the multiplicity andcombination of particulars, to find the principal points which deserve ourattention; and which, being well understood, save us from the embarrassmentwhich the varieties of singular cases might otherwise create. In the samedegree in which governments require men to act from principles of virtue, of honour, or of fear, they are more or less fully comprised under theheads of republic, monarchy, or despotism, and the general theory is moreor less applicable to their particular case. 

Forms of government, in fact, mutually approach or recede by many, andoften insensible gradations. Democracy, by admitting certain inequalitiesof rank, approaches to aristocracy. In popular, as well as aristocraticalgovernments, particular men; by their personal authority, and sometimes bythe credit of their family, have maintained a species of monarchical power. The monarch is limited in different degrees: even the despotic prince isonly that monarch whose subjects claim the fewest privileges, or who ishimself best prepared to subdue them by force. All these varieties are butsteps in the history of mankind, and, mark the fleeting and transientsituations through which they have passed; while supported by virtue, ordepressed by vice. 

Perfect democracy and despotism appear to be the opposite extremes at whichconstitutions of government farthest recede from each other. Under thefirst, a perfect virtue is required; under the second, a total corruptionis supposed: yet, in point of mere form, there being nothing fixed in theranks and distinctions of men beyond the casual and temporary possession ofpower, societies easily pass from a condition in which every individual hasan equal title to reign, into one in which they are equally destined toserve. The same qualities in both, courage, popularity, address, andmilitary conduct, raise the ambitious to eminence. With these qualities, the citizen or the slave easily passes from the ranks to the command of anarmy, from an obscure to an illustrious station. In either, a single personmay rule with unlimited sway; and in both, the populace may break downevery barrier of order, and restraint of law. 

If we suppose that the equality established among the subjects of adespotic state has inspired its members with confidence, intrepidity, andthe love of justice; the despotic prince, having ceased to be an object offear, must, sink among the crowd. If, on the contrary, the personalequality which is enjoyed by the members of a democratical state, should bevalued merely as an equal pretension to the objects of avarice andambition, the monarch may start up anew, and be supported by those who meanto share in his profits. When the rapacious and mercenary assemble inparties, it is of no consequence under what leader they inlist, whetherCćsar or Pompey; the hopes of rapine or pay are the only motives from whichthey become attached to either. 

In the disorder of corrupted societies, the scene has been frequentlychanged from democracy to despotism, and from the last too, in its turn, tothe first. From amidst the democracy of corrupt men, and from a scene oflawless confusion, the tyrant ascends a throne with arms reeking in blood. But his abuses, or his weaknesses, in the station he has gained, in theirturn awaken and give way to the spirit of mutiny and revenge. The cries ofmurder and desolation, which in the ordinary course of military governmentterrified the subject in his private retreat, sound through the vaults, andpierce the grates and iron doors of the seraglio. Democracy seems to revivein a scene of wild disorder and tumult; but both the extremes are but thetransient fits of paroxysm or languor in a distempered state. 

If men be anywhere arrived at this measure of depravity, there appears noimmediate hope of redress. Neither the ascendancy of the multitude, northat of the tyrant, will secure the administration of justice; neither thelicense of mere tumult, nor the calm of dejection and servitude, will teachthe citizen that he was born for candour and affection to his fellowcreatures. And if the speculative would find that habitual state of warwhich they are sometimes pleased to honour with the name of _the state ofnature_, they will find it in the contest that subsists between thedespotical prince and his subjects, not in the first approaches of a rudeand simple tribe to the condition and the domestic arrangement of nations. 

AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY. 

 * * * * *

PART SECOND. 

OF THE HISTORY OF RUDE NATIONS. 

 * * * * *

SECTION I. 

OF THE INFORMATIONS ON THIS SUBJECT WHICH ARE DERIVED FROM ANTIQUITY. 

The history of mankind is confined within a limited period, and from everyquarter brings an intimation that human affairs have had a beginning. Nations, distinguished by the possession of arts, and the felicity of theirpolitical establishments, have been derived from a feeble original, andstill preserve in their story the indications of a slow and gradualprogress, by which this distinction was gained. The antiquities of everypeople, however diversified, and however disguised, contain the sameinformation on this point. 

In sacred history, we find the parents of the species, as yet a singlepair, sent forth to inherit the earth, and to force a subsistence forthemselves amidst the briars and thorns which were made to abound on itssurface. Their race, which was again reduced to a few, had to struggle withthe dangers that await a weak and infant species; and after many ageselapsed, the most respectable nations took their rise from one or a fewfamilies that had pastured their flocks in the desert. 

The Grecians derive their own origin from unsettled tribes, whose frequentmigrations are a proof of the rude and infant state of their communities;and whose warlike exploits, so much celebrated in story, only exhibit thestruggles with which they disputed the possession of a country theyafterwards, by their talent for fable, by their arts, and their policy, rendered so famous in the history of mankind. 

Italy must have been divided into many rude and feeble cantons, when a bandof robbers, as we are taught to consider them, found a secure settlement onthe banks of the Tiber, and when a people, yet composed only of one sex, sustained the character of a nation. Rome, for many ages, saw, from herwalls, on every side, the territory of her enemies, and found as little tocheck or to stifle the weakness of her infant power, as she did afterwardsto restrain the progress of her extended empire. Like a Tartar or aScythian horde, which had pitched on a settlement, this nascent communitywas equal, if not superior, to every tribe in its neighbourhood; and theoak which has covered the field with its shade, was once a feeble plant inthe nursery, and not to be distinguished from the weeds by which its earlygrowth was restrained. 

The Gauls and the Germans are come to our knowledge with the marks of asimilar condition; and the inhabitants of Britain, at the time of the firstRoman invasions; resembled, in many things, the present natives of NorthAmerica: they were ignorant of agriculture; they painted their bodies; andused for clothing the skins of beasts. 

Such, therefore, appears to have been the commencement of history with allnations, and in such circumstances are we to look for the originalcharacter of mankind. The inquiry refers to a distant period, and everyconclusion should build on the facts which are preserved for our use. Ourmethod, notwithstanding, too frequently, is to rest the whole onconjecture; to impute every advantage of our nature to those arts which weourselves possess; and to imagine, that a mere negation of all our virtuesis a sufficient description of man in his original state. We are ourselvesthe supposed standards of politeness and civilization; and where our ownfeatures do not appear, we apprehend, that there is nothing which deservesto be known. But it is probable that here, as in many other cases, we areill qualified, from our supposed knowledge of causes, to prognosticateeffects, or to determine what must have been the properties and operations, even of our own nature, in the absence of those circumstances in which wehave seen it engaged. Who would, from mere conjecture, suppose, that thenaked savage would be a coxcomb and a gamester? that he would be proud orvain, without the distinctions of title and fortune? and that his principalcare would be to adorn his person, and to find an amusement? Even if itcould be supposed that he would thus share in our vices, and, in the midstof his forest, vie with the follies which are practised in the town; yet noone would be, so bold as to affirm, that he would likewise, in anyinstance, excel us in talents and virtues; that he would have apenetration, a force of imagination and elocution, an ardour of mind, anaffection and courage, which the arts, the discipline, and the policy offew nations would be able to improve. Yet these particulars are a part inthe description which is delivered by those who have had opportunities ofseeing mankind in their rudest condition; and beyond the reach of suchtestimony, we can neither safely take, nor pretend to give, information onthe subject. 

If conjectures and opinions formed at a distance, have not sufficientauthority in the history of mankind, the domestic antiquities of everynation must, for this very reason, be received with caution. They are, forthe most part, the mere conjectures or the fictions of subsequent ages; andeven where at first they contained some resemblance of truth, they stillvary with the imagination of those by whom they are transmitted, and inevery generation receive a different form. They are made to bear the stampof the times through which they have passed in the form of tradition, notof the ages to which their pretended descriptions relate. The informationthey bring, is not like the light reflected from a mirror, which delineatesthe object from which it originally came; but, like rays that come brokenand dispersed from an opaque or unpolished surface, only give the coloursand features of the body from which they were last reflected. 

When traditionary fables are rehearsed by the vulgar, they bear the marksof a national character; and though mixed with absurdities, often raise theimagination, and move the heart: when made the materials of poetry, andadorned by the skill and the eloquence of an ardent and superior mind, theyinstruct the understanding, as well as engage the passions. It is only inthe management of mere antiquaries, or stript of the ornaments which thelaws of history forbid them to wear, that they become even unfit to amusethe fancy, or to serve any purpose whatever. 

It were absurd to quote the fable of the Iliad or the Odyssey, the legendsof Hercules, Theseus, or Oedipus, as authorities in matter of fact relatingto the history of mankind; but they may, with great justice, be cited toascertain what were the conceptions and sentiments, of the age in whichthey were composed, or to characterize the genius of that people, withwhose imaginations they were blended, and by whom they were fondlyrehearsed and admired. 

In this manner fiction may be admitted to vouch for the genius of nations, while history has nothing to offer that is entitled to credit. The Greekfable accordingly conveying a character of its authors, throws light onsome ages of which no other record remains. The superiority of this peopleis indeed in no circumstance more evident than in the strain of theirfictions, and in the story of those fabulous heroes, poets, and sages, whose tales, being invented or embellished by an imagination already filledwith the subject for which the hero was celebrated, served to inflame thatardent enthusiasm, with which so many different republics afterwardsproceeded in the pursuit of every national object. 

It was no doubt of great advantage to those nations, that their system offable was original, and being already received in popular traditions, served to diffuse those improvements of reason, imagination, and sentiment, which were afterwards, by men of the finest talents, made on the fableitself, or conveyed in its moral. The passions of the poet pervaded theminds of the people, and the conceptions of men of genius, beingcommunicated to the vulgar, became the incentives of a national spirit. 

A mythology borrowed from abroad, a literature founded on references to astrange country, and fraught with foreign allusions, are much more confinedin their use: they speak to the learned alone; and though intended toinform the understanding, and to mend the heart, may, by being confined toa few, have an opposite effect. They may foster conceit on the ruins ofcommon sense, and render what was, at least innocently, sung by theAthenian mariner at his oar, or rehearsed by the shepherd in attending hisflock, an occasion of vice, or the foundation of pedantry and scholasticpride. 

Our very learning, perhaps, where its influence extends, serves, in somemeasure, to depress our national spirit. Our literature being derived fromnations of a different race, who flourished at a time when our ancestorswere in a state of barbarity, and consequently, when they were despised bythose who had attained to the literary arts, has given rise to a humblingopinion, that we ourselves are the offspring of mean and contemptiblenations, with whom the human imagination and sentiment had no effect, tillthe genius was in a manner inspired by examples, and directed by lessonsthat were brought from abroad. The Romans, from whom our accounts arechiefly derived, have admitted, in the rudeness of their own ancestors, asystem of virtues, which all simple nations perhaps equally possess; acontempt of riches; love of their country, patience of hardship, danger, and fatigue. They have, notwithstanding vilified, our ancestors for havingresembled their own; at least, in the defect of their arts, and in theneglect of conveniencies which those arts are employed to procure. 

It is from the Greek and the Roman historians, however, that we have notonly the most authentic and instructive, but even the most engagingrepresentations of the tribes from whom we descend. Those sublime andintelligent writers understood human nature, and could collect itsfeatures, and exhibit its characters, in every situation. They were illsucceeded in this task by the early historians of modern Europe; who, generally bred to the profession of monks, and confined to the monasticlife, applied themselves to record what they were pleased to denominatefacts, while they suffered the productions of genius to perish, and wereunable, either by the matter they selected, or the style of theircompositions, to give any representation of the active spirit of mankind inany condition. With them, a narration was supposed to constitute history, whilst it did not convey any knowledge of men; and history itself wasallowed to be complete, while, amidst the events and the succession ofprinces that are recorded in the order of time, we are left to look in vainfor those characteristics of the understanding and the heart, which alone, in every human transaction, render the story either engaging or useful. 

We therefore willingly quit the history of our early ancestors, where Cćsarand Tacitus have dropped them; and perhaps till we come within the reach ofwhat is connected with present affairs, and makes a part in the system onwhich we now proceed, have little reason to expect any subject to interestor inform the mind. We have no reason, however, from hence to conclude, that the matter itself was more barren, or the scene of human affairs lessinteresting, in modern Europe, than it has been on every stage wheremankind were engaged to exhibit the movements of the heart, the efforts ofgenerosity, magnanimity, and courage. 

The trial of what those ages contained, is not even fairly made, when menof genius and distinguished abilities, with the accomplishments of alearned and a polished age, collect the materials they have found, and, with the greatest success, connect the story of illiterate ages withtransactions of a later date. It is difficult even for them, under thenames which are applied in a new state of society, to convey a justapprehension of what mankind were, in situations so different, and in timesso remote from their own. 

In deriving from historians of this character the instruction which theirwritings are fit to bestow, we are frequently to forget the general termsthat are employed, in order to collect the real manners of any age from theminute circumstances that are occasionally presented. The titles of_Royal_ and _Noble_ were applicable to the families of Tarquin, Collatinus, and Cincinnatus; but Lucretia was employed in domestic industrywith her maids, and Cincinnatus followed the plough. The dignities, andeven the offices, of civil society, were known many ages ago, in Europe, bytheir present appellations; but we find in the history of England, that aking and his court being assembled to solemnize a festival, an outlaw, whohad subsisted by robbery, came to share in the feast. The king himselfarose to force this unworthy guest from the company; a scuffle ensuedbetween them; and the king was killed. [Footnote: Hume's History, chap. 8. P. 278] A chancellor and prime minister, whose magnificence and sumptuousfurniture were the subject of admiration and envy, had his apartmentscovered every day in winter with clean straw and hay, and in summer withgreen rushes or boughs. Even the sovereign himself, in those ages, wasprovided with forage for his bed. [Footnote: Hume's History, chap. 8. P. 73]These picturesque features, and characteristical strokes of the times, recal the imagination from the supposed distinction of monarch and subject, to that state of rough familiarity in which our ancestors lived, and underwhich they acted, with a view to objects, and on principles of conduct, which we seldom comprehend, when we are employed to record theirtransactions, or to study their characters. 

Thucydides, notwithstanding the prejudice of his country against the nameof _Barbarian_, understood that it was in the customs of barbarousnations he was to study the more ancient manners of Greece. 

The Romans might have found an image of their own ancestors, in therepresentations they have given of ours; and if ever an Arab clan shallbecome a civilized nation, or any American tribe escape the poison which isadministered by our traders of Europe, it may be from the relations of thepresent times, and the descriptions which are now given by travellers, thatsuch a people, in after ages, may best collect the accounts of theirorigin. It is in their present condition that we are to behold, as in amirror, the features of our own progenitors; and from thence we are to drawour conclusions with respect to the influence of situations, in which wehave reason to believe that our fathers were placed. 

What should distinguish a German or a Briton, in the habits of his mind orhis body, in his manners or apprehensions, from an American, who, like him, with his bow and his dart, is left to traverse the forest; and in a likesevere or variable climate, is obliged to subsist by the chase?

If, in advanced years, we would form a just notion of our progress from thecradle, we must have recourse to the nursery; and from the example of thosewho are still in the period of life we mean to describe, take ourrepresentation of past manners, that cannot, in any other way, be recalled. 

SECTION II. 

OF RUDE NATIONS PRIOR TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PROPERTY. 

From one to the other extremity of America; from Kamtschatka westward tothe river Oby; and from the Northern Sea, over that length of country, tothe confines of China, of India, and Persia; from the Caspian to the RedSea, with little exception, and from thence over the inland continent andthe western shores of Africa; we every where meet with nations on whom webestow the appellations of barbarous or savage. That extensive tract of theearth, containing so great a variety of situation, climate, and soil, should, in the manners of its inhabitants, exhibit all the diversitieswhich arise from the unequal influence of the sun, joined to a differentnourishment and manner of life. Every question, however, on this subject, is premature, till we have first endeavoured to form some generalconception of our species in its rude state, and have learned todistinguish mere ignorance from dulness, and the want of arts from the wantof capacity. 

Of the nations who dwell in those, or any other of the less cultivatedparts of the earth, some entrust their subsistence chiefly to hunting, fishing, or the natural produce of the soil. They have little attention toproperty, and scarcely any beginnings of subordination or government. Others, having possessed themselves of herbs, and depending for theirprovision on pasture, know what it is to be poor and rich. They know therelations of patron and client, of servant and master, and by the measuresof fortune determine their station. This distinction must create a materialdifference of character, and may furnish two separate heads, under which toconsider the history, of mankind in their rudest state; that of the savage, who is not yet acquainted with property; and that of the barbarian, to whomit is, although not ascertained by laws, a principal object of care anddesire. 

It must appear very evident, that property is a matter of progress. Itrequires, among other particulars, which are the effects of time, somemethod of defining possession. The very desire of it proceeds fromexperience; and the industry by which it is gained, or improved, requiressuch a habit of acting with a view to distant objects, as may overcome thepresent disposition either to sloth or to enjoyment. This habit is slowlyacquired, and is in reality a principal distinction of nations in theadvanced state of mechanic and commercial arts. 

In a tribe which subsists by hunting and fishing, the arms, the utensils, and the fur, which the individual carries, are to him the only subjects ofproperty. The food of to-morrow is yet wild in the forest, or hid in thelake; it cannot be appropriated before it is caught; and even then, beingthe purchase of numbers, who fish or hunt in a body, it accrues to thecommunity, and is applied to immediate use, or becomes an accession to thestores of the public. 

Where savage nations, as in most parts of America, mix with the practice ofhunting some species of rude agriculture, they still follow, with respectto the soil and the fruits of the earth, the analogy of their principalobject. As the men hunt, so the women labour together; and, after they haveshared the toils of the seed time, they enjoy the fruits of the harvest incommon. The field in which they have planted, like the district over whichthey are accustomed to hunt, is claimed as a property by the nation, but isnot parcelled in lots to its members. They go forth in parties to preparethe ground, to plant and to reap. The harvest is gathered into the publicgranary, and from thence, at stated times, is divided into shares for themaintenance of separate families. [Footnote: History of the Caribbees. ]Even the returns of the market, when they trade with foreigners, arebrought home to the stock of the nation. [Footnote: Charlevoix. Thisaccount of Rude Nations, in most points of importance, so far as it relatesto the original North Americans, is not founded so much on the testimony ofthis or the other writers cited, as it is on the concurring representationsof living witnesses, who, in the course of trade, of war, and of treaties, have had ample occasion to observe the manners of that people. It isnecessary however, for the sake of those who may not have conversed withthe living witnesses, to refer to printed authorities. ]

As the fur and the bow pertain to the individual, the cabin and itsutensils are appropriated to the family; and as the domestic cares arecommitted to the women, so the property of the household seems likewise tobe vested in them. The children are considered as pertaining to the mother, with little regard to descent on the father's side. The males, before theyare married, remain in the cabin in which they are born; but after theyhave formed a new connection with the other sex, they change theirhabitation, and become an accession to the family in which they have foundtheir wives. The hunter and the warrior are numbered by the matron as apart of her treasure; they are reserved for perils and trying occasions;and in the recess of public councils, in the intervals of hunting or war, are maintained by the cares of the women, and loiter about in mereamusement or sloth. [Footnote: Lafitau. ]

While one sex continue to value themselves chiefly on their courage, theirtalent for policy, and their warlike achievements, this species of propertywhich is bestowed on the other, is, in reality, a mark of subjection; not, as some writers allege, of their having acquired an ascendant. [Footnote:Ibid. ] It is the care and trouble of a subject with which the warrior doesnot choose to be embarrassed. It is a servitude, and a continual toil, where no honours are won; and they whose province it is, are in fact theslaves and the helots of their country. If in this destination of thesexes, while the men continue to indulge themselves in the contempt ofsordid and mercenary arts, the cruel establishment of slavery is for someages deferred; if, in this tender, though unequal alliance, the affectionsof the heart prevent the severities practised on slaves; we have in thecustom itself, as perhaps in many other instances, reason to prefer thefirst suggestions of nature, to many of her after refinements. 

If mankind, in any instance, continue the article of property on thefooting we have now represented, we may easily credit what is furtherreported by travellers; that they admit of no distinctions of rank orcondition; and that they have in fact no degree of subordination differentfrom the distribution of function, which follows the differences of age, talents, and dispositions. Personal qualities give an ascendant in themidst of occasions which require their exertion; but in times ofrelaxation, leave no vestige of power or prerogative. A warrior who has ledthe youth of his nation to the slaughter of their enemies, or who has beenforemost in the chase, returns upon a level with the rest of his tribe; andwhen the only business is to sleep, or to feed, can enjoy no pre-eminence;for he sleeps and he feeds no better than they. 

Where no profit attends dominion, one party is as much averse to thetrouble of perpetual command, as the other is to the mortification ofperpetual submission. "I love victory, I love great actions, " saysMontesquieu, in the character of Sylla; "but have no relish for the languiddetail of pacific government, or the pageantry of high station. " He hastouched perhaps what is a prevailing sentiment in the simplest state ofsociety, when the weakness of motive suggested by interest, and theignorance of any elevation not founded on merit, supplies the place ofdisdain. 

The character of the mind, however, in this state, is not founded onignorance alone. Men are conscious of their equality, and are tenacious ofits rights. Even when they follow a leader to the field, they cannot brookthe pretensions to a formal command: they listen to no orders; and theycome under no military engagements, but those of mutual fidelity, and equalardour in the enterprise. [Footnote: Charlevoix. ]

This description, we may believe, is unequally applicable to differentnations, who have made unequal advances in the establishment of property. Among the Caribbees, and the other natives of the warmer climates inAmerica, the dignity of chieftain is hereditary, or elective, and continuedfor life: the unequal distribution of property creates a visiblesubordination. [Footnote: Wafer's Account of the Isthmus of Darien. ] Butamong the Iroquois, and other nations of the temperate zone, the titles of_magistrate_ and _subject_, of _noble_ and _mean_, are as little knownas those of _rich_ and _poor_. The old men, without being invested withany coercive power, employ their natural authority in advising or inprompting the resolutions of their tribe: the military leader is pointedout by the superiority of his manhood and valour; the statesman isdistinguished only by the attention with which his counsel is heard; thewarrior by the confidence with which the youth of his nation follow himto the field; and if their concerts must be supposed to constitute aspecies of political government, it is one to which no language of ourscan be applied. Power is more than the natural ascendancy of the mind;the discharge of office no more than a natural exercise of the personalcharacter; and while the community acts with an appearance of order, there is no sense of disparity in the breast of any of its members. [Footnote: Colden's History of the Five Nations. ]

In these happy, though informal proceedings, where age alone gives a placein the council; where youth, ardour, and valour in the field, give a titleto the station of leader; where the whole community is assembled on anyalarming occasion, we may venture to say, that we have found the origin ofthe senate, the executive power, and the assembly of the people;institutions for which ancient legislators have been so much renowned. Thesenate among the Greeks, as well as the Latins, appears, from the etymologyof its name, to have been originally composed of elderly men. The militaryleader at Rome, in a manner not unlike to that of the American warrior, proclaimed his levies, and the citizen prepared for the field, inconsequence of a voluntary engagement. The suggestions of nature, whichdirected the policy of nations in the wilds of America, were followedbefore on the banks of the Eurotas and the Tyber; and Lycurgus and Romulusfound the model of their institutions, where the members of every rudenation find the earliest mode of uniting their talents, and combining theirforces. 

Among the North American nations, every individual is independent; but heis engaged by his affections and his habits in the cares of a family. Families, like so many separate tribes, are subject to no inspection orgovernment from abroad; whatever passes at home, even bloodshed and murder, are only supposed to concern themselves. They are, in the mean time, theparts of a canton; the women assemble to plant their maize; the old men goto council; the huntsman and the warrior joins the youth of his village inthe field. Many such cantons assemble to constitute a national council, orto execute a national enterprise. When the Europeans made their firstsettlements in America, six such nations had formed a league, had theiramphyctiones or states general, and, by the firmness of their union and theability of their councils, had obtained an ascendant from the mouth of St. Lawrence to that of the Mississippi. [Footnote: Lafitau, Charlevoix, Colden, &c. ] They appeared to understand the objects of the confederacy, aswell as those of the separate nation; they studied a balance of power; thestatesman of one country watched the designs and proceedings of another;and occasionally threw the weight of his tribe into a different scale. Theyhad their alliances and their treaties, which, like the nations of Europe, they maintained, or they broke, upon reasons of state; and remained atpeace from a sense of necessity or expediency, and went to war upon anyemergence of provocation or jealousy. 

Thus, without any settled form of government, or any bond of union, butwhat resembled more the suggestion of instinct, than the invention ofreason, they conducted themselves with the concert and the force ofnations. Foreigners, without being able to discover who is the magistrate, or in what manner the senate is composed, always find a council with whomthey may treat, or a band of warriors with whom they may fight. Withoutpolice or compulsory, laws, their domestic society is conducted with order, and the absence of vicious dispositions, is a better security than anypublic establishment for the suppression of crimes. 

Disorders, however, sometimes occur, especially in times of debauch, whenthe immoderate use of intoxicating liquors, to which they are extremelyaddicted, suspends the ordinary caution of their demeanour, and, inflamingtheir violent passions, engages them in quarrels and bloodshed. When aperson is slain, his murderer is seldom called to an immediate account; buthe has a quarrel to sustain with the family and the friends; or, if astranger, with the countrymen of the deceased; sometimes even with his ownnation at home, if the injury committed be of a kind to alarm the society. The nation, the canton, or the family endeavour, by presents, to atone forthe offence of any of their members; and, by pacifying the partiesaggrieved, endeavour to prevent what alarms the community more than thefirst disorder, the subsequent effects of revenge and animosity. [Footnote:Lafitau. ] The shedding of blood, however, if the guilty person remain wherehe has committed the crime, seldom escapes unpunished: the friend of thedeceased knows how to disguise, though not to suppress, his resentment; andeven after many years have elapsed, is sure to repay the injury that wasdone to his kindred or his house. 

These considerations render them cautious and circumspect, put them ontheir guard against their passions, and give to their ordinary deportmentan air of phlegm and composure superior to what is possessed among polishednations. They are, in the mean time, affectionate in their carriage, and intheir conversations, pay a mutual attention and regard, says Charlevoix, more tender and more engaging, than what we profess in the ceremonial ofpolished societies. 

This writer has observed, that the nations among whom he travelled in NorthAmerica, never mentioned acts of generosity or kindness under the notion ofduty. They acted from affection, as they acted from appetite, withoutregard to its consequences. When they had done a kindness, they hadgratified a desire; the business was finished, and it passed from thememory. When they received a favour, it might, or it might not, prove theoccasion of friendship: if it did not, the parties appeared to have noapprehensions of gratitude, as a duty by which the one was bound to make areturn, or the other entitled to reproach the person who had failed in hispart. The spirit with which they give or receive presents, is the samewhich, Tacitus observed among the ancient Germans; they delight in them, but do not consider them as matter of obligation. [Footnote: Muneribusgaudent, sed nec data imputant, nec acceptis obligantur. ] Such gifts are oflittle consequence, except when employed as the seal of a bargain ortreaty. 

It was their favourite maxim, that no man is naturally indebted to another;that he is not, therefore, obliged to bear with any imposition, or unequaltreatment. [Footnote: Charlevoix] Thus, in a principle apparently sullenand inhospitable, they have discovered the foundation of justice, andobserve its rules, with a steadiness and candour which no cultivation hasbeen found to improve. The freedom which they give in what relates to thesupposed duties of kindness and friendship, serves only to engage the heartmore entirely, where it is once possessed with affection. We love to chooseour object without any restraint, and we consider kindness itself as atask, when the duties of friendship are exacted by rule. We therefore, byour demand for attentions, rather corrupt than improve the system ofmorality; and by our exactions of gratitude, and out frequent proposals toenforce its observance, we only shew that we have mistaken its nature; weonly give symptoms of that growing sensibility to interest, from which wemeasure the expediency of friendship and generosity itself; and by which wewould introduce the spirit of traffic into the commerce of affection. Inconsequence of this proceeding, we are often obliged to decline a favour, with the same spirit that we throw off a servile engagement, or reject abribe. To the unrefined savage every favour is welcome, and every presentreceived without reserve or reflection. 

The love of equality, and the love of justice, were originally the same;and although, by the constitution of different societies, unequalprivileges are bestowed on their members; and although justice itselfrequires a proper regard to be paid to such privileges; yet he who hasforgotten that men were originally equal, easily degenerates into a slave;or, in the capacity of a master, is not to be trusted with the rights ofhis fellow creatures. This happy principle gives to the mind its sense ofindependence, renders it indifferent to the favours which are in the powerof other men, checks it in the commission of injuries, and leaves the heartopen to the affections of generosity and kindness. It gives to theuntutored American that sentiment of candour, and of regard to the welfareof others, which, in some degree, softens the arrogant pride of hiscarriage, and in times of confidence and peace, without the assistance ofgovernment or law, renders the approach and commerce of strangers secure. 

Among this people, the foundations of honour are eminent abilities, andgreat fortitude; not the distinctions of equipage and fortune: the talentsin esteem are such as their situation leads them to employ, the exactknowledge of a country, and stratagem in war. On these qualifications, acaptain among the Caribbees underwent an examination. When a new leader wasto be chosen, a scout was sent forth to traverse the forests which led tothe enemy's country, and upon his return, the candidate was desired to findthe track in which he had travelled. A brook, or a fountain, was named tohim on the frontier, and he was desired to find the nearest path to aparticular station, and to plant a stake in the place. [Footnote: Lafitau]They can, accordingly, trace a wild beast, or the human foot, over manyleagues of a pathless forest, and find their way across a woody anduninhabited continent, by means of refined observations, which escape thetraveller who has been accustomed to different aids. They steer in slendercanoes, across stormy seas, with a dexterity equal to that of the mostexperienced pilot. [Footnote: Charlevoix. ] They carry a penetrating eye forthe thoughts and intentions of those with whom they have to deal; and whenthey mean to deceive, they cover themselves with arts which the mostsubtile can seldom elude. They harangue in their public councils with anervous and a figurative elocution; and conduct themselves in themanagement of their treaties with a perfect discernment of their nationalinterests. 

Thus being able masters in the detail of their own affairs, and wellqualified to acquit themselves on particular occasions, they study noscience, and go in pursuit of no general principles. They even seemincapable of attending to any distant consequences, beyond those they haveexperienced in hunting or war. They entrust the provision of every seasonto itself; consume the fruits of the earth in summer; and, in winter, aredriven in quest of their prey, through woods, and over deserts covered withsnow. They do not form in one hour those maxims which may prevent theerrors of the next; and they fail in those apprehensions, which, in theintervals of passion, produce ingenuous shame, compassion, remorse, or acommand of appetite. They are seldom made to repent of any violence; nor isa person, indeed, thought accountable in his sober mood, for what he did inthe heat of a passion, or in a time of debauch. 

Their superstitions are groveling and mean; and did this happen among rudenations alone, we could not sufficiently admire the effects of politeness;but it is a subject on which few nations are entitled to censure theirneighbours. When we have considered the superstitions of one people, wefind little variety in those of another. They are but a repetition ofsimilar weaknesses and absurdities, derived from a common source, aperplexed apprehension of invisible agents, that are supposed to guide allprecarious events to which human foresight cannot extend. 

In what depends on the known or the regular course of nature, the mindtrusts to itself; but in strange and uncommon situations, it is the dupe ofits own perplexity, and, instead of relying on its prudence or courage, hasrecourse to divination, and a variety of observances, that, for beingirrational, are always the more revered. Superstition being founded indoubts and anxiety, is fostered by ignorance and mystery. Its maxims, inthe mean time, are not always confounded with those of common life; nordoes its weakness or folly always prevent the watchfulness, penetration, and courage, men are accustomed to employ in the management of commonaffairs. A Roman consulting futurity by the pecking of birds, or a king ofSparta inspecting the entrails of a beast, Mithridates consulting his womenon the interpretation of his dreams, are examples sufficient to prove, thata childish imbecility on this subject is consistent with the greatestmilitary and political conduct. 

Confidence in the effect of charms is not peculiar to any age or nation. Few, even of the accomplished Greeks and Romans, were able to shake offthis weakness. In their case, it, was not removed by the highest measuresof civilization. It has yielded only to the light of true religion, or tothe study of nature, by which we are led to substitute a wise providenceoperating by physical causes, in the place of phantoms that terrify oramuse the ignorant. 

The principal point of honour among the rude nations of America, as indeedin every instance where mankind are not greatly corrupted, is fortitude. Yet their way of maintaining this point of honour, is very different fromthat of the nations of Europe. Their ordinary method of making war is byambuscade; and they strive, by overreaching an enemy, to commit thegreatest slaughter, or to make the greatest number of prisoners, with theleast hazard to themselves. They deem it a folly to expose their ownpersons in assaulting an enemy, and do not rejoice in victories which arestained with the blood of their own people. They do not value themselves, as in Europe, on defying their enemy upon equal terms. They even boast, that they approach like foxes, or that they fly like birds, not less thanthey devour like lions. In Europe, to fall in battle is accounted anhonour; among the natives of America it is reckoned disgraceful. [Footnote:Charlevoix. ] They reserve their fortitude for the trials they abide whenattacked by surprise, or when fallen into their enemies' hands; and whenthey are obliged to maintain their own honour, and that of their ownnation, in the midst of torments that require efforts of patience more thanof valour. 

On these occasions, they are far from allowing it to be supposed that theywish to decline the conflict. It is held infamous to avoid it, even by avoluntary death; and the greatest affront which can be offered to aprisoner, is to refuse him the honours of a man, in the manner of hisexecution. "Withhold, " says an old man, in the midst of his torture, "thestabs of your knife; rather let me die by fire, that those dogs, yourallies, from beyond the seas, may learn to suffer like men. " [Footnote:Colden. ] With terms of defiance, the victim, in those solemn trials, commonly excites the animosities of his tormentors, as well as his own; andwhilst we suffer for human nature, under the effect of its errors, we mustadmire its force. 

The people with whom this practice prevailed, were commonly desirous ofrepairing their own losses, by adopting prisoners of war into theirfamilies; and even, in the last moment, the hand which was raised totorment, frequently gave the sign of adoption, by which the prisoner becamethe child or the brother of his enemy, and came to share in all theprivileges of a citizen. In their treatment of those who suffered, they didnot appear to be guided by principles of hatred or revenge; they observedthe point of honour in applying as well as in bearing their torments; and, by a strange kind of affection and tenderness, were directed to be mostcruel where they intend the highest respect; the coward was put toimmediate death by the hands of women; the valiant was supposed to beentitled to all the trials of fortitude that men could invent or employ. "It gave me joy, " says an old man to his captive, "that so gallant a youthwas allotted to my share; I proposed to have placed you on the couch of mynephew, who was slain by your countrymen; to have transferred all mytenderness to you; and to have solaced my age in your company; but, maimedand mutilated as you now appear, death is better than life; prepareyourself therefore to die like a man. " [Footnote: Charlevoix. ]

It is perhaps with a view to these exhibitions, or rather in admiration offortitude, the principle from which they proceed, that the Americans are soattentive, in their earliest years, to harden their nerves. [Footnote:_Ib_. This writer says, that he has seen a boy and a girl, havingbound their naked arms together, place a burning coal between them, to trywho could endure it longest. ] The children are taught to vie with eachother in bearing the sharpest torments; the youth are admitted into theclass of manhood, after violent proofs of their patience; and leaders areput to the test by famine, burning, and suffocation. [Footnote: Lafitau. ]

It might be apprehended, that among rude nations, where the means ofsubsistence are procured with so much difficulty, the mind could neverraise itself above the consideration of this subject; and that man would, in this condition, give examples of the meanest and most mercenary spirit. The reverse, however, is true. Directed in this particular by the desiresof nature, men, in their simplest state, attend to the objects of appetiteno further than appetite requires; and their desires of fortune extend nofurther than the meal which gratifies their hunger: they apprehend nosuperiority of rank in the possession of wealth, such as might inspire anyhabitual principle of covetousness, vanity, or ambition: they can apply tono task that engages no immediate passion, and take pleasure in nooccupation that affords no dangers to be braved, and no honours to be won. 

It was not among the ancient Romans alone that commercial arts, or a sordidmind, were held in contempt. A like spirit prevails in every rude andindependent society. "I am a warrior, and not a merchant, " said an Americanto the governor of Canada, who proposed to give him goods in exchange forsome prisoners he had taken; "your clothes and utensils do not temptme; but my prisoners are now in your power, and you may seize them: if youdo, I must go forth and take more prisoners, or perish in the attempt; andif that chance should befal me, I shall die like a man; but remember, thatour nation will charge you as the cause of my death. " [Footnote:Charlevoix. ] With these apprehensions, they have an elevation, and astateliness of carriage, which the pride of nobility, where it is mostrevered by polished nations, seldom bestows. 

They are attentive to their persons, and employ much time, as well asendure great pain, in the methods they take to adorn their bodies, to givethe permanent stains with which they are coloured, or preserve the paint, which they are perpetually repairing, in order to appear with advantage. 

Their aversion to every sort of employment which they hold to be mean, makes them pass great part of their time in idleness or sleep; and a manwho, in pursuit of a wild beast, or to surprise his enemy, will traverse ahundred leagues on snow, will not, to procure his food, submit to anyspecies of ordinary labour. "Strange, " says Tacitus, "that the same personshould be so much averse to repose, and so much addicted to sloth. "[Footnote: Mira diversitas naturae, ut idem homines sic ament intertiam etoderint quietem. ] Games of hazard are not the invention of polished ages;men of curiosity have looked for their origin in vain, among the monumentsof an obscure antiquity; and it is probable that they belonged to times tooremote and too rude even for the conjectures of antiquarians to reach. Thevery savage brings his furs, his utensils, and his beads, to the hazardtable: he finds here the passions and agitations which the applications ofa tedious industry could not excite; and while the throw is depending, hetears his hair, and beats his breast, with a rage which the moreaccomplished gamester has sometimes learned to repress: he often quits theparty naked and stripped of all his possessions; or where slavery is inuse, stakes his freedom to have one chance more to recover his former loss. [Footnote: Tacitus, Lafitau, Charlevoix. ]

With all these infirmities, vices, or respectable qualities, belonging tothe human species in its rudest state; the love of society, friendship, andpublic affection, penetration, eloquence, and courage, appear to have beenits original properties, not the subsequent effects of device or invention. If mankind are qualified to improve their manners, the materials to beimproved were furnished by nature; and the effect of this improvement isnot to inspire the sentiments of tenderness and generosity, nor to bestowthe principal constituents of a respectable character, but to obviate thecasual abuses of passion; and to prevent a mind, which feels the bestdispositions in their greatest force, from being at times likewise thesport of brutal appetite, and of ungovernable violence. 

Were Lycurgus employed anew to find a plan of government for the people wehave described, he would find them, in many important particulars, preparedby nature herself to receive his institutions. His equality in matters ofproperty being already established, he would have no faction to apprehendfrom the opposite interests of the poor and the rich; his senate, hisassembly of the people, is constituted; his discipline is in some measureadopted, and the place of his helots is supplied by the task allotted toone of the sexes. With all these advantages, he would still have had a veryimportant lesson for civil society to teach, that by which a few learn tocommand, and the many are taught to obey: he would have all his precautionsto take against the future intrusion of mercenary arts, the admiration ofluxury, and the passion for interest: he would still perhaps have a moredifficult task than any of the former, in teaching his citizens the commandof appetite, and an indifference to pleasure, as well as a contempt ofpain; in teaching them to maintain in the field the formality of uniformprecautions, and as much to avoid being themselves surprised, as theyendeavour to surprise their enemy. 

For want of these advantages, rude nations in general, though they arepatient of hardship and fatigue, though they are addicted to war, and arequalified by their stratagem and valour to throw terror into the armies ofa more regular enemy; yet, in the course of a continual struggle, alwaysyield to the superior arts, and the discipline of more civilized nations. Hence the Romans were able to overrun the provinces of Gaul, Germany, andBritain; and hence the Europeans have a growing ascendancy over the nationsof Africa and America. 

On the credit of a superiority which certain nations possess, they thinkthat they have a claim to dominion; and even Caesar appears to haveforgotten what were the passions, as well as the rights of mankind, when hecomplained, that the Britons, after having sent him a submissive message toGaul, perhaps to prevent his invasion, still pretended to fight for theirliberties, and to oppose his descent on their island. [Footnote: Caesarquestus, quod quum ultro in continentem legatis missis pacem a sepetissent, bellum sine causa intulissent. _Lib_. 4. ]

There is not, perhaps, in the whole description of mankind, a circumstancemore remarkable than that mutual contempt and aversion which nations, undera different state of commercial arts, bestow on each other. Addicted totheir own pursuits, and considering their own condition as the standard ofhuman felicity, all nations pretend to the preference, and in theirpractice give sufficient proof of sincerity. Even the savage, still lessthan the citizen, can be made to quit that manner of life in which he istrained: he loves that freedom of mind which will not be bound to any task, and which owns no superior: however tempted to mix with polished nations, and to better his fortune, the first moment of liberty brings him back tothe woods again; he droops and he pines in the streets of the populouscity; he wanders dissatisfied over the open and the cultivated field; heseeks the frontier and the forest, where, with a constitution prepared toundergo the hardships and the difficulties of the situation, he enjoys adelicious freedom from care, and a seducing society, where no rules ofbehaviour are prescribed, but the simple dictates of the heart. 

SECTION III. 

OF RUDE NATIONS UNDER THE IMPRESSIONS OF PROPERTY AND INTEREST. 

It was a proverbial imprecation in use among the hunting nations on theconfines of Siberia, that their enemy might be obliged to live like aTartar, and have the folly of troubling himself with the charge of cattle. [Footnote: Abulgaze's Genealogical History of the Tartars] Nature, itseems, in their apprehension, by storing the woods and desert with game, rendered the task of the herdsman unnecessary, and left to man only thetrouble of selecting and of seizing his prey. 

The indolence of mankind, or rather their aversion to any application inwhich they are not engaged by immediate instinct and passion, retards theprogress of industry and of impropriation. It has been found, however, evenwhile the means of subsistence are left in common, and the stock of thepublic is yet undivided, that property is apprehended in differentsubjects; that the fur and the bow belong to the individual; that thecottage, with its furniture, are appropriated to the family. 

When the parent begins to desire a better provision for his children thanis found under the promiscuous management of many co-partners, when he hasapplied his labour and his skill apart, he aims at an exclusive possession, and seeks the property of the soil, as well as the use of its fruits. 

When the individual no longer finds among his associates the sameinclination to commit every subject to public use, he is seized withconcern for his personal fortune; and is alarmed by the cares which everyperson entertains for himself. He is urged as much by emulation andjealousy, as by the sense of necessity. He suffers considerations ofinterest to rest on his mind, and when every present appetite issufficiently gratified, he can act with a view to futurity, or, ratherfinds an object of vanity in having amassed what is become a subject ofcompetition, and a matter of universal esteem. Upon this motive, whereviolence is restrained, he can apply his hand to lucrative arts, confinehimself to a tedious task, and wait with patience for the distant returnsof his labour. 

Thus mankind acquire industry by many and by slow degrees. They are taughtto regard their interest; they are restrained from rapine; and they aresecured in the possession of what they fairly obtain; by these methods thehabits of the labourer, the mechanic, and the trader, are gradually formed. A hoard, collected from the simple productions of nature, or a herd ofcattle, are, in every rude nation, the first species of wealth. Thecircumstances of the soil, and the climate, determine whether theinhabitant shall apply himself chiefly to agriculture or pasture; whetherhe shall fix his residence, or be moving continually about with all hispossessions. 

In the west of Europe; in America, from south to north, with a fewexceptions; in the torrid zone, and every where within the warmer climates;mankind have generally applied themselves to some species of agriculture, and have been disposed to settlement. In the north and middle region ofAsia, they depended entirely on their herds, and were perpetually shiftingtheir ground in search of new pasture. The arts which pertain to settlementhave been practised, and variously cultivated, by the inhabitants ofEurope. Those which are consistent with perpetual migration, have, from theearliest accounts of history, remained nearly the same, with the Scythianor Tartar. The tent pitched on a moveable carriage, the horse applied toevery purpose of labour, and of war, of the dairy, and of the butcher'sstall, from the earliest to the latest accounts, have made up the richesand equipage of this wandering people. 

But in whatever way rude nations subsist, there are certain points inwhich, under the first impressions of property, they nearly agree. Homereither lived with a people in this stage of their progress, or foundhimself engaged to exhibit their character. Tacitus had made them thesubject of a particular treatise; and if this be an aspect under whichmankind deserve to be viewed, it must be confessed, that we have singularadvantages in collecting their features. The portrait has already beendrawn by the ablest hands, and gives, at one view, in the writings of thesecelebrated authors, whatever has been scattered in the relations ofhistorians, or whatever we have opportunities to observe in the actualmanners of men, who still remain in a similar state. 

