The Ruins; Or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature
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Title: The Ruins; Or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature
Author: C.-F. Volney
Release date: May 3, 2006 [eBook #1397]
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RUINS; OR, MEDITATION ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES AND THE LAW OF NATURE ***
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THE RUINS,
OR, MEDITATION ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES:
AND
THE LAW OF NATURE,
by C. F. VOLNEY,
COMTE ET PAIR DE FRANCE. COMMANDEUR DE LA LEGION D'HONNEUR, MEMBRE DE
L'ACADEMIE FRANCAISE, ET DE PLUSIEURS AUTRES SOCIETES SAVANTES.
DEPUTY TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF 1789, AND AUTHOR OF "TRAVELS IN EGYPT
AND SYRIA," "NEW RESEARCHES ON ANCIENT HISTORY," ETC.
TO WHICH IS ADDED
VOLNEY'S ANSWER TO DR. PRIESTLY, A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE BY COUNT DARU,
AND THE ZODIACAL SIGNS AND CONSTELLATIONS BY THE EDITOR.
I will cherish in remembrance the love of man, I will employ myself on
the means of effecting good for him, and build my own happiness on the
promotion of his.--Volney.
NEW YORK, TWENTIETH CENTURY PUB. CO., 4 WARREN ST. 1890.
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.
Having recently purchased a set of stereotyped plates of Volney's Ruins,
with a view of reprinting the same, I found, on examination, that they
were considerably worn by the many editions that had been printed
from them and that they greatly needed both repairs and corrections. A
careful estimate showed that the amount necessary for this purpose would
go far towards reproducing this standard work in modern type and in an
improved form. After due reflection this course was at length decided
upon, and all the more readily, as by discarding the old plates and
resetting the entire work, the publisher was enabled to greatly enhance
its value, by inserting the translator's preface as it appeared in the
original edition, and also to restore many notes and other valuable
material which had been carelessly omitted in the American reprint.
An example of an important omission of this kind may be found on the
fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth pages of this volume, which may
be appropriately referred to, in this connection. It is there stated, in
describing the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia, and the ruins of Thebes,
her opulent metropolis, that "There a people, now forgotten, discovered,
while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences.
A race of men, now rejected from society for their sable skin and
frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil
and religious systems which still govern the universe."
A voluminous note, in which standard authorities are cited, seems to
prove that this statement is substantially correct, and that we are in
reality indebted to the ancient Ethiopians, to the fervid imagination of
the persecuted and despised negro, for the various religious systems
now so highly revered by the different branches of both the Semitic
and Aryan races. This fact, which is so frequently referred to in Mr.
Volney's writings, may perhaps solve the question as to the origin of
all religions, and may even suggest a solution to the secret so long
concealed beneath the flat nose, thick lips, and negro features of the
Egyptian Sphinx. It may also confirm the statement of Dioderus, that
"the Ethiopians conceive themselves as the inventors of divine worship,
of festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and of every other
religious practice."
That an imaginative and superstitious race of black men should have
invented and founded, in the dim obscurity of past ages, a system
of religious belief that still enthralls the minds and clouds the
intellects of the leading representatives of modern theology,--that
still clings to the thoughts, and tinges with its potential influence
the literature and faith of the civilized and cultured nations of Europe
and America, is indeed a strange illustration of the mad caprice of
destiny, of the insignificant and apparently trivial causes that oft
produce the most grave and momentous results.
The translation here given closely follows that published in Paris by
Levrault, Quai Malaquais, in 1802, which was under the direction and
careful supervision of the talented author; and whatever notes Count
Volney then thought necessary to insert in his work, are here carefully
reproduced without abridgment or modification.
The portrait, maps and illustrations are from a French edition of
Volney's complete works, published by Bossange Freres at No. 12 Rue de
Seine, Paris, in 1821,--one year after the death of Mr. Volney. It is a
presentation copy "on the part of Madame, the Countess de Volney, and
of the nephew of the author," and it may therefore be taken for
granted that Mr. Volney's portrait, as here given, is correct, and was
satisfactory to his family.
An explanation of the figures and diagrams shown on the map of the
Astrological Heaven of the Ancients has been added in the appendix by
the publisher.
PETER ECKLER.
New York, January 3, 1890.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
OF THE ENGLISH EDITION PUBLISHED IN PARIS.
To offer the public a new translation of Volney's Ruins may require some
apology in the view of those who are acquainted with the work only in
the English version which already exists, and which has had a general
circulation. But those who are conversant with the book in the author's
own language, and have taken pains to compare it with that version,
must have been struck with the errors with which the English performance
abounds. They must have regretted the loss of many original beauties,
some of which go far in composing the essential merits of the work.