In passing from the condition we have described, to this we have at presentin view, mankind still retain many marks of their earliest character. Theyare still averse to labour, addicted to war, admirers of fortitude, and inthe language of Tacitus, more lavish of their blood than of their sweat. [Footnote: Pigrum quin immo et iners videtur, sudore acquirere quod possissanguine parare. ] They are fond of fantastic ornaments in their dress, andendeavour to fill up the listless intervals of a life addicted to violence, with hazardous sports, and with games of chance. Every servile occupationthey commit to women or slaves. But we may apprehend, that the individualhaving now found a separate interest, the bands of society must become lessfirm, and domestic disorders more frequent. The members of every community, being distinguished among themselves by unequal possessions, the ground ofa permanent and palpable subordination is laid. 

These particulars accordingly take place among mankind, in passing from thesavage to what may be called the barbarous state. Members of the samecommunity enter into quarrels of competition or revenge. They unite infollowing leaders, who are distinguished by their fortunes, and by thelustre of their birth. They join the desire of spoil with the love ofglory; and from an opinion, that what is acquired by force justly pertainsto the victor, they become hunters of men, and bring every contest to thedecision of the sword. 

Every nation is a band of robbers, who prey without restraint, or remorse, on their neighbours. Cattle, says Achilles, may be seized in every field;and the coasts of the Aegean were accordingly pillaged by the heroes ofHomer, for no other reason than because those heroes chose to possessthemselves of the brass and iron, the cattle, the slaves, and the women, which were found among the nations around them. 

A Tartar mounted on his horse, is an animal of prey, who only enquireswhere cattle are to be found, and how far he must go to possess them. Themonk, who had fallen under the displeasure of Mangu Chan, made his peace, by promising, that the pope, and the Christian princes, should make asurrender of all their herds. [Footnote: Rubruquis. ]

A similar spirit reigned, without exception, in all the barbarous nationsof Europe, Asia, and Africa. The antiquities of Greece and Italy, and thefables of every ancient poet, contain examples of its force. It was thisspirit that brought our ancestors first into the provinces of the Romanempire; and that afterward, more perhaps than their reverence for thecross, led them to the east, to share with the Tartars in the spoils of theSaracen empire. 

From the descriptions contained in the last section, we may incline tobelieve, that mankind, in their simplest state; are on the eve of erectingrepublics. Their love of equality, their habit of assembling in publiccouncils, and their zeal for the tribe to which they belong, arequalifications that fit them to act under that species of government; andthey seem to have but a few steps to make in order to reach itsestablishment. They have only to define the numbers of which their councilsshall consist, and to settle the forms of their meeting: they have only tobestow a permanent authority for repressing disorders, and to enact a fewrules in favour of that justice they have already acknowledged, and frominclination so strictly observe. 

But these steps are far from being so easily made, as they appear on aslight or a transient view. The resolution of choosing, from among theirequals, the magistrate to whom they give from thenceforward a right tocontrol their own actions, is far from the thoughts of simple men; and nopersuasion, perhaps, could make them adopt this measure, or give them anysense of its use. 

Even after nations have chosen a military leader, they do not entrust himwith any species of civil authority. The captain among the, Caribbees didnot pretend to decide in domestic disputes; the terms _jurisdiction_and _government_ were unknown in their tongue. [Footnote: History ofthe Caribbees. ]

Before this important change was admitted, men must be accustomed to thedistinction of ranks; and before they are sensible that subordination isrequisite, they must have arrived at unequal conditions by chance. Indesiring property, they only mean to secure their subsistence; but thebrave who lead in war, have likewise the largest share in its spoils. Theeminent are fond of devising hereditary honours; and the multitude, whoadmire the parent, are ready to extend their esteem to his offspring. 

Possessions descend, and the lustre of family grows brighter with age. Hercules, who perhaps was an eminent warrior, became a god with posterity, and his race was set apart for royalty and sovereign power. When thedistinctions of fortune and those of birth are conjoined, the chieftainenjoys a pre-eminence, as well at the feast as in the field. His followerstake their place in subordinate stations; and instead of consideringthemselves as parts of a community, they rank as the followers of a chief, and take their designation from the name of their leader. They find a newobject of public affection in defending his person, and in supporting hisstation; they lend of their substance to form his estate; they are guidedby his smiles and his frowns; and court as the highest distinction, a sharein the feast which their own contributions have furnished. 

As the former state of mankind seemed to point at democracy, this seems toexhibit the rudiments of monarchical government. But it is yet far short ofthat establishment which is known in after ages by the name of_monarchy_. The distinction between the leader and the follower, theprince and the subject, is still but imperfectly marked: their pursuits andoccupations are not different; their minds are not unequally cultivated;they feed from the same dish; they sleep together on the ground; thechildren of the king, as well as those of the subject, are employed intending the flock; and the keeper of the swine was a prime counsellor atthe court of Ulysses. 

The chieftain, sufficiently distinguished from his tribe, to excite theiradmiration, and to flatter their vanity by a supposed affinity to his nobledescent, is the object of their veneration, not of their envy: he isconsidered as the common bond of connection, not as their common master; isforemost in danger, and has a principal share in their troubles: his gloryis placed in the number of his attendants, in his superior magnanimity andvalour; that of his followers, in being ready to shed their blood in hisservice. [Footnote: Tacitus de moribus Germanorum. ]

The frequent practice of war tends to strengthen the bands of society, andthe practice of depredation itself engages men in trials of mutualattachment and courage. What threatened to ruin and overset every gooddisposition in the human breast, what seemed to banish justice from thesocieties of men, tends to unite the species in clans and fraternities;formidable indeed, and hostile to one another, but, in the domestic societyof each, faithful, disinterested, and generous. Frequent dangers, and theexperience of fidelity and valour, awaken the love of those virtues, renderthem a subject of admiration, and endear their possessors. 

Actuated by great passions, the love of glory, and the desire of victory;roused by the menaces of an enemy, or stung with revenge; in suspensebetween the prospects of ruin or conquest, the barbarian spends everymoment of relaxation in sloth. He cannot descend to the pursuits ofindustry or mechanical labour: the beast of prey is a sluggard; the hunterand the warrior sleeps, while women or slaves are made to toil for hisbread. But shew him a quarry at a distance, he is bold, impetuous, artful, and rapacious; no bar can withstand his violence, and no fatigue can allayhis activity. 

Even under this description, mankind are generous and hospitable tostrangers, as well as kind, affectionate, and gentle, in their domesticsociety. [Footnote: Jean du Plan Carpen. Rubruquis, Caesar, Tacit. ]Friendship and enmity are to them terms of the greatest importance: theymingle not their functions together; they have singled out their enemy, andthey have chosen their friend. Even in depredation, the principal object isglory; and spoil is considered as the badge of victory. Nations and tribesare their prey: the solitary traveller, by whom they can acquire only thereputation of generosity, is suffered to pass unhurt, or is treated withsplendid munificence. 

Though distinguished into small cantons under their several chieftains, andfor the most part separated by jealousy and animosity; yet when pressed bywars and formidable enemies, they sometimes unite in greater bodies. Likethe Greeks in their expedition to Troy, they follow some remarkable leader, and compose a kingdom of many separate tribes. But such coalitions aremerely occasional; and even during their continuance, more resemble arepublic than monarchy. The inferior chieftains reserve their importance, and intrude, with an air of equality, into the councils of their leader, asthe people of their several clans commonly intrude upon them. [Footnote:Kolbe: Description of the Cape of Good Hope. ] Upon what motive indeed couldwe suppose, that men who live together in the greatest familiarity, andamongst whom the distinctions of rank are so obscurely marked, would resigntheir personal sentiments and inclinations, or pay an implicit submissionto a leader who can neither overawe nor corrupt?

Military force must be employed to extort, or the hire of the venal to buy, that engagement which the Tartar comes under to his prince, when hepromises, "That he will go where he shall be commanded; that he will comewhen he shall be called; that he will kill whoever is pointed out to him;and, for the future, that he will consider the voice of the King as asword. " [Footnote: Simon de St. Quintin. ]

These are the terms to which even the stubborn heart of the barbarian hasbeen reduced, in consequence of a despotism he himself had established; andmen have in that low state of the commercial arts, in Europe, as well as inAsia, tasted of political slavery. When interest prevails in every breast, the sovereign and his party cannot escape the infection: he employs theforce with which he is intrusted to turn his people into a property, and tocommand their possessions for his profit or his pleasure. If riches are byany people made the standard of good or of evil, let them beware of thepowers they intrust to their prince. "With the Suiones, " says Tacitus, "riches are in high esteem; and this people are accordingly disarmed, andreduced to slavery. " [Footnote: De moribus Germanorum. ]

It is in this woful condition that mankind, being slavish, interested, insidious, deceitful, and bloody, bear marks, if not of the least curable, surely of the most lamentable sort of corruption. [Footnote: Chardin'sTravels. ] Among them, war is the mere practice of rapine, to enrich theindividual; commerce is turned into a system of snares and impositions; andgovernment by turns oppressive or weak. It were happy for the human race, when guided by interest, and not governed by laws, that being split intonations of a moderate extent, they found in every canton some natural barto its farther enlargement, and met with occupation enough in maintainingtheir independence, without being able to extend their dominion. 

There is not disparity of rank, among men in rude ages, sufficient to givetheir communities the form of legal monarchy; and in a territory ofconsiderable extent, when united under one head, the warlike and turbulentspirit of its inhabitants seems to require the bridle of despotism andmilitary force. Where any degree of freedom remains, the powers of theprince are, as they were in most of the rude monarchies of Europe, extremely precarious, and depend chiefly on his personal character: where, on the contrary, the powers of the prince are above the control of hispeople, they are likewise above the restrictions of justice. Rapacity andterror become the predominant motives of conduct, and form the character ofthe only parties into which mankind are divided; that of the oppressor, andthat of the oppressed. 

This calamity threatened Europe for ages, under the conquest and settlementof its new inhabitants. [Footnote: See Hume's History of the Tudors. Thereseemed to be nothing wanting to establish a perfect despotism in thathouse, but a few regiments of troops under the command of the crown. ] Ithas actually taken place in Asia, where similar conquests have been made;and even without the ordinary opiates of effeminacy, or a servile weakness, founded on luxury, it has surprised the Tartar on his wain, in the rear ofhis herds. Among this people, in the heart of a great continent, bold andenterprising warriors arose; they subdued by surprise, or superiorabilities, the contiguous hordes; they gained, in their progress, accessions of numbers and of strength; and, like a torrent increasing as itdescends, became too strong for any bar that could be opposed to theirpassage. The conquering tribe, during a succession of ages, furnished theprince with his guards; and while they themselves were allowed to share inits spoils, were the voluntary tools of oppression. In this manner hasdespotism and corruption found their way into regions so much renowned forthe wild freedom of nature: a power which was the terror of everyeffeminate province is disarmed, and the nursery of nations is itself goneto decay. [Footnote: See the History of the Huns. ]

Where rude nations escape this calamity, they require the exercise offoreign wars to maintain domestic peace; when no enemy appears from abroad, they have leisure for private feud, and employ that courage in theirdissentions at home, which in time of war is employed in defence of theircountry. 

"Among the Gauls, " says Caesar, "there are subdivisions, not only in everynation, and in every district and village, but almost in every house, everyone must fly to some patron for protection. " [Footnote: De Bello Gallico, lib. 6. ] In this distribution of parties, not only the feuds of clans, butthe quarrels of families, even the differences and competitions ofindividuals, are decided by force. The sovereign, when unassisted bysuperstition, endeavours in vain to employ his jurisdiction, or to procurea submission to the decisions of law. By a people who are accustomed to owetheir possessions to violence, and who despise fortune itself without thereputation of courage, no umpire is admitted but the sword. Scipio offeredhis arbitration to terminate the competition of two Spaniards in a disputedsuccession: "That, " said they, "we have already refused to our relations:we do not submit our difference to the judgment of men; and even among thegods, we appeal to Mars alone. " [Footnote: Livy. ]

It is well known that the nations of Europe carried this mode of proceedingto a degree of formality unheard of in other parts of the world: the civiland criminal judge could, in most cases, do no more than appoint the lists, and leave the parties to decide their cause by the combat: they apprehendedthat the victor had a verdict of the gods in his favour: and when theydropped in any instance this extraordinary form of process, theysubstituted in its place some other more capricious appeal to chance; inwhich they likewise thought that the judgment of the gods was declared. 

The fierce nations of Europe were even fond of the combat, as an exerciseand a sport. In the absence of real quarrels, companions challenged eachother to a trial of skill, in which one of them frequently perished. WhenScipio celebrated the funeral of his father and his uncle, the Spaniardscame in pairs to fight, and by a public exhibition of their duels, toincrease the solemnity. [Footnote: Livy, lib. 3. ]

In this wild and lawless state, where the effects of true religion wouldhave been so desirable, and so salutary, superstition frequently disputesthe ascendant even with the admiration of valour; and an order of men, likethe Druids among the ancient Gauls and Britons, [Footnote: Caesar. ] or somepretender to divination, as at the Cape of Good Hope, finds, in the creditwhich is paid to his sorcery, a way to the possession of power: his magicwand comes in competition with the sword itself; and, in the manner of theDruids, gives the first rudiments of civil government to some, or, like thesupposed descendant of the sun among the Natchez, and the Lama among theTartars, to others, an early taste of despotism and absolute slavery. 

We are generally at a loss to conceive how mankind can subsist undercustoms and manners extremely different from our own; and we are apt toexaggerate the misery of barbarous times, by an imagination of what weourselves should suffer in a situation to which we are not accustomed. Butevery age hath its consolations, as well as its sufferings. [Footnote:Priscus, when employed on an embassy to Attila, was accosted in Greek, by aperson who wore the dress of a Scythian. Having expressed surprise, andbeing desirous to know the cause of his stay in so wild a company, wastold, that this Greek had been a captive, and for some time a slave, tillhe obtained his liberty in reward of some remarkable action. "I live morehappily here, " says he, "than ever I did under the Roman government: forthey who live with the Scythians, if they can endure the fatigues of war, have nothing else to molest them; they enjoy their possessions undisturbed;whereas you are continually a prey to foreign enemies, or to badgovernment; you are forbid to carry arms in your own defence; you sufferfrom the remissness and ill conduct of those who are appointed to protectyou; the evils of peace are even worse than those of war; no punishment isever inflicted on the powerful or the rich; no mercy is shown to the poor;although your institutions Footnote: were wisely devised, yet, in themanagement of corrupted men, their effects are pernicious and cruel. "_Excerpta de legationibus. _] In the interval of occasional outrages, the friendly intercourse of men, even in their rudest condition, isaffectionate and happy. [Footnote: D'Arvieux's History of the wild Arabs. ]In rude ages the persons and properties of individuals are secure; becauseeach has a friend, as well as an enemy; and if the one is disposed tomolest, the other is ready to protect; and the very admiration of valour, which in some instances tends to sanctify violence, inspires likewisecertain maxims of generosity and honour, that tend to prevent thecommission of wrongs. 

Men bear with the defects of their policy, as they do with hardships andinconveniencies in their manner of living. The alarms and the fatigues ofwar become a necessary recreation to those who are accustomed to them, andwho have the tone of their passions raised above less animating or tryingoccasions. Old men, among the courtiers of Attila, wept when they heard ofheroic deeds, which they themselves could no longer perform. [Footnote:Ibid. ] And among the Celtic nations, when age rendered the warrior unfitfor his former toils, it was the custom, in order to abridge the languorsof a listless and inactive life, to sue for death at the hands of hisfriends. [Footnote: Ubi transcendit florentes viribus annos, Impatiens aevi spernit novisse senectam. Silius, lib. I. 225. ]

With all this ferocity of spirit, the rude nations of the west were subduedby the policy and more regular warfare of the Romans. The point of honourwhich the barbarians of Europe adopted as individuals, exposed them to apeculiar disadvantage, by rendering them, even in their national wars, averse to assailing their enemy by surprise, or taking the benefit ofstratagem; and though separately bold and intrepid, yet, like other rudenations, they were, when assembled in great bodies, addicted tosuperstition, and subject to panics. 

They were, from a consciousness of their personal courage and force, sanguine on the eve of battle; they were, beyond the bounds of moderation, elated on success, and dejected in adversity; and being disposed toconsider every event as a judgment of the gods, they were never qualifiedby an uniform application or prudence to make the most of their forces, torepair their misfortunes, or to improve their advantages. 

Resigned to the government of affection and passion, they were generous andfaithful where they had fixed an attachment; implacable, froward, andcruel, where they had conceived a dislike: addicted to debauchery, and theimmoderate use of intoxicating liquors, they deliberated on the affairs ofstate in the heat of their riot; and in the same dangerous moments, conceived the designs of military enterprise, or terminated their domesticdissentions by the dagger or the sword. 

In their wars they preferred death to captivity. The victorious armies ofthe Romans, in entering a town by assault, or in forcing an encampment, have found the mother in the act of destroying her children, that theymight not be taken; and the dagger of the parent, red with the blood of hisfamily, ready to be plunged at last into his own breast. [Footnote: Liv. Lib. Xli. 11. Dio Cass. ]

In all these particulars, we perceive that vigour of spirit, which rendersdisorder itself respectable, and which qualifies men, if fortunate in theirsituation, to lay the basis of domestic liberty, as well as to maintainagainst foreign enemies their national independence and freedom. 

AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY

 * * * * *

PART THIRD. 

OF THE HISTORY OF POLICY AND ARTS. 

 * * * * *

SECTION I. 

OF THE INFLUENCES OF CLIMATE AND SITUATION

What we have hitherto observed on the condition and manners of nations, though chiefly derived from what has passed in the temperate climates, may, in some measure, be applied to the rude state of mankind In every part ofthe earth: but if we intend to pursue the history of our species in itsfurther attainments, we may soon enter on subjects which will confine ourobservation to narrower limits. The genius of political wisdom, and ofcivil arts, appears to have chosen his seats in particular tracts of theearth, and to have selected his favourites in particular races of men. Man, in his animal capacity, is qualified to subsist in every climate. He reignswith the lion and the tyger under the equatorial heats of the sun, or heassociates with the bear and the reindeer beyond the polar system. Hisversatile disposition fits him to assume the habits of either condition, orhis talent for arts enables him to supply its defects. The intermediateclimates, however, appear most to favour his nature; and in whatever mannerwe account for the fact, it cannot be doubted, that this animal has alwaysattained to the principal honours of his species within the temperate zone. The arts, which he has on this scene repeatedly invented, the extent of hisreason, the fertility of his fancy, and the force of his genius inliterature, commerce, policy, and war, sufficiently declare either adistinguished advantage of situation, or a natural superiority of mind. 

The most remarkable races of men, it is true, have been rude before theywere polished. They have in some cases returned to rudeness again; and itis not from the actual possession of arts, science, or policy, that we areto pronounce of their genius. 

There is a vigour, a reach of capacity, and a sensibility of mind, whichmay characterize as well the savage as the citizen, the slave as well asthe master; and the same powers of the mind may be turned to a variety ofpurposes. A modern Greek, perhaps, is mischievous, slavish, and cunning, from the same animated temperament that made his ancestor ardent, ingenious, and bold, in the camp, or in the council of his nation. Amodern Italian is distinguished by sensibility, quickness, and art, whilehe employs on trifles the capacity of an ancient Roman; and exhibits now, in the scene of amusement, and in the search of a frivolous applause, thatfire, and those passions, with which Gracchus burned in the forum, andshook the assemblies of a severer people. 

The commercial and lucrative arts have been, in some climates, theprincipal object of mankind, and have been retained through every disaster;in others, even under all the fluctuations of fortune, they have still beenneglected; while in the temperate climates of Europe and Asia, they havehad their ages of admiration as well as contempt. 

In one state of society arts are slighted, from that very ardour of mind, and principle of activity, by which, in another, they are practised withthe greatest success. While men are engrossed by their passions, heated androused by the struggles and dangers of their country; while the trumpetsounds or the alarm of social engagement is rung, and the heart beats high, it were a mark of dulness, or of an abject spirit, to find leisure for thestudy of ease, or the pursuit of improvements, which have mere convenienceor ease for their object. 

The frequent vicissitudes and reverses of fortune, which nations haveexperienced on that very ground where the arts have prospered, are probablythe effects of a busy, inventive, and versatile spirit, by which men havecarried every national change to extremes. They have raised the fabric ofdespotic empire to its greatest height, where they had best understood thefoundations of freedom. They perished in the flames which they themselveshad kindled; and they only, perhaps, were capable of displaying, by turns, the greatest improvements, or the lowest corruptions, to which the humanmind can be brought. 

On this scene, mankind have twice, within the compass of history, ascendedfrom rude beginnings to very high degrees of refinement. In every age, whether destined by its temporary disposition to build, or to destroy, theyhave left the vestiges of an active and vehement spirit. The pavement andthe ruins of Rome are buried in dust, shaken from the feet of barbarians, who trod with contempt on the refinements of luxury, and spurned thosearts, the use of which it was reserved for the posterity of the same peopleto discover and to admire. The tents of the wild Arab are even now pitchedamong the ruins of magnificent cities; and the waste fields which border onPalestine and Syria, are perhaps become again the nursery of infantnations. The chieftain of an Arab tribe, like the founder of Rome, may havealready fixed the roots of a plant that is to flourish in some futureperiod, or laid the foundations of a fabric, that will attain to itsgrandeur in some distant age. 

Great part of Africa has been always unknown; but the silence of fame, onthe subject of its revolutions, is an argument, where no other proof can befound, of weakness in the genius of its people. The torrid zone, everywhere round the globe, however known to the geographer, has furnished fewmaterials for history; and though in many places supplied with the arts oflife in no contemptible degree, has no where matured the more importantprojects of political wisdom, nor inspired the virtues which are connectedwith freedom, and which are required in the conduct of civil affairs. 

It was indeed in the torrid zone that mere arts of mechanism andmanufacture were found, among the inhabitants of the new world, to havemade the greatest advance: it is in India, and in the regions of thishemisphere, which are visited by the vertical sun, that the arts ofmanufacture, and the practice of commerce, are of the greatest antiquity, and have survived, with the smallest diminution, the ruins of time, and therevolutions of empire. 

The sun, it seems, which ripens the pineapple and the tamarind, inspires adegree of mildness that can even assuage the rigours of despoticalgovernment: and such is the effect of a gentle and pacific disposition inthe natives of the east, that no conquest, no irruption of barbarians, terminates, as they did among the stubborn natives of Europe, by a totaldestruction of what the love of ease and of pleasure had produced. 

Transferred, without any great struggle, from one master to another, thenatives of India are ready, upon every change, to pursue their industry, toacquiesce in the enjoyment of life, and the hopes of animal pleasure: thewars of conquest are not prolonged to exasperate the parties engaged inthem, or to desolate the land for which those parties contend: even thebarbarous invader leaves untouched the commercial settlement which has notprovoked his rage: though master of opulent cities, he only encamps, intheir neighbourhood, and leaves to his heirs the option of entering, bydegrees, on the pleasures, the vices, and the pageantries which hisacquisitions afford: his successors, still more than himself, are disposedto foster the hive, in proportion as they taste more of its sweets; andthey spare the inhabitant, together with his dwelling, as they spare theherd or the stall, of which they are become the proprietors. 

The modern description of India is a repetition of the ancient, and thepresent state of China is derived from a distant antiquity, to which thereis no parallel in the history of mankind. The succession of monarchs hasbeen changed; but no revolutions have affected the state. The African andthe Samoiede are not more uniform in their ignorance and barbarity, thanthe Chinese and the Indian, if we may credit their own story, have been inthe practice of manufacture, and in the observance of a certain police, which was calculated only to regulate their traffic, and to protect them intheir application to servile or lucrative arts. 

If we pass from these general representations of what mankind have done, tothe more minute description of the animal himself, as he has occupieddifferent climates, and is diversified in his temper, complexion, andcharacter, we shall find a variety of genius corresponding to the effectsof his conduct, and the result of his story. 

Man, in the perfection of his natural faculties, is quick and delicate inhis sensibility; extensive and various in his imaginations and reflections;attentive, penetrating, and subtile, in what relates to his fellowcreatures; firm and ardent in his purposes; devoted to friendship or toenmity; jealous of his independence and his honour, which he will notrelinquish for safety or for profit: under all his corruptions orimprovements, he retains his natural sensibility, if not his force; and hiscommerce is a blessing or a curse, according to the direction his mind hasreceived. 

But under the extremes of heat or of cold, the active range of the humansoul appears to be limited; and men are of inferior importance, either asfriends, or as enemies. In the one extreme, they are dull and slow, moderate in their desires, regular, and pacific in their manner of life; inthe other, they are feverish in their passions, weak in their judgments, and addicted by temperament, to animal pleasure. In both the heart ismercenary, and makes important concessions for childish bribes: in both thespirit is prepared for servitude: in the one it is subdued by fear of thefuture; in the other it is not roused even by its sense of the present. 

The nations of Europe who would settle or conquer on the south or the northof their own happier climates, find little resistance: they extend theirdominion at pleasure, and find no where a limit but in the ocean, and inthe satiety of conquest. With few of the pangs and the struggles thatprecede the reduction of nations, mighty provinces have been successivelyannexed to the territory of Russia; and its sovereign, who accounts withinhis domain, entire tribes, with whom perhaps none of his emissaries haveever conversed, despatched a few geometers to extend his empire, and thusto execute a project, in which the Romans were obliged to employ theirconsuls and their legions. [Footnote: See Russian Atlas. ] These modernconquerors complain of rebellion, where they meet with repugnance; and aresurprised at being treated as enemies, where they come to impose theirtribute. 

It appears, however, that on the shores of the Eastern sea, they have metwith nations [Footnote: The Tchutzi. ] who have questioned their title toreign, and who have considered the requisition of a tax as the demand ofeffects for nothing. Here perhaps may be found the genius of ancientEurope; and under its name of ferocity, the spirit of nationalindependence; [Footnote: Notes to the Genealogical History of the Tartars, vouched by Strahlenberg. ] that spirit which disputed its ground in the westwith the victorious armies of Rome, and baffled the attempts of the Persianmonarchs to comprehend the villages of Greece within the bounds of theirextensive dominion. 

The great and striking diversities which obtain betwixt the inhabitants ofclimates far removed from each other, are, like the varieties of otheranimals in different regions, easily observed. The horse and the reindeerare just emblems of the Arab and the Laplander: the native of Arabia, likethe animal for whose race his country is famed, whether wild in the woods, or tutored by art, is lively, active, and fervent in the exercise on whichhe is bent. This race of men, in their rude state, fly to the desert forfreedom, and in roving bands alarm the frontiers of empire, and strike aterror in the province to which their moving encampments advance. [Footnote: D'Arvieux. ] When roused by the prospect of conquest, or disposedto act on a plan, they spread their dominion, and their system ofimagination, over mighty tracts of the earth: when possessed of propertyand of settlement, they set the example of a lively invention, and superioringenuity, in the practice of arts, and the study of science. TheLaplander, on the contrary, like the associate of his climate, is hardy, indefatigable, and patient of famine; dull rather than tame; serviceable ina particular tract; and incapable of change. Whole nations continue fromage to age in the same condition, and, with immoveable phlegm, submit tothe appellations of _Dane_, of _Swede_, or of _Muscovite_, accordingto the land they inhabit; and suffer their country to be severedlike a common, by the line on which those nations have traced their limitsof empire. 

It is not in the extremes alone that these varieties of genius may beclearly distinguished. Their continual change keeps pace with thevariations of climate with which we suppose them connected: and thoughcertain degrees of capacity, penetration, and ardour, are not the lot ofentire nations, nor the vulgar properties of any people; yet their unequalfrequency, and unequal measure, in different countries, are sufficientlymanifest from the manners, the tone of conversation, the talent forbusiness, amusement, and the literary composition, which predominate ineach. 

It is to the southern nations of Europe, both ancient and modern, that weowe the invention and embellishment of that mythology, and those earlytraditions, which continue to furnish the materials of fancy, and the fieldof poetic allusion. To them we owe the romantic tales of chivalry, as wellas the subsequent models of a more rational style, by which the heart andthe imagination are kindled, and the understanding informed. 

The fruits of industry have abounded most in the north, and the study ofscience has here received its most solid improvements: the efforts ofimagination and sentiment were most frequent and most successful in thesouth. While the shores of the Baltic became famed for the studies ofCopernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler, those of the Mediterranean werecelebrated for giving birth to men of genius in all its variety, and forhaving abounded with poets and historians, as well as with men of science. 

On one side, learning took its rise from the heart and the fancy; on theother, it is still confined to the judgment and the memory. A faithfuldetail of public transactions, with little discernment of their comparativeimportance; the treaties and the claims of nations, the births andgenealogies of princes, are, in the literature of northern nations, amplypreserved; while the lights of the understanding, and the feelings of theheart, are suffered to perish. The history of the human character; theinteresting memoir, founded no less on the careless proceedings of aprivate life, than on the formal transactions of a public station; theingenious pleasantry, the piercing ridicule, the tender, pathetic, or theelevated strain of elocution, have been confined in modern, as well asancient times, with a few exceptions, to the same latitudes with the figand the vine. 

These diversities of natural genius, if real, must have great part of theirfoundation in the animal frame; and it has been often observed, that thevine flourishes, where, to quicken the ferments of the human blood, itsaids [sic] are the least required. While spirituous liquors are, amongsouthern nations, from a sense of their ruinous effects, prohibited; orfrom a love of decency, and the possession of a temperament sufficientlywarm, not greatly desired; they carry in the north a peculiar charm, whilethey awaken the mind, and give a taste of that lively fancy and ardour ofpassion, which the climate is found to deny. 

The melting desires, or the fiery passions, which in one climate take placebetween the sexes, are in another changed into a sober consideration, or apatience of mutual disgust. This change is remarked in crossing theMediterranean, in following the course of the Mississippi, in ascending themountains of Caucasus, and in passing from the Alps and the Pyrenees to theshores of the Baltic. 

The female sex domineers on the frontier of Louisiana, by the double engineof superstition, and of passion. They are slaves among the nativeinhabitants of Canada, and are chiefly valued for the toils they endure, and the domestic service they yield. [Footnote: Charlevoix. ]

The burning ardours, and the torturing jealousies of the seraglio and theharam, which have reigned so long in Asia and Africa, and which, in thesouthern parts of Europe, have scarcely given way to the difference ofreligion and civil establishments, are found, however, with an abatement ofheat in the climate, to be more easily changed in one latitude, into atemporary passion which engrosses the mind, without enfeebling it, andexcites to romantic achievements: by a farther progress to the north, it ischanged into a spirit of gallantry, which employs the wit and the fancymore than the heart; which prefers intrigue to enjoyment; and substitutesaffectation and vanity where sentiment and desire have failed. As itdeparts from the sun, the same passion is farther composed into a habit ofdomestic connection, or frozen into a state of insensibility, under whichthe sexes at freedom scarcely choose to unite their society. 

These variations of temperament and character do not indeed correspond withthe number of degrees that are measured from the equator to the pole; nordoes the temperature of the air itself depend on the latitude. Varieties ofsoil and position, the distance or neighbourhood of the sea, are known toaffect the atmosphere, and may have signal effects in composing the animalframe. 

The climates of America, though taken under the same parallel, are observedto differ from those of Europe. There, extensive marshes, great lakes, aged, decayed, and crowded forests, with the other circumstances that markan uncultivated country, are supposed to replenish the air with heavy andnoxious vapours, that give a double asperity to the winter; and during manymonths, by the frequency and continuance of fogs, snow, and frost, carrythe inconveniencies of the frigid zone far into the temperate. The Samoiedeand the Laplander, however, have their counterpart, though on a lowerlatitude, on the shores of America: the Canadian and the Iroquois bear aresemblance to the ancient inhabitants of the middling climates of Europe. The Mexican, like the Asiatic of India, being addicted to pleasure, wassunk in effeminacy; and in the neighbourhood of the wild and the free, hadsuffered to be raised on his weakness a domineering superstition, and apermanent fabric of despotical government. 

Great part of Tartary lies under the same parallels with Greece, Italy, andSpain; but the climates are found to be different; and while the shores, not only of the Mediterranean, but even those of the Atlantic, are favouredwith a moderate change and vicissitude of seasons, the eastern parts ofEurope, and the northern continent of Asia, are afflicted with all theirextremes. In one season, we are told, that the plagues of an ardent summerreach almost to the frozen sea; and that the inhabitant is obliged toscreen himself from noxious vermin in the same clouds of smoke in which hemust, at a different time of the year, take shelter from the rigours ofcold. When winter returns, the transition is rapid, and with an asperityalmost equal in every latitude, lays waste the face of the earth, from thenorthern confines of Siberia, to the descents of Mount Caucasus and thefrontier of India. 

With this unequal distribution of climate, by which the lot, as well as thenational character, of the northern Asiatic may be deemed inferior to thatof Europeans, who lie under the same parallels, a similar gradation oftemperament and spirit, however, has been observed, in following themeridian on either tract; and the southern Tartar has over the Tonguses andthe Sanmoiede the same pre-eminence, that certain nations of Europe areknown to possess over their northern neighbours, in situations moreadvantageous to both. 

The southern hemisphere scarcely offers a subject of like observation. Thetemperate zone is there still undiscovered, or is only known in twopromontories, the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, which stretch intomoderate latitudes on that side of the line. But the savage of SouthAmerica, notwithstanding the interposition of the nations of Peru and ofMexico, is found to resemble his counterpart on the north; and theHottentot, in many things, the barbarian of Europe: he is tenacious offreedom, has rudiments of policy, and a national vigour, which serve todistinguish his race from the other African tribes, who are exposed to themore vertical rays of the sun. 

While we have, in these observations, only thrown out what must presentitself on the most cursory view of the history of mankind, or what may bepresumed from the mere obscurity of some nations, who inhabit great tractsof the earth, as well as from the lustre of others, we are still unable toexplain the manner in which climate may affect the temperament, or fosterthe genius of its inhabitant. 

That the temper of the heart, and the intellectual operations of the mind, are, in some measure, dependent on the state of the animal organs, is wellknown from experience. Men differ from themselves in sickness and inhealth; under a change of diet, of air, and of exercise: but we are, evenin these familiar instances, at a loss how to connect the cause with itssupposed effect: and though climate, by including a variety of such causes, may, by some regular influence, affect the characters of men, we can neverhope to explain the manner of those influences till we have understood, what probably we shall never understand, the structure of those finerorgans with which the operations of the soul are connected. 

When we point out, in the situation of a people, circumstances which, bydetermining their pursuits, regulate their habits, and their manner oflife; and when, instead of referring to the supposed physical source oftheir dispositions, we assign their inducements to a determinate conduct;in this we speak of effects and of causes whose connection is morefamiliarly known. We can understand, for instance, why a race of men likethe Samoiede, confined, during great part of the year, to darkness, orretired into caverns, should differ in their manners and apprehensions fromthose who are at liberty in every season; or who, instead of seeking relieffrom the extremities of cold, are employed in search of precautions againstthe oppressions of a burning sun. Fire and exercise are the remedies ofcold; repose and shade the securities from heat. The Hollander is laboriousand industrious in Europe; he becomes more languid and slothful in India. [Footnote: The Dutch sailors, who were employed in the siege of Malaco, tore or burnt the sail cloth which was given them to make tents, that theymight not have the trouble of making or pitching them. _Voy. DeMatelief. _]

Great extremities, either of heat or cold, are perhaps, in a moral view, equally unfavourable to the active genius of mankind, and by presentingalike insuperable difficulties to be overcome, or strong inducements toindolence and sloth, equally prevent the first applications of ingenuity, or limit their progress. Some intermediate degrees of inconvenience in thesituation, at once excite the spirit, and, with the hopes of success, encourage its efforts. "It Is in the least favourable situations, " says Mr. Rousseau, "that the arts have flourished the most. I could show them inEgypt, as they spread with the overflowing of the Nile; and in Attica, asthey mounted up to the clouds, from a rocky soil and from barren sands;while on the fertile banks of the Eurotas, they were not able to fastentheir roots. "

Where mankind from the first subsist by toil, and in the midst ofdifficulties, the defects of their situation are supplied by industry: andwhile dry, tempting, and healthful lands are left uncultivated, [Footnote:Compare the state of Hungary with that of Holland. ] the pestilent marsh isdrained with great labour, and the sea is fenced off with mighty barriers, the materials and the costs of which, the soil to be gained can scarcelyafford, or repay. Harbours are opened, and crowded with shipping, wherevessels of burden, if they are not constructed with a view to thesituation, have not water to float. Elegant and magnificent edifices areraised on foundations of slime; and all the conveniencies of human life aremade to abound, where nature does not seem to have prepared a reception formen. It is in vain to expect, that the residence of arts and commerceshould be determined by the possession of natural advantages. Men do morewhen they have certain difficulties to surmount, than when they havesupposed blessings to enjoy: and the shade of the barren oak and the pineare more favourable to the genius of mankind, than that of the palm or thetamarind. 

Among the advantages which enable nations to run the career of policy, aswell as of arts, it may be expected, from the observations already made, that we should reckon every circumstance which enable them to divide and tomaintain themselves in distinct and independent communities. The societyand concourse of other men are not more necessary to form the individual, than the rivalship and competition of nations are to invigorate theprinciples of political life in a state. Their wars, and their treaties, their mutual jealousies, and the establishments which they devise with aview to each other, constitute more than half the occupations of mankind, and furnish materials for their greatest and most improving exertions. Forthis reason, clusters of islands, a continent divided by many naturalbarriers, great rivers, ridges of mountains, and arms of the sea, are bestfitted for becoming the nursery of independent and respectable nations. Thedistinction of states being clearly maintained, a principle of politicallife is established in every division, and the capital of every district, like the heart of an animal body, communicates with ease the vital bloodand the national spirit to its members. 

The most respectable nations have always been found, where at least onepart of the frontier has been washed by the sea. This barrier, perhaps thestrongest of all in the times of ignorance, does not, however, even thensupersede the cares of a national defence; and in the advanced state ofarts, gives the greatest scope and facility to commerce. 

Thriving and independent nations were accordingly scattered on the shoresof the Pacific and the Atlantic. They surrounded the Red Sea, theMediterranean, and the Baltic; while, a few tribes excepted, who retireamong the mountains bordering on India and Persia, or who have found somerude establishment among the creeks and the shores of the Caspian and theEuxine, there is scarcely a people in the vast continent of Asia whodeserves the name of a nation. The unbounded plain is traversed at large byhordes, who are in perpetual motion, or who are displaced and harassed bytheir mutual hostilities. Although they are never perhaps actually blendedtogether in the course of hunting, or in the search of pasture, they cannotbear one great distinction of nations, which is taken from the territory, and which is deeply impressed by an affection to the native seat. They movein troops, without the arrangement or the concert of nations; they becomeeasy accessions to every new empire among themselves, or to the Chinese andthe Muscovite, with whom they hold a traffic for the means of subsistence, and the materials of pleasure. 

Where a happy system of nations is formed, they do hot rely for thecontinuance of their separate names, and for that of their politicalindependence, on the barriers erected by nature. Mutual jealousies lead tothe maintenance of a balance of power; and this principle, more than theRhine and the Ocean, than the Alps and the Pyrenees in modern Europe; morethan the straits of Thermopylae, the mountains of Thrace, or the bays ofSalamine and Corinth in ancient Greece, tended to prolong the separation, to which the inhabitants of these happy climates have owed their felicityas nations, the lustre of their fame, and their civil accomplishments. 

If we mean to pursue the history of civil society, our attention must bechiefly directed to such examples, and we must here bid farewell to thoseregions of the earth, on which our species, by the effects of situation orclimate, appear to be restrained in their national pursuits, or inferior inthe powers of the mind. 

SECTION II. 

THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENTS. 

We have hitherto observed mankind, either united together on terms ofequality, or disposed to admit of a subordination founded merely on thevoluntary respect and attachment which they paid to their leaders; but, inboth cases, without any concerted plan of government, or system of laws. 

The savage, whose fortune is comprised in his cabin, his fur, and his arms, is satisfied with that provision, and with that degree of security, hehimself can procure. He perceives, in treating with his equal, no subjectof discussion that should be referred to the decision of a judge; nor doeshe find in any hand the badges of magistracy, or the ensigns of a perpetualcommand. 

The barbarian, though induced by his admiration of personal qualities, thelustre of a heroic race, or a superiority of fortune, to follow the bannersof a leader, and to act a subordinate part in his tribe, knows not, thatwhat he performs from choice, is to be made a subject of obligation. Heacts from affections unacquainted with forms; and when provoked, or whenengaged in disputes, he recurs to the sword, as the ultimate means ofdecision, in all questions of right. 

Human affairs, in the mean time, continue their progress. What was in onegeneration a propensity to herd with the species, becomes in the ages whichfollow, a principle of natural union. What was originally an alliance forcommon defence, becomes a concerted plan of political force; the care ofsubsistence becomes an anxiety for accumulating wealth, and the foundationof commercial arts. 

Mankind, in following the present sense of their minds, in striving toremove inconveniencies, or to gain apparent and contiguous advantages, arrive at ends which even their imagination could not anticipate; and passon, like other animals, in the track of their nature, without perceivingits end. He who first said; "I will appropriate this field; I will leave itto my heirs;" did not perceive, that he was laying the foundation of civillaws and political establishments. He who first ranged himself under aleader, did not perceive, that he was setting the example of a permanentsubordination, under the pretence of which, the rapacious were to seize hispossessions, and the arrogant to lay claim to his service. 

Men, in general, are sufficiently disposed to occupy themselves in formingprojects and schemes; but he who would scheme and project for others, willfind an opponent in every person who is disposed to scheme for himself. Like the winds that come we know not whence, and blow whithersoever theylist, the forms of society are derived from an obscure and distant origin;they arise, long before the date of philosophy, from the instincts, notfrom the speculations of men. The crowd of mankind are directed, in theirestablishments and measures, by the circumstances in which they are placed;and seldom are turned from their way, to follow the plan of any singleprojector. 

Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termedenlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nationsstumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design. [Footnote: De Retz's Memoirs. ]If Cromwell said, that a man never mounts higher, than when he knows notwhither he is going; it may with more reason be affirmed of communities, that they admit of the greatest revolutions where no change is intended, and that the most refined politicians do not always know whither they areleading the state by their projects. 

If we listen to the testimony of modern history, and to that of the mostauthentic parts of the ancient; if we attend to the practice of nations inevery quarter of the world, and in every condition, whether that of thebarbarian or the polished, we shall find very little reason to retract thisassertion. No constitution is formed by concert, no government is copiedfrom a plan. The members of a small state contend for equality; the membersof a greater, find themselves classed in a certain manner that lays afoundation for monarchy. They proceed from one form of government toanother, by easy transitions, and frequently under old names adopt a newconstitution. The seeds of every form are lodged in human nature; theyspring up and ripen with the season. The prevalence of a particular speciesis often derived from an imperceptible ingredient mingled in the soil. 

We are therefore to receive, with caution, the traditionary histories ofancient legislators, and founders of states. Their names have long beencelebrated; their supposed plans have been admired; and what were probablythe consequences of an early situation, is, in every instance, consideredas an effect of design. An author and a work, like cause and effect, areperpetually coupled together. This is the simplest form under which we canconsider the establishment of nations: and we ascribe to a previous design, what came to be known only by experience, what no human wisdom couldforesee, and what, without the concurring humour and disposition of hisage, no authority could enable an individual to execute. 

If men, during ages of extensive reflection, and employed in the search ofimprovement, are wedded to their institutions; and, labouring under manyacknowledged inconveniencies, cannot break loose from the trammels ofcustom; what shall we suppose their humour to have been in the times ofRomulus and Lycurgus? They were not surely more disposed to embrace theschemes of innovators, or to shake off the impressions of habit: they werenot more pliant and ductile, when their knowledge was less; not morecapable of refinement, when their minds were more circumscribed. 

We imagine, perhaps, that rude nations must have so strong a sense of thedefects under which they labour, and be so conscious that reformations arerequisite in their manners, that they must be ready to adopt, with joy, every plan of improvement, and to receive every plausible proposal withimplicit compliance. And we are thus inclined to believe, that the harp ofOrpheus could effect, in one age, what the eloquence of Plato could notproduce in another. We mistake, however, the characteristic of simple ages:mankind then appear to feel the fewest defects, and are then least desirousto enter on reformations. 

The reality, in the mean time, of certain establishments at Rome and atSparta, cannot be disputed: but it is probable; that the government of boththese states took its rise from the situation and genius of the people, notfrom the projects of single men; that the celebrated warrior and statesman, who are considered as the founders of those nations, only acted a superiorpart among numbers who were disposed to the same institutions; and thatthey left to posterity a renown, pointing them out as the inventors of manypractices which had been already in use, and which helped to form their ownmanners and genius, as well as those of their countrymen. 

It has been formerly observed, that, in many particulars, the customs ofsimple nations coincide with what is ascribed to the invention of earlystatesmen; that the model of republican government, the senate, and theassembly of the people; that even the equality of property, or thecommunity of goods, were not reserved to the invention or contrivance ofsingular men. 

If we consider Romulus as the founder of the Roman state, certainly he whokilled his brother, that he might reign alone, did not desire to come underrestraints from the controling power of the senate, nor to refer thecouncils of his sovereignty to the decision of a collective body. Love ofdominion is, by its nature, averse to restraint; and this chieftain, likeevery leader in a rude age, probably found a class of men ready to intrudeon his councils, and without whom he could not proceed. He met withoccasions, on which, as at the sound of a trumpet, the body of the peopleassembled, and took resolutions, which any individual might in vaindispute, or attempt to control; and Rome, which commenced on the generalplan of every artless society, found lasting improvements in the pursuit oftemporary expedients, and digested her political frame in adjusting thepretensions of parties which arose in the state. 

Mankind, in very early ages of society, learn to covet riches, and toadmire distinction: they have avarice and ambition, and are occasionallyled by these passions to depredations and conquest: but in their ordinaryconduct, are guided or restrained by different motives; by sloth orintemperance; by personal attachments, or personal animosities; whichmislead from the attention to interest. These motives or habits rendermankind, at times, remiss or outrageous: they prove the source of civilpeace or of civil disorder, but disqualify those who are actuated by them, from maintaining any fixed usurpation; slavery and rapine, in the case ofevery community, are first threatened from abroad, and war, eitheroffensive or defensive, is the great business of every tribe. The enemyoccupy their thoughts; they have no leisure for domestic dissentions. It isthe desire of every separate community, however, to secure itself; and inproportion as it gains this object, by strengthening its barrier, byweakening its enemy, or by procuring allies, the individual at homebethinks him of what he may gain or lose for himself: the leader isdisposed to enlarge the advantages which belong to his station; thefollower becomes jealous of rights which are open to encroachment; andparties who united before, from affection and habit, or from a regard totheir common preservation, disagree in supporting their, several claims toprecedence or profit. 

When the animosities of faction are thus awakened at home, and thepretensions of freedom are opposed to those of dominion, the members ofevery society find a new scene upon which to exert their activity. They hadquarrelled, perhaps, on points of interest; they had balanced betweendifferent leaders; but they had never united as citizens, to withstand theencroachments of sovereignty, or to maintain their common rights as apeople. If the prince, in this contest, finds numbers to support, as wellas to oppose his pretensions, the sword which was whetted against foreignenemies, may be pointed at the bosom of fellow subjects, and every intervalof peace from abroad, be filled with domestic war. The sacred names ofliberty, justice, and civil order, are made to resound in publicassemblies; and, during the absence of other alarms, give to society, within itself, an abundant subject of ferment and animosity. 

If what is related of the little principalities which, in ancient times, were formed in Greece, in Italy, and over all Europe, agrees with thecharacter we have given of mankind under the first impressions of property, of interest, and of hereditary distinctions; the seditions and domesticwars which followed in those very states, the expulsion of their kings, orthe questions which arose concerning the prerogatives of the sovereign, orprivilege of the subject, are agreeable to the representation which we nowgive of the first step toward political establishment, and the desire of alegal constitution. 

What this constitution may be in its earliest form, depends on a variety ofcircumstances in the condition of nations: it depends on the extent of theprincipality in its rude state; on the degree of disparity to which mankindhad submitted before they begun to dispute the abuses of power: it dependslikewise on what we term _accidents_, the personal character of anindividual, or the events of a war. 

Every community is originally a small one. That propensity by which mankindat first unite, is not the principle from which they afterwards act inextending the limits of empire. Small tribes, where they are not assembledby common objects of conquest or safety, are even averse to a coalition. If, like the real or fabulous confederacy of the Greeks for the destructionof Troy, many nations combine in pursuit of a single object, they easilyseparate again, and act anew on the maxims of rival states. 

There is, perhaps a certain national extent, within which the passions ofmen are easily communicated from one, or a few, to the whole; and there arecertain numbers of men who can be assembled, and act in a body. If, whilethe society is not enlarged beyond this dimension, and while its membersare easily assembled, political contentions arise, the state seldom failsto proceed on republican maxims, and to establish democracy. In most rudeprincipalities, the leader derived his prerogative from the lustre of hisrace, and from the voluntary attachment of his tribe: the people hecommanded were his friends, his subjects, and his troops. If we suppose, upon any change in their manners, that they cease to revere his dignity, that they pretend to equality among themselves, or are seized with ajealousy of his assuming too much, the foundations of his power are alreadywithdrawn. When the voluntary subject becomes refractory; when considerableparties, or the collective body, choose to act for themselves; the smallkingdom, like that of Athens, becomes of course a republic. 

The changes of condition, and of manners, which, in the progress ofmankind, raise up to nations a leader and a prince, create, at the sametime, a nobility and a variety of ranks, who have, in a subordinate degree, their claim to distinction. Superstition, too, may create an order of men, who, under the title of priesthood, engage in the pursuit of a separateinterest; who, by their union and firmness as a body, and by theirincessant ambition, deserve to be reckoned in the list of pretenders topower. These different orders of men are the elements of whose mixture thepolitical body is generally formed; each draws to its side some part fromthe mass of the people. The people themselves are a party upon occasion;and numbers of men, however classed and distinguished, become, by theirjarring pretensions and separate views, mutual interruptions and checks;and have, by bringing to the national councils the maxims and apprehensionsof a particular order, and by guarding a particular interest, a share inadjusting or preserving the political form of the state. 

The pretensions of any particular order, if not checked by some collateralpower, would terminate in tyranny; those of a prince, in despotism; thoseof a nobility or priesthood, in the abuses of aristocracy; of a populace, in the confusions of anarchy. These terminations, as they are never theprofessed, so are they seldom even the disguised object of party: but themeasures which any party pursues, if suffered to prevail, will lead, bydegrees, to every extreme. 

In their way to the ascendant they endeavour to gain, and in the midst ofinterruptions which opposite interests mutually give, liberty may have apermanent or a transient existence; and the constitution may bear a formand a character as various as the casual combination of such multipliedparts can effect. 

To bestow on communities some degree of political freedom, it is perhapssufficient, that their members, either singly, or as they are involved withtheir several orders, should insist on their rights; that under republics, the citizen should either maintain his own equality with firmness, orrestrain the ambition of his fellow citizen within moderate bounds; thatunder monarchy, men of every rank should maintain the honours of theirprivate or their public stations; and sacrifice neither to the impositionsof a court, nor to the claims of a populace, those dignities which aredestined, in some measure, independent of fortune, to give stability to thethrone, and to procure a respect to the subject. 

Amidst the contentions of party, the interests of the public, even themaxims of justice and candour, are sometimes forgotten; and yet those fatalconsequences which such a measure of corruption seems to portend, do notunavoidably follow. The public interest is often secure, not becauseindividuals are disposed to regard it as the end of their conduct, butbecause each, in his place, is determined to preserve his own. Liberty ismaintained by the continued differences and oppositions of numbers, not bytheir concurring zeal in behalf of equitable government. In free states, therefore, the wisest laws are never, perhaps, dictated by the interest andspirit of any order of men: they are moved, they are opposed, or amended, by different hands; and come at last to express that medium and compositionwhich contending parties have forced one another to adopt. 

When we consider the history of mankind in this view, we cannot be at aloss for the causes which, in small communities, threw the balance on theside of democracy; which, in states more enlarged in respect to territoryand number of people, gave the ascendant to monarchy; and which, in avariety of conditions and of different ages, enabled mankind to blend andunite the characters of different forms; and, instead of any of the simpleconstitutions we have mentioned, [Footnote: Part I. Sect. 10. ] to exhibit amedley of all. 

In emerging from a state of rudeness and simplicity, men must be expectedto act from that spirit of equality, or moderate subordination, to whichthey have been accustomed. When crowded together in cities, or within thecompass of a small territory, they act by contagious passions, and everyindividual feels a degree of importance proportioned to his figure in thecrowd, and the smallness of its numbers. The pretenders to power anddominion appear in too familiar a light to impose upon the multitude, andthey have no aids at their call, by which they can bridle the refractoryhumours of a people who resist their pretensions. Theseus, king of Attica, we are told, assembled the inhabitants of its twelve cantons into one city. In this he took an effectual method to unite into one democracy, what werebefore the separate members of his monarchy, and to hasten the downfal ofthe regal power. 

The monarch of an extensive territory has many advantages in maintaininghis station. Without any grievance to his subjects, he can support themagnificence of a royal estate, and dazzle the imagination of his people, by that very wealth which themselves have bestowed. He can employ theinhabitants of one district against those of another; and while thepassions that lead to mutiny and rebellion, can at any one time seize onlyon a part of his subjects, he feels himself strong in the possession of ageneral authority. Even the distance at which he resides from many of thosewho receive his commands, augments the mysterious awe and respect which arepaid to his government. 

With these different tendencies, accident and corruption, however, joinedto a variety of circumstances, may throw particular states from their bias, and produce exceptions to every general rule. This has actually happened insome of the later principalities of Greece, and modern Italy, in Sweden, Poland, and the German Empire. But the united states of the Netherlands, and the Swiss cantons, are, perhaps, the most extensive communities, which, maintaining the union of nations, have, for any considerable time, resistedthe tendency to monarchical government; and Sweden is the only instance ofa republic established in a great kingdom on the ruins of monarchy. 

The sovereign of a petty district, or a single city, when not supported, asin modern Europe, by the contagion of monarchical manners, holds thesceptre by a precarious tenure, and is perpetually alarmed by the spirit ofmutiny in his people, is guided by jealousy, and supports himself byseverity, prevention, and force. 

The popular and aristocratical powers in a great nation, as in the case ofGermany and Poland, may meet with equal difficulty in maintaining theirpretensions; and, in order to avoid their danger on the side of kinglyusurpation, are obliged to withhold from the supreme magistrate even thenecessary trust of an executive power. 

The states of Europe, in the manner of their first settlement, laid thefoundations of monarchy, and were prepared to unite under regular andextensive governments. If the Greeks, whose progress at home terminated inthe establishment of so many independent republics, had under Agamemnoneffected a conquest and settlement in Asia, it is probable that they mighthave furnished an example of the same kind. But the original inhabitants ofany country, forming many separate cantons, come by slow degrees to thatcoalition and union into which conquering tribes, in effecting theirconquests, or in securing their possessions, are hurried at once. Cćsar encountered some hundreds of independent nations in Gaul, whom eventheir common danger did not sufficiently unite. The German invaders, whosettled in the lands of the Romans, made, in the same district, a numberof separate establishments, but far more extensive than what the ancientGauls, by their conjunction and treaties, or in the result of their wars, could, after many ages, have reached. 

The seeds of great monarchies, and the roots of extensive dominion, wereevery where planted with the colonies that divided the Roman empire. Wehave no exact account of the numbers, who, with a seeming concert, continued, during some ages, to invade and to seize this tempting prize. Where they expected resistance, they endeavoured to muster up aproportional force; and when they proposed to settle, entire nationsremoved to share in the spoil. Scattered over an extensive province, wherethey could not be secure, without maintaining their union, they continuedto acknowledge the leader under whom they had fought; and, like an armysent by divisions into separate stations, were prepared to assemblewhenever occasion should require their united operations or counsels. 

Every separate party had its post assigned, and every subordinate chieftainhis possessions, from which he was to provide his own subsistence, and thatof his followers. The model of government was taken from that of a militarysubordination, and a fief was the temporary pay of an officer proportionedto his rank. [Footnote: See Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland, B. 1. --Dalrymple's Hist. Of Feudal Tenures. ] There was a class of the peopledestined to military service, another to labour, and to cultivate lands forthe benefit of their masters. The officer improved his tenure by degrees, first changing a temporary grant into a tenure for his life; and this also, upon the observance of certain conditions, into a grant including hisheirs. 

The rank of the nobles became hereditary in every quarter, and formed apowerful and permanent order of men in every state. While they held thepeople in servitude, they disputed the claims of their sovereign; theywithdrew their attendance upon occasion, or turned their arms against him. They formed a strong and insurmountable barrier against a general despotismin the state; but they were themselves, by means of their warlikeretainers, the tyrants of every little district, and prevented theestablishment of order, or any regular applications of law. They took theadvantage of weak reigns or minorities, to push their encroachments on thesovereign; or having made the monarchy elective, they, by successivetreaties and stipulations, at every election, limited or undermined themonarchical power. The prerogatives of the prince have been, in someinstances, as in that of the German empire in particular, reduced to a meretitle; and the national union itself preserved in the observance only of afew insignificant formalities. 

Where the contest of the sovereign, and of his vassals, under hereditaryand ample prerogatives annexed to the crown, had a different issue, thefeudal lordships were gradually stript of their powers, the nobles werereduced to the state of subjects, and, obliged to hold their honours, andexercise their jurisdictions, in a dependence on the prince. It was hissupposed interest to reduce them to a state of equal subjection with thepeople, and to extend his own authority, by rescuing the labourer and thedependent from the oppressions of their immediate superiors. 

In this project the princes of Europe have variously succeeded. While theyprotected the people, and thereby encouraged the practice of commercial andlucrative arts, they paved the way for despotism in the state; and with thesame policy by which they relieved the subject from many oppressions, theyincreased the powers of the crown. 

But where the people had, by the constitution, a representative in thegovernment, and a head, under which they could avail themselves of thewealth they acquired, and of the sense of their personal importance, thispolicy turned against the crown; it formed a new power to restrain theprerogative, to establish the government of law, and to exhibit a spectaclenew in the history of mankind; monarchy mixed with republic, and extensiveterritory governed, during some ages, without military force. 

Such were the steps by which the nations of Europe have arrived at theirpresent establishments: in some instances they have come to the possessionof legal constitutions; in others, to the exercise of a mitigateddespotism; or they continue to struggle with the tendency which theyseverally have to these different extremes. 

The progress of empire, in the early ages of Europe, threatened to berapid, and to bury the independent spirit of nations in a grave like thatwhich the Ottoman conquerors found for themselves, and for the wretchedrace they had vanquished. The Romans had by slow degrees extended theirempire; they had made every new acquisition in the result of a tedious war, and had been obliged to plant colonies, and to employ a variety ofmeasures, to secure every new possession. But the feudal superior beinganimated, from the moment he gained an establishment, with a desire ofextending his territory, and of enlarging the list of his vassals, procured, by merely bestowing investiture, the annexation of new provinces, and became the master of states, before independent, without making anymaterial innovation in the form of their policy. 

Separate principalities were, like the parts of an engine, ready to bejoined, and, like the wrought materials of a building, ready to be erected. They were in the result of their struggles put together or taken asunderwith facility. The independence of weak states was preserved only by themutual jealousies of the strong, or by the general attention of all tomaintain a balance of power. 

The happy system of policy on which European states have proceeded inpreserving this balance; the degree of moderation which is, in adjustingtheir treaties, become habitual even to victorious and powerful monarchies, does honour to mankind, and may give hopes of a lasting felicity, to bederived from a prepossession, never, perhaps, equally strong in any formerperiod, or among any number of nations, that the first conquering peoplewill ruin themselves, as well as their rivals. 

It is in such states, perhaps, as in a fabric of a large dimension, that wecan perceive most distinctly the several parts of which a political bodyconsists; and observe that concurrence or opposition of interests, whichserve to unite or to separate different orders of men, and lead them, bymaintaining their several claims, to establish a variety of politicalforms. The smallest republics, however, consist of parts similar to these, and of members who are actuated by, a similar spirit. They furnish examplesof government diversified by the casual combinations of parties, and by thedifferent advantages with which those parties engage in the conflict. 

In every society there is a casual subordination, independent of its formalestablishment, and frequently adverse to its constitution. While theadministration and the people speak the language of a particular form, andseem to admit no pretensions to power, without a legal nomination in oneinstance, or without the advantage of hereditary honours in another, thiscasual subordination, possibly arising from the distribution of property, or from some other circumstance that bestows unequal degrees of influence, gives the state its tone, and fixes its character. 

The plebeian order at Rome having been long considered as of an inferiorcondition, and excluded from the higher offices of magistracy, hadsufficient force, as a body, to get, this invidious distinction removed;but the individual still acting under the impressions of a subordinaterank, gave in every competition his suffrage to a patrician, whoseprotection he had experienced; and whose personal authority he felt. Bythis means the ascendancy of the patrician families was, for a certainperiod, as regular as it could be made by the avowed maxims of aristocracy:but the higher offices of state being gradually shared by plebeians, theeffects of former distinctions were prevented or weakened. The laws thatwere made to adjust the pretensions of different orders were easily eluded. The populace became a faction, and their alliance was the surest road todominion. Clodius, by a pretended adoption into a plebeian family, wasqualified to become tribune of the people; and Caesar, by espousing thecause of this faction, made his way to usurpation and tyranny. 

In such fleeting and transient scenes, forms of government are only modesof proceeding, in, which successive ages differ from one another. Factionis ever ready to seize all occasional advantages; and mankind, when inhazard from any party, seldom find a better protection than that of itsrival. Cato united with Pompey in opposition to Caesar, and guarded againstnothing so much as that reconciliation of parties, which was in effect tobe a combination of different leaders against the freedom of the republic. This illustrious personage stood distinguished in his age like a man amongchildren, and was raised above his opponents, as much by the justness ofhis understanding, and the extent of his penetration, as he was by themanly fortitude and disinterestedness with which he strove to baffle thedesigns of a vain and childish ambition, that was operating to the ruin ofmankind. 

Although free constitutions of government seldom or never take their risefrom the scheme of any single projector, yet are they often preserved bythe vigilance, activity, and zeal of single men. Happy are they whounderstand and who choose this object of care; and happy it is for mankindwhen it is not chosen too late. It has been reserved to signalize the livesof a Cato or a Brutus, on the eve of fatal revolutions; to foster in secretthe indignation of Thrasea and Helvidius; and to occupy the reflections ofspeculative men in times of corruption. But even in such late andineffectual examples, it was happy to know, and to value, an object whichis so important to mankind. The pursuit, and the love of it, howeverunsuccessful, has thrown its principal lustre on human nature. 

SECTION III. 

OF NATIONAL OBJECTS IN GENERAL, AND OF ESTABLISHMENTS AND MANNERS RELATINGTO THEM. 

While the mode of subordination is casual, and forms of government taketheir rise, chiefly from the manner in which the members of a state havebeen originally classed, and from a variety of circumstances that procureto particular orders of men a sway in their country, there are certainobjects that claim the attention of every government, that lead theapprehensions and the reasonings of mankind in every society, and that notonly furnish an employment to statesmen, but in some measure direct thecommunity to those institutions, under the authority of which themagistrate holds his power. Such are the national defence, the distributionof justice, the preservation and internal prosperity of the state. If theseobjects be neglected, we must apprehend that the very scene in whichparties contend for power, for privilege, or equality, must disappear, andsociety itself no longer exist. 

The consideration due to these objects will be pleaded in every publicassembly, and will produce, in every political contest, appeals to thatcommon sense and opinion of mankind, which, struggling with the privateviews of individuals, and the claims of party, may be considered as thegreat legislator of nations. 

The measures required for the attainment of most national objects areconnected together, and must be jointly pursued; they are often the same. The force which is prepared for defence against foreign enemies, may belikewise employed to keep the peace at home: the laws made to secure therights and liberties of the people, may serve as encouragements topopulation and commerce; and every community, without considering how itsobjects may be classed or distinguished by speculative men, is, in everyinstance, obliged to assume or to retain that form which is best fitted topreserve its advantages, or to avert its misfortunes. 

Nations, however, like private men, have their favourite ends, and theirprincipal pursuits, which diversify their manners, as well as theirestablishments. They even attain to the same ends by different means; and, like men who make their fortune by different professions, retain the habitsof their principal calling in every condition at which they arrive. TheRomans became wealthy in pursuing their conquests; and probably, for acertain period, increased the numbers of mankind, while their dispositionto war seemed to threaten the earth with desolation. Some modern nationsproceed to dominion and enlargement on the maxims of commerce; and whilethey only intend to accumulate riches at home, continue to gain an imperialascendant abroad. 

The characters of the warlike and the commercial are variously combined:they are formed in different degrees by the influence of circumstances, that more or less frequently give rise to war, and excite the desire ofconquest; of circumstances, that leave a people in quiet to improve theirdomestic resources, or to purchase, by the fruits of their industry, fromforeigners, what their own soil and their climate deny. 

The members of every community are more or less occupied with matters ofstate, in proportion as their constitution admits them to share in thegovernment, and summons up their attention to objects of a public nature. Apeople are cultivated or unimproved in their talents, in proportion asthose talents are employed in the practice of arts, and in the affairs ofsociety they are improved or corrupted in their manners, in proportion asthey are encouraged and directed to act on the maxims of freedom andjustice, or as they as they are degraded into a state of meanness andservitude. But whatever advantages are obtained, or whatever evils areavoided, by nations, in any of these important respects, are generallyconsidered as mere occasional incidents: they are seldom admitted among theobjects of policy, or entered among the reasons of state. 

We hazard being treated with ridicule, when we require politicalestablishments, merely to cultivate the talents of men, and to inspire thensentiments of a liberal mind: we must offer some motive of interest, orsome hopes of external advantage, to animate the pursuits, or to direct themeasures, of ordinary men. They would be brave, ingenious, and eloquent, only from necessity, or for the sake of profit: they magnify the uses ofwealth, population, and the other resources of war; but often forget thatthese are of no consequence without the direction of able capacities, andwithout the supports of a national vigour. We may expect, therefore, tofind among states the bias to a particular policy taken from the regards topublic safety; from the desire of securing personal freedom or privateproperty; seldom from the consideration of moral effects, or from a view tothe real improvement of mankind. 

SECTION IV. 

OF POPULATION AND WEALTH. 

When we imagine what the Romans must have felt when the tidings came thatthe flower of their city had perished at Cannć; when we think of what theorator had in his mind when he said, "That the youth among the people waslike the spring among the seasons;" when we hear of the joy with which thehuntsman and the warrior is adopted, in America, to sustain the honours ofthe family and the nation; we are made to feel the most powerful motives toregard the increase and preservation of our fellow citizens. Interest, affection, and views of policy, combine to recommend this object; and it istreated with entire neglect only by the tyrant who mistakes his ownadvantage, by the statesman who trifles with the charge committed to hiscare, or by the people who are become corrupted, and who consider theirfellow subjects as rivals in interest, and competitors in their lucrativepursuits. 

Among rude societies, and among small communities in general, who areengaged in frequent struggles and difficulties, the preservation andincrease of their members is a most important object. The American rateshis defeat from the numbers of men he has lost, or he estimates his victoryfrom the prisoners he has made; not from his having remained the master ofa field, or being driven from a ground on which he encountered his enemy. Aman with whom he can associate in all his pursuits, whom he can embrace ashis friend; in whom he finds an object to his affections, and an aid in hisstruggles, is to him the most precious accession of fortune. 

Even where the friendship of particular men is out of the question, thesociety, being occupied in forming a party that may defend itself, or annoyits enemy, finds no object of greater moment than the increase of itsnumbers. Captives who may be adopted, or children of either sex who may bereared for the public, are accordingly considered as the richest spoil ofan enemy. The practice of the Romans in admitting the vanquished to sharein the privileges of their city, the rape of the Sabines, and thesubsequent coalition with that people, were not singular or uncommonexamples in the history of mankind. The same policy has been followed, andwas natural and obvious wherever the strength of it state consisted in thearms of a few, and where men were valued in themselves, without regard toestate or fortune. 

In rude ages, therefore, while mankind subsist in small divisions, itshould appear, that if the earth be thinly peopled, this defect does notarise from the negligence of those who ought to repair it. It is evenprobable, that the most effectual course that could be taken to increasethe species, would be, to prevent the coalition of nations, and to obligemankind to act in such small bodies as would make the preservation of theirnumbers a principal object of their care. This alone, it is true, would notbe sufficient; we must probably add the encouragement for rearing families, which mankind enjoy under a favourable policy, and the means of subsistencewhich they owe to the practice of arts. 

The mother is unwilling to increase her offspring, and is ill provided torear them, where she herself is obliged to undergo great hardships in thesearch of her food. In North America, we are told, that she joins to thereserves of a cold or a moderate temperament, the abstinencies to which shesubmits, from the consideration of this difficulty. In her apprehension, itis matter of prudence, and of conscience, to bring one child to thecondition of feeding on venison, and of following on foot, before she willhazard a new burden in travelling the woods. 

In warmer latitudes, by the different temperament, perhaps, which theclimate bestows, and by a greater facility in procuring subsistence, thenumbers of mankind increase, while the object itself is neglected; and thecommerce of the sexes, without any concern for population, is made asubject of mere debauch. In some places, we are told, it is even made theobject of a barbarous policy, to defeat or to restrain the intentions ofnature. In the island of Formosa, the males are prohibited to marry beforethe age of forty; and females, if pregnant before the age of thirty six, have an abortion procured by order of the magistrate, who employs aviolence that endangers the life of the mother, together with that of thechild. [Footnote: Collection of Dutch Voyages. ]

In China the permission given to parents to kill or to expose theirchildren, was probably meant as a relief from the burden of a numerousoffspring. But notwithstanding what we hear of a practice so repugnant tothe human heart, it has not, probably, the effects in restraining; which itseems to threaten; but, like many other institutions, has an influence thereverse of what it seemed to portend. The parents marry with this means ofrelief in their view, and the children are saved. 

However important the object of population may be held by mankind, it willbe difficult to find, in the history of civil policy, any wise or effectualestablishments, solely calculated to obtain it. The practice of rude orfeeble nations is inadequate, or cannot surmount the obstacles which arefound in their manner of life. The growth of industry, the endeavours ofmen to improve their arts, to extend their commerce, to secure theirpossessions, and to establish their rights, are indeed the most effectualmeans to promote population: but they arise from a different motive; theyarise from regards to interest and personal safety. They are intended forthe benefit of those who exist, not to procure the increase of theirnumbers. 

It is, in the mean time, of importance to know, that where a people arefortunate in their political establishments, and successful in the pursuitsof industry, their population is likely to grow in proportion. Most of theother devices thought of for this purpose, only serve to frustrate, theexpectations of mankind or to mislead their attention. 

In planting a colony, in striving to repair the occasional wastes ofpestilence or war, the immediate contrivance of statesmen may be useful;but if, in reasoning on the increase of mankind in general, we overlooktheir freedom and their happiness, our aids to population become weak andineffectual. They only lead us to work on the surface, or to pursue ashadow, while we neglect the substantial concern; and in a decaying state, make us tamper with palliatives, while the roots of an evil are suffered toremain. Octavius revived or enforced the laws that related to population atRome; but it may be said of him, and of many sovereigns in a similarsituation, that they administer the poison, while they are devising theremedy; and bring a damp and a palsy on the principles of life, while theyendeavour, by external applications to the skin; to restore the bloom of adecayed and sickly body. 

It is indeed happy for mankind, that this important object is not alwaysdependent on the wisdom of sovereigns, or the policy of single men. Apeople intent on freedom, find for themselves a condition in which they mayfollow the propensities of nature with a more signal effect, than any whichthe councils of state could devise. When sovereigns, or projectors, are thesupposed masters of this subject, the best they can do, is to be cautiousof hurting an interest they cannot greatly promote, and of making breachesthey cannot repair. 

"When nations were divided into small territories, and petty commonwealths, where each man had his house and his field to himself, and each county hadits capital free and independent; what a happy situation for mankind, " saysMr. Hume; "how favourable to industry and agriculture, to marriage and topopulation!" Yet here were, probably no schemes of the statesman, forrewarding the married, or for punishing the single; for inviting foreignersto settle, or for prohibiting the departure of natives. Every citizenfinding a possession secure, and a provision for his heirs, was notdiscouraged by the gloomy fears of oppression or want; and where everyother function of nature was free, that which furnished the nursery couldnot be restrained. Nature has required the powerful to be just; but she hasnot otherwise intrusted the preservation of her works to their visionaryplans. What fuel can the statesman add to the fires of youth? Let him onlynot smother it, and the effect is secure. Where we oppress or degrademankind with one hand, it is vain, like Octavius, to hold out in the other, the baits of marriage, or the whip to barrenness. It is vain to invite newinhabitants from abroad, while those we already possess are made to holdtheir tenure with uncertainty; and to tremble, not only under the prospectof a numerous family, but even under that of a precarious and doubtfulsubsistence for themselves. The arbitrary sovereign who has made this thecondition of his subjects, owes the remains of his people to the powerfulinstincts of nature, not to any device of his own. 

Men will crowd where the situation is tempting, and, in a few generations, will people every country to the measure of its means of subsistence. Theywill even increase under circumstances that portend a decay. The frequentwars of the Romans, and of many a thriving community; even the pestilence, and the market for slaves, find their supply, if, without destroying thesource, the drain become regular; and if an issue is made for theoffspring, without unsettling the families from which they arise. Where ahappier provision is made for mankind, the statesman, who by premiums tomarriage, by allurements to foreigners, or by confining the natives athome, apprehends, that he has made the numbers of his people to grow, isoften like the fly in the fable, who admired its success in turning thewheel, and in moving the carriage: he has only accompanied what was alreadyin motion; he has dashed with his oar, to hasten the cataract; and wavedwith his fan, to give speed to the winds. 

Projects of mighty settlement, and of sudden population, however successfulin the end, are always expensive to mankind. Above a hundred thousandpeasants, we are told, were yearly driven, like so many cattle, toPetersburgh, in the first attempts to replenish that settlement, and yearlyperished for want of subsistence. [Footnote: Strachlenberg. ] The Indianonly attempts to settle in the neighbourhood of the plantain, [Footnote:Dampier. ] and while his family increases, he adds a tree to the walk. 

If the plantain, the cocoa, or the palm, were sufficient to maintain aninhabitant, the race of men in the warmer climates might become as numerousas the trees of the forest. But in many, parts of the earth, from thenature of the climate, and the soil, the spontaneous produce being next tonothing, the means of subsistence are the fruits only of labour and skill. If a people, while they retain their frugality, increase their industry, and improve their arts, their numbers must grow in proportion. Hence it is, that the cultivated fields of Europe are more peopled than the wilds ofAmerica, or the plains of Tartary. 

But even the increase of mankind which attends the accumulation of wealth, has its limits. The _necessary of life_ is a vague and a relativeterm: it is one thing in the opinion of the savage; another in that of thepolished citizen: it has a reference to the fancy, and to the habits ofliving. While arts improve, and riches increase; while the possessions ofindividuals, or their prospects of gain, come up to their opinion of whatis required to settle a family, they enter on its cares with alacrity. Butwhen the possession, however redundant, falls short of the standard, and afortune supposed sufficient for marriage is attained with difficulty, population is checked, or begins to decline. The citizen, in his ownapprehension, returns to the state of the savage; his children, he thinks, must perish for want; and he quits a scene overflowing with plenty, becausehe has not the fortune which his supposed rank, or his wishes, require. Noultimate remedy is applied to this evil, by merely accumulating wealth; forrare and costly materials, whatever these are, continue to be sought; andif silks and pearl are made common, men will begin to covet some newdecorations, which the wealthy alone can procure. If they are indulged intheir humour, their demands are repeated; for it is the continual increaseof riches, not any measure attained, that keeps the craving imagination atease. 

Men are tempted to labour, and to practise lucrative arts, by motives ofinterest. Secure to the workman the fruit of his labour, give him theprospects of independence or freedom, the public has found a faithfulminister in the acquisition of wealth, and a faithful steward in hoardingwhat he has gained. The statesman, in this, as in the case of populationitself, can do little more than avoid doing mischief. It is well, if, inthe beginnings of commerce, he knows how to repress the frauds to which itis subject. Commerce, if continued, is the branch in which men, committedto the effects of their own experience, are least apt to go wrong. 

The trader, in rude ages, is short sighted, fraudulent and mercenary; butin the progress and advanced state of his art, his views are enlarged, hismaxims are established: he becomes punctual, liberal, faithful, andenterprising; and in the period of general corruption, he alone has everyvirtue, except the force to defend his acquisitions. He needs no aid fromthe state, but its protection; and is often in himself its most intelligentand respectable member. Even in China, we are informed, where pilfering, fraud, and corruption, are the reigning practice with all the other ordersof men, the great merchant is ready to give, and to procure confidence:while his countrymen act on the plans, and under the restrictions, of apolice adjusted to knaves, he acts on the reasons of trade, and the maximsof mankind. 

If population be connected with national wealth, liberty and personalsecurity is the great foundation of both: and if this foundation be laid inthe state, nature has secured the increase and industry of its members; theone by desires the most ardent in the human frame, the other by aconsideration the most uniform and constant of any that possesses the mind. The great object of policy, therefore, with respect to both, is, to secureto the family its means of subsistence and settlement; to protect theindustrious in the pursuit of his occupation; to reconcile the restrictionsof police, and the social affections of mankind, with their separate andinterested pursuits. 

In matters of particular profession, industry, and trade, the experiencedpractitioner is the master, and every general reasoner is a novice. Theobject in commerce is to make the individual rich; the more he gains forhimself, the more he augments the wealth of his country. If a protection berequired, it must be granted; if crimes and frauds be committed, they mustbe repressed; and government can pretend to no more. When the refinedpolitician would lend an active hand, he only multiplies interruptions andgrounds of complaint; when the merchant forgets his own interest to layplans for his country, the period of vision and chimera is near, and thesolid basis of commerce withdrawn. He might be told, that while he pursueshis advantage, and gives no cause of complaint, the interest of commerce issafe. 

The general police of France, proceeding on a supposition, that theexportation of corn must drain the country where it has grown, had, till oflate, laid that branch of commerce under a severe prohibition. The Englishlandholder and the farmer had credit enough to obtain a premium forexportation, to favour the sale of their commodity; and the event hasshown, that private interest is a better patron of commerce and plenty, than the refinements of state. One nation lays the refined plan of asettlement on the continent of North America, and trusts little to theconduct of traders and shortsighted men: another leaves men to find theirown position in a state of freedom, and to think for themselves. The activeindustry and the limited views of the one, made a thriving settlement; thegreat projects of the other were still in idea. 

But I willingly quit a subject in which I am not much conversant, and stillless engaged by the object for which I write. Speculations on commerce andwealth have been delivered by the ablest writers; and the public willprobably soon be furnished with a theory of national economy, equal to whathas ever appeared on any subject of science whatever. [Footnote: Mr. Smith, author of the Theory of Moral Sentiment] But in the view which I have takenof human affairs, nothing seems more important than the general cautionwhich the authors to whom I refer so well understand, not to consider thesearticles as making the sum of national felicity, or the principal object ofany state. In science we consider our objects apart; in practice it were anerror not to have them all in our view at once. 

One nation, in search of gold and of precious metals, neglect the domesticsources of wealth; and become dependent on their neighbours for thenecessaries of life: another so intent on improving their internalresources, and on increasing their commerce, that they become dependent onforeigners for the defence of what they acquire. It is even painful inconversation to find the interest of merchants give the tone to ourreasonings, and to find a subject perpetually offered as the great businessof national councils, to which any interposition of government is seldom, with propriety, applied, or never, beyond the protection it affords. 

We complain of a want of public spirit; but whatever may be the effect ofthis error in practice, in speculation it is none of our faults: we reasonperpetually for the public; but the want of national views were frequentlybetter than the possession of those we express: we would have nations, likea company of merchants, think of nothing but monopolies, and the profit oftrade, and, like them too, intrust their protection to a force which theydo not possess in themselves. 

Because men, like other animals, are maintained in multitudes, where thenecessaries of life are amassed, and the store of wealth is enlarged, wedrop our regards for the happiness, the moral and political character of apeople; and, anxious for the herd we would propagate, carry our views nofarther than the stall and the pasture. We forget that the few have oftenmade a prey of the many; that to the poor there is nothing so enticing asthe coffers of the rich; and that when the price of freedom comes to bepaid, the heavy sword of the victor may fall into the opposite scale. 

Whatever be the actual conduct of nations in this matter, it is certain, that many of our arguments would hurry us, for the sake of wealth and ofpopulation, into a scene where mankind, being exposed to corruption, areunable to defend their possessions; and where they are, in the end, subjectto oppression and ruin. We cut off the roots, while we would extend thebranches, and thicken the foliage. 

It is possibly from an opinion that the virtues of men are secure, thatsome, who turn their attention to public affairs, think of nothing but thenumbers and wealth of a people: it is from a dread of corruption, thatothers think of nothing but how to preserve the national virtues. Humansociety has great obligations to both. They are opposed to one another onlyby mistake; and even when united, have not strength sufficient to combatthe wretched party, that refers every object to personal interest, and thatcares not for the safety or increase of any stock but its own. 

SECTION V. 

OF NATIONAL DEFENCE AND CONQUEST. 

It is impossible to ascertain how much of the policy of any state has areference to war, or to national safety. "Our legislator, " says the Cretanin Plato, "thought that nations were by nature in a state of hostility: hetook his measures accordingly; and observing that all the possessions ofthe vanquished pertain to the victor, he held it ridiculous to propose anybenefit to his country, before he had provided that it should not beconquered. "

Crete, which is supposed to have been a model of military policy, iscommonly considered as the original from which the celebrated laws ofLycurgus were copied. Mankind, it seems, in every instance, must have somepalpable object to direct their proceedings, and must have a view to somepoint of external utility, even in the choice of their virtues. Thediscipline of Sparta was military; and a sense of its use in the field, more than the force of unwritten and traditionary laws, or the supposedengagement of the public faith obtained by the lawgiver, may have inducedthis people to persevere in the observance of many rules, which to othernations do not appear necessary, except in the presence of an enemy. 

Every institution of this singular people gave a lesson of obedience, offortitude, and of zeal for the public: but it is remarkable that they choseto obtain, by their virtues alone, what other nations are fain to buy withtheir treasure; and it is well known, that, in the course of their history, they came to regard their discipline merely on account of its moraleffects. They had experienced the happiness of a mind courageous, disinterested, and devoted to its best affections; and they studied topreserve this character in themselves, by resigning the interests ofambition, and the hopes of military glory, even by sacrificing the numbersof their people. 

It was the fate of Spartans who escaped from the field, not of those whoperished with Cleombrotus at Leuctra, that filled the cottages of Lacedemonwith mourning and serious reflection: [Footnote: Xenophon. ] it was the fearof having their citizens corrupted abroad, by intercourse with servile andmercenary men, that made them quit the station of leaders in the Persianwar, and leave Athens, during fifty years, to pursue, unrivalled, thatcareer of ambition and profit, by which she made such acquisitions of powerand of wealth. [Footnote: Thucydides, Book I. ]

We have had occasion to observe, that in every rude state the greatbusiness is war; and that in barbarous times, mankind being generallydivided into small parties, are engaged in almost perpetual hostilities. This circumstance gives the military leader a continued ascendant in hiscountry, and inclines every people, during warlike ages, to monarchicalgovernment. 

The conduct of an army can least of all subjects be divided: and we may bejustly surprised to find that the Romans, after many ages of militaryexperience, and after having recently felt the arms of Hannibal in manyencounters, associated two leaders at the head of the same army, and leftthem to adjust their pretensions, by taking the command, each a day in histurn. The same people, however, on other occasions, thought it expedient tosuspend the exercise of every subordinate magistracy, and in the time ofgreat alarms, to intrust all the authority of the state in the hands of oneperson. 

Republics have generally found it necessary, in the conduct of war, toplace great confidence in the executive branch of their government. When aconsul at Rome had proclaimed his levies, and administered the militaryoath, he became from that moment master of the public treasury, and of thelives of those who were under his command. [Footnote: Polybius. ] The axeand the rods were no longer a mere badge of magistracy, or an emptypageant, in the hands of the lictor; they were, at the command of thefather, stained with the blood of his own children; and fell, withoutappeal, on the mutinous and disobedient of every condition. 

In every free state, there is a perpetual necessity to distinguish themaxims of martial law from those of the civil; and he who has not learnedto give an implicit obedience, where the state has given him a militaryleader, and to resign his personal freedom in the field, from the samemagnanimity with which he maintains it in the political deliberations ofhis country, has yet to learn the most important lesson of civil society, and is only fit to occupy a place in a rude, or in a corrupted state, wherethe principles of mutiny and of servility being joined, the one or theother is frequently adopted in the wrong place. 

From a regard to what is necessary in war, nations inclined to popular oraristocratical government, have had recourse to establishments thatbordered on monarchy. Even where the highest office of the state was incommon times administered by a plurality of persons, the whole power andauthority belonging to it was, on particular occasions, committed to one;and upon great alarms, when the political fabric was shaken or endangered, a monarchical power has been applied, like a prop, to secure the stateagainst the rage of the tempest. Thus were the dictators occasionally namedat Rome, and the stadtholders in the United Provinces; and thus, in mixedgovernments, the royal prerogative is occasionally enlarged, by thetemporary suspension of laws, [Footnote: In Britain, by the suspension ofthe _Habeas Corpus_. ] and the barriers of liberty appear to beremoved, in order to vest a dictatorial power in the hands of the king. 

Had mankind, therefore, no view but to warfare, it is probable that theywould continue to prefer monarchical government to any other; or at leastthat every nation, in order to procure secret and united councils, wouldintrust the executive power with unlimited authority. But happily for civilsociety, men have objects of a different sort: and experience has taught, that although the conduct of armies requires an absolute and undividedcommand; yet a national force is best formed, where numbers of men areinured to equality; and where the meanest citizen may consider himself, upon occasion, as destined to command as well as to obey. It is here thatthe dictator finds a spirit and a force prepared to second his councils; itis here too that the dictator himself is formed, and that numbers ofleaders are presented to the public choice; it is here that the prosperityof a state is independent of single men, and that a wisdom which neverdies, with a system of military arrangements permanent and regular, can, even under the greatest misfortunes, prolong the national struggle. Withthis advantage the Romans, finding a number of distinguished leaders arisein succession, were at all times almost equally prepared to contend withtheir enemies of Asia or Africa; while the fortune of those enemies, on thecontrary, depended on the casual appearance of singular men, of aMithridates, or of a Hannibal. 

The soldier, we are told, has his point of honour, and a fashion ofthinking, which he wears with his sword. This point of honour, in free anduncorrupted states, is a zeal for the public; and war to them is anoperation of passions, not the mere pursuit of a calling. Its good and itsill effects are felt in extremes: the friend is made to experience thewarmest proofs of attachment, the enemy the severest effects of animosity. On this system the celebrated nations of antiquity made war under theirhighest attainments of civility, and under their greatest degrees ofrefinement. 

In small and rude societies, the individual finds himself attacked in everynational war; and none can propose to devolve his defence on another. "Theking of Spain is a great prince, " said an American chief to the governor ofJamaica, who was preparing a body of troops to join in an enterpriseagainst the Spaniards: "Do you propose to make war upon so great a kingwith so small a force?" Being told that the forces he saw were to be joinedby troops from Europe, and that the governor could then command no more:"Who are these then, " said the American, "who form this crowd ofspectators? Are they not your people? And why do you not all go forth to sogreat a war?" He was answered, that the spectators were merchants, andother inhabitants, who took no part in the service: "Would they bemerchants still, " continued this statesman, "if the king of Spain, was toattack you here? For my part, I do not think that merchants should bepermitted to live in any country: when I go to war, I leave nobody at homebut the women. " It should seem that this simple warrior consideredmerchants as a kind of neutral persons, who took no part in the quarrels oftheir country; and that he did not know how much war itself may be made asubject of traffic; what mighty armies may be put in motion from behind thecounter; how often human blood is, without any national animosity, boughtand sold for bills of exchange; and how often the prince, the nobles, andthe statesmen, in many a polished nation, might, in his account, beconsidered as merchants. 

In the progress of arts and of policy, the members of every state aredivided into classes; and in the commencement of this distribution, thereis no distinction more serious than that of the warrior and the pacificinhabitant; no more is required to place men in the relation of master andslave. Even when the rigours of an established slavery abate, as they havedone in modern Europe, in consequence of a protection, and a property, allowed to the mechanic and labourer, this distinction serves still toseparate the noble from the base, and to point out that class of men whoare destined to reign and to domineer in their country. 

It was certainty never foreseen by mankind, that, in the pursuit ofrefinement, they were to reverse this order; or even that they were toplace the government, and the military force of nations, in differenthands. But is it equally unforeseen, that the former order may again takeplace? And that the pacific citizen, however distinguished by privilege andrank, must one day bow to the person with whom he has intrusted his sword?If such revolutions should actually follow, will this new master revive inhis own order the spirit of the noble and the free? Will he renew thecharacters of the warrior and the statesman? Will he restore to his countrythe civil and military virtues? I am afraid to reply. Montesquieu observes, that the government of Rome, even under the emperors, became, in the handsof the troops, elective and republican: but the Fabii or the Bruti wereheard of no more after the praetorian bands became the republic. 

We have enumerated some of the heads under which a people, as they emergefrom barbarity, may come to be classed. Such are, the nobility, the people, the adherents of the prince; and even the priesthood have not beenforgotten; when we arrive at times of refinement, the army must be joinedto the list. The departments of civil government and of war being severed, and the pre-eminence being given to the statesman, the ambitious willnaturally devolve the military service on those who are contented with asubordinate station. They who have the greatest share in the division offortune, and the greatest interest in defending their country, havingresigned the sword, must pay for what they have ceased to perform; andarmies, not only at a distance from home, but in the very bosom of theircountry, are subsisted by pay. A discipline is invented to inure thesoldier to perform, from habit, and from the fear of punishment, thosehazardous duties, which the love of the public, or a national spirit, nolonger inspire. 

When we consider the breach that such an establishment makes in the systemof national virtues, it is unpleasant to observe, that most nations whohave run the career of civil arts, have, in some degree, adopted thismeasure. Not only states, which either have wars to maintain, or precariouspossessions to defend at a distance; not only a prince jealous of hisauthority, or in haste to gain the advantage of discipline, are disposed toemploy foreign troops, or to keep standing armies; but even republics, withlittle of the former occasion, and none of the motives which prevail inmonarchy, have been found to tread in the same path. If militaryarrangements occupy so considerable a place in the domestic policy ofnations, the actual consequences of war are equally important in thehistory of mankind. Glory and spoil were the earliest subject of quarrels:a concession of superiority, or a ransom, were the prices of peace. Thelove of safety, and the desire of dominion, equally lead mankind to wishfor accessions of strength. Whether as victors or as vanquished, they tendto a coalition; and powerful nations considering a province, or a fortressacquired on their frontier, as so much gained, are perpetually intent onextending their limits. 

The maxims of conquest are not always to be distinguished from those ofself defence. If a neighbouring state be dangerous, if it be frequentlytroublesome, it is a maxim founded in the consideration of safety, as wellas of conquest, that it ought to be weakened or disarmed: if, being oncereduced, it be disposed to renew the contest, it must from thenceforward begoverned in form. Rome never avowed any other maxims of conquest; and sheevery where sent her insolent armies under the specious pretence ofprocuring to herself and her allies a lasting peace, which she alone wouldreserve the power to disturb. 

The equality of those alliances which the Grecian states formed againsteach other, maintained, for a time, their independence and separation; andthat time was the shining and the happy period of their story. It wasprolonged more by the vigilance and conduct which they severally applied, than by the moderation of their councils, or by any peculiarities ofdomestic policy which arrested their progress. The victors were sometimescontented, with merely changing to a resemblance of their own forms, thegovernment of the states they subdued. What the next step might have beenin the progress of impositions, is hard to determine. But when we consider, that one party fought for the imposition of tributes, another for theascendant in war, it cannot be doubted, that the Athenians, from a nationalambition, and from the desire of wealth; and the Spartans, though theyoriginally only meant to defend themselves, and their allies, were both, atlast, equally willing to become the masters of Greece; and were preparingfor each other at home that yoke, which both, together with theirconfederates, were obliged to receive from abroad. 

In the conquests of Philip, the desire of self-preservation and securityseemed to be blended with the ambition natural to princes. He turned hisarms successively to the quarters on which he found himself hurt, fromwhich he had been alarmed or provoked; and when he had subdued the Greeks, he proposed to lead them against their ancient enemy of Persia. In this helaid the plan which was carried into execution by his son. 

The Romans, become the masters of Italy, and the conquerors of Carthage, had been alarmed on the side of Macedon, and were led to cross a new sea insearch of a new field, on which to exercise their military force. Inprosecution of their wars, from the earliest to the latest date of theirhistory, without intending the very conquest they made, perhaps withoutforeseeing what advantage they were to reap from the subjection of distantprovinces, or in what manner they were to govern their new acquisitions, they still proceeded to seize what came successively within their reach;and, stimulated by a policy which engaged them in perpetual wars, which ledto perpetual victory and accessions of territory, they extended thefrontier of a state, which, but a few centuries before, had been confinedwithin the skirts of a village, to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Weser, the Forth, and the Ocean. 

It is vain to affirm that the genius of any nation is adverse to conquest. Its real interests indeed most commonly are so; but every state, which isprepared to defend itself, and to obtain victories, is likewise in hazardof being tempted to conquer. 

In Europe, where mercenary and disciplined armies are everywhere formed, and ready to traverse the earth, where, like a flood pent up by slenderbanks, they are only restrained by political forms, or a temporary balanceof power; if the sluices should break, what inundations may we not expectto behold? Effeminate kingdoms and empires are spread from the sea of Coreato the Atlantic ocean. Every state, by the defeat of its troops, may beturned into a province; every army opposed in the field today may be hiredto-morrow; and every victory gained, may give the accession of a newmilitary force to the victor. 

The Romans, with inferior arts of communication by sea and land, maintainedtheir dominion in a considerable part of Europe, Asia, and Africa, overfierce and intractable nations: what may not the fleets and armies ofEurope, with the access they have by commerce to every part of the world, and the facility of their conveyance, effect, if that ruinous maxim shouldprevail, that the grandeur of a nation is to be estimated from the extentof its territory; or, that the interest of any particular people consistsin reducing their neighbours to servitude?

SECTION VI

OF CIVIL LIBERTY

If war, either for depredation or, defence, were the principal object ofnations, every tribe would, from its earliest state, aim at the conditionof a Tartar horde; and in all its successes would hasten to the grandeur ofa Tartar empire. The military leader would supersede the civil magistrate;and preparations to fly with all their possessions, or to pursue with alltheir forces, would in every society make the sum of their publicarrangements. 

He who first, on the banks of the Wolga, or the Jenisca, had taught theScythian to mount the horse, to move his cottage on wheels, to harass hisenemy alike by his attacks and his flights, to handle at full speed thelance and the bow, and when beat from his ground, to leave his arrows inthe wind to meet his pursuer; he who had taught his countrymen to use thesame animal for every purpose of the dairy, the shambles, and the field ofbattle; would be esteemed the founder of his nation; or like Ceres andBacchus among the Greeks, would be invested with the honours of a god, asthe reward of his useful inventions. Amidst such institutions, the namesand achievements of Hercules and Jason might have been transmitted toposterity; but those of Lycurgus or Solon, the heroes of political society, could have gained no reputation, either fabulous or real, in the records offame. 

Every tribe of warlike barbarians may entertain among themselves thestrongest sentiments of affection and honour, while they carry to the restof mankind the aspect of banditti and robbers. [Footnote: D'Arvieux'sHistory of the Arabs. ] They may be indifferent to interest, and superior todanger; but our sense of humanity, our regard to the rights of nations, ouradmiration of civil wisdom and justice, even our effeminacy itself, make usturn away with contempt, or with horror, from a scene which exhibits so fewof our good qualities, and which serves so much to reproach our weakness. 

It is in conducting the affairs of civil society, that mankind find theexercise of their best talents, as well as the object of their bestaffections. It is in being grafted on the advantages of civil society, thatthe art of war is brought to perfection; that the resources of armies, andthe complicated springs to be touched in their conduct, are bestunderstood. The most celebrated warriors were also citizens: opposed to aRoman, or a Greek, the chieftain of Thrace, of Germany, or Gaul, was anovice. The native of Pella learned the principles of his art fromEpaminondas and Pelopidas. 

If nations, as hath been observed in the preceding section, must adjusttheir policy on the prospect of war from abroad, they are equally bound toprovide for the attainment of peace at home. But there is no peace in theabsence of justice. It may subsist with divisions, disputes, and contraryopinions; but not with the commission of wrongs. The injurious, and theinjured, are, as implied in the very meaning of the terms, in a state ofhostility. 

Where men enjoy peace, they owe it either to their mutual regards andaffections, or to the restraints of law. Those are the happiest stateswhich procure peace to their members by the first of these methods: but itis sufficiently uncommon to procure it even by the second. The first wouldwithhold the occasions of war and of competition; the second adjusts thepretensions of men by stipulations and treaties. Sparta taught her citizensnot to regard interest: other free nations secure the interest of theirmembers, and consider this as a principal part of their rights. 

Law is the treaty to which members of the same community have agreed, andunder which the magistrate and the subject continue to enjoy their rights, and to maintain the peace of society. The desire of lucre is the greatmotive to injuries: law therefore has a principal reference to property. Itwould ascertain the different methods by which property may be acquired, asby prescription, conveyance, and succession; and it makes the necessaryprovisions for rendering the possession of property secure. 

Beside avarice, there are other motives from which men are unjust; such aspride, malice, envy, and revenge. The law would eradicate the principlesthemselves, or at least prevent their effects. 

From whatever motive wrongs are committed, there are different particularsin which the injured may suffer. He may suffer in his goods, in his person, or in the freedom of his conduct. Nature has made him master of everyaction which is not injurious to others. The laws of his particular societyentitle him perhaps to a determinate station, and bestow on, him a certainshare in the government of his country. An injury, therefore, which in thisrespect puts him under any unjust restraint, may be called an infringementof his political rights. 

Where the citizen is supposed to have rights of property and of station, and is protected in the exercise of them, he is said to be free; and thevery restraints by which he is hindered from the commission of crimes, area part of his liberty. No person is free, where any person is suffered todo wrong with impunity. Even the despotic prince on his throne, is not anexception to this general rule. He himself is a slave, the moment hepretends that force should decide any contest. The disregard he throws onthe rights of his people recoils on himself; and in the general uncertaintyof all conditions, there is no tenure more precarious than his own. 

From the different particulars to which men refer, in speaking of liberty, whether to the safety of the person and the goods, the dignity of rank, orthe participation of political importance, as well as from the differentmethods by which their rights are secured, they are led to differ in theinterpretation of the very term; and every free nation is apt to suppose, that freedom is to be found only among themselves; they measure it by theirown peculiar habits and system of manners. 

Some having thought, that the unequal distribution of wealth is agrievance, required a new division of property as the foundation of publicjustice. This scheme is suited to democratical government; and in such onlyit has been admitted with any degree of effect. 

New settlements, like that of the people of Israel, and singularestablishments, like those of Sparta and Crete, have furnished examples ofits actual execution; but in most other states, even the democraticalspirit could attain no more than to prolong the struggle for Agrarian laws;to procure, on occasion, the expunging of debts; and to keep the people inmind, under all the distinctions of fortune, that they still had a claim toequality. 

The citizen at Rome, at Athens, and in many republics, contended forhimself, and his order. The Agrarian law was moved and debated for ages: itserved to awaken the mind; it nourished the spirit of equality, andfurnished a field on which to exert its force; but was never establishedwith any of its other and more formal effects. 

Many of the establishments which serve to defend the weak from oppression, contribute, by securing the possession of property, to favour its unequaldivision, and to increase the ascendant of those from whom the abuses ofpower may be feared. Those abuses were felt very early both at Athens andRome. [Footnote: Plutarch in the Life of Solon. Livy. ]

It has been proposed to prevent the excessive accumulation of wealth inparticular hands, by limiting the increase of private fortunes, byprohibiting entails, and by withholding the right of primogeniture in thesuccession of heirs. It has been proposed to prevent the ruin of moderateestates, and to restrain the use, and consequently the desire of greatones, by sumptuary laws. These different methods are more or lessconsistent with the interests of commerce, and may be adopted, in differentdegrees, by a people whose national object is wealth: and they have theirdegree of effect, by inspiring moderation, or a sense of equality, and bystifling the passions by which mankind are prompted to mutual wrongs. 

It appears to be, in a particular manner, the object of sumptuary laws, andof the equal division of wealth, to prevent the gratification of vanity, tocheck the ostentation of superior fortune, and, by this means, to weakenthe desire of riches, and to preserve, in the breast of the citizen, thatmoderation and equity which ought to regulate his conduct. 

This end is never perfectly attained in any state where the unequaldivision of property is admitted, and where fortune is allowed to bestowdistinction and rank. It is indeed difficult, by any methods whatever, toshut up this source of corruption. Of all the nations whose history isknown with certainty, the design itself, and the manner of executing it, appear to have been understood in Sparta alone. 

There property was indeed acknowledged by law; but in consequence ofcertain regulations and practices, the most effectual, it seems, thatmankind have hitherto found out. The manners that prevail among simplenations before the establishment of property, were in some measurepreserved; [Footnote: See Part II. Sec. 2. ] the passion for riches was, during many ages, suppressed; and the citizen was made to consider himselfas the property of his country, not as the owner of a private estate. 

It was held ignominious either to buy or to sell the patrimony of acitizen. Slaves were, in every family, intrusted with the care of itseffects, and freemen were strangers to lucrative arts; justice wasestablished on a contempt of the ordinary allurement to crimes; and thepreservatives of civil liberty applied by the state, were the dispositionsthat were made to prevail in the hearts of its members. 

The individual was relieved from every solicitude that could arise on thehead of his fortune; he was educated, and he was employed for life in theservice of the public; he was fed at a place of common resort, to which hecould carry no distinction but that of his talents and his virtues; hischildren were the wards and the pupils of the state; he himself was thoughtto be a parent, and a director to the youth of his country, not the anxiousfather of a separate family. 

This people, we are told, bestowed some care in adorning their persons, andwere known from afar by the red or the purple they wore; but could not maketheir equipage, their buildings, or their furniture, a subject of fancy, orwhat we call taste. The carpenter and the housebuilder were restricted tothe use of the axe and the saw: their workmanship must have been simple, and probably, in respect to its form, continued for ages the same. Theingenuity of the artist was employed in cultivating his own nature, not inadorning the habitations of his fellow citizens. 

On this plan, they had senators, magistrates, leaders of armies, andministers of state; but no men of fortune. Like the heroes of Homer, theydistributed honours by the measure of the cup and the platter. A citizenwho, in his political capacity, was the arbiter of Greece, thought himselfhonoured by receiving a double portion of plain entertainment at supper. Hewas active, penetrating, brave, disinterested, and generous; but hisestate, his table, and his furniture might, in our esteem, have marred thelustre of all his virtues. Neighbouring nations, however, applied forcommanders to this nursery of statesmen and warriors, as we apply for thepractitioners of every art to the countries in which they excel; for cooksto France, and for musicians to Italy. 

After all, we are, perhaps, not sufficiently instructed in the nature ofthe Spartan laws and institutions, to understand in what manner all theends of this singular state were obtained; but the admiration paid to itspeople, and the constant reference of contemporary historians to theiravowed superiority, will not allow us to question the facts. "When Iobserved, " says Xenophon, "that this nation, though not the most populous, was the most powerful state of Greece, I was seized with wonder, and withan earnest desire to know by what arts it attained its pre-eminence; butwhen I came to the knowledge of its institutions, my wonder ceased. As oneman excels another, and as he who is at pains to cultivate his mind, mustsurpass the person who neglects it; so the Spartans should excel every, nation, being the only state in which virtue is studied as the object ofgovernment. "

The subjects of property, considered with a view to subsistence, or even toenjoyment, have little effect in corrupting mankind, or in awakening thespirit of competition and of jealousy; but considered with a view todistinction and honour, where fortune constitutes rank, they excite themost vehement passions, and absorb all the sentiments of the human soul:they reconcile avarice and meanness with ambition and vanity; and lead menthrough the practice of sordid and mercenary arts, to the possession of asupposed elevation and dignity. 

Where this source of corruption, on the contrary, is effectually stopped, the citizen is dutiful, and the magistrate upright; any form of governmentmay be wisely, administered; places of trust are likely to be wellsupplied; and by whatever rule office and power are bestowed, it is likelythat all the capacity and force that subsists in the state will come to beemployed in its service: for on this supposition, experience and abilitiesare the only guides, and the only titles to public confidence; and ifcitizens be ranged into separate classes, they become mutual checks by thedifference of their opinions, not by the opposition of their interesteddesigns. 

We may easily account for the censures bestowed on the government ofSparta, by those who considered it merely on the side of its forms. It wasnot calculated to prevent the practice of crimes, by balancing against eachother the selfish and partial dispositions of men; but to inspire thevirtues of the soul, to procure innocence by the absence of criminalinclinations, and to derive its internal peace from the indifference of itsmembers to the ordinary motives of strife and disorder. It were trifling toseek for its analogy to any other constitution of state, in which itsprincipal characteristic and distinguishing feature is not to be found. The collegiate sovereignty, the senate, and the ephori, had theircounterparts in other republics, and a resemblance has been found inparticular to the government of Carthage: [Footnote: Aristotle. ] but whataffinity of consequence can be found between a state whose sole object wasvirtue, and another whose principal object was wealth; between a peoplewhose associated kings, being lodged, in the same cottage, had no fortunebut their daily food; and a commercial republic, in which a proper estatewas required as a necessary qualification for the higher offices of state?

Other petty commonwealths expelled kings, when they became jealous of theirdesigns, or after having experienced their tyranny; here the hereditarysuccession of kings was preserved: other states were afraid of theintrigues and cabals of their members in competition for dignities; heresolicitation was required as the only condition upon which a place in thesenate was obtained. A supreme inquisitorial power was, in the persons ofthe ephori, safely committed to a few men, who were drawn by lot, andwithout distinction, from every order of the people: and if a contrast tothis, as well as to many other articles of the Spartan policy, be required, it may be found in the general history of mankind. 

But Sparta, under every supposed error of its form, prospered for ages, bythe integrity of its manners, and by the character of its citizens. Whenthat integrity was broken, this people did not languish in the weakness ofnations sunk in effeminacy. They fell into the stream by which other stateshad been carried in the torrent of violent passions, and in the outrage ofbarbarous times. They ran the career of other nations, after that ofancient Sparta was finished they built walls, and began to improve theirpossessions, after they ceased to improve their people; and on this newplan, in their struggle for political life, they survived the system ofstates that perished under the Macedonian dominion: they lived to act withanother which arose in the Achćan league; and were the last community ofGreece that became a village in the empire of Rome. 

If it should be thought we have dwelt too long on the history of thissingular people, it may be remembered, in excuse, that they alone, in thelanguage of Xenophon, made virtue an object of state. 

We must be contented to derive our freedom from a different source: toexpect justice from the limits which are set to the powers of themagistrate, and to rely for protection on the laws which are made to securethe estate and the person of the subject. We live in societies, where menmust be rich, in order to be great; where pleasure itself is often pursuedfrom vanity; where the desire of a supposed happiness serves to inflame theworst of passions, and is itself the foundation of misery; where publicjustice, like fetters applied to the body, may, without inspiring thesentiments of candour and equity, prevent the actual commission of crimes. 

Mankind come under this description the moment they are seized with theirpassion for riches and power. But their description in every instance ismixed: in the best there is an alloy of evil; in the worst, a mixture ofgood. Without any establishments to preserve their manners, besides penallaws, and the restraints of police, they derive, from instinctive feelings, a love of integrity and candour, and from the very contagion of societyitself, an esteem for what is honourable and praiseworthy. They derive, from their union and joint opposition to foreign enemies, a zeal for theirown community, and courage to maintain its rights. If the frequent neglectof virtue, as a political object, tend to discredit the understandings ofmen, its lustre, and its frequency, as a spontaneous offspring of theheart, will restore the honours of our nature. 

In every casual and mixed state of the national manners, the safety ofevery individual, and his political consequence, depends much on himself, but more on the party to which he is joined. For this reason, all who feela common interest, are apt to unite in parties; and, as far as thatinterest requires, mutually support each other. 

Where the citizens of any free community are of different orders, eachorder has a peculiar set of claims and pretensions: relatively to the othermembers of the state, it is a party; relatively to the differences ofinterest among its own members, it may admit of numberless subdivisions. But in every state there are two interests very readily apprehended; thatof a prince and his adherents, that of a nobility, or of any temporaryfaction, opposed to the people. 

Where the sovereign power is reserved by the collected body, it appearsunnecessary to think of additional establishments for securing the rightsof the citizen. But it is difficult, if not impossible, for the collectivebody to exercise this power in a manner that supersedes the necessity ofevery other political caution. 

If popular assemblies assume every function of government; and if, in thesame tumultuous manner in which they can, with great propriety, expresstheir feelings, the sense of their rights, and their animosity to foreignor domestic enemies, they pretend to deliberate on points of nationalconduct, or to decide questions of equity and justice; the public isexposed to manifold inconveniencies; and popular governments would, of allothers, be the most subject to errors in administration, and to weakness inthe execution of public measures. 

To avoid these disadvantages, the people are always contented to delegatepart of their power. They establish a senate to debate, and to prepare, ifnot to determine, questions that are brought to the collective body for afinal resolution. They commit the executive power to some council of thissort, or to a magistrate who presides in their meetings. Under the use ofthis necessary and common expedient, even while democratical forms are mostcarefully guarded, there is one party of the few, another of the many. Oneattacks, the other defends; and they are both ready to assume in theirturns. But though, in reality, a great danger to liberty arises on the partof the people themselves, who, in times of corruption, are easily made theinstruments of usurpation and tyranny; yet, in the ordinary aspect ofgovernment, the executive carries an air of superiority, and the rights ofthe people seem always exposed to encroachment. 

Though, on the day that the Roman people were assembled, the senators mixedwith the crowd, and the consul was no more than the servant of themultitude; yet, when this awful meeting was dissolved, the senators met toprescribe business for their sovereign, and the consul went armed with theaxe and the rods, to teach every Roman, in his separate capacity, thesubmission which he owed to the state. 

Thus, even where the collective body is sovereign, they are assembled onlyoccasionally; and though, on such occasions, they determine every questionrelative to their rights and their interests as a people, and can asserttheir freedom with irresistible force; yet they do not think themselves, nor are they in reality, safe, without a more constant and more uniformpower operating in their favour. 

The multitude is every where strong; but requires, for the safety of itsmembers, when separate as well as when assembled, a head to direct and toemploy its strength. For this purpose, the ephori, we are told, wereestablished at Sparta, the council of a hundred at Carthage, and thetribunes at Rome. So prepared, the popular party has, in many instances, been able to cope with its adversaries, and has even trampled on thepowers, whether aristocratical or monarchical, with which it would havebeen otherwise unable to contend. The state, in such cases, commonlysuffered by the delays, interruptions, and confusions, which popularleaders, from private envy, or a prevailing jealousy of the great, seldomfailed to create in the proceedings of government. 

Where the people, as in some larger communities, have only a share in thelegislature, they cannot overwhelm the collateral powers, who havinglikewise a share, are in condition to defend themselves: where they actonly by their representatives, their force may be uniformly employed. Andthey may make a part in a constitution of government more lasting than anyof those in which the people, possessing or pretending to the entirelegislature, are, when assembled, the tyrants, and, when dispersed, theslaves of a distempered state. In governments properly mixed, the popularinterest, finding a counterpoise in that of the prince or of the nobles, abalance is actually established between them, in which the public freedomand the public order are made to consist. 

From some such casual arrangement of different interests, all the varietiesof mixed government proceed; and on that degree of consideration whichevery separate interest can procure to itself, depends the equity of thelaws they enact, and the necessity they are able to impose, of adheringstrictly to the terms of law in its execution. States are accordinglyunequally qualified to conduct the business of legislation, and unequallyfortunate in the completeness, and regular observance, of their civil code. 

In democratical establishments, citizens, feeling themselves possessed ofthe sovereignty, are not equally anxious, with the subjects of othergovernments, to have their rights explained, or secured, by actual statute. They trust to personal vigour, to the support of party, and to the sense ofthe public. 

If the collective body perform the office of judge, as well as oflegislator, they seldom think of devising rules for their own direction, and are found still more seldom to follow any determinate rule, after it ismade. They dispense, at one time, with what they enacted at another; and intheir judicative, perhaps even more than in their legislative, capacity, are guided by passions and partialities that arise from circumstances ofthe case before them. 

But under the simplest governments of a different sort, whether aristocracyor monarchy, there is a necessity for law, and there are a variety ofinterests to be adjusted in framing every statute. The sovereign wishes togive stability and order to administration, by express and promulgatedrules. The subject wishes to know the conditions and limits of his duty. Heacquiesces or he revolts, according as the terms on which he is made tolive with the sovereign, or with his fellow subjects, are, or are not, consistent with the sense of his rights. 

Neither the monarch, nor the council of nobles, where either is possessedof the sovereignty, can pretend to govern, or to judge at discretion. Nomagistrate, whether temporary or hereditary, can with safety neglect thatreputation for justice and equity, from which his authority, and therespect that is paid to his person, are in a great measure derived. Nations, however, have been fortunate in the tenor, and in the execution oftheir laws, in proportion as they have admitted every order of the people, by representation or otherwise, to an actual share of the legislature. Under establishments of this sort, law is literally a treaty, to which theparties concerned have agreed, and have given their opinion in settling itsterms. The interests to be affected by a law, are likewise consulted inmaking it. Every class propounds an objection, suggests an addition or anamendment of its own. They proceed to adjust, by statute, every subject ofcontroversy: and while they continue to enjoy their freedom, they continueto multiply laws, and to accumulate volumes, as if they could remove everypossible ground of dispute, and were secure of their rights, merely byhaving put them in writing. 

Rome and England, under their mixed governments, the one inclining todemocracy, and the other to monarchy, have proved the great legislatorsamong nations. The first has left the foundation, and great part of thesuperstructure of its civil code to the continent of Europe: the other, inits island, has carried the authority and government of law to a point ofperfection, which they never before attained in the history of mankind. 

Under such favourable establishments, known customs, the practice anddecisions of courts, as well as positive statutes, acquire the authority oflaws; and every proceeding is conducted by some fixed and determinate rule. The best and most effectual precautions are taken for the impartialapplication of rules to particular cases; and it is remarkable, that, inthe two examples we have mentioned, a surprising coincidence is found inthe singular methods of their jurisdiction. The people in both reserved ina manner the office of judgment to themselves, and brought the decision ofcivil rights, or of criminal questions, to the tribunal of peers, who, injudging of their fellow citizens, prescribed a condition of life forthemselves. 

It is not in mere laws, after all, that we are to look for the securitiesto justice, but in the powers by which these laws have been obtained, andwithout whose constant support they must fall to disuse. Statutes serve torecord the rights of a people, and speak the intention of parties to defendwhat the letter of the law has expressed; but without the vigour tomaintain what is acknowledged as a right, the mere record, or the feebleintention, is of little avail. 

A populace roused by oppression, or an order of men possessed of temporaryadvantage, have obtained many charters, concessions, and stipulations, infavour of their claims; but where no adequate preparation was made topreserve them, the written articles were often forgotten, together with theoccasion on which they were framed. 

The history of England, and of every free country, abounds with the exampleof statutes enacted when the people or their representatives assembled, butnever executed when the crown or the executive was left to itself. The mostequitable laws on paper are consistent with the utmost despotism inadministration. Even the form of trial by juries in England had itsauthority in law, while the proceedings of courts were arbitrary andoppressive. 

We must admire, as the key stone of civil liberty, the statute which forcesthe secrets of every prison to be revealed, the cause of every commitmentto be declared, and the person of the accused to be produced, that he mayclaim his enlargement, or his trial, within a limited time. No wiser formwas ever opposed to the abuses of power. But it requires a fabric no lessthan the whole political constitution of Great Britain, a spirit no lessthan the refractory and turbulent zeal of this fortunate people, to secureits effects. 

If even the safety of the person, and the tenure of property, which may beso well defined in the words of a statute, depend, for their preservation, on the vigour and jealousy of a free people, and on the degree ofconsideration which every order of the state maintains for itself; it isstill more evident, that what we have called the political freedom, or theright of the individual to act in his station for himself and the public, cannot be made to rest on any other foundation. The estate may be saved, and the person released, by the forms of a civil procedure; but the rightsof the mind cannot be sustained by any other force but its own. 

SECTION VII. 

OF THE HISTORY OF ARTS. 

We have already observed, that art is natural to man; and that the skill heacquires after many ages of practice, is only the improvement of a talenthe possessed at the first. Vitruvius finds the rudiments of architecture inthe form of a Scythian cottage. The armourer may find the first productionsof his calling in the sling and the bow; and the shipwright of his in thecanoe of the savage. Even the historian and the poet may find the originalessays of their arts in the tale, and the song, which celebrate the wars, the loves, and the adventures of men in their rudest condition. 

Destined to cultivate his own nature, or to mend his situation, man finds acontinual subject of attention, ingenuity, and labour. Even where he doesnot propose any personal improvement, his faculties are strengthened bythose very exercises in which he seems to forget himself: his reason andhis affections are thus profitably engaged in the affairs of society; hisinvention and his skill are exercised in procuring his accommodations andhis food; his particular pursuits are prescribed to him by circumstances ofthe age, and of the country in which he lives: in one situation, he isoccupied with wars and political deliberations; in another, with the careof his interest, of his personal ease, or conveniency. He suits his meansto the ends he has in view; and, by multiplying contrivances, proceeds, bydegrees, to the perfection of his arts. In every step of his progress, ifhis skill be increased, his desire must likewise have time to extend: andit would be as vain to suggest a contrivance of which he slighted the use, as it would be to tell him of blessings which he could not command. 

Ages are generally supposed to have borrowed from those who went beforethem, and nations to have received their portion of learning or of art fromabroad. The Romans are thought to have learned from the Greeks, and themoderns of Europe from both. From a few examples of this sort, we learn toconsider every science or art as derived, and admit of nothing original inthe practice or manners of any people. The Greek was a copy of theEgyptian, and even the Egyptian was an imitator, though we have lost sightof the model on which he was formed. 

It is known, that men improve by example and intercourse; but in the caseof nations, whose members excite and direct each other, why seek fromabroad the origin of arts, of which every society, having the principles initself, only requires a favourable occasion to bring them to light? Whensuch occasion presents itself to any people, they generally seize it; andwhile it continues, they improve the inventions to which it gave rise amongthemselves, or they willingly copy from others: but they never employ theirown invention, nor look abroad, for instruction on subjects that do not liein the way of their common pursuits; they never adopt a refinement of whichthey have not discovered the use. 

Inventions, we frequently observe, are accidental; but it is probable, thatan accident which escapes the artist in one age, may be seized by one whosucceeds him, and who is better apprized of its use. Where circumstancesare favourable, and where a people is intent on the objects of any art, every invention is preserved, by being brought into general practice; everymodel is studied, and every accident is turned to account. If nationsactually borrow from their neighbours, they probably borrow only what theyare nearly in a condition to have invented themselves. 

Any singular practice of one country, therefore, is seldom transferred toanother, till the way be prepared by the introduction of similarcircumstances. Hence our frequent complaints of the dulness or obstinacy ofmankind, and of the dilatory communication of arts from one place toanother. While the Romans adopted the arts of Greece, the Thracians andIllyrians continued to behold them with indifference. Those arts were, during one period, confined to the Greek colonies, and during another, tothe Roman. Even where they were spread by a visible intercourse, they werestill received by independent nations with the slowness of invention. Theymade a progress not more rapid at Rome than they had done at Athens; andthey passed to the extremities of the Roman empire, only in company withnew colonies, and joined to Italian policy. 

The modern race, who came abroad to the possession of cultivated provinces, retained the arts they had practised at home: the new master hunted theboar, or pastured his herds, where he might have raised a plentifulharvest; he built a cottage in the view of a palace; he buried, in onecommon ruin, the edifices, sculptures, paintings, and libraries, of theformer inhabitant: he made a settlement upon a plan of his own, be saidwith assurance, that although the Roman and the modern literature savouralike of the Greek original, yet mankind, in either instance, would nothave drank of this fountain, unless they had been hastening to open springsof their own. 

Sentiment and fancy, the use of the hand or the head, are not inventions ofparticular men; and the flourishing of arts that depend on them, are, inthe case of any people, a proof rather of political felicity at home, thanof any instruction received from abroad, or of any natural superiority inpoint of industry or talents. 

When the attentions of men are turned toward particular subjects, when theacquisitions of one age are left entire to the next, when every individualis protected in his place, and left to pursue the suggestion of his wants, inventions accumulate; and it is difficult to find the original of any art. The steps which lead to perfection are many; and we are at a loss on whomto bestow the greatest share of our praise; on the first, or on the last, who may have borne a part in the progress. 

SECTION VIII. 

OF THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE. 

If we may rely on the general observations contained in the last section, the literary, as well as mechanical arts, being a natural produce of thehuman mind, will rise spontaneously wherever men are happily placed; and incertain nations it is not more necessary to look abroad for the origin ofliterature, than it is for the suggestion of any of the pleasures orexercises in which mankind, under a state of prosperity and freedom, aresufficiently inclined to indulge themselves. 

We are apt to consider arts as foreign and adventitious to the nature ofman; but there is no art that did not find its occasion in human life, andthat was not, in some one or other of the situations in which our speciesis found, suggested as a means for the attainment of some useful end. Themechanic and commercial arts took their rise from the love of property, andwere encouraged by the prospects of safety and of gain: the literary andliberal arts took their rise from the understanding, the fancy, and theheart. They are mere exercises of the mind in search of its peculiarpleasures and occupations; and are promoted by circumstances that sufferthe mind to enjoy itself. 

Men are equally engaged by the past, the present, and the future, and areprepared for every occupation that gives scope to their powers. Productions, therefore, whether of narration, fiction, or reasoning, thattend to employ the imagination, or move the heart; continue for ages asubject of attention, and a source of delight. The memory of humantransactions being preserved in tradition or writing, is the naturalgratification of a passion that consists of curiosity, admiration, and thelove of amusement. 

Before many books are written, and before science is greatly advanced, theproductions of mere genius are sometimes complete: the performer requiresnot the aid of learning where his description of story relates to near andcontiguous objects; where it relates to the conduct and characters of menwith whom he himself has acted, and in whose occupations and fortunes hehimself has borne a part. 

With this advantage, the poet is the first to offer the fruits of hisgenius, and to lead in the career of those arts by which the mind isdestined to exhibit its imaginations, and to express its passions. Everytribe of barbarians have their passionate or historic rhymes, which containthe superstition, the enthusiasm, and the admiration of glory, with whichthe breasts of men, in the earliest state of society, are possessed. Theydelight in versification, either because the cadence of numbers is naturalto the language of sentiment, or because, not having the advantage ofwriting, they are obliged to bring the ear in aid of the memory, in orderto facilitate the repetition, and ensure the preservation of their works. 

When we attend to the language which savages employ on any solemn occasion, it appears that man is a poet by nature. Whether at first obliged by themere defects of his tongue, and the scantiness of proper expressions, orseduced by a pleasure of the fancy in stating the analogy of its objects, he clothes every conception in image and metaphor. "We have planted thetree of peace, " says an American orator; "we have buried the axe under itsroots: we will henceforth repose under its shade; we will join to brightenthe chain that binds our nations together. " Such are the collections ofmetaphor which those nations employ in their public harangues. They havelikewise already adopted those lively figures, and that daring freedom oflanguage, which the learned have afterwards found so well fitted to expressthe rapid transitions of the imagination, and the ardours of a passionatemind. 

If we are required to explain, how men could be poets, or orators, beforethey were aided by the learning of the scholar and the critic? we mayinquire, in our turn, how bodies could fall by their weight, before thelaws of gravitation were recorded in books? Mind, as well as body, haslaws, which are exemplified in the course of nature, and which the criticcollects only after the example has shown what they are. 

Occasioned, probably, by the physical connection we have mentioned, betweenthe emotions of a heated imagination, and the impressions received frommusic and pathetic sounds, every tale among rude nations is repeated inverse, and is made to take the form of a song. The early history of allnations is uniform in this particular. Priests, statesmen, andphilosophers, in the first ages of Greece, delivered their instructions inpoetry, and mixed with the dealers in music and heroic fable. 

It is not so surprising, however, that poetry should be the first speciesof composition in every nation, as it is that a style, apparently sodifficult, and so far removed from ordinary use, should be almost asuniversally the first to attain its maturity. The most admired of all poetslived beyond the reach of history, almost of tradition. The artless song ofthe savage, the heroic legend of the bard, have sometimes a magnificentbeauty, which no change of language can improve, and no refinements of thecritic reform. [Footnote: See Translations of Gallic Poetry, by JamesMcPherson. ]

Under the supposed disadvantage of a limited knowledge, and a rudeapprehension, the simple poet has impressions that more than compensate thedefects of his skill. The best subjects of poetry, the characters of theviolent and the brave, the generous and the intrepid, great dangers, trialsof fortitude and fidelity, are exhibited within his view, or are deliveredin traditions which animate like truth, because they are equally believed. He is not engaged in recalling, like Virgil or Tasso, the sentiments orscenery of an age remote from his own; he needs not be told by the critic, [Footnote: See Longinus. ] to recollect what another would have thought, orin what manner another would have expressed his conception. The simplepassions, friendship, resentment, and love, are the movements of his ownmind, and he has no occasion to copy. Simple and vehement in hisconceptions and feelings, he knows no diversity of thought, or of style, tomislead or to exercise his judgment. He delivers the emotions of the heart, in words suggested by the heart; for he knows no other. And hence it is, that while we admire the judgment and invention of Virgil, and of otherlater poets, these terms appear misapplied to Homer. Though intelligent, aswell as sublime, in his conceptions, we cannot anticipate the lights of hisunderstanding, nor the movements of his heart; he appears to speak frominspiration, not from invention; and to be guided in the choice of histhoughts and expressions by a supernatural instinct, not by reflection. 

The language of early ages is, in one respect, simple and confined; inanother, it is varied and free: it allows liberties, which, to the poet ofafter-times, are denied. 

In rude ages men are not separated by distinctions of rank or profession. They live in one manner, and speak one dialect. The bard is not to choosehis expression among the singular accents of different conditions. He hasnot to guard his language from the peculiar errors of the mechanic, thepeasant, the scholar, or the courtier, in order to find that elegantpropriety, and just elevation, which is free from the vulgar of one class, the pedantic of the second, or the flippant of the third. The name of everyobject, and of every sentiment, is fixed; and if his conception has thedignity of nature, his expression will have a purity which does not dependon his choice. 

With this apparent confinement in the choice of his words, he is at libertyto break through the ordinary modes of construction; and in the form of alanguage not established by rules, may find for himself a cadence agreeableto the tone of his mind. The liberty he takes, while his meaning isstriking, and his language is raised, appears an improvement, not atrespass on grammar. He delivers a style to the ages that follow, andbecomes a model from which his posterity judge. 

But whatever may be the early disposition of mankind to poetry, or theadvantages they possess in cultivating this species of literature; whetherthe early maturity of poetical compositions arise from their being thefirst studied, or from their having a charm to engage persons of theliveliest genius, who are best qualified to improve the eloquence of theirnative tongue; it is a remarkable fact, that, not only in countries whereevery vein of composition was original, and was opened in the order ofnatural succession; but even at Rome, and in modern Europe, where thelearned began early to practise on foreign models, we have poets of everynation, who are perused with pleasure, while the prose writers of the sameages are neglected. 

As Sophocles and Euripides preceded the historians and moralists of Greece, not only Naevius and Ennius, who wrote the Roman history in verse, butLucilius, Plautus, Terence, and we may add Lucretius, were prior to Cicero, Sallust, or Caesar. Dante and Petrarch went before any good prose writer inItaly; Corneille and Racine brought on the fine age of prose compositionsin France; and we had in England, not only Chaucer and Spenser, butShakspeare and Milton, while our attempts in history or science were yet intheir infancy; and deserve our attention, only for the sake of the matterthey treat. 

Hellanicus, who is reckoned among the first prose writers in Greece, andwho immediately preceded, or was the contemporary of Herodotus, set outwith declaring his intention to remove from history the wildrepresentations, and extravagant fictions, with which it had been disgracedby the poets. [Footnote: Quoted by Demetrius Phalerius. ] The want ofrecords or authorities, relating to any distant transactions, may havehindered him, as it did his immediate successor, from giving truth all theadvantage it might have reaped from this transition to prose. There are, however, ages in the progress of society, when such a proposition must befavourably received. When men become occupied on the subjects of policy, orcommercial arts, they wish to be informed and instructed, as well as moved. They are interested by what was real in past transactions. They build onthis foundation the reflections and reasonings they apply to presentaffairs, and wish to receive information on the subject of differentpursuits, and of projects in which they begin to be engaged. The manners ofmen, the practice of ordinary life, and the form of society, furnish theirsubjects to the moral and political writer. Mere ingenuity, justness ofsentiment, and correct representation, though conveyed in ordinarylanguage, are understood to constitute literary merit, and by applying toreason more than to the imagination and passions, meet with a receptionthat is due to the instruction they bring. 

The talents of men come to be employed in a variety of affairs, and theirinquiries directed to different subjects. Knowledge is important in everydepartment of civil society, and requisite to the practice of every art. The science of nature, morals, politics, and history, find their, severaladmirers; and even poetry itself, which retains its former station in theregion of warm imagination and enthusiastic passion, appears in a growingvariety of forms. 

Matters have proceeded so far, without the aid of foreign examples, or thedirection of schools. The cart of Thespis was changed into a theatre, notto gratify the learned, but to please the Athenian populace; and the prizeof poetical merit was decided by this populace equally before and after theinvention of rules. The Greeks were unacquainted with every language buttheir own; and if they became learned, it was only by studying what theythemselves had produced: the childish mythology, which they are said tohave copied from Asia, was equally of little avail in promoting their loveof arts, or their success in the practice of them. 

When the historian is struck with the events he has witnessed, or heard;when he is excited to relate them by his reflections or his passions; whenthe statesman, who is required to speak in public, is obliged to preparefor every remarkable appearance in studied harangues; when conversationbecomes extensive and refined; and when the social feelings and reflectionsof men are committed to writing, a system of learning may arise from thebustle of an active life. Society itself is the school, and its lessons aredelivered in the practice of real affairs. An author writes fromobservations he has made on his subject, not from the suggestion of books;and every production carries the mark of his character as a man, not of hismere proficiency as a student or scholar. It may be made a question, whether the trouble of seeking for distant models, and of wading forinstruction, through dark allusions and languages unknown, might not havequenched his fire, and rendered him a writer of a very inferior class. 

If society may thus be considered as a school for letters, it is probablethat its lessons are varied in every separate state, and in every age. Fora certain period, the severe applications of the Roman people to policy andwar suppressed the literary arts, and appear to have stifled the geniuseven of the historian and the poet. The institutions of Sparta gave aprofessed contempt for whatever was not connected with the practicalvirtues of a vigorous and resolute spirit: the charms of imagination, andthe parade of language, were by this people classed with the arts of thecook and the perfumer: their songs in praise of fortitude are mentioned bysome writers; and collections of their witty sayings and repartees arestill preserved: they indicate the virtues and the abilities of an activepeople, not their proficiency in science or literary taste. Possessed ofwhat was essential to happiness in the virtues of the heart, they had adiscernment of its value, unembarrassed by the numberless objects on whichmankind in general are so much at a loss to adjust their esteem: fixed intheir own apprehension, they turned a sharp edge on the follies of mankind. "When will you begin to practise it?" was the question of a Spartan to aperson who, in an advanced age of life, was still occupied with questionson the nature of virtue. 

While this people confined their studies to one question, how to improveand to preserve the courage and disinterested affections of the humanheart; their rivals, the Athenians, gave a scope to refinement on everyobject of reflection or passion. By the rewards, either of profit or ofreputation, which they bestowed on every effort of ingenuity employed inministering to the pleasure, the decoration, or the conveniency of life; bythe variety of conditions in which their citizens were placed; by theirinequalities of fortune, and their several pursuits in war, politics, commerce, and lucrative arts, they awakened whatever was either good or badin the natural dispositions of men. Every road to eminence was opened:eloquence, fortitude, military skill, envy, detraction, faction, andtreason, even the muse herself, was courted to bestow importance among abusy, acute, and turbulent people. 

From this example, we may safely conclude, that although business issometimes a rival to study, retirement and leisure are not the principalrequisites to the improvement, perhaps not even to the exercise, ofliterary talents. The most striking exertions of imagination and sentimenthave a reference to mankind: they are excited by the presence andintercourse of men: they have most vigour when actuated in the mind by theoperation of its principal springs, by the emulations, the friendships, andthe oppositions which subsist among a forward and aspiring people. Amidstthe great occasions which put a free, and even a licentious society inmotion, its members become capable of every exertion; and the same sceneswhich gave employment to Themistocles and Thrasybulus, inspired, bycontagion, the genius of Sophocles and Plato. The petulant and theingenious find an equal scope to their talents; and literary monumentsbecome the repositories of envy and folly, as well as of wisdom and virtue. 

Greece, divided into many little states, and agitated, beyond any spot onthe globe, by domestic contentions and foreign wars, set the example inevery species of literature. The fire was communicated to Rome; not whenthe state ceased to be warlike, and had discontinued her politicalagitations, but when she mixed the love of refinement and of pleasure withher national pursuits, and indulged an inclination to study in the midst offerments, occasioned by the wars and pretensions of opposite factions. Itwas revived in modern Europe among the turbulent states of Italy, andspread to the north, together with the spirit which shook the fabric of theGothic policy: it rose while men were divided into parties, under civil orreligious denominations, and when they were at variance on subjects heldthe most important and sacred. 

We may be satisfied, from the example of many ages, that liberal endowmentsbestowed on learned societies, and the leisure with which they werefurnished for study, are not the likeliest means to excite the exertions ofgenius: even science itself, the supposed offspring of leisure, pined inthe shade of monastic retirement. Men at a distance from the objects ofuseful knowledge, untouched by the motives that animate an active and avigorous mind, could produce only the jargon of a technical language, andaccumulate the impertinence of academical forms. 

To speak or to write justly from an observation of nature, it is necessaryto have felt the sentiments of nature. He who is penetrating and ardent inthe conduct of life, will probably exert a proportional force and ingenuityin the exercise of his literary talents: and although writing may become atrade, and require all the application and study which are bestowed on anyother calling; yet the principal requisites in this calling are, the spiritand sensibility of a vigorous mind. 

In one period, the school may take its light and direction from activelife; in another, it is true, the remains of an active spirit are greatlysupported by literary monuments, and by the history of transactions thatpreserve the examples and the experience of former and of better times. Butin whatever manner men are formed for great efforts of elocution orconduct, it appears the most glaring of all deceptions, to look for theaccomplishments of a human character in the mere attainments ofspeculation, whilst we neglect the qualities of fortitude and publicaffection, which are so necessary to render our knowledge an article ofhappiness or of use. 

PART FOURTH. 

OF CONSEQUENCES THAT RESULT FROM THE ADVANCEMENT OF CIVIL AND COMMERCIALARTS. 

 * * * * *

SECTION I. 

OF THE SEPARATION OF ARTS AND PROFESSIONS. 

It is evident, that, however urged by a sense of necessity, and a desire ofconvenience, or favoured by any advantages of situation and policy, apeople can make no great progress in cultivating the arts of life, untilthey have separated, and committed to different persons, the several taskswhich require a peculiar skill and attention. The savage, or the barbarian, who must build and plant, and fabricate for himself, prefers, in theinterval of great alarms and fatigues, the enjoyments of sloth to theimprovement of his fortune: he is, perhaps, by the diversity of his wants, discouraged from industry; or, by his divided attention, prevented fromacquiring skill in the management of any particular subject. 

The enjoyment of peace, however, and the prospect of being able to exchangeone commodity for another, turns, by degrees, the hunter and the warriorinto a tradesman and a merchant. The accidents which distribute the meansof subsistence unequally, inclination, and favourable opportunities, assignthe different occupations of men; and a sense of utility leads them, without end, to subdivide their professions. 

The artist finds, that the more he can confine his attention to aparticular part of any work, his productions are the more perfect, and growunder his hands in the greater quantities. Every undertaker in manufacturefinds, that the more he can subdivide the tasks of his workmen, and themore hands he can employ on separate articles, the more are his expensesdiminished, and his profits increased. The consumer too requires, in everykind of commodity, a workmanship more perfect than hands employed on avariety of subjects can produce; and the progress of commerce is but acontinued subdivision of the mechanical arts. 

Every craft may engross the whole of a man's attention, and has a mysterywhich must be studied or learned by a regular apprenticeship. Nations oftradesmen come to consist of members, who, beyond their own particulartrade, are ignorant of all human affairs, and who may contribute to thepreservation and enlargement of their commonwealth, without making itsinterest an object of their regard or attention. Every individual isdistinguished by his calling, and has a place to which he is fitted. Thesavage, who knows no distinction but that of his merit, of his sex, or ofhis species, and to whom his community is the sovereign object ofaffection, is astonished to find, that in a scene of this nature, his beinga man does not qualify him for any station whatever: he flies to the woodswith amazement, distaste, and aversion. 

By the separation of arts and professions, the sources of wealth are laidopen; every species of material is wrought up to the greatest perfection, and every commodity is produced in the greatest abundance. The state mayestimate its profits and its revenues by the number of its people. It mayprocure, by its treasure, that national consideration and power, which thesavage maintains at the expense of his blood. 

The advantage gained in the inferior branches of manufacture by theseparation of their parts, seem to be equalled by those which arise from asimilar device in the higher departments of policy and war. The soldier isrelieved from every care but that of his service; statesmen divide thebusiness of civil government into shares; and the servants of the public, in every office, without being skilful in the affairs of state, maysucceed, by observing forms which are already established on the experienceof others. They are made, like the parts of an engine, to concur to apurpose, without any concert of their own: and equally blind with thetrader to any general combination, they unite with him, in furnishing tothe state its resources, its conduct, and its force. 

The artifices of the beaver, the ant, and the bee, are ascribed to thewisdom of nature. Those of polished nations are ascribed to themselves, andare supposed to indicate a capacity superior to that of rude minds. But theestablishments of men, like those of every animal, are suggested by nature, and are the result of instinct, directed by the variety of situations inwhich mankind are placed. Those establishments arose from successiveimprovements that were made, without any sense of their general effect; andthey bring human affairs to a state of complication, which the greatestreach of capacity with which human nature was ever adorned, could not haveprojected; nor even when the whole is carried into execution, can it becomprehended in its full extent. 

Who could anticipate, or even enumerate, the separate occupations andprofessions by which the members of any commercial state are distinguished;the variety of devices which are practised in separate cells, and which theartist, attentive to his own affair, has invented, to abridge or tofacilitate his separate task? In coming to this mighty end, everygeneration, compared to its predecessors, may have appeared to beingenious; compared to its followers, may have appeared to be dull: andhuman ingenuity, whatever heights it may have gained in a succession ofages, continues to move with an equal pace, and to creep in making thelast, as well as the first, step of commercial or civil improvement. 

It may even be doubted, whether the measure of national capacity increaseswith the advancement of arts. Many mechanical arts, indeed, require nocapacity; they succeed best under a total suppression of sentiment andreason; and ignorance is the mother of industry as well as of superstition. Reflection and fancy are subject to err; but a habit of moving the hand, orthe foot, is independent of either. Manufactures, accordingly, prosper mostwhere the mind is least consulted, and where the workshop may, without anygreat effort of imagination, be considered as an engine, the parts of whichare men. 

The forest has been felled by the savage without the use of the axe, andweights have been raised without the aid of the mechanical powers. Themerit of the inventor, in every branch, probably deserves a preference tothat of the performer; and he who invented a tool, or could work withoutits assistance, deserved the praise of ingenuity in a much higher degreethan the mere artist, who, by its assistance, produces a superior work. 

But if many parts in the practice of every art, and in the detail of everydepartment, require no abilities, or actually tend to contract and to limitthe views of the mind, there are others which lead to general reflections, and to enlargement of thought. Even in manufacture, the genius of themaster, perhaps, is cultivated, while that of the inferior workman lieswaste. The statesman may have a wide comprehension of human affairs, whilethe tools he employs are ignorant of the system in which they arethemselves combined. The general officer may be a great proficient in theknowledge of war, while the skill of the soldier is confined to a fewmotions of the hand and the foot. The former may have gained what thelatter has lost; and being occupied in the conduct of disciplined armies, may practise on a larger scale all the arts of preservation, of deception, and of stratagem, which the savage exerts in leading a small party, ormerely in defending himself. 

The practitioner of every art and profession may afford matter of generalspeculation to the man of science; and thinking itself, in this age ofseparations, may become a peculiar craft. In the bustle of civil pursuitsand occupations, men appear in a variety of lights, and suggest matter ofinquiry and fancy, by which conversation is enlivened, and greatlyenlarged. The productions of ingenuity are brought to the market; and menare willing to pay for whatever has a tendency to inform or amuse. By thismeans the idle, as well as the busy, contribute to forward the progress ofarts, and bestow on polished nations that air of superior ingenuity, underwhich they appear to have gained the ends that were pursued by the savagein his forest, knowledge, order, and wealth. 

SECTION II. 

OF THE SUBORDINATION CONSEQUENT TO THE SEPARATION OF ARTS AND PROFESSIONS. 

There is one ground of subordination in the difference of natural talentsand dispositions; a second in the unequal division of property; and athird, not less sensible, in the habits which are acquired by the practiceof different arts. 

Some employments are liberal, others mechanic. They require differenttalents, and inspire different sentiments; and whether or not this be thecause of the preference we actually give, it is certainly reasonable toform our opinion of the rank that is due to men of certain professions andstations, from the influence of their manner of life in cultivating thepowers of the mind, or in preserving the sentiments of the heart. 

There is an elevation natural to man, by which he would be thought, in hisrudest state, however urged by necessity, to rise above the considerationof mere subsistence, and the regards of interest: he would appear to actonly, from the heart, in its engagements of friendship or opposition; hewould shew himself only upon occasions of danger or difficulty, and leaveordinary cares to the weak or the servile. 

The same apprehensions, in every situation, regulate his notions ofmeanness or of dignity. In that of polished society, his desire to avoidthe character of sordid, makes him conceal his regard for what relatesmerely to his preservation or his livelihood. In his estimation, thebeggar, who depends upon charity; the labourer, who toils that he may eat;the mechanic, whose art requires no exertion of genius, are degraded by theobject they pursue, and by the means they employ to attain it. Professionsrequiring more knowledge and study; proceeding on the exercise of fancy, and the love of perfection; leading to applause as well as to profit, placethe artist in a superior class, and bring him nearer to that station inwhich men, because they are bound to no task, because they are left tofollow the disposition of the mind, and to take that part in society towhich they are led by the sentiments of the heart, or by the calls of thepublic, are supposed to be highest. 

This last was the station, which, in the distinction betwixt freemen andslaves, the citizens of every ancient republic strove to gain, and tomaintain for themselves. Women, or slaves, in the earliest ages, had beenset apart for the purposes of domestic care, or bodily labour; and in theprogress of lucrative arts, the latter were bred to mechanical professions, and were even intrusted with merchandise for the benefit of their masters. Freemen would be understood to have no object beside those of politics andwar. In this manner, the honours of one half of the species were sacrificedto those of the other; as stones from the same quarry are buried in thefoundation, to sustain the blocks which happen to be hewn for the superiorparts of the pile. In the midst of our encomiums bestowed on the Greeks andthe Romans, we are, by this circumstance, made to remember, that no humaninstitution is perfect. 

In many of the Grecian states, the benefits arising to the free from thiscruel distinction, were not conferred equally on all the citizens. Wealthbeing unequally divided, the rich alone were exempted from labour; the poorwere reduced to work for their own subsistence: interest was a reigningpassion in both, and the possession of slaves, like that of any otherlucrative property, became an object of avarice, not an exemption fromsordid attentions. The entire effects of the institution were obtained, orcontinued to be enjoyed for any considerable time, at Sparta alone. We feelits injustice; we suffer for the helot, under the severities and unequaltreatment to which he was exposed: but when we think only of the superiororder of men in this state; when we attend to that elevation andmagnanimity of spirit, for which danger had no terror, interest no means tocorrupt; when we consider them as friends, or as citizens, we are apt toforget, like themselves, that slaves have a title to be treated like men. 

We look for elevation of sentiment, and liberality of mind, among thoseorders of citizens, who, by their condition, and their fortunes, arerelieved from sordid cares and attentions. This was the description of afree man at Sparta; and if the lot of a slave among the ancients was reallymore wretched than that of the indigent labourer and the mechanic among themoderns, it may be doubted whether the superior orders, who are inpossession of consideration and honours, do not proportionally fail in thedignity which befits their condition. If the pretensions to equal justiceand freedom should terminate in rendering every class equally servile andmercenary, we make a nation of helots, and have no free citizens. 

In every commercial state, notwithstanding any pretension to equal rights, the exaltation of a few must depress the many. In this arrangement, wethink that the extreme meanness of some classes must arise chiefly from thedefect of knowledge, and of liberal education; and we refer to suchclasses, as to an image of what our species must have been in its rude anduncultivated state. But we forget how many circumstances, especially inpopulous cities, tend to corrupt the lowest orders of men. Ignorance is theleast of their failings. An admiration of wealth unpossessed, becoming aprinciple of envy, or of servility; a habit of acting perpetually with aview to profit, and under a sense of subjection; the crimes to which theyare allured, in order to feed their debauch, or to gratify their avarice, are examples, not of ignorance, but of corruption and baseness. If thesavage has not received our instructions, he is likewise unacquainted withour vices. He knows no superior, and cannot be servile; he knows nodistinctions of fortune, and cannot be envious; he acts from his talents inthe highest station which human society can offer, that of the counsellor, and the soldier of his country. Toward forming his sentiments, he knows allthat the heart requires to be known; he can distinguish the friend whom heloves, and the public interest which awakens his zeal. 

The principal objections, to democratical or popular government, are takenfrom the inequalities which arise among men in the result of commercialarts. And it must be confessed, that popular assemblies, when composed ofmen whose dispositions are sordid, and whose ordinary applications areilliberal, however they may be intrusted with the choice of their mastersand leaders, are certainly, in their own persons, unfit to command. How canhe who has confined his views to his own subsistence or preservation, beintrusted with the conduct of nations? Such men, when admitted todeliberate on matters of state, bring to its councils confusion and tumult, or servility and corruption; and seldom suffer it to repose from ruinousfactions, or the effect of resolutions ill formed or ill conducted. 

The Athenians retained their popular government under all these defects. The mechanic was obliged, under a penalty, to appear in the publicmarket-place, and to hear debates on the subjects of war and of peace. Hewas tempted by pecuniary rewards, to attend on the trial of civil andcriminal causes. But, notwithstanding an exercise tending so much tocultivate their talents, the indigent came always with minds intent uponprofit, or with the habits of an illiberal calling. Sunk under the sense oftheir personal disparity and weakness, they were ready to resign themselvesentirely to the influence of some popular leader, who flattered theirpassions, and wrought on their fears; or, actuated by envy, they were readyto banish from the state whomsoever was respectable and eminent in thesuperior order of citizens; and whether from their neglect of the public atone time, or their mal-administration at another, the sovereignty was everymoment ready to drop from their hands. 

The people, in this case, are, in fact, frequently governed by one, or afew, who know how to conduct them. Pericles possessed a species of princelyauthority at Athens; Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar, either jointly orsuccessively, possessed for a considerable period the sovereign directionat Rome. 

Whether in great or in small states, democracy is preserved withdifficulty, under the disparities of condition, and the unequal cultivationof the mind, which attend the variety of pursuits, and applications, thatseparate mankind in the advanced state of commercial arts. In this, however, we do but plead against the form of democracy, after the principleis removed; and see the absurdity of pretensions to equal influence andconsideration, after the characters of men have ceased to be similar. 

SECTION III. 

OF THE MANNERS OF POLISHED AND COMMERCIAL NATIONS. 

Mankind, when in their rude state, have a great uniformity of manners; butwhen civilized, they are engaged in a variety of pursuits; they tread on alarger field, and separate to a greater distance. If they be guided, however, by similar dispositions, and by like suggestions of nature, theywill probably in the end, as well as in the beginning of their progress, continue to agree in many particulars; and while communities admit, intheir members, that diversity of ranks and professions which we havealready described as the consequence or the foundation of commerce, theywill resemble each other in many effects of this distribution, and of othercircumstances in which they nearly concur. 

Under every form of government, statesmen endeavour to remove the dangersby which they are threatened from abroad, and the disturbances which molestthem at home. By this conduct, if successful, they in a few ages gain anascendant for their country; establish a frontier at a distance from itscapital; they find, in the mutual desires of tranquillity, which come topossess mankind, and in those public establishments which tend to keep thepeace of society, a respite from foreign wars, and a relief from domesticdisorders. They learn to decide every contest without tumult, and tosecure, by the authority of law, every citizen in the possession of hispersonal rights. 

In this condition, to which thriving nations aspire, and which they in somemeasure attain, mankind having laid the basis of safety, proceed to erect asuperstructure suitable to their views. The consequence is various indifferent states; even in different orders of men of the same community;and the effect to every individual corresponds with his station. It enablesthe statesman and the soldier to settle the forms of their differentprocedure; it enables the practitioner in every profession to pursue hisseparate advantage; it affords the man of pleasure a time for refinement, and the speculative, leisure for literary conversation or study. 

In this scene, matters that have little reference to the active pursuits ofmankind, are made subjects of inquiry, and the exercise of sentiment andreason itself becomes a profession. The songs of the bard, the harangues ofthe statesman and the warrior, the tradition and the story of ancienttimes, are considered as the models, or the earliest production, of so manyarts, which it becomes the object of different professions to copy or toimprove. The works of fancy, like the subjects of natural history, aredistinguished into classes and species; the rules of every particular kindare distinctly collected; and the library is stored, like the warehouse, with the finished manufacture of different artists, who, with the aids ofthe grammarian and the critic, aspire, each in his particular way, toinstruct the head, or to move the heart. 

Every nation is a motley assemblage of different characters, and contains, under any political form, some examples of that variety, which the humours, tempers, and apprehensions of men, so differently employed, are likely tofurnish. Every profession has its point of honour, and its system ofmanners; the merchant his punctuality and fair dealing; the statesman hiscapacity and address; the man of society his good breeding and wit. Everystation has a carriage, a dress, a ceremonial, by which it isdistinguished, and by which it suppresses the national character under thatof the rank, or of the individual. 

This description may be applied equally to Athens and Rome, to London andParis. The rude, or the simple observer, would remark the variety he saw inthe dwellings and in the occupations, of different men, not in the aspectof different nations. He would find, in the streets of the same city, asgreat a diversity, as in the territory of a separate people. He could notpierce through the cloud that was gathered before him, nor see how thetradesman, mechanic, or scholar, of one country, should differ from thoseof another. But the native of every province can distinguish the foreigner;and when he himself travels, is struck with the aspect of a strangecountry, the moment he passes the bounds of his own. The air of the person, the tone of the voice, the idiom of language, and the strain ofconversation, whether pathetic or languid, gay or severe, are no longer thesame. 

Many such differences may arise among polished nations, from the effects ofclimate, or from sources of fashion, that are still more hidden orunobserved; but the principal distinctions on which we can rest, arederived from the part a people are obliged to act in their nationalcapacity; from the objects placed in their view by the state; or from theconstitution of government, which, prescribing the terms of society to itssubjects, had a great influence in forming their apprehensions and habits. 

The Roman people, destined to acquire wealth by conquest, and by the spoilof provinces; the Carthaginians, intent on the returns of merchandise, andthe produce of commercial settlements, must have filled the streets oftheir several capitals with men of a different disposition and aspect. TheRoman laid hold of his sword when he wished to be great, and the statefound her armies prepared in the dwellings of her people. The Carthaginianretired to his counter on a similar project; and, when the state wasalarmed, or had resolved on a war, lent of his profits to purchase an armyabroad. 

The member of a republic, and the subject of a monarchy, must differ;because they have different parts assigned to them by the forms of theircountry: the one destined to live with his equals, or to contend, by hispersonal talents and character, for pre-eminence; the other, born to adeterminate station, where any pretence to equality creates a confusion, and where nought but precedence is studied. Each, when the institutions ofhis country are mature, may find in the laws a protection to his personalrights; but those rights themselves are differently understood, and with adifferent set of opinions, give rise to a different temper of mind. Therepublican must act in the state, to sustain his pretensions; he must joina party, in order to be safe; he must lead one, in order to be great. Thesubject of monarchy refers to his birth for the honour he claims; he waitson a court, to shew his importance; and holds out the ensigns of dependenceand favour, to gain him esteem with the public. 

If national institutions, calculated for the preservation of liberty, instead of calling upon the citizen to act for himself, and to maintain hisrights, should give a security, requiring, on his part, no personalattention or effort; this seeming perfection of government might weaken thebands of society, and, upon maxims of independence, separate and estrangethe different ranks it was meant to reconcile. Neither the parties formedin republics, nor the courtly assemblies, which meet in monarchicalgovernments, could take place, where the sense of a mutual dependenceshould cease to summon their members together. The resorts for commercemight be frequented, and mere amusement might be pursued in the crowd, while the private dwelling became a retreat for reserve, averse to thetrouble arising from regards and attentions, which it might be part of thepolitical creed to believe of no consequence, and a point of honour to holdin contempt. 

This humour is not likely to grow either in republics or monarchies: itbelongs more properly to a mixture of both; where the administration ofjustice may be better secured; where the subject is tempted to look forequality, but where he finds only independence in its place; and where helearns, from a spirit of equality, to hate the very distinctions to which, on account of their real importance, he pays a remarkable deference. 

In either of the separate forms of republic or monarchy, or in acting onthe principles of either, men are obliged to court their fellow citizens, and to employ parts and address to improve their fortunes, or even to besafe. They find in both a school for discernment and penetration; but inthe one, are taught to overlook the merits of a private character for thesake of abilities that have weight with the public; and in the other tooverlook great and respectable talents, for the sake of qualities engagingor pleasant in the scene of entertainment and private society. They areobliged, in both, to adapt themselves with care to the fashion and mannersof their country. They find no place for caprice or singular humours. Therepublican must be popular, and the courtier polite. The first must thinkhimself well placed in every company; the other must choose his resorts, and desire to be distinguished only where the society itself is esteemed. With his inferiors, he takes an air of protection; and suffers, in histurn, the same air to be taken with himself. It did not, perhaps, requirein a Spartan, who feared nothing but a failure in his duty, who lovednothing but his friend and the state, so constant a guard on himself tosupport his character, as it frequently does in the subject of a monarchy, to adjust his expense and his fortune to the desires of his vanity, and toappear in a rank as high as his birth, or ambition, can possibly reach. 

There is no particular, in the mean time, in which we are more frequentlyunjust, than in applying to the individual the supposed character of hiscountry; or more frequently misled; than in taking our notion of a peoplefrom the example of one, or a few of their members. It belonged to theconstitution of Athens, to have produced a Cleon, and a Pericles; but allthe Athenians were not, therefore, like Cleon, or Pericles. Themistoclesand Aristides lived in the same age; the one advised what was profitable, the other told his country what was just. 

SECTION IV. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 

The law of nature, with respect to nations, is the same that it is withrespect to individuals: it gives to the collective body a right to preservethemselves; to employ undisturbed the means of life; to retain the fruitsof labour; to demand the observance of stipulations and contracts. In thecase of violence, it condemns the aggressor, and establishes, on the partof the injured, the right of defence, and a claim to retribution. Itsapplications, however, admit of disputes, and give rise to variety in theapprehension, as well as the practice of mankind. 

Nations have agreed universally, in distinguishing right from wrong; inexacting the reparation of injuries by consent or by force. They havealways reposed, in a certain degree, on the faith of treaties; but haveacted as if force were the ultimate arbiter in all their disputes, and thepower to defend themselves, the surest pledge of their safety. Guided bythese common apprehensions, they have differed from one another, not merelyin points of form, but in points of the greatest importance, respecting theusage of war, the effects of captivity, and the rights of conquest andvictory. 

When a number of independent communities have been frequently involved inwars, and have had their stated alliances and oppositions, they adoptcustoms which they make the foundation of rules, or of laws, to beobserved, or alleged, in all their mutual transactions. Even in war itself, they would follow a system, and plead for the observance of forms in theirvery operations for mutual destruction. 

The ancient states of Greece and Italy derived their manners in war fromthe nature of their republican government; those of modern Europe, from theinfluence of monarchy, which, by its prevalence in this part of the world, has a great effect on nations, even where it is not the form established. Upon the maxims of this government, we apprehend a distinction between thestate and its members, as that between the king and the people, whichrenders war an operation of policy, not of popular animosity. While westrike at the public interest, we would spare the private; and we carry arespect and consideration for individuals, which often stops the issues ofblood in the ardour of victory, and procures to the prisoner of war ahospitable reception in the very city which he came to destroy. Thesepractices are so well established, that scarcely any provocation on thepart of an enemy, or any exigence of service, can excuse a trespass on thesupposed rules of humanity, or save the leader who commits it from becomingan object of detestation and horror. 

To this, the general practice of the Greeks and the Romans was opposite. They endeavoured to wound the state by destroying its members, bydesolating its territory, and by ruining the possessions of its subjects. They granted quarter only to enslave, or to bring the prisoner to a moresolemn execution; and an enemy, when disarmed, was, for the most part, either sold in the market or killed, that he might never return tostrengthen his party. When this was the issue of war, it was no wonder thatbattles were fought with desperation, and that every fortress was defendedto the last extremity. The game of human life went upon a high stake, andwas played with a proportional zeal. 

The term _barbarian_, in this state of manners, could not be employedby the Greeks or the Romans in that sense in which we use it: tocharacterize, a people regardless of commercial arts; profuse of their ownlives, and those of others; vehement in their attachment to one society, and implacable in their antipathy to another. This, in a great and shiningpart of their history, was their own character, as well as that of someother nations, whom, upon this very account, we distinguish by theappellations of _barbarous_ or _rude. _

It has been observed, that those celebrated nations are indebted, for agreat part of their estimation, not to the matter of their history, but tothe manner in which it has been delivered, and to the capacity of theirhistorians, and other writers. Their story has been told by men who knewhow to draw our attention on the proceedings of the understanding and ofthe heart, more than on external effects; and who could exhibit charactersto be admired and loved, in the midst of actions which we should nowuniversally hate or condemn. Like Homer, the model of Grecian literature, they could make us forget the horrors of a vindictive, cruel, andremorseless treatment of an enemy, in behalf of the strenuous conduct, thecourage, and vehement affections, with which the hero maintained the causeof his friend and of his country. 

Our manners are so different, and the system upon which we regulate ourapprehensions, in many things so opposite, that no less could make usendure the practice of ancient nations. Were that practice recorded by themere journalist, who retains only the detail of events, without throwingany light on the character of the actors; who, like the Tartar historian, tells us only what blood was spilt in the field, and how many inhabitantswere massacred in the city; we should never have distinguished the Greeksfrom their barbarous neighbours, nor have thought, that the character ofcivility pertained even to the Romans, till very late in their history, andin the decline of their empire. 

It would, no doubt, be pleasant to see the remarks of such a traveller aswe sometimes send abroad to inspect the manners of mankind, left, unassisted by history, to collect the character of the Greeks from thestate of their country, or from their practice in war. "This country, " hemight say, "compared to ours, has an air of barrenness and desolation. Isaw upon the road troops of labourers, who were employed in the fields; butno where the habitations of the master and the landlord. It was unsafe, Iwas told, to reside in the country; and the people of every districtcrowded into towns to find a place of defence. It is, indeed, impossible, that they can be more civilized, till they have established some regulargovernment, and have courts of justice to hear their complaints. At presentevery town, nay, I may say, every village, acts for itself, and thegreatest disorders prevail. I was not indeed molested; for you must know, that they call themselves nations, and do all their mischief under thepretence of war. 

"I do not mean to take any of the liberties of travellers, nor to vie withthe celebrated author of the voyage to Lilliput; but cannot helpendeavouring to communicate what I felt on hearing them speak of theirterritory, their armies, their revenues, treaties, and alliances. Onlyimagine the church-wardens and constables of Highgate or Hampstead turnedstatesmen and generals, and you will have a tolerable conception of thissingular country. I passed through one state, where the best house in thecapital would not lodge the meanest of your labourers, and where your verybeggars would not choose to dine with the king; and yet they are thought agreat nation, and have no less than two kings. I saw one of them; but sucha potentate! He had scarcely clothes to his back; and for his majesty'stable, he was obliged to go to the eating-house with his subjects. Theyhave not a single farthing of money; and I was obliged to get food at thepublic expense, there being none to be had in the market. You will imagine, that there must have been a service of plate, and great attendance, to waiton the illustrious stranger; but my fare was a mess of sorry pottage, brought me by a naked slave, who left me to deal with it as I thoughtproper: and even this I was in continual danger of having stolen from me bythe children; who are as vigilant to seize opportunities, and as dexterousin snatching their food, as any starved greyhound you ever saw. The miseryof the whole people, in short, as well as my own, while I staid there, wasbeyond description. You would think that their whole attention were totorment themselves as much as they can: they are even displeased with oneof their kings for being well liked. He had made a present, while I wasthere, of a cow to one favourite, and of a waistcoat to another; [Footnote:Plutarch in the life of Agesilaus, ] and it was publicly said, that thismethod of gaining friends was robbing the public. My landlord told me verygravely, that a man should come under no obligation that might weaken thelove which he owes to his country; nor form any personal attachment beyondthe mere habit of living with his friend, and of doing him a kindness whenhe can. 

"I asked him once, why they did not, for their own sakes, enable theirkings to assume a little more state? Because, says he, we intend them thehappiness of living with men. When I found fault with their houses, andsaid, in particular, that I was surprised they did not build betterchurches: What would you be then, says he, if you found religion in stonewalls? This will suffice for a sample of our conversation; and sententiousas it was, you may believe I did not stay long to profit by it. 

"The people of this place are not quite so stupid. There is a pretty largesquare of a market-place, and some tolerable buildings; and, I am told, they have some barks and lighters employed in trade, which they likewise, upon occasion, muster into a fleet, like my lord mayor's show. But whatpleases me most is, that I am likely to get a passage from hence, and bidfarewell to this wretched country. I have been at some pains to observetheir ceremonies of religion, and to pick up curiosities. I have copiedsome inscriptions, as you will see when you come to peruse my journal, andwill then judge, whether I have met with enough to compensate the fatiguesand bad entertainment to which I have submitted. As for the people, youwill believe, from the specimen I have given you, that they could not bevery engaging company: though poor and dirty, they still pretend to beproud; and a fellow who is not worth a groat, is above working for hislivelihood. They come abroad barefooted, and without any cover to the head, wrapt up in the coverlets under which you would imagine they had slept. They throw all off, and appear like so many naked cannibals, when they goto violent sports and exercises; at which they highly value feats ofdexterity and strength. Brawny limbs, and muscular arms, the faculty ofsleeping out all nights, of fasting long, and of putting up with any kindof food, are thought genteel accomplishments. They have no settledgovernment that I could learn; sometimes the mob, and sometimes the bettersort, do what they please: they meet in great crowds in the open air, andseldom agree in any thing. If a fellow has presumption enough, and a loudvoice, he can make a great figure. There was a tanner here, some time ago, who, for a while, carried every thing before him. He censured so loudlywhat others had done, and talked so big of what might be performed, that hewas sent out at last to make good his words, and to curry the enemy insteadof his leather. [Footnote: Thucydides, lib. 4. Aristophanes] You willimagine, perhaps, that he was pressed for a recruit; no; he was sent tocommand the army. They are indeed seldom long of one mind, except in theirreadiness to harass their neighbours. They go out in bodies, and rob, pillage, and murder wherever they come. " So far may we suppose ourtraveller to have written; and upon a recollection of the reputation whichthose nations have acquired at a distance, he might have added, perhaps, "That he could not understand how scholars, fine gentlemen, and even women, should combine to admire a people, who so little resemble themselves. "

To form a judgment of the character from which they acted in the field, andin their competitions with neighbouring nations, we must observe them athome. They were bold and fearless in their civil dissentions; ready toproceed to extremities, and to carry their debates to the decision offorce. Individuals stood distinguished by their personal spirit and vigour, not by the valuation of their estates, or the rank of their birth. They hada personal elevation founded on the sense of equality, not of precedence. The general of one campaign was, during the next, a private soldier, andserved in the ranks. They were solicitous to acquire bodily strength;because, in the use of their weapons, battles were a trial of the soldier'sstrength, as well as of the leader's conduct. The remains of their statuaryshows a manly grace, an air of simplicity and ease, which being frequent innature, were familiar to the artist. The mind, perhaps, borrowed aconfidence and force, from the vigour and address of the body; theireloquence and style bore a resemblance to the carriage of the person. Theunderstanding was chiefly cultivated in the practice of affairs. The mostrespectable personages were obliged to mix with the crowd, and derivedtheir degree of ascendancy only from their conduct, their eloquence, andpersonal vigour. They had no forms of expression, to mark a ceremonious andguarded respect. Invective proceeded to railing, and the grossest termswere often employed by the most admired and accomplished orators. Quarrelling had no rules but the immediate dictates of passion, which endedin words of reproach, in violence and blows. They fortunately went alwaysunarmed; and to wear a sword in times of peace, was among them the mark ofa barbarian. When they took arms in the divisions of faction, theprevailing party supported itself by expelling their opponents, byproscriptions, and bloodshed. The usurper endeavoured to maintain hisstation by the most violent and prompt executions. He was opposed, in histurn, by conspiracies and assassinations, in which the most respectablecitizens were ready to use the dagger. 

Such was the character of their spirit, in its occasional ferments at home;and it burst commonly with a suitable violence and force, against theirforeign rivals and enemies. The amiable plea of humanity was littleregarded by them in the operations of war. Cities were razed, or enslaved;the captive sold, mutilated, or condemned to die. 

When viewed on this side, the ancient nations have but a sorry plea foresteem with the inhabitants of modern Europe, who profess to carry thecivilities of peace into the practice of war; and who value the praise ofindiscriminate lenity at a higher rate than even that of military prowess, or the love of their country. And yet they have, in other respects, meritedand obtained our praise. Their ardent attachment to their country; theircontempt of suffering, and of death, in its cause; their manlyapprehensions of personal independence, which rendered every individual, even under tottering establishments and imperfect laws, the guardian offreedom to his fellow citizens; their activity of mind; in short, theirpenetration, the ability of their conduct, and force of their spirit, havegained them the first rank among nations. 

If their animosities were great, their affections were proportionate; they, perhaps, loved, where we only pity; and were stern and inexorable, where weare not merciful, but only irresolute. After all, the merit of a man isdetermined by his candour and generosity to his associates, by his zeal fornational objects, and by his vigour in maintaining political rights; not bymoderation alone, which proceeds frequently from indifference to nationaland public interest, and which serves to relax the nerves on which theforce of a private, as well as a public, character depends. 

When under the Macedonian and the Roman monarchies, a nation came to beconsidered as, the estate of a prince, and the inhabitants of a province tobe regarded as a lucrative property, the possession of territory, not thedestruction of its people, became the object of conquest. The pacificcitizen had little concern in the quarrels of sovereigns; the violence ofthe soldier was restrained by discipline. He fought, because he was taughtto carry arms, and to obey: he sometimes shed unnecessary blood in theardour of victory; but, except in the case of civil wars, had no passionsto excite his animosity beyond the field and the day of battle. Leadersjudged of the objects of an enterprise, and they arrested the sword whenthese were obtained. 

In the modern nations of Europe, where extent of territory admits of adistinction between the state and its subjects, we are accustomed to thinkof the individual with compassion, seldom of the public with zeal. We haveimproved on the laws of war, and on the lenitives which have been devisedto soften its rigours; we have mingled politeness with the use of thesword; we have learned to make war under the stipulations of treaties andcartels, and trust to the faith of an enemy whose ruin we meditate. Gloryis more successfully obtained by saving and protecting, than by destroyingthe vanquished: and the most amiable of all objects is, in appearance, attained; the employing of force, only for the obtaining of justice, andfor the preservation of national rights. 

This is, perhaps, the principal characteristic, on which, among modernnations, we bestow the epithets of _civilized_ or of _polished_. But we have seen, that it did not accompany the progress of sorts among theGreeks, nor keep pace with the advancement of policy, literature, andphilosophy. It did not await the returns of learning and politeness amongthe moderns; it was found in an early period of our history, anddistinguished, perhaps more than at present; the manners of the agesotherwise rude and undisciplined. A king of France, prisoner in the handsof his enemies, was treated, about four hundred years ago, with as muchdistinction and courtesy as a crowned head, in the like circumstances, could possibly expect in this age of politeness. [Footnote: Hume's Historyof England. ] The prince of Conde, defeated and taken in the battle ofDreux, slept at night in the same bed with his enemy the duke ofGuise. [Footnote: Davila. ]

If the moral of popular traditions, and the taste of fabulous legends, which are the productions or entertainment of particular ages, are likewisesure indications of their notions and characters, we may presume, that thefoundation of what is now held to be the law of war, and, of nations, waslaid in the manners of Europe, together with the sentiments which areexpressed in the tales of chivalry, and of gallantry. Our system of wardiffers not more from that of the Greeks, than the favourite characters ofour early romance differed from those of the Iliad, and of every ancientpoem. The hero of the Greek fable, endued with superior force, courage, andaddress, takes every advantage of an enemy, to kill with safety to himself;and, actuated by a desire of spoil, or by a principle of revenge, is neverstayed in his progress by interruptions of remorse or compassion. Homer, who, of all poets, knew best how to exhibit the emotions of a vehementaffection, seldom attempts to excite commiseration. Hector falls unpitied, and his body is insulted by every Greek. 

Our modern fable, or romance, on the contrary, generally couples an objectof pity, weak, oppressed, and defenceless, with an object of admiration, brave, generous, and victorious; or sends the hero abroad in search of meredanger, and of occasions to prove his valour. Charged with the maxims of arefined courtesy, to be observed even towards an enemy; and of a scrupuloushonour, which will not suffer him to take any advantages by artifice orsurprise; indifferent to spoil, he contends only for renown, and employshis valour to rescue the distressed, and to protect the innocent. Ifvictorious, he is made to rise above nature as much in his generosity andgentleness, as in his military prowess and valour. 

It may be difficult, upon stating this contrast between the system ofancient and modern fable, to assign, among nations, equally rude, equallyaddicted to war, and equally fond of military glory, the origin ofapprehensions on the point of honour, so different, and so opposite. Thehero of Greek poetry proceeds on the maxims of animosity and hostilepassion. His maxims in war are like those which prevail in the woods ofAmerica. They require him to be brave, but they allow him to practiseagainst his enemy every sort of deception. The hero of modern romanceprofesses a contempt of stratagem, as well as of danger, and unites in thesame person, characters and dispositions seemingly opposite; ferocity withgentleness, and the love of blood with sentiments of tenderness and pity. 

The system of chivalry, when completely formed, proceeded on a marvellousrespect and veneration to the fair sex, on forms of combat established, andon a supposed junction of the heroic and sanctified character. Theformalities of the duel, and a kind of judicial challenge, were known amongthe ancient Celtic nations of Europe. [Footnote: Liv. , lib. 28. C. 21. ] TheGermans, even in their native forests, paid a kind of devotion to thefemale sex. The Christian religion enjoined meekness and compassion tobarbarous ages. These different principles combined together, may haveserved as the foundation of a system, in which courage was directed byreligion and love, and the warlike and gentle were united together. Whenthe characters of the hero and the saint were mixed, the mild spirit ofChristianity, though often turned into venom by the bigotry of oppositeparties, though it could not always subdue the ferocity of the warrior, norsuppress the admiration of courage and force, may have confirmed theapprehensions of men in what was to be held meritorious and splendid in theconduct of their quarrels. 

In the early and traditionary history of the Greeks and the Romans, rapeswere assigned as the most frequent occasions of war; and the sexes were, nodoubt, at all times, equally important to each other. The enthusiasm oflove is most powerful in the neighbourhood of Asia and Africa; and beauty, as a possession, was probably more valued by the countrymen of Homer, thanit was by those of Amadis de Gaul, or by the authors of modern gallantry. "What wonder, " says the old Priam, when Helen appeared, "that nationsshould contend for the possession of so much beauty?" This beauty, indeed, was possessed by different lovers; a subject on which the modern hero hadmany refinements, and seemed to soar in the clouds. He adored at arespectful distance, and employed his valour to captivate the admiration, not to gain the possession of his mistress. A cold and unconquerablechastity was set up, as an idol to be worshipped, in the toils, thesufferings, and the combats of the hero and the lover. 

The feudal establishments, by the high rank to which they elevated certainfamilies, no doubt, greatly favoured this romantic system. Not only thelustre of a noble descent, but the stately castle beset with battlementsand towers, served to inflame the imagination, and to create a venerationfor the daughter and the sister of gallant chiefs, whose point of honour itwas to be inaccessible and chaste, and who could perceive no merit but thatof the high minded and the brave, nor be approached in any other ascentsthan those of gentleness and respect. 

What was originally singular in these apprehensions, was, by the writer ofromance, turned to extravagance; and under the title of chivalry wasoffered as a model of conduct, even in common affairs: the fortunes ofnations were directed by gallantry; and human life, on its greatestoccasions, became a scene of affectation and folly. Warriors went forth torealize the legends they had studied; princes and leaders of armiesdedicated their most serious exploits to a real or to a fancied mistress. 

But whatever was the origin of notions, often so lofty and so ridiculous, we cannot doubt of their lasting effects on our manners. The point ofhonour, the prevalence of gallantry in our conversations, and on ourtheatres, many of the opinions which the vulgar apply even to the conductof war; their notion, that the leader of an army, being offered battle uponequal terms, is dishonoured by declining it, are undoubtedly remains ofthis antiquated system: and chivalry, uniting with the genius of ourpolicy, has probably suggested those peculiarities in the law of nations, by which modern states are distinguished from the ancient. And if our rulein measuring degrees of politeness and civilization is to be taken fromhence, or from the advancement of commercial arts, we shall be found tohave greatly excelled any of the celebrated nations of antiquity. 

AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY. 

 * * * * *

PART FIFTH. 

OF THE DECLINE OF NATIONS. 

 * * * * *

SECTION I. 

OF SUPPOSED NATIONAL EMINENCE, AND OF THE VICISSITUDES OF HUMAN AFFAIRS. 

No nation is so unfortunate as to think itself inferior to the rest ofmankind: few are even willing to put up with the claim to equality. Thegreater part having chosen themselves, as at once, the judges and themodels of what is excellent in their kind, are first in their own opinion, and give to others consideration or eminence, so far only as they approachto their own condition. One nation is vain of the personal character, or ofthe learning of a few of its members; another, of its policy, its wealth, its tradesmen, its gardens, and its buildings; and they who have nothing toboast are vain, because they are ignorant. The Russians, before the reignof Peter the Great, thought themselves possessed of every national honour, and held the _Nemei_, or _dumb nations_, the name which theybestowed on then western neighbours of Europe, in a proportional degree ofcontempt. [Footnote: Strahlenberg. ] The map of the world, in China, was asquare plate, the greater part of which was occupied by the provinces ofthis great empire, leaving on its skirts a few obscure corners, into whichthe wretched remainder of mankind were supposed to be driven. "If you havenot the use of our letters, nor the knowledge of our books, " said thelearned Chinese to the European missionary, "what literature, or whatscience can you have?" [Footnote: Gemelli Carceri. ]

The term _polished_, if we may judge from its etymology, originallyreferred to the state of nations in respect to their laws and government;and men civilized were men practised in the duty of citizens. In its laterapplications, it refers no less to the proficiency of nations in theliberal and mechanical arts, in literature, and in commerce; and mencivilized are scholars, men of fashion and traders. But whatever may be itsapplication, it appears, that if there were a name still more respectablethan this, every nation, even the most barbarous, or the most corrupted, would assume it; and bestow its reverse where they conceived a dislike, orapprehended a difference. The names of _alien_ or _foreigner_, are seldom pronounced without some degree of intended reproach. That of_barbarian_, in use with one arrogant people, and that of_gentile_, with another, only served to distinguish the stranger, whose language and pedigree differed from theirs. 

Even where we pretend to found our opinions on reason, and to justify ourpreference of one nation to another, we frequently bestow our esteem oncircumstances which do not relate to national character, and which havelittle tendency to promote the welfare of mankind. Conquest, or greatextent of territory, however peopled, and great wealth, however distributedor employed, are titles upon which we indulge our own, and the vanity ofother nations, as we do that of private men on the score of their fortunesand honours. We even sometimes contend, whose capital is the mostovergrown; whose king has the most absolute power; and at whose court thebread of the subject is consumed in the most senseless riot. These indeedare the notions of vulgar minds; but it is impossible to determine, how farthe notions of vulgar minds may lead mankind. 

There have certainly, been very few examples of states, who have, by artsof policy, improved the original dispositions of human nature, orendeavoured, by wise and effectual precautions, to prevent its corruption. Affection, and force of mind, which are the band and the strength ofcommunities, were the inspiration of God, and original attributes in thenature of man. The wisest policy of nations, except in a few instances, hastended, we may suspect, rather to maintain the peace of society, and torepress the external effects of bad passions, than to strengthen thedisposition of the heart itself to justice and goodness. It has tended, byintroducing a variety of arts, to exercise the ingenuity of men, and byengaging them in a variety of pursuits, inquiries, and studies, to inform, but frequently to corrupt the mind. It has tended to furnish matter ofdistinction and vanity; and by incumbering the individual with new subjectsof personal care, to substitute the anxiety he entertains for a separatefortune, instead of the confidence and the affection with which he shouldunite with his fellow creatures, for their joint preservation. 

Whether this suspicion be just or no, we are come to point at circumstancestending to verify, or to disprove it: and if to understand the realfelicity of nations be of importance, it is certainly so likewise, to knowwhat are those weaknesses, and those vices, by which men not only mar thisfelicity, but in one age forfeit all the external advantages they hadgained in a former. 

The wealth, the aggrandizement, and power of nations, are commonly theeffects of virtue; the loss of these advantages is often a consequence ofvice. Were we to suppose men to have succeeded in the discovery andapplication of every art by which states are preserved and governed; tohave attained, by efforts of wisdom and magnanimity, the admiredestablishments and advantages of a civilized and flourishing people; thesubsequent part of their history, containing, according to vulgarapprehension, a full display of those fruits in maturity, of which they hadtill then carried only the blossom, and the first formation, should, stillmore than the former, merit our attention, and excite our admiration. 

The event, however, has not corresponded to this expectation. The virtuesof men have shone most during their struggles, not after the attainment oftheir ends. Those ends themselves, though attained by virtue, arefrequently the causes of corruption and vice. Mankind, in aspiring tonational felicity, have substituted arts which increase their riches, instead of those which improve their nature. They have entertainedadmiration of themselves, under the titles of _civilized_ and of_polished_, where they should have been affected with shame; and evenwhere they have, for a while, acted on maxims tending to raise, toinvigorate, and to preserve the national character, they have, sooner orlater, been diverted from their object, and fallen a prey to misfortune, orto the neglects which prosperity itself had encouraged. 

War, which furnishes mankind with a principal occupation of their restlessspirit, serves, by the variety of its events, to diversify their fortunes. While it opens to one tribe or society, the way to eminence, and leads todominion, it brings another to subjection, and closes the scene of theirnational efforts. The celebrated rivalship of Carthage and Rome was, inboth parties, the natural exercise of an ambitious spirit, impatient ofopposition, or even of equality. The conduct and the fortune of leadersheld the balance for some time in suspense; but to which ever side it hadinclined, a great nation was to fall; a seat of empire, and of policy, wasto be removed from its place; and it was then to be determined, whether theSyriac or the Latin should contain the erudition that was, in future ages, to occupy the studies of the learned. 

States have been thus conquered from abroad, before they gave any signs ofinternal decay, even in the midst of prosperity, and in the period of theirgreatest ardour for national objects. Athens, in the height of herambition, and of her glory, received a fatal wound, in striving to extendher maritime power beyond the Grecian seas. And nations of everydescription, formidable by their rude ferocity, respected for theirdiscipline and military experience, when advancing, as well as whendeclining, in their strength, fell a prey by turns to the ambition andarrogant spirit of the Romans. Such examples may excite and alarm thejealousy and caution of states; the presence of similar dangers mayexercise the talents of politicians and statesmen; but mere reverses offortune are the common materials of history, and must long since haveceased to create our surprise. 

Did we find, that nations advancing from small beginnings, and arrived atthe possession of arts which lead to dominion, became secure of theiradvantages, in proportion as they were qualified to gain them; that theyproceeded in a course of uninterrupted felicity, till they were broke byexternal calamities; and that they retained their force, till a morefortunate or vigorous power arose to depress them; the subject inspeculation could not be attended with many difficulties, nor give rise tomany reflections. But when we observe, among many nations, a kind ofspontaneous return to obscurity and weakness; when, in spite of perpetualadmonitions of the danger they run, they suffer themselves to be subdued, in one period, by powers which could not have entered into competition withthem in a former, and by forces which they had often baffled and despised, the subject becomes more curious, and its explanation more difficult. 

(The fact itself is known in a variety of different examples. The empire ofAsia was, more than once, transferred from the greater to the inferiorpower. The states of Greece, once so warlike, felt a relaxation of theirvigour, and yielded the ascendant they had disputed with the monarchs ofthe east, to the forces of an obscure principality, become formidable in afew years, and raised to eminence under the conduct of a single man. TheRoman empire, which stood alone for ages, which had brought every rivalunder subjection, and saw no power from whom a competition could be feared, sunk at last before an artless and contemptible enemy. Abandoned to inroad, to pillage, and at last to conquest, on her frontier, she decayed in allher extremities, and shrunk on every side. Her territory was dismembered, and whole provinces gave way, like branches fallen down with age, notviolently torn by superior force. The spirit with which Marius had baffledand repelled the attacks of barbarians in a former age, the civil andmilitary force with which the consul and his legions had extended thisempire, were now no more. The Roman greatness, doomed to sink as it rose, by slow degrees, was impaired in every encounter. It was reduced to itsoriginal dimensions, within the compass of a single city; and depending forits preservation on the fortune of a siege, it was extinguished at a blow;and the brand, which had filled the world with its flames, sunk like ataper in the socket. 

Such appearances have given rise to a general apprehension, that theprogress of societies to what we call the heights of national greatness, isnot more natural, than their return to weakness and obscurity is necessaryand unavoidable. The images of youth, and of old age, are applied tonations; and communities, like single men, are supposed to have a period oflife, and a length of thread, which is spun by the fates in one partuniform and strong, in another weakened and shattered by use; to be cut, when the destined era is come, and to make way for a renewal of the emblemin the case of those who arise in succession. Carthage being so much olderthan Rome, had felt her decay, says Polybius, so much the sooner; and thesurvivor too, he foresaw, carried in her bosom the seeds of mortality. 

The image indeed is apposite, and the history of mankind renders theapplication familiar. But it must be obvious, that the case of nations, andthat of individuals, are very different. The human frame has a generalcourse: it has in every individual a frail contexture and limited duration;it is worn by exercise, and exhausted by a repetition of its functions: butin a society, whose constituent members are renewed in every generation, where the race seems to enjoy perpetual youth, and accumulating advantages, we cannot, by any parity of reason, expect to find imbecilities connectedwith mere age and length of days. 

The subject is not new, and reflections will crowd upon every reader. Thenotions, in the mean time, which we entertain, even in speculation, upon asubject so important, cannot be entirely fruitless to mankind; and howeverlittle the labours of the speculative may influence the conduct of men, oneof the most pardonable errors a writer can commit, is to believe that he isabout to do a great deal of good. But, leaving the care of effects toothers, we proceed to consider the grounds of inconstancy among mankind, the sources of internal decay, and the ruinous corruptions to which nationsare liable, in the supposed condition of accomplished civility. 

SECTION II. 

OF THE TEMPORARY EFFORTS AND RELAXATIONS OF THE NATIONAL SPIRIT. 

From what we have already observed on the general characteristics of humannature, it has appeared that man is not made for repose. In him everyamiable and respectable quality, is an active power, and every subject ofcommendation an effort. If his errors and his crimes are the movements ofan active being, his virtues and his happiness consist likewise in theemployment of his mind; and all the lustre which he casts around him, tocaptivate or engage the attention of his fellow creatures, like the flameof a meteor, shines only while his motion continues; the moments of restand obscurity are the same. We know, that the tasks assigned him frequentlymay exceed, as well as come short of, his powers; that he may be agitatedtoo much, as well as too little; but cannot ascertain a precise mediumbetween the situations in which he would be harassed, and those in which hewould fall into languor. We know that he may be employed on a great varietyof subjects, which occupy different passions; and that, in consequence ofhabit, he becomes reconciled to very different scenes. All we can determinein general is, that whatever be the subjects with which he is engaged, theframe of his nature requires him to be occupied, and his happiness requireshim to be just. 

We are now to inquire, why nations cease to be eminent; and why societieswhich have drawn the attention of mankind by great examples of magnanimity, conduct, and national success, should sink from the height of theirhonours, and yield, in one age, the palm which they had won in a former. Many reasons will probably occur. One may be taken from the fickleness andinconstancy of mankind, who become tired of their pursuits and exertions, even while the occasions that gave rise to those pursuits; in some measure, continue; another, from the change of situations, and the removal ofobjects which served to excite their spirit. 

The public safety, and the relative interests of states; politicalestablishments, the pretensions of party, commerce, and arts, are subjectswhich engage the attention of nations. The advantages gained in some ofthese particulars, determine the degree of national prosperity. The ardourand vigour with which they are at any one time pursued, is the measure of anational spirit. When those objects cease to animate, nations may be saidto languish; when they are during a considerable time neglected, statesmust decline, and their people degenerate. 

In the most forward, enterprising, inventive, and industrious nations, thisspirit is fluctuating; and they who continue longest to gain advantages, orto preserve them, have periods of remissness, as well as of ardour. Thedesire of public safety, is, at all times, a powerful motive of conduct;but it operates most when combined with occasional passions, whenprovocations inflame, when successes encourage, or mortificationsexasperate. 

A whole people, like the individuals of whom they are composed, act underthe influence of temporary humours, sanguine hopes, or vehementanimosities. They are disposed, at one time, to enter on national struggleswith vehemence; at another, to drop them from mere lassitude and disgust. In their civil debates and contentions at home, they are occasionallyardent or remiss. Epidemical passions arise or subside on trivial as wellas important grounds. Parties are ready, at one time, to take their namesand the pretence of their oppositions, from mere caprice or accident; atanother time, they suffer the most serious occasions to pass in silence. Ifa vein of literary genius be casually opened, or a new subject ofdisquisition be started, real or pretended discoveries suddenly multiply, and every conversation is inquisitive and animated. If a new source ofwealth be found, or a prospect of conquest be offered, the imaginations ofmen are inflamed, and whole quarters of the globe are suddenly engaged inruinous or in successful adventures. 

Could we recall the spirit that was exerted, or enter into the views thatwere entertained, by our ancestors, when they burst, like a deluge, fromtheir ancient seats, and poured into the Roman empire, we should probably, after their first success at least, find a ferment in the minds of men, forwhich no attempt was too arduous, no difficulties insurmountable. 

The subsequent ages of enterprise in Europe, were those in which the alarmof enthusiasm was rung, and the followers of the cross invaded the east, toplunder a country, and to recover a sepulchre; those in which the people indifferent states contended for freedom, and assaulted the fabric of civilor religious usurpation; that in which, having found means to cross theAtlantic, and to double the Cape of Good Hope, the inhabitants of one halfthe world were let loose on the other, and parties from every quarter, wading in blood, and at the expense of every crime, and of every danger, traversed the earth in search of gold. 

Even the weak and the remiss are roused to enterprise, by the contagion ofsuch remarkable ages; and states, which have not in their form theprinciples of a continued exertion, either favourable or adverse to thewelfare of mankind, may have paroxysms of ardour, and a temporaryappearance of national vigour. In the case of such nations, indeed, thereturns of moderation are but a relapse to obscurity, and the presumptionof one age is turned to dejection in that which succeeds. 

But in the case of states that are fortunate in, their domestic policy, even madness itself may, in the result of violent convulsions, subside intowisdom; and a people return to their ordinary mood, cured of their follies, and wiser by experience; or, with talents improved, in conducting the veryscenes which frenzy had opened, they may then appear best qualified topursue with success the object of nations. Like the ancient republics, immediately after some alarming sedition, or like the kingdom of GreatBritain, at the close of its civil wars, they retain the spirit of activitywhich was recently awakened, and are equally vigorous in every pursuit, whether of policy, learning, or arts. From having appeared on the brink ofruin, they pass to the greatest prosperity. )

Men engage in pursuits with degrees of ardour not proportioned to theimportance of their object. When they are stated in opposition, or joinedin confederacy, they only wish for pretences to act. They forget, in theheat of their animosities, the subject of their controversy; or they seek, in their formal reasonings concerning it, only a disguise for theirpassions. When the heart is inflamed, no consideration can repress itsardour; when its fervour subsides, no reasoning can excite, and noeloquence awaken its former emotions. 

The continuance of emulation among states must depend on the degree ofequality by which their forces are balanced; or on the incentives by whicheither party, or all, are urged to continue their struggles. Longintermissions of war, suffer, equally in every period of civil society, themilitary spirit to languish. (The reduction of Athens by Lysander, struck afatal blow at the institutions of Lycurgus; and the quiet possession ofItaly, happily perhaps for mankind, had almost put an end to the militaryprogress of the Romans. After some years repose, Hannibal found Italyunprepared for his onset, and the Romans in a disposition likely to drop, on the banks of the Po, that martial ambition, which being roused by thesense of a new danger, afterwards, carried them to the Euphrates and theRhine. )

States, even distinguished for military prowess, sometimes lay down theirarms from lassitude, and are weary of fruitless contentions; but if theymaintain the station of independent communities, they will have frequentoccasions to recall, and to exert their vigour. Even under populargovernments, men sometimes drop the consideration of their politicalrights, and appear at times remiss or supine; but if they have reserved thepower to defend themselves, the intermission of its exercise cannot be oflong duration. Political rights, when neglected, are always invaded; andalarms from this quarter must frequently come to renew the attention ofparties. The love of learning, and of arts, may change its pursuits, ordroop for a season; but while men are possessed of freedom, and while theexercises of ingenuity are not superseded, the public may proceed, atdifferent times, with unequal fervour; but its progress is seldomaltogether discontinued, or the advantages gained in one age are seldomentirely lost to the following. If we would find the causes of finalcorruption, we must examine those revolutions of state that remove, orwithhold, the objects of every ingenious study or liberal pursuit; thatdeprive the citizen of occasions to act as the member of a public; thatcrush his spirit; that debase his sentiments, and disqualify his mind foraffairs. 

SECTION III. 

OF RELAXATIONS IN THE NATIONAL SPIRIT INCIDENT TO POLISHED NATIONS. 

Improving nations, in the course of their advancement, have to strugglewith foreign enemies, to whom they bear an extreme animosity, and withwhom, in many conflicts, they contend for their existence as a people. Incertain periods, too, they feel in their domestic policy inconvenienciesand grievances, which beget an eager impatience; and they apprehendreformations and new establishments, from which they have sanguine hopes ofnational happiness. In early ages, every art is imperfect, and susceptibleof many improvements. The first principles of every science are yet secretsto be discovered, and to be successively published with applause andtriumph. 

We may fancy to ourselves, that in ages of progress, the human race, likescouts gone abroad on the discovery of fertile lands, having the world openbefore them, are presented at every step with the appearance of novelty. They enter on every new ground with expectation and joy: they engage inevery enterprise with the ardour of men, who believe they are going toarrive at national felicity, and permanent glory; and forget pastdisappointments amidst the hopes of future success. From mere ignorance, rude minds are intoxicated with every passion; and, partial to their owncondition, and to their own pursuits, they think that every scene isinferior to that in which they are placed. Roused alike by success and bymisfortune, they are sanguine, ardent, and precipitant; and leave, to themore knowing ages which succeed them, monuments of imperfect skill, and ofrude execution of every art; but they leave likewise the marks of avigorous and ardent spirit, which their successors are not always qualifiedto sustain, or to imitate. 

This may be admitted, perhaps, as a fair description of prosperoussocieties, at least during certain periods of their progress. The spiritwith which they advance may be unequal in different ages, and may have itsparoxysms and intermissions, arising from the inconstancy of humanpassions, and from the casual appearance or removal of occasions thatexcite them. But does this spirit, which for a time continues to carry onthe project of civil and commercial arts, find a natural pause in thetermination of its own pursuits? May the business of civil society beaccomplished, and may the occasion of farther exertion be removed? Docontinued disappointments reduce sanguine hopes, and familiarity withobjects blunt the edge of novelty? Does experience itself cool the ardourof the mind? May the society be again compared to the individual? And mayit be suspected, although the vigour of a nation, like that of a naturalbody, does not waste by a physical decay, that yet it may sicken for wantof exercise, and die in the close of its own exertions? May societies, inthe completion of all their designs, like men in years, who disregard theamusements, and are insensible to the passions of youth, become cold andindifferent to objects that used to animate in a ruder age? And may apolished community be compared to a man who, having executed his plan, built his house, and made his settlement; who having, in short, exhaustedthe charms of every subject, and wasted all his ardour, sinks into languorand listless indifference? If so, we have found at least another simile toour purpose. But it is probable, that here too the resemblance isimperfect; and the inference that would follow, like that of most argumentsdrawn from analogy, tends rather to amuse the fancy, than to give any realinformation on the subject to which it refers. 

The materials of human art are never entirely exhausted, and theapplications of industry are never at an end. The national ardour is not, at any particular time, proportioned to the occasion there is for activity;nor the curiosity of the learned to the extent of subject that remains tobe studied. 

The ignorant and the artless, to whom objects of science are new, and whosemanner of life is most simple, instead of being more active and morecurious, are commonly more quiescent, and less inquisitive, than those whoare best furnished with knowledge and the conveniencies of life. When wecompare the particulars which occupy mankind in the beginning and in theadvanced age of commercial arts, these particulars will be found greatlymultiplied and enlarged in the last. The questions we have put, however, deserve to be answered; and if, in the result of commerce, we do not findthe objects of human pursuit removed, or greatly diminished, we may findthem at least changed; and in estimating the national spirit, we may finda negligence in one part, but ill compensated by the growing attentionwhich is paid to another. 

It is true, in general, that in all our pursuits, there is a termination oftrouble, and a point of repose to which we aspire. We would remove thisinconvenience, or gain that advantage, that our labours may cease. When Ihave conquered Italy and Sicily, says Pyrrhus, I shall then enjoy myrepose. This termination is proposed in our national, as well as in ourpersonal exertions; and, in spite of frequent experience to the contrary, is considered, at a distance, as the height of felicity. But nature haswisely, in most particulars, baffled our project; and placed no wherewithin our reach this visionary blessing of absolute ease. The attainmentof one end is but the beginning of a new pursuit; and the discovery of oneart is but a prolongation of the thread by which we are conducted tofurther inquiries, and while we hope to escape from the labyrinth, are ledto its most intricate paths. 

Among the occupations that may be enumerated, as tending to exercise theinvention, and to cultivate the talents of men, are the pursuits ofaccommodation and wealth, including all the different contrivances whichserve to increase manufactures, and to perfect the mechanical arts. But itmust be owned, that as the materials of commerce may continue to beaccumulated without any determinate limit, so the arts which are applied toimprove them, may admit of perpetual refinements. No measure of fortune, ordegree of skill, is found to diminish the supposed necessities of humanlife; refinement and plenty foster new desires, while they furnish themeans, or practise the methods, to gratify them. 

In the result of commercial arts, inequalities of fortune are greatlyincreased, and the majority, of every people are obliged by necessity, orat least strongly incited by ambition and avarice; to employ every talentthey possess. After a history of some thousand years employed inmanufacture and commerce, the inhabitants of China are still the mostlaborious and industrious of any people on earth. 

Some part of this observation may be extended to the elegant and literaryarts. They too have their materials which cannot be exhausted, and proceedfrom desires which cannot be satiated. But the respect paid to literarymerit is fluctuating, and matter of transient fashion. When learnedproductions accumulate, the acquisition of knowledge occupies the time thatmight be bestowed on invention. The object of mere learning is attainedwith moderate or inferior talents, and the growing list of pretendersdiminishes the lustre of the few who are eminent. When we only mean tolearn what others have taught, it is probable that even our knowledge willbe less than that of our masters. Great names continue to be repeated withadmiration, after we have ceased to examine the foundations of our praise;and new pretenders are rejected, not because they fall short of theirpredecessors, but because they do not excel them; or because in reality wehave, without examination, taken for granted the merit of the first, andcannot judge of either. 

After libraries are furnished, and every path of ingenuity is occupied, weare, in proportion to our admiration of what is already done, prepossessedagainst farther attempts. We become students and admirers, instead ofrivals; and substitute the knowledge of books, instead of the inquisitiveor animated spirit in which they were written. 

The commercial and the lucrative arts may continue to prosper, but theygain an ascendant at the expense of other pursuits. The desire of profitstifles the love of perfection. Interest cools the imagination, and hardensthe heart; and, recommending employments in proportion as they arelucrative, and certain in their gains, it drives ingenuity, and ambitionitself, to the counter and the workshop. But, apart from theseconsiderations, the separation of professions, while it seems to promiseimprovement of skill, and is actually the cause why the productions ofevery art become more perfect as commerce advances; yet, in its terminationand ultimate effects, serves, in some measure, to break the bands ofsociety, to substitute mere forms and rules of art in place of ingenuity, and to withdraw individuals from the common scene of occupation, on whichthe sentiments of the heart, and the mind, are most happily employed. 

Under the _distinction_ of callings, by which the members of polishedsociety are separated from each other, every individual is supposed topossess his species of talent, or his peculiar skill, in which the othersare confessedly ignorant; and society is made to consist of parts, of whichnone is animated with the spirit that ought to prevail in the conduct ofnations. "We see in the same persons, " said Pericles, "an equal attentionto private and to public affairs; and in men who have turned to separateprofessions, a competent knowledge of what relates to the community; for wealone consider those who are inattentive to the state, as perfectlyinsignificant. " This encomium on the Athenians was probably offered underan apprehension, that the contrary was likely to be charged by theirenemies, or might soon take place. It happened, accordingly, that thebusiness of state, as well as of war, came to be worse administered atAthens, when these, as well as other applications, became the object ofseparate professions; and the history of this people abundantly shewed, that men ceased to be citizens, even to be good poets and orators, inproportion as they came to be distinguished by the profession of these, andother separate crafts. 

Animals less honoured than we, have sagacity enough to procure their food, and to find the means of their solitary pleasures; but it is reserved forman to consult, to persuade, to oppose, to kindle in the society of hisfellow creatures, and to lose the sense of his personal interest or safety, in the ardour of his friendships and his oppositions. 

When we are involved in any of the divisions into which mankind areseparated under the denominations of a country, a tribe, or an order of menany way affected by common interests, and guided by communicating passions, the mind recognises its natural station; the sentiments of the heart, andthe talents of the understanding, find their natural exercise. Wisdom, vigilance, fidelity, and fortitude, are the characters requisite in such ascene, and the qualities which it tends to improve. 

In simple or barbarous ages, when nations are weak, and beset with enemies, the love of a country, of a party, or a faction, are the same. The publicis a knot of friends, and its enemies are the rest of mankind. Death, orslavery, are the ordinary evils which they are concerned to ward off;victory and dominion, the objects to which they aspire. Under the sense ofwhat they may suffer from foreign invasions, it is one object, in everyprosperous society, to increase its force, and to extend its limits. Inproportion as this object is gained, security increases. They who possessthe interior districts, remote from the frontier, are unused to alarms fromabroad. They who are placed on the extremities, remote from the seats ofgovernment, are unused to hear of political interests; and the publicbecomes an object perhaps too extensive for the conceptions of either. Theyenjoy the protection of its laws, or of its armies; and they boast of itssplendour, and its power; but the glowing sentiments of public affection, which, in small states, mingle with the tenderness of the parent and thelover, of the friend and the companion, merely by having their objectenlarged, lose great part of their force. 

The manners of rude nations require to be reformed. Their foreign quarrels, and domestic dissentions, are the operations of extreme and sanguinarypassions. A state of greater tranquillity hath many happy effects. But ifnations pursue the plan of enlargement and pacification, till their memberscan no longer apprehend the common ties of society, nor be engaged byaffection in the cause of their country, they must err on the oppositeside, and by leaving too little to agitate the spirits of men, bring onages of languor, if not of decay. 

The members of a community may, in this manner, like the inhabitants of aconquered province, be made to lose the sense of every connection, but thatof kindred or neighbourhood; and have no common affairs to transact, butthose of trade: connections, indeed, or transactions, in which probity andfriendship may still take place; but in which the national spirit, whoseebbs and flows we are now considering, cannot be exerted. 

What we observe, however, on the tendency of enlargement to loosen thebands of political union, cannot be applied to nations who, beingoriginally narrow, never greatly extended their limits; nor to those who, in a rude state, had already the extension of a great kingdom. 

In territories of considerable extent, subject to one government, andpossessed of freedom, the national union, in rude ages, is extremelyimperfect. Every district forms a separate party; and the descendants ofdifferent families are opposed to each other, under the denomination oftribes or of clans: they are seldom brought to act with a steady concert;their feuds and animosities give more frequently the appearance of so manynations at war, than of a people united by connections of policy. Theyacquire a spirit, however, in their private divisions, and in the midst ofa disorder, otherwise hurtful, of which the force, on many occasions, redounds to the power of the state. 

Whatever be the national extent, civil order, and regular government, areadvantages of the greatest importance; but it does not follow, that everyarrangement made to obtain these ends, and which may, in the making, exercise and cultivate the best qualities of men, is therefore of a natureto produce permanent effects, and to secure the preservation of thatnational spirit from which it arose. 

We have reason to dread the political refinements of ordinary men, when weconsider that repose, or inaction itself, is in a great measure theirobject; and that they would frequently model their governments, not merelyto prevent injustice and error, but to prevent agitation and bustle; and bythe barriers they raise against the evil actions of men, would prevent themfrom acting at all. Every dispute of a free people, in the opinion of suchpoliticians, amounts to disorder, and a breach of the national peace. Whatheart burnings? What delay to affairs? What want of secrecy and despatch?What defect of police? Men of superior genius sometimes seem to imagine, that the vulgar have no title to act, or to think. A great prince ispleased to ridicule the precaution by which judges in a free country areconfined to the strict interpretation of law. [Footnote: Memoirs ofBrandenburg. ]

We easily learn to contract our opinions of what men may, in consistencewith public order, be safely permitted to do. The agitations of a republic, and the license of its members, strike the subjects of monarchy withaversion and disgust. The freedom with which the European is left totraverse the streets and the fields, would appear to a Chinese a sureprelude to confusion and anarchy. "Can men behold their superior and nottremble? Can they converse without a precise and written ceremonial? Whathopes of peace, if, the streets are not barricaded at an hour? What wilddisorder, if men are permitted in any thing to do what they please?"

If the precautions which men thus take against each other, be necessary torepress their crimes, and do not arise from a corrupt ambition, or fromcruel jealousy in their rulers, the proceeding itself must be applauded, asthe best remedy of which the vices of men will admit. The viper must beheld at a distance, and the tyger chained. But if a rigorous policy, applied to enslave, not to restrain from crimes, has an actual tendency tocorrupt the manners, and to extinguish the spirit of nations; if itsseverities be applied to terminate the agitations of a free people, not toremedy their corruptions; if forms be often applauded as salutary, becausethey tend merely to silence the voice of mankind, or be condemned aspernicious, because they allow this voice to be heard; we may expect thatmany of the boasted improvements of civil society, will be mere devices tolay the political spirit at rest, and will chain up the active virtues morethan the restless disorders of men. 

If to any people it be the avowed object of policy in all its internalrefinements, to secure only the person and the property of the subject, without any regard to his political character, the constitution indeed maybe free, but its members may likewise become unworthy of the freedom theypossess, and unfit to preserve it. The effects of such a constitution maybe to immerse all orders of men in their separate pursuits of pleasure, which they may on this supposition enjoy with little disturbance; or ofgain, which they may preserve without any attention to the commonwealth. 

If this be the end of political struggles, the design, when executed, insecuring to the individual his estate, and the means of subsistence, mayput an end to the exercise of those very virtues that were required inconducting its execution. A man who, in concert with his fellow subjects, contends with usurpation in defence of his estate or his person, may inthat very struggle have found an exertion of great generosity, and of avigorous spirit; but he who, under political establishments, supposed to befully confirmed, betakes him, because he is safe, to the mere enjoyment offortune, has in fact turned to a source of corruption the advantages whichthe virtues of the other procured. Individuals, in certain ages, derivetheir protection chiefly from the strength of the party to which theyadhere; but in tithes of corruption they flatter themselves; that they maycontinue to derive from the public that safety which, in former ages, theymust have owed to their own vigilance and spirit, to the warm attachment oftheir friends, and to the exercise of every talent which could render themrespected, feared, or beloved. In one period, therefore, mere circumstancesserve to excite the spirit, and to preserve the manners of men; in another, great wisdom and zeal for the good of mankind on the part of their leaders, are required for the same purposes. 

Rome, it may be thought, did not die of a lethargy, nor perish by theremission of her political ardours at home. Her distemper appeared of anature more violent and acute. Yet if the virtues of Cato and of Brutusfound an exercise in the dying hour of the republic, the neutrality, andthe cautious retirement of Atticus, found its security in the sametempestuous season; and the great body of the people lay undisturbed belowthe current of a storm, by which the superior ranks of men were destroyed. In the minds of the people the sense of a public was defaced; and even theanimosity of faction had subsided: they only could share in the commotion, who were the soldiers of a legion, or the partisans of a leader. But thisstate fell not into obscurity for want of eminent men. If at the time ofwhich we speak, we look only for a few names distinguished in the historyof mankind, there is no period at which the list was more numerous. Butthose names became distinguished in the contest for dominion, not in theexercise of equal rights: the people was corrupted; so great an empirestood in need of a master. 

Republican governments, in general, are in hazard of ruin from theascendant of particular factions, and from the mutinous spirit of apopulace, who, being corrupted, are no longer fit to share in theadministration of state. But under other establishments, where liberty maybe more successfully attained if men are corrupted, the national vigourdeclines from the abuse of that very security which is procured by thesupposed perfection of public order. 

A distribution of power and office; an execution of law, by which mutualencroachments and molestations are brought to an end; by which the personand the property are, without friends, without cabal, without obligation, perfectly secured to individuals, does honour to the genius of a nation;and could not have been fully established, without those exertions ofunderstanding and integrity, those trials of a resolute and vigorousspirit, which adorn the annals of a people, and leave to future ages asubject of just admiration and applause. But if we suppose that the end isattained, and that men no longer act, in the enjoyment of liberty fromliberal sentiments, or with a view to the preservation of public manners;if individuals think themselves secure without any attention or effort oftheir own; this boasted advantage may be found only to give them anopportunity of enjoying, at leisure, the conveniencies and necessaries oflife; or, in the language of Cato, teach them to value their houses, theirvillas, their statues, and their pictures, at a higher rate than they dothe republic. They may be found to grow tired in secret of a freeconstitution, of which they never cease to boast in their conversation, andwhich they always neglect in their conduct. 

The dangers to liberty are not the subject of our present consideration;but they can never be greater from any cause than they are from thesupposed remissness of a people, to whose personal vigour everyconstitution, as it owed its establishment, so must continue to owe itspreservation. Nor is this blessing ever less secure than it is in thepossession of men who think that they enjoy it in safety, and who thereforeconsider the public only as it presents to their avarice a number oflucrative employments; for the sake of which, they may sacrifice those veryrights which render themselves objects of management or of consideration. 

From the tendency of these reflections, then, it should appear, that anational spirit is frequently transient, not on account of any incurabledistemper in the nature of mankind, but on account of their voluntaryneglects and corruptions. This spirit subsisted solely, perhaps, in theexecution of a few projects, entered into for the acquisition of territoryor wealth; it comes, like a useless weapon, to be laid aside after its endis attained. 

Ordinary establishments terminate in a relaxation of vigour, and areineffectual to the preservation of states; because they lead mankind torely on their arts, instead of their virtues; and to mistake for animprovement of human nature, a mere accession of accommodation, or ofriches. [Footnote: Adeo in quae laboramus sola crevimus Divitias luxuriamque. Liv. Lib. Vii. C. 25. ] Institutions that fortify the mind, inspire courage, and promote national felicity, can never tend to national ruin. 

Is it not possible, amidst our admiration of arts, to find some place forthese? Let statesmen, who are intrusted with the government of nations, reply for themselves. It is their business to shew, whether they climb intostations of eminence, merely to display a passion of interest, which theyhad better indulge in obscurity; and whether they have capacity tounderstand the happiness of a people, the conduct of whose affairs they areso willing to undertake. 

SECTION IV. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

Men frequently, while they are engaged in what is accounted the mostselfish of all pursuits, the improvement of fortune, then most neglectthemselves; and while they reason for their country, forget theconsiderations that most deserve their attention. Numbers, riches, and theother resources of war, are highly important: but nations consist of men;and a nation consisting of degenerate and cowardly men, is weak; a nationconsisting of vigorous, public spirited, and resolute men, is strong. Theresources of war, where other advantages are equal, may decide a contest;but the resources of war, in hands that cannot employ them, are of noavail. 

Virtue is a necessary constituent of national strength: capacity, and avigorous understanding, are no less necessary to sustain the fortune ofstates. Both are improved by discipline, and by the exercises in which menare engaged. We despise, or we pity the lot of mankind, while they livedunder uncertain establishments, and were obliged to sustain in the sameperson, the character of the senator, the statesman, and the soldier. Commercial nations discover, that any one of these characters is sufficientin one person; and that the ends of each, when disjoined, are more easilyaccomplished. The first, however, were circumstances under which nationsadvanced and prospered; the second were those in which the spirit relaxed, and the nation went to decay. 

We may, with good reason, congratulate our species on their having escapedfrom a state of barbarous disorder and violence, into a state of domesticpeace and regular policy; when they have sheathed the dagger, and disarmedthe animosities of civil contention; when the weapons with which theycontend are the reasonings of the wise, and the tongue of the eloquent. Butwe cannot, mean time, help to regret, that they should ever proceed, insearch of perfection, to place every branch of administration behind thecounter, and come to employ, instead of the statesman and warrior, the mereclerk and accountant. 

By carrying this system to its height, men are educated, who could copy forCaesar his military instructions, or even execute a part of his plans; butnone who could act in all the different scenes for which the leader himselfmust be qualified, in the state and in the field, in times of order or oftumult, in times of division or of unanimity; none who could animate thecouncil when deliberating on domestic affairs, or when alarmed by attacksfrom abroad. 

The policy of China is the most perfect model of an arrangement at whichthe ordinary refinements of government are aimed; and the inhabitants ofthat empire possess, in the highest degree, those arts on which vulgarminds make the felicity and greatness of nations to depend. The state hasacquired, in a measure unequalled in the history of mankind, numbers ofmen, and the other resources of war. They have done what we are very apt toadmire: they have brought national affairs to the level of the meanestcapacity; they have broke them into parts, and thrown them into separatedepartments; they have clothed every proceeding with splendid ceremonies, and majestical forms; and where the reverence of forms cannot repressdisorder, a rigorous and severe police, armed with every species ofcorporal punishment, is applied to the purpose. The whip, and the cudgel, are held up to all orders of men; they are at once employed, and they aredreaded, by every magistrate. A mandarine is whipped, for having ordered apickpocket to receive too few or too many blows. 

Every department of state is made the object of a separate profession, andevery candidate for office must have passed through a regular education;and, as in the graduations of the university, must have obtained by hisproficiency, or his standing, the degree to which he aspires. The tribunalsof state, of war, and of the revenue, as well as of literature, areconducted by graduates in their different studies; but while learning isthe great road to preferment, it terminates in being able to read, and towrite; and the great object of government consists in raising, and inconsuming the fruits of the earth. With all these resources, and thislearned preparation, which is made to turn these resources to use, thestate is in reality weak; has repeatedly given the example which we seek toexplain; and among the doctors of war or of policy, among the millions whoare set apart for the military profession, can find none of its members whoare fit to stand forth in the dangers of their country, or to form adefence against the repeated inroads of an enemy reputed to be artless andmean. 

It is difficult to tell how long the decay of states might be suspended, bythe cultivation of arts on which their real felicity and strength depend;by cultivating in the higher ranks those talents for the council and thefield, which cannot, without great disadvantage, be separated; and in thebody of a people, that zeal for their country, and that military character, which enable them to take a share in defending its rights. 

Times may come, when every proprietor must defend his own possessions, andevery free people maintain their own independence. We may imagine, that, against such an extremity, an army of hired troops is a sufficientprecaution; but their own troops are the very enemy against which a peopleis sometimes obliged to fight. We may flatter ourselves, that extremitiesof this sort, in any particular case, are remote; but we cannot, inreasoning on the general fortunes of mankind, avoid putting the case, andreferring to the examples in which it has happened. It has happened inevery instance where the polished have fallen a prey to the rude, and wherethe pacific inhabitant has been reduced to subjection by military force. 

If the defence and government of a people be made to depend on a few, whomake the conduct of state or of war their profession; whether these beforeigners or natives; whether they be called away of a sudden, like theRoman legion from Britain; whether they turn against their employers, likethe army of Carthage; or be overpowered and dispersed by a stroke offortune; the multitude of a cowardly and undisciplined people must, uponsuch an emergence; receive a foreign or a domestic enemy, as they would aplague or an earthquake, with hopeless amazement and terror, and by theirnumbers, only swell the triumphs, and enrich the spoil of a conqueror. 

Statesmen and leaders of armies, accustomed to the mere observance offorms, are disconcerted by a suspension of customary rules; and on slightgrounds despair of their country. They were qualified only to go the roundsof a particular track; and when forced from their stations, are in realityunable to act with men. They only took part in formalities, of which theyunderstood not the tendency; and together with the modes of procedure, eventhe very state itself, in their apprehension, has ceased to exist. Thenumbers, possessions, and resources of a great people, only serve, in theirview, to constitute a scene of hopeless confusion and terror. 

In rude ages, under the appellations of _a community, a people_, or_a nation_, was understood a number of men; and the state, while itsmembers remained, was accounted entire. The Scythians, while they fledbefore Darius, mocked at his childish attempt; Athens survived thedevastations of Xerxes; and Rome, in its rude state, those of the Gauls. With polished and mercantile states, the case is sometimes reversed. Thenation is a territory, cultivated and improved by its owners; destroy thepossession, even while the master remains, the state is undone. 

The weakness and effeminacy of which polished nations are sometimesaccused, has its place probably in the mind alone. The strength of animals, and that of man in particular, depends on his feeding; and the kind oflabour to which he is used. Wholesome food, and hard labour, the portion ofmany in every polished and commercial nation, secure to the public a numberof men endued with bodily strength, and inured to hardship and toil. 

Even delicate living, and good accommodation, are not found to enervate thebody. The armies of Europe have been obliged to make the experiment; andthe children of opulent families, bred in effeminacy, or nursed with tendercare, have been made to contend with the savage. By imitating his arts, they have learned, like him, to traverse the forest; and, in every season, to subsist in the desert. They have, perhaps, recovered a lesson, which ithas cost civilized nations many ages to unlearn, that the fortune of a manis entire while he remains possessed of himself. 

It may be thought, however, that few of the celebrated nations ofantiquity, whose fate has given rise to so much reflection on thevicissitudes of human affairs, had made any great progress in thoseenervating arts we have mentioned; or made those arrangements from whichthe danger in question could be supposed to arise. The Greeks, inparticular, at the time they received the Macedonian yoke, had certainlynot carried the commercial arts to so great a height as is common with themost flourishing and prosperous nations of Europe. They had still retainedthe form of independent republics; the people were generally admitted to ashare in the government; and not being able to hire armies, they wereobliged, by necessity, to bear a part in the defence of their country. Bytheir frequent wars and domestic commotions, they were accustomed todanger, and were familiar with alarming situations; they were accordinglystill accounted the best soldiers and the best statesmen of the knownworld. The younger Cyrus promised himself the empire of Asia by means oftheir aid; and after his fall, a body of ten thousand, although bereft oftheir leaders, baffled, in their retreat, all the military force of thePersian empire. The victor of Asia did not think himself prepared for thatconquest, till he had formed an army from the subdued republics of Greece. 

It is, however, true, that in the age of Philip, the military and politicalspirit of those nations appears to have been considerably impaired, and tohave suffered, perhaps, from the variety of interests and pursuits, as wellas of pleasures, with which their members came to be occupied; they evenmade a kind of separation between the civil and military character. Phocion, we are told by Plutarch, having observed that the leading men ofhis time followed different courses, that some applied themselves to civil, others to military affairs, determined rather to follow the examples ofThemistocles, Aristides, and Pericles, the leaders of a former age, whowere equally prepared for either. 

We find in the orations of Demosthenes, a perpetual reference to this stateof manners. We find him exhorting the Athenians not only to declare war, but to arm themselves for the execution of their own military plans. Wefind that there was an order of military men, who easily passed from theservice of one state to that of another; and who, when they were neglectedfrom home, turned away to enterprises on their own account. There were not, perhaps, better warriors in any former age; but those warriors were notattached to any state; and the settled inhabitants of every city thoughtthemselves disqualified for military service. The discipline of armies wasperhaps improved; but the vigour of nations was gone to decay. When Philip, or Alexander, defeated the Grecian armies, which were chiefly composed ofsoldiers of fortune, they found an easy conquest with the otherinhabitants; and when the latter, afterwards supported by those soldiers, invaded the Persian empire, he seems to have left little martial spiritbehind him; and by removing the military men, to have taken precautionenough, in his absence, to secure his dominion over this mutinous andrefractory people. 

The subdivision of arts and professions, in, certain examples, tends toimprove the practice of them, and to promote their ends. By havingseparated the arts of the clothier and the tanner, we are the bettersupplied with shoes and with cloth. But to separate the arts which form thecitizen and the statesman, the arts of policy and war, is an attempt todismember the human character, and to destroy those very arts we mean toimprove. By this separation, we in effect deprive a free people of what isnecessary to their safety; or we prepare a defence against invasions fromabroad, which gives a prospect of usurpation, and threatens theestablishment of military government at home. 

We may be surprised to find the beginning of certain military instructionsat Rome, referred to a time no earlier than that of the Cimbric war. It wasthen, we are told by Valerius Maximus, that Roman soldiers were made tolearn from gladiators the use of a sword: and the antagonists of Pyrrhusand of Hannibal were, by the account of this writer, still in need ofinstruction in the first rudiments of their trade. They had already, by theorder and choice of their encampments, impressed the Grecian invader withawe and respect; they had already, not by their victories, but by theirnational vigour and firmness, under repeated defeats, induced him to suefor peace. But the haughty Roman, perhaps, knew the advantage of order andof union, without having been broke to the inferior arts of the mercenarysoldier; and had the courage to face the enemies of his country, withouthaving practised the use of his weapon under the fear of being whipped. Hecould ill be persuaded that a time might come, when refined and intelligentnations would make the art of war to consist in a few technical forms; thatcitizens and soldiers might come to be distinguished as much as women andmen; that the citizen would become possessed of a property which he wouldnot be able, or required, to defend; that the soldier would be appointed tokeep for another what he would be taught to desire, and what he alone wouldbe enabled to seize and to keep for himself; that, in short, one set of menwere to have an interest in the preservation of civil establishments, without the power to defend them; that the other were to have this power, without either the inclination or the interest. 

This people, however, by degrees came to put their military force on thevery footing to which this description alludes. Marius made a capitalchange in the manner of levying soldiers at Rome: he filled his legionswith the mean and the indigent, who depended on military pay forsubsistence; he created a force which rested on mere discipline alone, andthe skill of the gladiator; he taught his troops to employ their swordsagainst the constitution of their country, and set the example of apractice which was soon adopted and improved by his successors. 

The Romans only meant by their armies to encroach on the freedom of othernations, while they preserved their own. They forgot, that in assemblingsoldiers of fortune, and in suffering any leader to be master of adisciplined army, they actually resigned their political rights, andsuffered a master to arise for the state. This people, in short, whoseruling passion was depredation and conquest, perished by the recoil of anengine which they themselves had erected against mankind. 

The boasted refinements, then, of the polished age, are not divested ofdanger. They open a door, perhaps, to disaster, as wide and accessible asany of those they have shut. If they build walls and ramparts, theyenervate the minds of those who are placed to defend them; if they formdisciplined armies, they reduce the military spirit of entire nations; andby placing the sword where they have given a distaste to civilestablishments, they prepare for mankind the government of force. 

It is happy for the nations of Europe, that the disparity between thesoldier and the pacific citizen can never be so great as it became amongthe Greeks and the Romans. In the use of modern arms, the novice is made tolearn, and to practise with ease, all that the veteran knows; and if toteach him were a matter of real difficulty, happy are they who are notdeterred by such difficulties, and who can discover the arts which tend tofortify and preserve, not to enervate and ruin their country. 

SECTION V. 

OF NATIONAL WASTE. 

The strength of nations consists in the wealth, the numbers, and thecharacter of their people. The history of their progress from a state ofrudeness, is, for the most part, a detail of the struggles they havemaintained, and of the arts they have practised, to strengthen, or tosecure themselves. Their conquests, their population, and their commerce, their civil and military arrangements, their skill in the construction ofweapons, and in the methods of attack and defence; the very distribution oftasks, whether in private business or in public affairs, either tend tobestow, or promise to employ with advantage the constituents of a nationalforce, and the resources of war. 

If we suppose that, together with these advantages, the military characterof a people remains, or is improved, it must follow, that what is gained incivilization, is a real increase of strength; and that the ruin of nationscould never take its rise from themselves. Where states have stopped shortin their progress, or have actually gone to decay, we may suspect, thathowever disposed to advance, they have found a limit, beyond which theycould not proceed; or from a remission of the national spirit, and aweakness of character, were unable to make the most of their resources, andnatural advantages. On this supposition, from being stationary, they maybegin to relapse, and by a retrograde motion in a succession of ages, arrive at a state of greater weakness, than that which they quitted in thebeginning of their progress; and with the appearance of better arts, andsuperior conduct, expose themselves to become a prey to barbarians, whom, in the attainment, or the height of their glory, they had easily baffled ordespised. 

Whatever may be the natural wealth of a people, or whatever may be thelimits beyond which they cannot improve on their stock, it is probable, that no nation has ever reached those limits, or has been able to postponeits misfortunes, and the effects of misconduct, until its fund ofmaterials, and the fertility of its soil, were exhausted, or the numbers ofits people were greatly reduced. The same errors in policy, and weakness ofmanners, which prevent the proper use of resources, likewise check theirincrease, or improvement. The wealth of the state consists in the fortuneof its members. The actual revenue of the state is that share of everyprivate fortune, which the public has been accustomed to demand fornational purposes. This revenue cannot be always proportioned to what maybe supposed redundant in the private estate, but to what is, in somemeasure, thought so by the owner; and to what he may be made to spare, without intrenching on his manner of living, and without suspending hisprojects of expense, or of commerce. It should appear, therefore, that anyimmoderate increase of private expense is a prelude to national weakness:government, even while each of its subjects consumes a princely estate, maybe straitened in point of revenue, and the paradox be explained by example, that the public is poor while its members are rich. 

We are frequently led into error by mistaking money for riches; we thinkthat a people cannot be impoverished by a waste of money which is spentamong themselves. The fact is, that men are impoverished only in two ways;either by having their gains suspended, or by having their substanceconsumed; and money expended at home, being circulated, and not consumed, cannot, any more than the exchange of a tally, or a counter, among acertain number of hands, tend to diminish the wealth of the company amongwhom it is handed about. But while money circulates at home, thenecessaries of life, which are the real constituents of wealth, may be idlyconsumed; the industry which might be employed to increase the stock of apeople, may be suspended, or turned to abuse. 

Great armies, maintained either at home or abroad, without any nationalobject, are so many mouths unnecessarily opened to waste the stores of thepublic, and so many hands withheld from the arts by which its profits aremade. Unsuccessful enterprises are so many ventures thrown away, and lossessustained, proportioned to the capital employed in the service. TheHelvetii, in order to invade the Roman province of Gaul, burnt theirhabitations, dropt their instruments of husbandry, and consumed in one yearthe savings of many. The enterprise failed of success, and the nation wasundone. 

States have endeavoured, in some instances, by pawning their credit, instead of employing their capital, to disguise the hazards they ran. Theyhave found, in the loans they raised, a casual resource, which encouragedtheir enterprises. They have seemed, by their manner of erectingtransferable funds, to leave the capital for purposes of trade, in thehands of the subject, while it is actually expended by the government. Theyhave, by these means, proceeded to the execution of great nationalprojects, without suspending private industry, and have left future ages toanswer, in part, for debts contracted with a view to future emolument. Sofar the expedient is plausible, and appears to be just. The growing burdentoo, is thus gradually laid; and if a nation be to sink in some future age, every minister hopes it may still keep afloat in his own. But the measure, for this very reason, is, with all its advantages, extremely dangerous, inthe hands of a precipitant and ambitious administration, regarding only thepresent occasion, and imagining a state to be inexhaustible, while acapital can be borrowed, and the interest be paid. 

We are told of a nation who, during a certain period, rivalled the gloriesof the ancient world, threw off the dominion of a master armed against themwith the powers of a great kingdom, broke the yoke with which they had beenoppressed, and almost within the course of a century raised, by theirindustry and national vigour, a new and formidable power, which struck theformer potentates of Europe with awe and suspense, and turned the badges ofpoverty with which they set out, into the ensigns of war and dominion. Thisend was attained by the great efforts of a spirit awakened by oppression, by a successful pursuit of national wealth, and by a rapid anticipation offuture revenue. But this illustrious state is supposed not only, in thelanguage of a former section, to have pre-occupied the business; they havesequestered the inheritance of many ages to come. 

Great national expense, however, does not imply the necessity of anynational suffering. While revenue is applied with success to obtain somevaluable end, the profits of every adventure, being more than sufficient torepay its costs, the public should gain, and its resources should continueto multiply. But an expense, whether sustained at home or abroad, whether awaste of the present, or an anticipation of future, revenue, if it bring noproper return, is to be reckoned among the causes of national ruin. 

AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY

 * * * * *

PART SIXTH

OF CORRUPTION AND POLITICAL SLAVERY. 

 * * * * *

SECTION I. 

OF CORRUPTION IN GENERAL. 

If the fortune of nations, and their tendency to aggrandizement, or toruin, were to be estimated by merely balancing, on the principles of thelast section, articles of profit and loss, every argument in politics wouldrest on a comparison of national expense with national gain; on acomparison of the numbers who consume, with those who produce or amass thenecessaries of life. The columns of the industrious, and the idle, wouldinclude all orders of men; and the state itself, being allowed as manymagistrates, politicians, and warriors, as were barely sufficient for itsdefence and its government, should place, on the side of its loss, everyname that is supernumerary on the civil or the military list; all thoseorders of men, who, by the possession of fortune, subsist on the gains ofothers, and by the nicety of their choice, require a great expense of timeand of labour, to supply their consumption; all those who are idly employedin the train of persons of rank; all those who are engaged in theprofessions of law, physic, or divinity, together with all the learned whodo not, by their studies, promote or improve the practice of some lucrativetrade. The value of every person, in short, should be computed from hislabour; and that of labour itself, from its tendency to procure and amassthe means of subsistence. The arts employed on mere superfluities should beprohibited, except when their produce could be exchanged with foreignnations, for commodities that might be employed to maintain useful men forthe public. 

These appear to be the rules by which a miser would examine the state ofhis own affairs, or those of his country; but schemes of perfect corruptionare at least as impracticable as schemes of perfect virtue. Men are notuniversally misers; they will not be satisfied with the pleasure ofhoarding; they must be suffered to enjoy their wealth, in order that theymay take the trouble of becoming rich. Property, in the common course ofhuman affairs, is unequally divided: we are therefore obliged to suffer thewealthy to squander, that the poor may subsist: we are obliged to toleratecertain orders of men, who are above the necessity of labour, in orderthat, in their condition, there may be an object of ambition, and a rank towhich the busy aspire. We are not only obliged to admit numbers, who, instrict economy, may be reckoned superfluous, on the civil, the military, and the political list; but because we are men, and prefer the occupation, improvement, and felicity of our nature, to its mere existence, we musteven wish, that as many members as possible, of every community, may beadmitted to a share of its defence and its government. 

Men, in fact, while they pursue in society different objects, or separateviews, procure a wide distribution of power, and by a species of chance, arrive at a posture for civil engagements, more favourable to human naturethan what human wisdom could ever calmly devise. 

If the strength of a nation, in the mean-time, consists in the men on whomit may rely, and who are fortunately or wisely combined for itspreservation, it follows, that manners are as important as either numbersor wealth; and that corruption is to be accounted a principal cause of thenational declension and ruin. 

Whoever perceives what are the qualities of man in his excellence, mayeasily, by that standard, distinguish his defects or corruptions. If anintelligent, a courageous, and an affectionate mind, constitutes theperfection of his nature, remarkable failings in any of those particularsmust proportionally sink or debase his character. 

We have observed, that it is the happiness of the individual to make aright choice of his conduct; that this choice will lead him to lose insociety the sense of a personal interest; and, in the consideration of whatis due to the whole, to stifle those anxieties which relate to himself as apart. 

The natural disposition of man to humanity, and the warmth of his temper, may raise his character to this fortunate pitch. His elevation, in a greatmeasure, depends on the form of his society; but he can, without incurringthe charge of corruption, accommodate himself to great variations in theconstitutions of government. The same integrity, and vigorous spirit, which, in democratical states, renders him tenacious of his equality, may, under aristocracy or monarchy, lead him to maintain the subordinationsestablished. He may entertain, towards the different ranks of men with whomhe is yoked in the state, maxims of respect and of candour: he may, in thechoice of his actions, follow a principle of justice and of honour, whichthe considerations of safety, preferment, or profit, cannot efface. 

From our complaints of national depravity, it should, notwithstanding, appear, that whole bodies of men are sometimes infected with an epidemicalweakness of the head, or corruption of heart, by which they become unfitfor the stations they occupy, and threaten the states they compose, howeverflourishing, with a prospect of decay, and of ruin. 

A change of national manners for the worse, may arise from a discontinuanceof the scenes in which the talents of men were happily cultivated, andbrought into exercise; or from a change in the prevailing opinions relatingto the constituents of honour or of happiness. When mere riches, or courtfavour, are supposed to constitute rank; the mind is misled from theconsideration of qualities on which it ought to rely. Magnanimity, courage, and the love of mankind, are sacrificed to avarice and vanity; orsuppressed under a sense of dependence. The individual considers hiscommunity so far only as it can be rendered subservient to his personaladvancement or profit: he states himself in competition with his fellowcreatures; and, urged by the passions of emulation, of fear and jealousy, of envy and malice, he follows the maxims of an animal destined to preservehis separate existence, and to indulge his caprice or his appetite, at theexpense of his species. 

On this corrupt foundation, men become either rapacious, deceitful, andviolent, ready to trespass on the rights of others; or servile, mercenary, and base, prepared to relinquish their own. Talents, capacity, and force ofmind, possessed by a person of the first description, serve to plunge himthe deeper in misery, and to sharpen the agony of cruel passions; whichlead him to wreak on his fellow creatures the torments that prey onhimself. To a person of the second, imagination, and reason itself, onlyserve to point out false objects of fear and desire, and to multiply thesubjects of disappointment and of momentary joy. In either case, andwhether we suppose that corrupt men are urged by covetousness, or betrayedby fear, and without specifying the crimes which from either dispositionthey are prepared to commit, we may safely affirm, with Socrates, "Thatevery master should pray he may not meet with such a slave; and every suchperson, being unfit for liberty, should implore that he may meet with amerciful master. "

Man, under this measure of corruption, although he may be bought for aslave by those who know how to turn his faculties and his labour to profit;and although, when kept under proper restraints, his neighbourhood may beconvenient or useful; yet is certainly unfit to act on the footing of aliberal combination or concert with his fellow creatures: his mind is notaddicted to friendship or confidence; he is not willing to act for thepreservation of others, nor deserves that any other should hazard his ownsafety for his. 

The actual character of mankind, mean time, in the worst as well as thebest condition, is undoubtedly mixed: and nations of the best descriptionare greatly obliged for their preservation, not only to the gooddisposition of their members, but likewise to those political institutions, by which the violent are restrained from the commission of crimes, and thecowardly, or the selfish, are made to contribute their part to the publicdefence or prosperity. By means of such institutions, and the wiseprecautions of government, nations are enabled to subsist, and even toprosper, under very different degrees of corruption, or of publicintegrity. 

So long as the majority of a people are supposed to act on maxims ofprobity, the example of the good, and even the caution of the bad, give ageneral appearance of integrity, and of innocence. Where men are to oneanother objects of affection and of confidence, where they are generallydisposed not to offend, government may be remiss; and every person may betreated as innocent, till he is found to be guilty. As the subject, in thiscase, does not hear of the crimes, so he need not be told of thepunishments inflicted on persons of a different character. But where themanners of a people are considerably changed for the worse, every subjectmust stand on his guard, and government itself must act on suitable maximsof fear and distrust. The individual, no longer fit to be indulged in hispretensions to personal consideration, independence, or freedom, each ofwhich he would turn to abuse, must be taught, by external force, and frommotives of fear, to counterfeit those effects of innocence, and of duty, towhich he is not disposed: he must be referred to the whip, or the gibbet, for arguments in support of a caution, which the state now requires him toassume, on a supposition that he is insensible to the motives whichrecommend the practice of virtue. 

The rules of despotism are made for the government of corrupted men. Theywere indeed followed on some remarkable occasions, even under the Romancommonwealth; and the bloody axe, to terrify the citizen from his crimes, and to repel the casual and temporary irruptions of vice, was repeatedlycommitted to the arbitrary will of the dictator. They were finallyestablished on the ruins of the republic itself, when either the peoplebecame too corrupted for freedom, or when the magistrate became toocorrupted to resign his dictatorial power. This species of government comesnaturally in the termination of a continued and growing corruption; buthas, no doubt, in some instances, come too soon, and has sacrificed remainsof virtue, that deserved a better fate, to the jealousy of tyrants, whowere in haste to augment their power. This method of government cannot, insuch cases, fail to introduce that measure of corruption, against whoseexternal effects it is desired as a remedy. When fear is suggested as theonly motive to duty, every art becomes rapacious or base. And thismedicine, if applied to a healthy body, is sure to create the distemper;which in other cases it is destined to cure. 

This is the manner of government into which the covetous, and the arrogant, to satiate their unhappy desires, would hurry their fellow creatures: it isa manner of government to which the timorous and the servile submit atdiscretion; and when these characters of the rapacious and the timid dividemankind, even the virtues of Antoninus or Trajan can do no more than apply, with candour and with vigour, the whip and the sword; and endeavour, by thehopes of reward, or the fear of punishment, to find a speedy and atemporary cure for the crimes, or the imbecilities of men. 

Other states may be more or less corrupted: this has corruption for itsbasis. Here justice may sometimes direct the arm of the despoticalsovereign; but the name of justice is most commonly employed to signify theinterest or the caprice of a reigning power. Human society, susceptible ofsuch a variety of forms, here finds the simplest of all. The toils andpossessions of many are destined to assuage the passions of one or a few;and the only parties that remain among, mankind, are the oppressor whodemands, and the oppressed who dare not refuse. 

Nations, while they were entitled to a milder fate, as in the case of theGreeks, repeatedly conquered, have been reduced to this condition bymilitary force. They have reached it too in the maturity of their owndepravations; when, like the Romans, returned from the conquest, and loadedwith the spoils of the world, they give loose to faction, and to crimes toobold and too frequent for the correction of ordinary government; and whenthe sword of justice, dropping with blood, and perpetually required tosuppress accumulating disorders on every side, could no longer await thedelays and precautions of an administration fettered by laws. [Footnote:Sallust. Bell. Catalinarium. ]

It is, however, well known from the history of mankind, that corruption ofthis, or of any other degree, is not peculiar to nations in their decline, or in the result of signal prosperity, and great advances in the arts ofcommerce. The bands of society, indeed, in small and infant establishments, are generally strong; and their subjects, either by an ardent devotion toto their own tribe, or a vehement animosity against enemies, and by avigorous courage founded on both, are well qualified to urge, or tosustain, the fortune of a growing community. But the savage and thebarbarian have given, notwithstanding, in the case of entire nations, someexamples of a weak and timorous character. [Footnote: The barbarous nationsof Siberia, in general, are servile and timid. ] They have, in moreinstances, fallen into that species of corruption which we have alreadydescribed in treating of barbarous nations; they have made rapine theirtrade, not merely as a species of warfare, or with a view to enrich theircommunity, but to possess, in property, what they learned to prefer even tothe ties of affection or of blood. 

In the lowest state of commercial arts, the passions for wealth, and fordominion, have exhibited scenes of oppression or servility, which the mostfinished corruption of the arrogant, the cowardly, and the mercenary, founded on the desire of procuring, or the fear of losing, a fortune, couldnot exceed. In such cases, the vices of men, unrestrained by forms, andunawed by police, are suffered to riot at large, and to produce theirentire effects. Parties accordingly unite, or separate, on the maxims of agang of robbers; they sacrifice to interest the tenderest affections ofhuman nature. The parent supplies the market for slaves, even by the saleof his own children; the cottage ceases to be a sanctuary for the weak andthe defenceless stranger; and the rights of hospitality, often so sacredamong nations in their primitive state, come to be violated, like everyother tie of humanity, without fear or remorse. [Footnote: Chardin'stravels through Mingrelia into Persia. ]

Nations which, in later periods of their history, became eminent for civilwisdom and justice, had, perhaps, in a former age, paroxysms of lawlessdisorder, to which this description might in part be applied. The verypolicy by which they arrived at their degree of national felicity, wasdevised as a remedy for outrageous abuse. The establishment of order wasdated from the commission of rapes and murders; indignation, and privaterevenge, were the principles on which nations proceeded to the expulsion oftyrants, to the emancipation of mankind, and the full explanation of theirpolitical rights. 

Defects of government and of law may be, in some cases, considered as asymptom of innocence and of virtue. But where power is already established, where the strong are unwilling to suffer restraint, or the weak unable tofind a protection, the defects of law are marks of the most perfectcorruption. 

Among rude nations, government is often defective; both because men are notyet acquainted with all the evils for which polished nations haveendeavoured to find a redress; and because, even where evils of the mostflagrant nature have long afflicted the peace of society, they have not yetbeen able to apply the cure. In the progress of civilization, newdistempers break forth, and new remedies are applied: but the remedy isnot always applied the moment the distemper appears; and laws, thoughsuggested by the commission of crimes, are not the symptom of a recentcorruption, but of a desire to find a remedy that may cure, perhaps, someinveterate evil which has long afflicted the state. 

There are corruptions, however, under which men still possess the vigourand the resolution to correct themselves. Such are the violence and theoutrage which accompany the collision of fierce and daring spirits, occupied in the struggles which sometimes precede the dawn of civil andcommercial improvements. In such cases, men have frequently discovered aremedy for evils, of which their own misguided impetuosity, and superiorforce of mind, were the principal causes. But if to a depraved disposition, we suppose to be joined a weakness of spirit; if to an admiration anddesire of riches, be joined an aversion to danger or business; if thoseorders of men whose valour is required by the public, cease to be brave; ifthe members of society in general have not those personal qualities whichare required to fill the stations of equality, or of honour, to which theyare invited by the forms of the state; they must sink to a depth from whichtheir imbecility, even more than their depraved inclinations, may preventtheir rise. 

SECTION, II

OF LUXURY. 

We are far from being agreed on the application of the term _luxury_, or on that degree of its meaning which is consistent with nationalprosperity, or with the moral rectitude of our nature. It is sometimesemployed to signify a manner of life which we think necessary tocivilization, and even to happiness. It is, in our panegyric of polishedages, the parent of arts, the support of commerce, and the minister ofnational greatness, and of opulence. It is, in our censure of degeneratemanners, the source of corruption, and the presage of national declensionand ruin. It is admired, and it is blamed; it is treated as ornamental anduseful, and it is proscribed as a vice. 

With all this diversity in our judgments, we are generally uniform inemploying the term to signify that complicated apparatus which mankinddevise for the ease and convenience of life. Their buildings, furniture, equipage, clothing, train of domestics, refinement of the table, and, ingeneral, all that assemblage which is rather intended to please the fancy, than to obviate real wants, and which is rather ornamental than useful. 

When we are disposed, therefore, under the appellation of _luxury_, to rankthe enjoyment of these things among the vices, we either tacitly refer tothe habits of sensuality, debauchery, prodigality, vanity, and arrogance, with which the possession of high fortune is sometimes attended; or weapprehend a certain measure of what is necessary to human life, beyondwhich all enjoyments are supposed to be excessive and vicious. When, onthe contrary, luxury is made an article of national lustre and felicity, weonly think of it as an innocent consequence of the unequal distribution ofwealth, and as a method by which different ranks are rendered mutuallydependent, and mutually useful. The poor are made to practise arts, andthe rich to reward them. The public itself is made a gainer by what seemsto waste its stock, and it receives a perpetual increase of wealth, fromthe influence of those growing appetites, and delicate tastes, which seemto menace consumption and ruin. 

It is certain, that we must either, together with the commercial arts, suffer their fruits to be enjoyed, and even in some measure admired; or, like the Spartans, prohibit the art itself, while we are afraid of itsconsequences, or while we think that the conveniencies it brings exceedwhat nature requires. But we may propose to stop the advancement of arts atany stage of their progress, and still incur the censure of luxury fromthose who are not advanced so far. The housebuilder and the carpenter atSparta were limited to the use of the axe and the saw; but a Spartancottage might have passed for a palace in Thrace: and if the dispute wereto turn on the knowledge of what is physically necessary to thepreservation of human life, as the standard of what is morally lawful, thefaculties of physic, as well as of morality, would probably divide on thesubject, and leave every individual, as at present, to find some rule forhimself. The casuist, for the most part, considers the practice of his ownage and condition as a standard for mankind. If in one age or condition hecondemn the use of a coach, in another he would have no less censured thewearing of shoes; and the very person who exclaims against the first, wouldprobably not have spared the second, if it had not been already familiar inages before his own. A censor born in a cottage, and accustomed to sleepupon straw, does not propose that men should return to the woods and thecaves for shelter; he admits the reasonableness and the utility of what isalready familiar; and apprehends an excess and corruption, only in thenewest refinement of the rising generation. 

The clergy of Europe have preached successively against every new fashion, and every innovation in dress. The modes of youth are a subject of censureto the old; and modes of the last age, in their turn, a matter of ridiculeto the flippant, and the young. Of this there is not always a betteraccount to be given, than that the old are disposed to be severe, and theyoung to be merry. 

The argument against many of the conveniencies of life, drawn from the mereconsideration of their not being necessary, was equally proper in the mouthof the savage, who dissuaded from the first applications of industry, as itis in that of the moralist, who insists on the vanity of the last. "Ourancestors, " he might say, "found their dwelling under this rock; theygathered their food in the forest; they allayed their thirst from thefountain; and they were clothed in the spoils of the beast they had slain. Why should we indulge a false delicacy, or require from the earth fruitswhich she is not accustomed to yield? The bow of our father is already toostrong for our arms; and the wild beast begins to lord it in the woods. "

Thus the moralist may have found, in the proceedings of every age, thosetopics of blame, from which he is so much disposed to arraign the mannersof his own; and our embarrassment on the subject is, perhaps, but a part ofthat general perplexity which we undergo, in trying to define moralcharacters by external circumstances, which may, or may not, be attendedwith faults in the mind and the heart. One man finds a vice in the wearingof linen; another does not, unless the fabric be fine: and if, meantime, itbe true, that a person may be dressed in manufacture either coarse or fine;that he may sleep in the fields, or lodge in a palace; tread upon carpet, or plant his foot on the ground; while the mind either retains, or has lostits penetration, and its vigour, and the heart its affection to mankind, itis vain, under any such circumstance, to seek for the distinctions ofvirtue and vice, or to tax the polished citizen with weakness for any partof his equipage, or for his wearing a fur, in which, perhaps, some savagewas dressed before him. Vanity is not distinguished by any peculiar speciesof dress. It is betrayed by the Indian in the fantastic assortments of hisplumes, his shells, his party coloured furs, and in the time he bestows atthe glass and the toilet. Its projects in the woods and in the town arethe same: in the one, it seeks, with the visage bedaubed, and with teethartificially stained, for that admiration, which it courts in the otherwith a gilded equipage, and liveries of state. 

Polished nations, in their progress, often come to surpass the rude inmoderation, and severity of manners. "The Greeks, " says Thucydides, "notlong ago, like barbarians, wore golden spangles in the hair, and went armedin times of peace. " Simplicity of dress in this people, became a mark ofpoliteness: and the mere materials with which the body is nourished orclothed, are probably of little consequence to any people. We must look forthe characters of men in the qualities of the mind, not in the species oftheir food, or in the mode of their apparel. What are now the ornaments ofthe grave and severe; what is owned to be a real conveniency, were once thefopperies of youth, or were devised to please the effeminate. The newfashion, indeed, is often the mark of the coxcomb; but we frequently changeour fashions without multiplying coxcombs, or increasing the measures ofour vanity and folly. 

Are the apprehensions of the severe, therefore, in every age, equallygroundless and unreasonable? Are we never to dread any error in the articleof a refinement bestowed on the means of subsistence, or the convenienciesof life? The fact is, that men are perpetually exposed to the commission oferror in this article, not merely where they are accustomed to highmeasures of accommodation, or to any particular species of food, butwherever these objects, in general, may come to be preferred to theircharacter, to their country, or to mankind; they actually commit sucherror, wherever they admire paltry distinctions or frivolous advantages;wherever they shrink from small inconveniencies, and are incapable ofdischarging their duty with vigour. The use of morality on this subject, isnot to limit men to any particular species of lodging, diet, or clothes;but to prevent their considering these conveniencies as the principalobjects of human life. And if we are asked, where the pursuit of triflingaccommodations should stop, in order that a man may devote himself entirelyto the higher engagements of life? we may answer, that it should stop whereit is. This was the rule followed at Sparta: the object of the rule was, topreserve the heart entire for the public, and to occupy men in cultivatingtheir own nature, not in accumulating wealth, and external conveniencies. It was not expected otherwise, that the axe or the saw should be attendedwith greater political advantage, than the plane and the chisel. When Catowalked the streets of Rome without his robe, and without shoes, he did so, most probably, in contempt of what his countrymen were so prone to admire;not in hopes of finding a virtue in one species of dress, or a vice inanother. 

Luxury, therefore, considered as a predilection in favour of the objects ofvanity, and the costly materials of pleasure, is ruinous to the humancharacter; considered as the mere use of accommodations and conveniencieswhich the age has procured, rather depends on the progress which themechanical arts have made, and on the degree in which the fortunes of menare unequally parcelled, than on the dispositions of particular men eitherto vice or to virtue. 

Different measures of luxury are, however, variously suited to differentconstitutions of government. The advancement of arts supposes an unequaldistribution of fortune; and the means of distinction they bring, serve torender the separation of ranks more sensible. Luxury is, upon this account, apart from all its moral effects, adverse to the form of democraticalgovernment; and, in any state of society, can be safely admitted in thatdegree only in which the members of a community are supposed of unequalrank, and constitute public order by the relations of superior and vassal. High degrees of it appear salutary, and even necessary, in monarchical andmixed governments; where, besides the encouragement to arts and commerce, it serves to give lustre to those hereditary or constitutional dignitieswhich have a place of importance in the political system. Whether even hereluxury leads to abuse peculiar to ages of high refinement and opulence, weshall proceed to consider in the following sections. 

SECTION III. 

OF THE CORRUPTION INCIDENT TO POLISHED NATIONS. 

Luxury and corruption are frequently coupled together, and even pass forsynonymous terms. But, in order to avoid any dispute about words, by thefirst we may understand that accumulation of wealth, and that refinement onthe ways of enjoying it, which are the objects of industry, or the fruitsof mechanic and commercial arts: and by the second a real weakness, ordepravity of the human character, which may accompany any state of thosearts, and be found under any external circumstances or conditionwhatsoever. It remains to inquire, what are the corruptions incident topolished nations, arrived at certain measures of luxury, and possessed ofcertain advantages, in which they are generally supposed to excel?

We need not have recourse to a parallel between the manners of entirenations, in the extremes of civilization and rudeness, in order to besatisfied, that the vices of men are not proportioned to their fortunes; orthat the habits of avarice, or of sensuality, are not founded on anycertain measures of wealth, or determinate kind of enjoyment. Where thesituations of particular men are varied as much by their personal stations, as they can be by the state of national refinements, the same passions forinterest, or pleasure, prevail in every condition. They arise fromtemperament, or an acquired admiration of property; not from any particularmanner of life in which the parties are engaged, nor from any particularspecies of property which may have occupied their cares and their wishes. 

Temperance and moderation are, at least, as frequent among those whom wecall the superior, as they are among the lower classes of men; and howeverwe may affix the character of sobriety to mere cheapness of diet, and otheraccommodations with which any particular age, or rank of men, appear to becontented, it is well known, that costly materials are not necessary toconstitute a debauch, nor profligacy less frequent under the thatched roof, than under the lofty ceiling. Men grow equally familiar with differentconditions, receive equal pleasure, and are equally allured to sensualityin the palace and in the cave. Their acquiring in either, habits ofintemperance or sloth, depends on the remission of other pursuits, and onthe distaste of the mind to other engagements. If the affections of theheart be awake, and the passions of love, admiration, or anger, be kindled, the costly furniture of the palace, as well as the homely accommodations ofthe cottage, are neglected: and men, when roused, reject their repose; or, when fatigued, embrace it alike on the silken bed, or on the couch ofstraw. 

We are not, however, from hence to conclude, that luxury, with all itsconcomitant circumstances, which either serve to favour its increase, orwhich, in the arrangements of civil society, follow it as consequences, canhave no effect to the disadvantage of national manners. If that respitefrom public dangers and troubles which gives a leisure for the practice ofcommercial arts, be continued, or increased, into a disuse of nationalefforts; if the individual, not called to unite with his country, be leftto pursue his private advantage; we may find him become effeminate, mercenary, and sensual; not because pleasures and profits are become morealluring, but because he has fewer calls to attend to other objects; andbecause he has more encouragement to study his personal advantages, andpursue his separate interests. 

If the disparities of rank and fortune, which are necessary to the pursuitor enjoyment of luxury, introduce false grounds of precedency andestimation; if, on the mere considerations of being rich or poor, one orderof men are, in their own apprehension, elevated, another debased; if one becriminally proud, another meanly dejected; and every rank in its place, like the tyrant, who thinks that nations are made for himself, be disposedto assume on the rights of mankind: although, upon the comparison, thehigher order may be least corrupted; or from education, and a sense ofpersonal dignity, have most good qualities remaining; yet the one becomingmercenary and servile; the other imperious and arrogant; both regardless ofjustice and of merit; the whole mass is corrupted, and the manners of asociety changed for the worse, in proportion as its members cease to act onprinciples of equality, independence, or freedom. 

Upon this view, and considering the merits of men in the abstract, a merechange from the habits of a republic to those of a monarchy; from the loveof equality, to the sense of a subordination founded on birth, titles, andfortune, is a species of corruption to mankind. But this degree ofcorruption is still consistent with the safety and prosperity of somenations; it admits of a vigorous courage, by which the rights ofindividuals, and of kingdoms, may be long preserved. 

Under the form of monarchy, while yet in its vigour, superior fortune is, indeed, one mark by which the different orders of men are distinguished;but there are some other ingredients, without which wealth is not admittedas a foundation of precedency, and in favour of which it is often despised, and lavished away. Such are birth and titles, the reputation of courage, courtly manners, and a certain elevation of mind. If we suppose that thesedistinctions are forgotten, and nobility itself only to be known by thesumptuous retinue which money alone may procure; and by a lavish expense, which the more recent fortunes can generally best sustain; luxury must thenbe allowed to corrupt the monarchical as much as the republican state, andto introduce a fatal dissolution of manners, under which men of everycondition, although they are eager to acquire, or to display their wealth, have no remains of real ambition. They have neither the elevation ofnobles, nor the fidelity of subjects; they have changed into effeminatevanity, that sense of honour which gave rules to the personal courage; andinto a servile baseness that loyalty, which bound each in his place to hisimmediate superior, and the whole to the throne. 

Nations are most exposed to corruption from this quarter, when themechanical arts, being greatly advanced, furnish numberless articles to beapplied in ornament to the person, in furniture, entertainment, orequipage; when such articles as the rich alone can procure are admired; andwhen consideration, precedence, and rank, are accordingly made to depend onfortune. 

In a more rude state of the arts, although wealth be unequally divided, theopulent can amass only the simple means of subsistence: they can only fillthe granary, and furnish the stall; reap from more extended fields, anddrive their herds over a larger pasture. To enjoy their magnificence, theymust live in a crowd; and to secure their possessions, they must besurrounded with friends that espouse their quarrels. Their honours, as wellas their safety, consist in the numbers who attend them; and their personaldistinctions are taken from their liberality, and supposed elevation ofmind. In this manner, the possession of riches serves only to make theowner assume a character of magnanimity, to become the guardian of numbers, or the public object of respect and affection. But when the bulkyconstituents of wealth, and of rustic magnificence, can be exchanged forrefinements; and when the produce of the soil may be turned into equipage, and mere decoration; when the combination of many is no longer required forpersonal safety; the master may become the sole consumer of his own estate:he may refer the use of every subject to himself; he may employ thematerials of generosity to feed a personal vanity, or to indulge a sicklyand effeminate fancy, which has learned to enumerate the trappings ofweakness or folly among the necessaries of life. 

The Persian satrape, we are told, when he saw the king of Sparta at theplace of their conference stretched on the grass with his soldiers, blushedat the provision he made for the accommodation of his own person; heordered the furs and the carpets to be withdrawn; he felt his owninferiority; and recollected, that he was to treat with a man, not to viewith a pageant in costly attire and magnificence. 

When, amid circumstances that make no trial of the virtues or talents ofmen, we have been accustomed to the air of superiority which people offortune derive from their retinue, we are apt to lose every sense ofdistinction arising from merit, or even from abilities. We rate our fellowcitizens by the figure they are able to make; by their buildings, theirdress, their equipage, and the train of their followers. All thesecircumstances make a part in our estimate of what is excellent; and if themaster himself is known to be a pageant in the midst of his fortune, wenevertheless pay our court to his station, and look up with an envious, servile, or dejected mind, to what is, in itself, scarcely fit to amusechildren; though, when it is worn as a badge of distinction, it inflamesthe ambition of those we call the great, and strikes the multitude with aweand respect. 

We judge of entire nations by the productions of a few mechanical arts, andthink we are talking of men, while we are boasting of their estates, theirdress, and their palaces. The sense in which we apply the terms, _great_, and _noble, high rank_, and _high life_, show that we have, on such occasions, transferred the idea of perfection from the characterto the equipage; and that excellence itself is, in our esteem, amere pageant, adorned at a great expense by the labours of many workmen. 

To those who overlook the subtile transitions of the imagination, it mightappear, since wealth can do no more than furnish the means of subsistence, and purchase animal pleasures, that covetousness, and venality itself, should keep pace with our fears of want, or with our appetite for sensualenjoyments; and that where the appetite is satiated, and the fear of wantis removed, the mind should be at ease on the subject of fortune. But theyare not the mere pleasures that riches procure, nor the choice of viandswhich cover the board of the wealthy, that inflame the passions of thecovetous and the mercenary. Nature is easily satisfied in all herenjoyments. It is an opinion of eminence, connected with fortune; it is asense of debasement attending on poverty, which renders us blind to everyadvantage, but that of the rich; and insensible to every disgrace, but thatof the poor. It is this unhappy apprehension, that occasionally prepares usfor the desertion of every duty, for a submission to every indignity, andfor the commission of every crime that can be accomplished in safety. 

Aurengzebe was not more renowned for sobriety in his private station, andin the conduct of a supposed dissimulation, by which he aspired tosovereign power, than he continued to be, even on the throne of Indostan. Simple, abstinent, and severe in his diet, and other pleasures, he stillled the life of a hermit, and occupied his time with a seemingly painfulapplication to the affairs of a great empire. [Footnote: Gemelli Careri. ]He quitted a station in which, if pleasure had been his object, he mighthave indulged his sensuality without reserve; he made his way to a scene ofdisquietude and care; he aimed at the summit of human greatness, in thepossession of imperial fortune, not at the gratifications of animalappetite, or the enjoyment of ease. Superior to sensual pleasure, as wellas to the feelings of nature, he dethroned his father, and he murdered hisbrothers, that he might roll on a carriage incrusted with diamond andpearl; that his elephants, his camels, and his horses, on the march, mightform a line extending many leagues; might present a glittering harness tothe sun; and loaded with treasure, usher to the view of an abject andadmiring crowd that awful majesty, in whose presence they were to strikethe forehead on the ground, and be overwhelmed with the sense of hisgreatness, and with that of their own debasement. 

As these are the objects which prompt the desire of dominion, and excitethe ambitious to aim at the mastery of their fellow creatures; so theyinspire the ordinary race of men with a sense of infirmity and meanness, that prepares them to suffer indignities, and to become the property ofpersons, whom they consider as of a rank and a nature so much superior totheir own. The chains of perpetual slavery, accordingly, appear to beriveted in the east, no less by the pageantry which is made to accompanythe possession of power, than they are by the fears of the sword, and theterrors of a military execution. In the west, as well as the east, we arewilling to bow to the splendid equipage, and stand at an awful distancefrom the pomp of a princely estate. We too may be terrified by the frowns, or won by the smiles, of those whose favour is riches and honour, and whosedispleasure is poverty and neglect. We too may overlook the honours of thehuman soul, from an admiration of the pageantries that accompany fortune. The procession of elephants harnessed with gold might dazzle into slaves, the people who derive corruption and weakness from the effect of their ownarts and contrivances, as well as those who inherit servility from theirancestors, and are enfeebled by their natural temperament, and theenervating charms of their soil and their climate. 

It appears, therefore, that although the mere use of materials whichconstitute luxury, may be distinguished from actual vice; yet nations undera high state of the commercial arts, are exposed to corruption, by theiradmitting wealth, unsupported by personal elevation and virtue, as thegreat foundation of distinction, and by having their attention turned onthe side of interest, as the road to consideration and honour. 

With this effect, luxury may serve to corrupt democratical states, byintroducing a species of monarchical subordination, without that sense ofhigh birth and hereditary honours which render the boundaries of rank fixedand determinate, and which teach men to act in their stations with forceand propriety. It may prove the occasion of political corruption, even inmonarchical governments, by drawing respect towards mere wealth; by castinga shade on the lustre of personal qualities, or family distinctions; and byinfecting all orders of men, with equal venality, servility, and cowardice. 

SECTION IV. 

The Same Subject Continued. 

The increasing regard with which men appear, in the progress of commercialarts, to study their profit, or the delicacy with which they refine ontheir pleasures; even industry itself, or the habit of application to atedious employment, in which no honours are won, may, perhaps, beconsidered as indications of a growing attention to interest, or ofeffeminacy, contracted in the enjoyment of ease and conveniency. Everysuccessive art, by which the individual is taught to improve on hisfortune, is, in reality, an addition to his private engagements, and a newavocation of his mind from the public. 

Corruption, however, does not arise from the abuse of commercial artsalone; it requires the aid of political situation; and is not produced bythe objects that occupy a sordid and a mercenary spirit, without the aid ofcircumstances that enable men to indulge in safety any mean dispositionthey have acquired. 

Providence has fitted mankind for the higher engagements which they aresometimes obliged to fulfil; and it is in the midst of such engagementsthat they are most likely to acquire or to preserve their virtues. Thehabits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties, notin enjoying the repose of a pacific station; penetration and wisdom are thefruits of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure; ardour andgenerosity are the qualities of a mind roused and animated in the conductof scenes that engage the heart, not the gifts of reflection or knowledge. The mere intermission of national and political efforts is, notwithstanding, sometimes mistaken for public good; and there is nomistake more likely to foster the vices, or to flatter the weakness, offeeble and interested men. 

If the ordinary arts of policy, or rather if a growing indifference toobjects of a public nature, should prevail, and, under any freeconstitution, put an end to those disputes of party, and silence that noiseof dissention which generally accompany the exercise of freedom, we mayventure to prognosticate corruption to the national manners, as well asremissness to the national spirit. The period is come, when no engagement, remaining on the part of the public, private interest, and animal pleasure, become the sovereign objects of care. When men, being relieved from thepressure of great occasions, bestow their attention on trifles; and havingcarried what they are pleased to call _sensibility_ and _delicacy_, onthe subject of ease or molestation, as far as real weakness or folly cango, have recourse to affectation, in order to enhance the pretendeddemands, and accumulate the anxieties, of a sickly fancy, and enfeebledmind. 

In this condition, mankind generally flatter their own imbecility under thename of _politeness_. They are persuaded, that the celebrated ardour, generosity, and fortitude of former ages bordered on frenzy, or were themere effects of necessity, on men who had not the means of enjoying theirease, or their pleasure. They congratulate themselves on having escaped thestorm which required the exercise of such arduous virtues; and with thatvanity which accompanies the human race in their meanest condition, theyboast of a scene of affectation, of languor, or of folly, as the standardof human felicity, and as furnishing the properest exercise of a rationalnature. 

It is none of the least menacing symptoms of an age prone to degeneracy, that the minds of men become perplexed in the discernment of merit, as muchas the spirit becomes enfeebled in conduct, and the heart misled in thechoice of its objects: The care of mere fortune is supposed to constitutewisdom; retirement from public affairs, and real indifference to mankind, receive the applauses of moderation, and of virtue. 

Great fortitude, and elevation of mind, have not always, indeed, beenemployed in the attainment of valuable ends; but they are alwaysrespectable, and they are always necessary when we would act for the goodof mankind, in any of the more arduous stations of life. While, therefore, we blame their misapplication, we should beware of depreciating theirvalue. Men of a severe and sententious morality have not alwayssufficiently observed this caution; nor have they been duly aware of thecorruptions they flattered, by the satire they employed against what isaspiring and prominent in the character of the human soul. 

It might have been expected, that, in an age of hopeless debasement, thetalents of Demosthenes and Tully, even the ill governed magnanimity of aMacedonian, or the daring enterprise of a Carthaginian leader, might haveescaped the acrimony of a satirist, [Footnote: Juvenal's tenth satire] whohad so many objects of correction in his view, and who possessed the artsof declamation in so high a degree. 

 I, demens, et saevos curre per Alpes, Ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias, is part of the illiberal censure which is thrown by this poet on the personand action of a leader, who, by his courage and conduct, in the veryservice to which the satire referred, had well nigh saved his country fromthe ruin with which it was at last at last overwhelmed. 

 Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed, From Macedonia's madman to the Swede, is a distich, in which another poet of beautiful talents has attempted todepreciate a name, to which, probably, few of his readers are found toaspire. 

If men must go wrong, there is a choice of their errors, as well as oftheir virtues. Ambition, the love of personal eminence, and the desire offame, although they sometimes lead to the commission of crimes, yet alwaysengage men in pursuits that require to be supported by some of the greatestqualities of the human soul; and if eminence is the principal object ofpursuit, there is at least a probability, that those qualities may bestudied on which a real elevation of mind is raised. But when public alarmshave ceased, and contempt of glory is recommended as an article of wisdom, the sordid habits, and mercenary dispositions, to which, under a generalindifference to national objects, the members of a polished or commercialstate are exposed, must prove at once the most effectual suppression ofevery liberal sentiment, and the most fatal reverse of all those principlesfrom which communities derive their strength and their hopes ofpreservation. 

It is noble to possess happiness and independence, either in retirement, orin public life. The characteristic of the happy, is to acquit themselveswell in every condition; in the court, or in the village; in the senate, orin the private retreat. But if they affect any particular station, it issurely that in which their actions may be rendered most extensively useful. Our considering mere retirement, therefore, as a symptom of moderation andof virtue, is either a remnant of that system, under which monks andanchorets, in former ages, have been canonized; or proceeds from a habit ofthinking, which appears equally fraught with moral corruption, from ourconsidering public life as a scene for the gratification of mere vanity, avarice, and ambition; never as furnishing the best opportunity for a justand a happy engagement of the mind and the heart. 

Emulation, and the desire of power, are but sorry motives to publicconduct; but if they have been, in any case, the principal inducements fromwhich men have taken part in the service of their country, any diminutionof their prevalence or force is a real corruption of national manners; andthe pretended moderation assumed by the higher orders of men, has a fataleffect in the state. The disinterested love of the public is a principle, without which some constitutions of government cannot subsist: but when weconsider how seldom this has appeared a reigning passion, we have littlereason to impute the prosperity or preservation of nations, in every case, to its influence. 

It is sufficient, perhaps, under one form of government, that men should befond of their independence; that they should be ready to oppose usurpation, and to repel personal indignities: under another, it is sufficient, thatthey should be tenacious of their rank, and of their honours; and insteadof a zeal for the public, entertain a vigilant jealousy of the rights whichpertain to themselves. When numbers of men retain a certain degree ofelevation and fortitude, they are qualified to give a mutual check to theirseveral errors, and are able to act in that variety of situations which thedifferent constitutions of government have prepared for their members: but, under the disadvantages of a feeble spirit, however directed, and howeverinformed, no national constitution is safe; nor can any degree ofenlargement, to which a state has arrived, secure its political welfare. 

In states where property, distinction, and pleasure, are thrown out asbaits to the imagination, and incentives to passion, the public seems torely for the preservation of its political life, on the degree of emulationand jealousy with which parties mutually oppose and restrain each other. The desires of preferment and profit in the breast of the citizen, are themotives from which he excited to enter on public affairs, and are theconsiderations which direct his political conduct. The suppression, therefore, of ambition, of party animosity, and of public envy, isprobably, in every such case, not a reformation, but a symptom of weakness, and a prelude to more sordid pursuits, and ruinous amusements. 

On the eve of such a revolution in manners, the higher ranks, in everymixed or monarchical government, have need to take care of themselves. Menof business, and of industry, in the inferior stations of life, retaintheir occupations, and are secured, by a kind of necessity, in thepossession of those habits on which they rely for their quiet; and for themoderate enjoyments of life. But the higher orders of men, if theyrelinquish the state, if they cease to possess that courage and elevationof mind, and to exercise those talents which are employed in its defenceand in its government, are, in reality, by the seeming advantages of theirstation, become the refuse of that society of which they once were theornament; and from being the most respectable, and the most happy, of itsmembers, are become the most wretched and corrupt. In their approach tothis condition, and in the absence of every manly occupation, they feel adissatisfaction and languor which they cannot explain: they pine in themidst of apparent enjoyment; or, by the variety and caprice of theirdifferent pursuits and amusements, exhibit a state of agitation, which, like the disquiet of sickness, is not a proof of enjoyment or pleasure, butof suffering and pain. The care of his buildings, his equipage, or histable, is chosen by one; literary amusement, or some frivolous study, byanother. The sports of the country, and the diversions of the town; thegaming table, [Footnote: These different occupations differ from eachother, in respect to their dignity and their innocence; but none of themare the schools from which men are brought to sustain the tottering fortuneof nations; they are equally avocations from what ought to be the principalpursuit of man, the good of mankind. ] dogs, horses, and wine, are employedto fill up the blank of a listless and unprofitable life. They speak ofhuman pursuits, as if the whole difficulty were to find something to do;they fix on some frivolous occupation, as if there was nothing thatdeserved to be done: they consider what tends to the good of their fellowcreatures, as a disadvantage to themselves: they fly from every scene inwhich any efforts of vigour are required, or in which they might be alluredto perform any service to their country. We misapply our compassion inpitying the poor; it were much more justly applied to the rich, who becomethe first victims of that wretched insignificance, into which the membersof every corrupted state, by the tendency of their weaknesses and theirvices, are in haste to plunge themselves. 

It is in this condition, that the sensual invent all those refinements onpleasure, and devise those incentives to a satiated appetite, which tendto foster the corruptions of a dissolute age. The effects of brutalappetite, and the mere debauch, are more flagrant, and more violent, perhaps, in rude ages, than they are in the later periods of commerce andluxury: but that perpetual habit of searching for animal pleasure where itis not to be found, in the gratifications of an appetite that is cloyed, and among the ruins of an animal constitution, is not more fatal to thevirtues of the soul, than it is even to the enjoyment of sloth, or ofpleasure; it is not a more certain avocation from public affairs, or asurer prelude to national decay, than it is a disappointment to our hopesof private felicity. 

In these reflections, it has been the object not to ascertain a precisemeasure to which corruption has risen in any of the nations that haveattained to eminence, or that have gone to decay; but to describe thatremissness of spirit, that weakness of soul, that state of nationaldebility, which is likely to end in political slavery; an evil whichremains to be considered as the last object of caution, and beyond whichthere is no subject of disquisition, in the perishing fortunes of nations. 

SECTION V. 

OF CORRUPTION, AS IT TENDS TO POLITICAL SLAVERY. 

Liberty, in one sense, appears to be the portion of polished nations alone. The savage is personally free, because he lives unrestrained, and acts withthe members of his tribe on terms of equality. The barbarian is frequentlyindependent, from a continuance of the same circumstances, or because hehas courage and a sword. But good policy alone can provide for the regularadministration of justice, or constitute a force in the state, which isready on every occasion to defend the rights of its members. 

It has been found, that, except in a few singular cases, the commercial andpolitical arts have advanced together. These arts have been in modernEurope so interwoven, that we cannot determine which were prior in theorder of time, or derived most advantage from the mutual influences withwhich they act and react on each other. It has been observed, that in somenations, the spirit of commerce, intent on securing its profits, has ledthe way to political wisdom. A people, possessed of wealth, and becomejealous of their properties, have formed the project of emancipation, andhave proceeded, under favour of an importance recently gained, stillfarther to enlarge their pretensions, and to dispute the prerogatives whichtheir sovereign had been in use to employ. But it is in vain that we expectin one age, from the possession of wealth, the fruit which it is said tohave borne in a former. Great accessions of fortune, when recent, whenaccompanied with frugality, and a sense of independence, may render theowner confident in his strength, and ready to spurn at oppression. Thepurse which is open, not to personal expense, or to the indulgence ofvanity, but to support the interests of a faction, to gratify the higherpassions of party, render the wealthy citizen formidable to those whopretend to dominion; but it does not follow, that in a time of corruption, equal, or greater, measures of wealth, should operate to the same effect. 

On the contrary, when wealth is accumulated only in the hands of the miser, and runs to waste from those of the prodigal; when heirs of family findthemselves straitened and poor in the midst of affluence; when the cravingsof luxury silence even the voice of party and faction; when the hopes ofmeriting the rewards of compliance, or the fear of losing what is held atdiscretion, keep men in a state of suspense and anxiety; when fortune, inshort, instead of being considered as the instrument of a vigorous spirit, becomes the idol of a covetous or a profuse, of a rapacious or a timorousmind, the foundation on which freedom was built may serve to support atyranny; and what, in one age, raised the pretensions, and fostered theconfidence of the subject, may, in another, incline him to servility, andfurnish the price to be paid for his prostitutions. Even those who, in avigorous age, gave the example of wealth, in the hands of the people, becoming an occasion of freedom, may, in times of degeneracy, verifylikewise the maxim of Tacitus, that the admiration of riches leads todespotical government. [Footnote: Est ápud illos et opibus honos;eoque unus imperitat, nullis jam exceptionibus, non precario jureparendi. Nec arms ut apud ceteros Germanos in promiscuo, sed clausasub custode et quidem servo, &c. TACITUS _de Mor. Ger. _ c. 44. ]

Men who have tasted of freedom, and who have felt their personal rights, are not easily taught to bear with encroachments on either, and cannot, without some preparation, come to submit to oppression. They may receivethis unhappy preparation under different forms of government, fromdifferent hands, and arrive at the same end by different ways. Theyfollow one direction in republics, another in monarchies and inmixed governments. But wherever the state has, by means that do notpreserve the virtue of the subject, effectually guarded his safety;remissness, and neglect of the public, are likely to follow; and polishednations of every description, appear to encounter a danger, on thisquarter, proportioned to the degree in, which they have, during anycontinuance, enjoyed the uninterrupted possession of peace and prosperity. 

Liberty results, we say, from the government of laws; and we are apt toconsider statutes, not merely as the resolutions and maxims of a peopledetermined to be free, not as the writings by which their rights are kepton record; but as a power erected to guard them, and as a barrier which thecaprice of man cannot transgress. 

When a basha, in Asia, pretends to decide every controversy by the rules ofnatural equity, we allow that he is possessed of discretionary powers. Whena judge in Europe is left to decide, according to his own interpretation ofwritten laws, is he in any sense more restrained than the former? Have themultiplied words of a statute an influence over the conscience and theheart, more powerful than that of reason and nature? Does the party, in anyjudicial proceeding, enjoy a less degree of safety, when his rights arediscussed, on the foundation of a rule that is open to the understandingsof mankind, than when they are referred to an intricate system, which ithas become the object of a separate profession to study and to explain?

If forms of proceeding, written statutes, or other constituents of law, cease to be enforced by the very spirit from which they arose; they serveonly to cover, not to restrain, the iniquities of power: they are possiblyrespected even by the corrupt magistrate, when they favour his purpose; butthey are contemned or evaded, when they stand in his way: and the influenceof laws, where they have any real effect in the preservation of liberty, isnot any magic power descending from shelves that are loaded with books, butis, in reality, the influence of men resolved to be free; of men who, having adjusted in writing the terms on which they are to live with thestate, and with their fellow subjects, are determined, by their vigilanceand spirit, to make these terms be fulfilled. 

We are taught, under every form of government, to apprehend usurpations, from the abuse, or from the extension of the executive power. In puremonarchies, this power is commonly hereditary, and made to descend in adeterminate line. In elective monarchies, it is held for life. Inrepublics, it is exercised during a limited time. Where men, or families, are called by election to the possession of temporary dignities, it is morethe object of ambition to perpetuate, than to extend their powers. Inhereditary monarchies, the sovereignty is already perpetual; and the aim ofevery ambitious prince is to enlarge his prerogative. Republics, and, intimes of commotion, communities of every form, are exposed to hazard, notfrom those only who are formally raised to places of, trust, but from everyperson whatsoever, who is incited by ambition, and who is supported byfaction. 

It is no advantage to a prince, or other magistrate, to enjoy more powerthan is consistent with the good of mankind; nor is it of any benefit to aman to be unjust: but these maxims are a feeble security against thepassions and follies of men. Those who are intrusted with power in anydegree, are disposed, from a mere dislike of constraint, to removeopposition. Not only the monarch who wears a hereditary crown, but themagistrate who holds his office for a limited time, grows fond of hisdignity. The, very minister, who depends for his place on the momentarywill of his prince, and whose personal interests are, in every respect, those of a subject, still has the weakness to take an interest in thegrowth of prerogative, and to reckon as gain to himself the encroachmentshe has made on the rights of a people, with whom he himself and his familyare soon to be numbered. 

Even with the best intentions towards mankind, we are inclined to thinkthat their welfare depends, not on the felicity of their own inclinations, or the happy employment of their own talents, but on their ready compliancewith what we have devised for their good. Accordingly, the greatest virtueof which any sovereign has hitherto shown an example, is not a desire ofcherishing in his people the spirit of freedom and of independence, butwhat is in itself sufficiently rare and highly meritorious, a steady regardto the distribution of justice in matters of property, a disposition toprotect and to oblige, to redress the grievances, and to promote theinterest of his subjects. It was from a reference to these objects, thatTitus computed the value of his time, and judged of its application. Butthe sword, which in this beneficent hand was drawn to protect the subject, and to procure a speedy and effectual distribution of justice, was likewisesufficient, in the hands of a tyrant, to shed the blood of the innocent, and to cancel the rights of men. The temporary proceedings of humanity, though they suspended the exercise of oppression, did not break thenational chains: the prince was even the better enabled to procure thatspecies of good which he studied; because there was no freedom remaining, and because there was nowhere a force to dispute his decrees, or tointerrupt their execution. 

Was it in vain that Antoninus became acquainted with the characters ofThrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, and Brutus? Was it in vain, that helearned to understand the form of a free community, raised on the basis ofequality and justice; or of a monarchy, under which the liberties of thesubject were held the most sacred object of administration?[Footnote: M. Antoninus, lib. I. ] Did he mistake the means of procuring to mankind whathe points out as a blessing? Or did the absolute power with which he wasfurnished, in a mighty empire, only disable him from executing what hismind had perceived as a national good? In such a case, it were vain toflatter the monarch or his people. The first cannot bestow liberty withoutraising a spirit, which may, on occasion, stand in opposition to his owndesigns; nor the latter receive this blessing, while they own that it isin the right of a master to give or to withhold it. The claim of justiceis firm and peremptory. We receive favours with a sense of obligation andkindness; but we would enforce our rights, and the spirit of freedom inthis exertion cannot take the tone of supplication or of thankfulness, without betraying itself. "You have intreated Octavius, " says Brutus toCicero, "that he would spare those who stand foremost among the citizensof Rome. What if he will not? Must we perish? Yes; rather than owe oursafety to him. "

Liberty is a right which every individual must be ready to vindicate forhimself, and which he who pretends to bestow as a favour, has by that veryact in reality denied. Even political establishments, though they appear tobe independent of the will and arbitration of men, cannot be relied on forthe preservation of freedom; they may nourish, but should not supersedethat firm and resolute spirit, with which the liberal mind is alwaysprepared to resist indignities, and to refer its safety to itself. 

Were a nation, therefore, given to be moulded by a sovereign, as the clayis put into the hands of the potter, this project of bestowing liberty on apeople who are actually servile, is, perhaps, of all others the mostdifficult, and requires most to be executed in silence, and with thedeepest reserve. Men are qualified to receive this blessing only inproportion as they are made to apprehend their own rights; and are made torespect the just pretensions of mankind; in proportion as they are willingto sustain, in their own persons, the burden of government, and of nationaldefence; and are willing to prefer the engagements of a liberal mind to theenjoyment of sloth, or the delusive hopes of a safety purchased bysubmission and fear. 

I speak with respect, and, if I may be allowed the expression, even withindulgence, to those who are intrusted with high prerogatives in thepolitical system of nations. It is, indeed, seldom their fault that statesare enslaved. What should be expected from them, but that being actuated byhuman desires, they should be averse to disappointment, or even to delay;and in the ardour with which they pursue their object, that they shouldbreak through the barriers that would stop their career? If millions recedebefore single men, and senates are passive, as if composed of members whohad no opinion or sense of their own; on whose side have the defences offreedom given way, or to whom shall we impute their fall? To the subject, who has deserted his station; or to the sovereign, who has only remained inhis own, and who, if the collateral or subordinate members of governmentshall cease to question his power, must continue to govern withoutrestraint?

It is well known, that constitutions framed for the preservation ofliberty, must consist of many parts; and that senates, popular assemblies, courts of justice, magistrates of different orders, must combine to balanceeach other, while they exercise, sustain, or check the executive power. Ifany part is struck out, the fabric must totter, or fall; if any member isremiss, the others must encroach. In assemblies constituted by men ofdifferent talents, habits, and apprehensions, it were something more thanhuman that could make them agree in every point of importance; havingdifferent opinions and views, it were want of integrity to abstain fromdisputes: our very praise of unanimity, therefore, is to be considered as adanger to liberty. We wish for it at the hazard of taking in its place theremissness of men grown indifferent to the public; the venality of thosewho have sold the rights of their country; or the servility of others, whogive implicit obedience to a leader, by whom their minds are subdued. Thelove of the public, and respect to its laws, are the points in whichmankind are bound to agree; but if, in matters of controversy, the sense ofany individual or party is invariably pursued, the cause of freedom isalready betrayed. 

He whose office it is to govern a supine or an abject people, cannot, for amoment, cease to extend his powers. Every execution of law, every movementof the state, every civil and military operation, in which his power isexerted, must serve to confirm his authority, and present him to the viewof the public as the sole object of consideration, fear, and respect. Thosevery establishments which were devised, in one age, to limit or to directthe exercise of an executive power, will serve, in another, to removeobstructions, and to smooth its way; they will point out the channels inwhich it may run, without giving offence, or without exciting alarms, andthe very councils which were instituted to check its encroachments, will, in a time of corruption, furnish an aid to its usurpations. 

The passion for independence, and the love of dominion, frequently arisefrom a common source: there is, in both, an aversion to control; and hewho, in one situation, cannot brook a superior, may, in another, dislike tobe joined with an equal. 

What the prince, under a pure or limited monarchy, is, by the constitutionof his country, the leader of a faction would willingly become inrepublican governments. If he attains to this envied condition, his owninclination, or the tendency of human affairs, seem to open before him thecareer of a royal ambition: but the circumstances in which he is destinedto act, are very different from those of a king. He encounters with men whoare unused to disparity; he is obliged, for his own security, to hold thedagger continually unsheathed. When he hopes to be safe, he possibly meansto be just; but is hurried, from the first moment of his usurpation, intoevery exercise of despotical power. The heir of a crown has no such quarrelto maintain with his subjects: his situation is flattering; and the heartmust be uncommonly bad that does not glow with affection to a people, whoare at once his admirers, his support, and the ornaments of this reign. Inhim, perhaps, there is no explicit design of trespassing on the rights ofhis subjects; but the forms intended to preserve their freedom are not, onthis account, always safe in his hands. 

Slavery has been imposed upon mankind in the wantonness of a depravedambition, and tyrannical cruelties have been committed in the gloomy hoursof jealousy and terror; yet these demons are not necessary to the creation, or to the support of an arbitrary power. Although no policy was ever moresuccessful than that of the Roman republic in maintaining a nationalfortune; yet subjects, as well as their princes, frequently imagine thatfreedom is a clog on the proceedings of government: they imagine, thatdespotical power is best fitted to procure despatch and secrecy in theexecution of public councils; to maintain what they are pleased to call_political order_, [Footnote: Our notion of order in civil societybeing taken from the analogy of subjects inanimate and dead, is frequentlyfalse; we consider commotion and action as contrary to its nature; we thinkthat obedience, secrecy, and the silent passing of affairs through thehands of a few, are its real constituents. The good order of stones in awall, is their being properly fixed in the places for which they are hewn;were they to stir, the building must fall: but the good order of men insociety, is their being placed where they are properly qualified to act. The first is a fabric made of dead and inanimate parts, the second is madeof living and active members. When we seek in society for the order of mereinaction and tranquillity, we forget the nature of our subject, and findthe order of slaves, not that of freemen. ] and to give a speedy redress ofcomplaints. They even sometimes acknowledge, that if a succession of goodprinces could be found, despotical government is best calculated for thehappiness of mankind. While they reason thus, they cannot blame asovereign, who, in the confidence that he is to employ his power for goodpurposes, endeavours to extend its limits; and, in his own apprehension, strives only to shake off the restraints which stand in the way of reason, and which prevent the effect of his friendly intentions. 

Thus prepared for usurpation, let him, at the head of a free state, employthe force with which he is armed, to crush the seeds of apparent disorderin every corner of his dominions; let him effectually curb the spirit ofdissention and variance among his people; let him remove the interruptionsto government, arising from the refractory humours and the privateinterests of his subjects: let him collect the force of the state againstits enemies, by availing himself of all it can furnish in the way oftaxation and personal service: it is extremely probable that, even underthe direction of wishes for the good of mankind, he may break through everybarrier of liberty, and establish a despotism, while he flatters himselfthat he only follows the dictates of sense and propriety. 

When we suppose government to have bestowed a degree of tranquillity whichwe sometimes hope to reap from it, as the best of its fruits, and publicaffairs to proceed, in the several departments of legislation andexecution, with the least possible interruption to commerce and lucrativearts; such a state, like that of China, by throwing affairs into separateoffices, where conduct consists in detail, and in the observance of forms, by superseding all the exertions of a great or a liberal mind, is more akinto despotism than we are apt to imagine. 

Whether oppression, injustice, and cruelty, are the only evils which attendon despotical government, may be considered apart. In the mean time it issufficient to observe, that liberty is never in greater danger than it iswhen we measure national felicity by the blessings which a prince maybestow, or by the mere tranquillity which may attend on equitableadministration. The sovereign may dazzle with his heroic qualities; he mayprotect his subjects in the enjoyment of every animal advantage orpleasure: but the benefits arising from liberty are of a different sort;they are not the fruits of a virtue, and of a goodness, which operate inthe breast of one man, but the communication of virtue itself to many; andsuch a distribution of functions in civil society, as gives to numbers theexercises and occupations which pertain to their nature. 

The best constitutions of government are attended with inconvenience; andthe exercise of liberty may, on many occasions, give rise to complaints. When we are intent on reforming abuses, the abuses of freedom may lead usto encroach on the subject from which they are supposed to arise. Despotismitself has certain advantages, or at least, in times of civility andmoderation, may proceed with so little offence, as to give no public alarm. These circumstances may lead mankind, in the very spirit of reformation, orby mere inattention, to apply or to admit of dangerous innovations in thestate of their policy. 

Slavery, however, is not always introduced by mistake; it is sometimesimposed in the spirit of violence and rapine. Princes become corrupt aswell as their people; and whatever may have been the origin of despoticalgovernment, its pretensions, when fully declared, give rise between thesovereign and his subjects to a contest which force alone can decide. Thesepretensions have a dangerous aspect to the person, the property, or thelife of every subject; they alarm every passion in the human breast; theydisturb the supine; they deprive the venal of his hire; they declare war onthe corrupt as well as the virtuous; they are tamely admitted only by thecoward; but even to him must be supported by a force that can work on hisfears. This force the conqueror brings from abroad; and the domesticusurper endeavours to find in his faction at home. 

When a people is accustomed to arms, it is, difficult for a part to subduethe whole; or before the establishment of disciplined armies, it isdifficult for any usurper to govern the many by the help of a few. Thesedifficulties, however, the policy of civilized and commercial nations hassometimes removed; and by forming a distinction between civil and militaryprofessions, by committing the keeping and the enjoyment of liberty todifferent hands, has prepared the way for the dangerous alliance of factionwith military power, in opposition to mere political forms and the rightsof mankind. 

A people who are disarmed in compliance with this fatal refinement, haverested their safety on the pleadings of reason and of justice at thetribunal of ambition and of force. In such an extremity laws are quoted andsenators are assembled in vain. They who compose a legislature, or whooccupy the civil departments of state, may deliberate on the messages theyreceive from the camp or the court; but if the bearer, like the centurionwho brought the petition of Octavius to the Roman senate, shew the hilt ofhis sword, [Footnote: Sueton. ] they find that petitions are becomecommands, and that they themselves are become the pageants, not therepositories of sovereign power. 

The reflections of this section may be unequally applied to nations ofunequal extent. Small communities, however corrupted, are not prepared fordespotical government; their members, crowded together and contiguous tothe seats of power, never forget their relation to the public; they pry, with habits of familiarity and freedom, into the pretensions of those whowould rule; and where the love of equality, and the sense of justice, havefailed, they act on motives of faction, emulation, and envy. The exiledTarquin had his adherents at Rome; but if by their means he had recoveredhis station, it is probable that, in the exercise of his royalty, he musthave entered on a new scene of contention with the very party that restoredhim to power. 

In proportion as territory is extended, its parts lose their relativeimportance to the whole. Its inhabitants cease to perceive their connectionwith the state, and are seldom united in the execution of any national, oreven any factious designs. Distance from the seats of administration, andindifference to the persons who contend for preferment, teach the majorityto consider themselves as the subjects of a sovereignty, not as the membersof a political body. It is even remarkable, that enlargement of territory, by rendering the individual of less consequence to the public, and lessable to intrude with his counsel, actually tends to reduce national affairswithin a narrower compass, as well as to diminish the numbers who areconsulted in legislation, or in other matters of government. 

The disorders to which a great empire is exposed, require speedyprevention, vigilance, and quick execution. Distant provinces must be keptin subjection by military force; and the dictatorial powers, which, in freestates, are sometimes raised to quell insurrections, or to oppose otheroccasional evils, appear, under a certain extent of dominion, at all timesequally necessary to suspend the dissolution of a body, whose parts wereassembled, and must be cemented, by measures forcible, decisive, andsecret. Among the circumstances, therefore, which, in the event of nationalprosperity, and in the result of commercial arts, lead to the establishmentof despotism, there is none, perhaps, that arrives at this termination withso sure an aim, as the perpetual enlargement of territory. In every state, the freedom of its members depends on the balance and adjustment of itsinterior parts; and the existence of any such freedom among mankind, depends on the balance of nations. In the progress of conquest, those whoare subdued are said to have lost their liberties; but from the history ofmankind, to conquer, or to be conquered, has appeared, in effect, the same. 

SECTION VI. 

OF THE PROGRESS AND TERMINATION OF DESPOTISM. 

Mankind, when they degenerate, and tend to their ruin, as well as when theyimprove, and gain real advantages, frequently proceed by slow, and almostinsensible steps. If, during ages of activity and vigour, they fill up themeasure of national greatness to a height which no human wisdom could at adistance foresee; they actually incur, in ages of relaxation and weakness, many evils which their fears did not suggest, and which, perhaps, they hadthought far removed by the tide of success and prosperity. 

We have already observed, that where men are remiss or corrupted, thevirtue of their leaders, or the good intention of their magistrates, willnot always secure them in the possession of political freedom. Implicitsubmission to any leader, or the uncontrolled exercise of any power, evenwhen it is intended to operate for the good of mankind, may frequently endin the subversion of legal establishments. This fatal revolution, bywhatever means it is accomplished, terminates in military government; andthis, though the simplest of all governments, is rendered complete bydegrees. In the first period of its exercise over men who have acted asmembers of a free community, it can have only laid the foundation, notcompleted the fabric, of a despotical policy. The usurper who haspossessed, with an army, the centre of a great empire, sees around him, perhaps, the shattered remains of a former constitution; he may hear themurmurs of a reluctant and unwilling submission; he may even see danger inthe aspect of many, from whose hands he may have wrested the sword, butwhose minds he has not subdued, nor reconciled to his power. 

The sense of personal rights, or the pretension to privilege and honours, which remain among certain orders of men, are so many bars in the way of arecent usurpation. If they are not suffered to decay with age, and to wearaway in the progress of a growing corruption, they must be broken withviolence, and the entrance to every new accession of power must be stainedwith blood. The effect, even in this case, is frequently tardy. The Romanspirit, we know, was not entirely extinguished under a succession ofmasters, and under a repeated application of bloodshed and poison. Thenoble and respectable family still aspired to its original honours; thehistory of the republic, the writings of former times, the monuments ofillustrious men, and the lessons of philosophy fraught with heroicconceptions, continued to nourish the soul in retirement, and formed thoseeminent characters, whose elevation, and whose fate, are, perhaps, the mostaffecting subjects of human story. Though unable to oppose the general bentto servility, they became, on account of their supposed inclinations, objects of distrust and aversion, and were made to pay with their blood, the price of a sentiment which they fostered in silence, and which glowedonly in the heart. 

While despotism proceeds in its progress, by what principle is thesovereign conducted in the choice of measures that tend to establish hisgovernment? By a mistaken apprehension of his own good, sometimes even thatof his people, and by the desire which he feels on every particularoccasion, to remove the obstructions which impede the execution of hiswill. When he has fixed a resolution, whoever reasons or remonstratesagainst it is an enemy; when his mind is elated, whoever pretends toeminence, and is disposed to act for himself, is a rival. He would leave nodignity in the state, but what is dependent on himself; no active power, but what carries the expression of his momentary pleasure. [Footnote:Insurgere paulatim munia senatus, magistratuum, legum in se trahere. ]Guided by a perception as unerring as that of instinct, he never fails toselect the proper objects of his antipathy or of his favour. The aspect ofindependence repels him; that of servility attracts. The tendency of hisadministration is to quiet every restless spirit, and to assume everyfunction of government to himself. [Footnote: It is ridiculous to hear menof a restless ambition, who would be the only actors in every scene, sometimes complain of a refractory spirit in mankind: as if the samedisposition, from which they desire to usurp every office, did not inclineevery other person to reason and to act at least for himself. ] When thepower is adequate to the end, it operates as much in the hands of those whodo not perceive the termination, as it does in the hands of others by whomit is best understood: the mandates of either, when just, should not bedisputed; when erroneous or wrong, they are supported by force. 

You must die, was the answer of Octavius to every suit from a people thatimplored his mercy. It was the sentence which some of his successorspronounced against every citizen that was eminent for his birth or hisvirtues. But are the evils of despotism confined to the cruel andsanguinary methods, by which a recent dominion over a refractory and aturbulent people is established or maintained? And is death the greatestcalamity which can afflict mankind under an establishment by which they aredivested of all their rights? They are, indeed, frequently suffered tolive; but distrust and jealousy, the sense of personal meanness, and theanxieties which arise from the care of a wretched interest, are made topossess the soul; every citizen is reduced to a slave; and every charm bywhich the community engaged its members, has ceased to exist. Obedience isthe only duty that remains, and this is exacted by force. If, under such anestablishment, it be necessary to witness scenes of debasement and horror, at the hazard of catching the infection, death becomes a relief; and thelibation which Thrasea was made to pour from his arteries, is to beconsidered as a proper sacrifice of gratitude to Jove the Deliverer. [Footnote: Porrectisque utriusque brachii venis, postquam cruorem effudit, humum super spargens, proprius vocato Quaestore, _Libemus_, inquit, _Jovi Liberatori_. Specta juvenis; et omen quidem Dii prohibeant;ceterum in ea tempora natus es, quibus firmare animum deceat constantibusexemplis. _Tacit. Ann. Lib. _ 16. ]

Oppression and cruelty are not always necessary to despotical government;and even when present, are but a part of its evils. It is founded oncorruption, and on the suppression of all the civil and the politicalvirtues; it requires its subjects to act from motives of fear; it wouldassuage the passions of a few men at the expense of mankind; and woulderect the peace of society itself on the ruins of that freedom andconfidence from which alone the enjoyment, the force, and the elevation ofthe human mind, are found to arise. 

During the existence of any free constitution, and whilst every individualpossessed his rank and his privilege, or had his apprehension of personalrights, the members of every community were, to one another, objects ofconsideration and of respect; every point to be carried in civil societyrequired the exercise of talents, of wisdom, persuasion, and vigour, aswell as of power. But it is the highest refinement of a despoticalgovernment, to rule by simple commands, and to exclude every art but thatof compulsion. Under the influence of this policy, therefore, the occasionswhich employed and cultivated the understandings of men, which awakenedtheir sentiments, and kindled their imaginations, are gradually removed;and the progress by which mankind attained to the honours of their nature, in being engaged to act in society upon a liberal footing, was not moreuniform, or less interrupted, than that by which they degenerate in thisunhappy condition. 

When we hear of the silence which reigns in the seraglio, we are made tobelieve, that speech itself is become unnecessary; and that the signs ofthe mute are sufficient to carry the most important mandates of government. No arts, indeed, are required to maintain an ascendant where terror aloneis opposed to force, where the powers of the sovereign are delegated entireto every subordinate officer: nor can any station bestow a liberality ofmind in a scene of silence and dejection, where every breast is possessedwith jealousy and caution, and where no object, but animal pleasure, remains to balance the sufferings of the sovereign himself, or those of hissubjects. 

In other states, the talents of men are sometimes improved by the exerciseswhich belong to an eminent station; but here the master himself is probablythe rudest and least cultivated animal of the herd; he is inferior to theslave whom he raises from a servile office to the first places of trust orof dignity in his court. The primitive simplicity which formed ties offamiliarity and affection betwixt the sovereign and the keeper of hisherds, [Footnote: See Odyssey. ] appears, in the absence of all affections, to be restored, or to be counterfeited amidst the ignorance and brutalitywhich equally characterize all orders of men, or rather which level theranks, and destroy the distinction of persons in a despotical court. 

Caprice and passion are the rules of government with the prince. Everydelegate of power is left to act by the same direction; to strike when heis provoked; to favour when he is pleased. In what relates to revenue, jurisdiction, or police, every governor of a province acts like a leader inan enemy's country; comes armed with the terrors of fire and sword; andinstead of a tax, levies a contribution by force he ruins or spares aseither may serve his purpose. When the clamours of the oppressed, or thereputation of a treasure amassed at the expense of a province, have reachedthe ears of the sovereign, the extortioner is indeed made to purchaseimpunity by imparting a share, or by forfeiting the whole of his spoil; butno reparation is made to the injured; nay, the crimes of the minister arefirst employed to plunder the people, and afterwards punished to fill thecoffers of the sovereign. 

In this total discontinuance of every art that relates to just governmentand national policy, it is remarkable, that even the trade of the soldieris itself great neglected. Distrust and jealousy, on the part of theprince, come in aid of his ignorance and incapacity; and these causesoperating together, serve to destroy the very foundation on which his poweris established. Any undisciplined rout of armed men passes for an army, whilst a weak, dispersed, and unarmed people are sacrificed to militarydisorder, or exposed to depredation on the frontier from an enemy, whom thedesire of spoil, or the hopes of conquest, may have drawn to theirneighbourhood. 

The Romans extended their empire till they left no polished nation to besubdued, and found a frontier which was every where surrounded by fierceand barbarous tribes; they even pierced through uncultivated deserts, inorder to remove to a greater distance the molestation of such troublesomeneighbours, and in order to possess the avenues through which they fearedtheir attacks. But this policy put the finishing hand to the internalcorruption of the state. A few years of tranquillity were sufficient tomake even the government forget its danger; and, in the cultivatedprovince, prepared for the enemy a tempting prize and an easy victory. 

When by the conquest and annexation of every rich and cultivated province, the measure of empire is full, two parties are sufficient to comprehendmankind; that of the pacific and the wealthy, who dwell within the pale ofempire; and that of the poor, the rapacious, and the fierce, who are inuredto depredation and war. The last bear to the first nearly the same relationwhich the wolf and the lion bear to the fold; and they are naturallyengaged in a state of hostility. 

Were despotic empire, meantime, to continue for ever unmolested fromabroad, while it retains that corruption on which it was founded, itappears to have in itself no principle of new life, and presents no hope ofrestoration to freedom and political vigour. That which the despotical_master has sown, cannot quicken unless it die_; it must languish andexpire by the effect of its own abuse, before the human spirit can springup anew, or bear those fruits which constitute the honour and the felicityof human nature. In times of the greatest debasement, indeed, commotionsare felt; but very unlike the agitations of a free people: they are eitherthe agonies of nature, under the sufferings to which men are exposed; ormere tumults, confined to a few who stand in arms about the prince, andwho, by, their conspiracies, assassinations, and murders, serve only toplunge the pacific inhabitants still deeper in the horrors of fear ordespair. Scattered in the provinces, unarmed, unacquainted with thesentiments of union and confederacy, restricted by habit to a wretchedeconomy, and dragging a precarious life on those possessions which theextortions of government have left; the people can nowhere, under thesecircumstances, assume the spirit of a community, nor form any liberalcombination for their own defence. The injured may complain; and while hecannot obtain the mercy of government, he may implore the commiseration ofhis fellow subject. But that fellow subject is comforted, that the hand ofoppression has not seized on himself: he studies his interest, or snatcheshis pleasure, under that degree of safety which obscurity and concealmentbestow. 

The commercial arts, which seem to require no foundation in the minds ofmen, but the regard to interest; no encouragement, but the hopes of gain, and the secure possession of property, must perish under the precarioustenure of slavery, and under the apprehension of danger arising from thereputation of wealth. National poverty, however, and the suppression ofcommerce, are the means by which despotism comes to accomplish its owndestruction. Where there are no longer any profits to corrupt, or fears todeter, the charm of dominion is broken, and the naked slave, as awake froma dream, is astonished to find he is free. When the fence is destroyed, thewilds are open, and the herd breaks loose. The pasture of the cultivatedfield is no longer preferred to that of the desert. The sufferer willinglyflies where the extortions of government cannot overtake him; where eventhe timid and the servile may recollect they are men; where the tyrant maythreaten, but where he is known to be no more than a fellow creature; wherehe can take nothing but life, and even this at the hazard of his own. 

Agreeably to this description, the vexations of tyranny have overcome, inmany parts of the East, the desire of settlement. The inhabitants of avillage quit their habitations, and infest the public ways; those of thevalleys fly to the mountains, and, equipt for flight, or possessed of astrong hold, subsist by depredation, and by the war they make on theirformer masters. 

These disorders conspire with the impositions of government to render theremaining settlements still less secure: but while devastation and ruinappear on every side, mankind are forced anew upon those confederacies, acquire again that personal confidence and vigour, that social attachment, that use of arms, which, in former times, rendered a small tribe the seedof a great nation; and which may again enable the emancipated slave tobegin the career of civil and commercial arts. When human nature appears inthe utmost state of corruption, it has actually begun to reform. 

In this manner, the scenes of human life have been frequently shifted. Security and presumption forfeit the advantages of prosperity; resolutionand conduct retrieve the ills of adversity; and mankind while they havenothing on which to rely but their virtue, are prepared to gain everyadvantage; and while they confide most in their good fortune, are mostexposed to feel its reverse. We are apt to draw these observations intorule; and when we are no longer willing to act for our country, we plead, in excuse of our own weakness or folly, a supposed fatality in humanaffairs. 

The institutions of men, if not calculated for the preservation of virtue, are, indeed, likely to have an end as well as a beginning: but so long asthey are effectual to this purpose, they have at all times an equalprinciple of life, which nothing but an external force can suppress; nonation ever suffered internal decay but from the vice of its members. Weare sometimes willing to acknowledge this vice in our countrymen; but whowas ever willing to acknowledge it in himself? It may be suspected, however, that we do more than acknowledge it, when we cease to oppose itseffects, and when we plead a fatality, which, at least, in the breast ofevery individual, is dependent on himself. Men of real fortitude, integrity, and ability, are well placed in every scene; they reap, in everycondition, the principal enjoyments of their nature; they are the happyinstruments of Providence employed for the good of mankind; or, if we mustchange this language, they show, that while they are destined to live, thestates they compose are likewise doomed by the fates to survive, and toprosper. 

THE END

VALUABLE WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED, BY ANTHONY FINLEY, _Corner of Chesnutand Fourth Streets, Philadelphia. _

THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS; OR, AN ESSAY

Towards an analysis of the principles by which men naturally judgeconcerning the conduct and character, first of their neighbours, andafterwards of themselves, To which is added, _A Dissertation on the Origin of Languages. _ BY ADAM SMITH, LL. D. F. R. B. FIRST AMERICAN FROM THE TWELFTH EDINBURGH EDITION. 

 * * * * *

_Extract from "An Account of the Life and Writings of Dr. Adam Smith, byDugald Stewart, F. R. S. Edinburgh. "_

(Speaking of Dr. S. 's Theory of Moral Sentiments, he says) "No work, undoubtedly, can be mentioned, ancient or modern, which exhibits socomplete a view of those facts, with respect to our moral perception, whichit is one great object of this branch of science to refer to their generallaws; and upon this account, it well deserves the careful study of allwhose taste leads them to prosecute similar inquiries. These facts areindeed frequently expressed in a language which involves the author'speculiar theories; but they are always presented in the most happy andbeautiful light; and it is easy for an attentive reader, by stripping themof hypothetical terms, to state them to himself with that logicalprecision, which, in such very difficult disquisitions, can alone conductus with certainty to the truth. 

"It is proper to observe, farther, that, with the theoretical doctrines ofthe book, there are every where interwoven, with singular taste andaddress, the purest and most elevated maxims concerning the practicalconduct of life; and that it abounds throughout with interesting andinstructive delineations of characters and manners. A considerable part ofit too is employed in collateral inquiries, which, upon every hypothesisthat can be formed concerning the foundation of morals, are of equalimportance. Of this kind is the speculation with respect to the influenceof fortune on our moral sentiments; and another speculation no lessvaluable, with respect to the influence of custom and fashion on the samepart of our constitution. 

"When the subject of this work leads the author to address the imaginationand the heart: the variety and felicity of his illustrations--the richnessand fluency of his eloquence--and the skill with which he wins theattention and commands the passions of his readers, leave him, among ourEnglish moralists, without a rival. "

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PART I. 

_Of the Propriety of Action_. 

Section I. _Of the Sense of Propriety_. 

Chap. I. Of Sympathy. 

Chap. II. Of the Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy. 

Chap. III. Of the manner in which we judge of the Propriety or Improprietyof the Affections of other Men, by their concord or dissonance with ourown. 

Chap. IV. The same subject continued. 

Chap. V. Of the Amiable and Respectable Virtues. 

Section II. _Of the Degrees of the different Passions which areconsistent with Propriety_. 

Introduction. 

Chap. I. Of the Passions which take their origin from the body. 

Chap. II. Of those Passions which take their origin from a particular turnor habit of the Imagination. 

Chap. III. Of the unsocial Passions. 

Chap. IV. Of the social Passions. 

Chap. V. Of the selfish Passions. 

Section III. _Of the Effects of Prosperity and Adversity upon theJudgment of Mankind with regard to the Propriety of Action; and why it ismore easy to obtain their approbation in the one state than in theother_. 

Chap. I. That though our sympathy with sorrow is generally a more livelysensation than our sympathy with toy, it commonly falls much more short ofthe violence of what is naturally felt by the person principally concerned. 

Chap. II. Of the origin of Ambition, and of the distinction of Ranks. 

Chap. III. Of the corruption of our Moral Sentiments, which is occasionedby this disposition to admire the rich and the great, and to despise orneglect persons of poor and mean condition. 

PART II. 

_Of Merit and Demerit; or of the objects of reward and punishment_. 

Section I. _Of the Sense of Merit and Demerit_. 

Introduction. 

Chap. I. That whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude, appears to deserve reward; and that, in the same manner, whatever appearsto be the proper object of resentment, appears to deserve punishment. 

Chap. II. Of the proper objects of gratitude and resentment. 

Chap. III. That where there is no approbation of the conduct of the personwho confers the benefit, there is little sympathy with the gratitude of himwho receives it: and that on the contrary, where there is no disapprobationof the motives of the person who does the mischief, there is no sort ofsympathy with the resentment of him who suffers it. 

Chap. IV. Recapitulation of the foregoing chapters. 

Chap. V. The Analysis of the sense of Merit and Demerit. 

SECTION II. _Of Justice and Beneficence. _

Chap. I. Comparison of those two virtues. 

Chap. II. Of the sense of Justice, of Remorse, and of the consciousness ofMerit. 

Chap. III. Of the utility of this constitution of Nature. 

SECTION III. _Of the Influence of Fortune upon the Sentiments of Mankind, with regard to the Merit or Demerit of Actions. _

Introduction. 

Chap. I. Of the causes of this influence of Fortune. 

Chap. II. Of the extent of this influence of Fortune. 

Chap. III. Of the final cause of this irregularity of Sentiments. 

PART III. _Of the Foundation our Judgments concerning our own sentimentsand conduct, and of the sense of Duty. _

Chap. I. Of the principle of Self-approbation and of Self-disapprobation. 

Chap. II. Of the love of Praise, and of that of Praise-worthiness; and ofthe dread of Blame, and that of Blame-worthiness. 

Chap. III. Of the Influence and Authority of Conscience. 

Chap. IV. Of the nature of Self-deceit, and of the Origin and Use ofgeneral Rules. 

Chap. V. Of the Influence and Authority of the general Rules of Morality, and that they are justly regarded as the laws of the Deity. 

Chap. VI. In what cases the Sense of Duty ought to be the sole principle ofour conduct; and in what cases it ought to concur with other motives. 

PART IV. _Of the Effect of Utility upon the Sentiment of Approbation. _

Chap. I. Of the Beauty which the appearance of Utility bestows upon all theproductions of Art, and of the extensive influence of this species ofBeauty. 

Chap. II. Of the Beauty which the appearance of Utility bestows upon thecharacters and actions of men; and how far the perception of this beautymay be regarded as one of the original principles of approbation. 

PART V. _Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon the Sentiments ofMoral Approbation and Disapprobation. _

Chap. I. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon our notions of Beautyand Deformity. 

Chap. II. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon Moral Sentiments. 

PART VI. _Of the Character of Virtue. _

Introduction. Section I. _Of the Character of the Individual, so far asit affects his own Happiness; or of Prudence_. 

Section II. _Of the Character of the Individual, so far as it can affectthe happiness of other People_. 

Introduction. 

Chap. I. Of the order in which Individuals are recommended by nature to ourcare and attention. 

Chap. II. Of the order in which Societies are by nature recommended to ourbeneficence. 

Chap. III. Of Universal Benevolence. 

Section III. _Of Self-Command_. 

Conclusion of the Sixth Part. 

PART VII. 

_Of Systems of Moral Philosophy_. 

Section I. _Of the questions which ought to be examined in a Theory ofMoral Sentiments_. 

Section II. _Of the different Accounts which have been given of thenature of Virtue_. 

Introduction. 

Chap. I. Of those systems which make Virtue consist in propriety. 

Chap. II. Of those systems which make Virtue consist in prudence. 

Chap. III. Of those systems which make Virtue consist in benevolence. 

Chap. IV. Of licentious Systems. 

Section III. _Of the different Systems which have been formed concerningthe Principle of Approbation_. 

Introduction. 

Chap. I. Of those systems which deduce the principle of Approbation fromSelf-love. 

Chap. II. Of those systems which make Reason the principle of Approbation. 

Chap. III. Of those systems which make Sentiment the principle ofApprobation. 

Section IV. _Of the manner in which different Authors have treated of thePractical Rules of Morality_. 

_Considerations concerning the first Formation of Languages, &c. _

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