The energy and dignity of the author's manner, the unaffected elevation
of his style, the conciseness, perspicuity and simplicity of his
diction, are everywhere suited to his subject, which is solemn, novel,
luminous, affecting,--a subject perhaps the most universally interesting
to the human race that has ever been presented to their contemplation.
It takes the most liberal and comprehensive view of the social state
of man, develops the sources of his errors in the most perspicuous and
convincing manner, overturns his prejudices with the greatest delicacy
and moderation, sets the wrongs he has suffered, and the rights he ought
to cherish, in the clearest point of view, and lays before him the true
foundation of morals--his only means of happiness.
As the work has already become a classical one, even in English, and as
it must become and continue to be so regarded in all languages in which
it shall be faithfully rendered, we wish it to suffer as little as
possible from a change of country;--that as much of the spirit of the
original be transfused and preserved as is consistent with the nature of
translation.
How far we have succeeded in performing this service for the English
reader we must not pretend to determine. We believe, however, that
we have made an improved translation, and this without claiming any
particular merit on our part, since we have had advantages which our
predecessor had not. We have been aided by his labors; and, what is of
still more importance, our work has been done under the inspection of
the author, whose critical knowledge of both languages has given us
a great facility in avoiding such errors as might arise from hurry or
mistake.
Paris, November 1, 1802.
PREFACE OF THE LONDON EDITION.*
* Published by T. Allman, 42 Holborn Hill, London, 1851.
The plan of this publication was formed nearly ten years ago; and
allusions to it may be seen in the preface to Travels in Syria and
Egypt, as well as at the end of that work, (published in 1787). The
performance was in some forwardness when the events of 1788 in France
interrupted it. Persuaded that a development of the theory of political
truth could not sufficiently acquit a citizen of his debt to society,
the author wished to add practice; and that particularly at a time when
a single arm was of consequence in the defence of the general cause.
The same desire of public benefit which induced him to suspend his work,
has since engaged him to resume it, and though it may not possess the
same merit as if it had appeared under the circumstances that gave rise
to it, yet he imagines that at a time when new passions are bursting
forth,--passions that must communicate their activity to the religious
opinions of men,--it is of importance to disseminate such moral truths
as are calculated to operate as a curb and restraint. It is with this
view he has endeavored to give to these truths, hitherto treated as
abstract, a form likely to gain them a reception.
It was found impossible not to shock the violent prejudices of some
readers; but the work, so far from being the fruit of a disorderly
and perturbed spirit, has been dictated by a sincere love of order and
humanity.
After reading this performance it will be asked, how it was possible in
1784 to have had an idea of what did not take place till the year
1790? The solution is simple. In the original plan the legislator was
a fictitious and hypothetical being: in the present, the author has
substituted an existing legislator; and the reality has only made the
subject additionally interesting.
PREFACE OF THE AMERICAN EDITION.*
* The copy from which this preface is reprinted was
published in Boston by Charles Gaylord, in 1833. It was
given to the writer, when a mere lad, by a lady--almost a
stranger--who was traveling through the little hamlet on the
banks of the Hudson where he then resided. This lady
assured me that the book was of great value, containing
noble and sublime truths; and the only condition she
attached to the gift was, that I should read it carefully
and endeavor to understand its meaning. This I willingly
promised and faithfully performed; and all who have "climbed
the heights," and escaped from the thraldom of superstitious
faith, will concede the inestimable value of such a gift--
rich with the peace and consolation that the truth imparts.
--Pub.
If books were to be judged of by their volume, the following would have
but little value; if appraised by their contents, it will perhaps be
reckoned among the most instructive.
In general, nothing is more important than a good elementary book; but,
also, nothing is more difficult to compose and even to read: and why?
Because, as every thing in it should be analysis and definition, all
should be expressed with truth and precision. If truth and precision are
wanting, the object has not been attained; if they exist, its very force
renders it abstract.
The first of these defects has been hitherto evident in all books of
morality. We find in them only a chaos of incoherent maxims, precepts
without causes, and actions without a motive. The pedants of the human
race have treated it like a little child: they have prescribed to it
good behavior by frightening it with spirits and hobgoblins. Now that
the growth of the human race is rapid, it is time to speak reason to it;
it is time to prove to men that the springs of their improvement are to
be found in their very organization, in the interest of their passions,
and in all that composes their existence. It is time to demonstrate that
morality is a physical and geometrical science, subject to the rules
and calculations of the other mathematical sciences: and such is the
advantage of the system expounded in this book, that the basis of
morality being laid in it on the very nature of things, it is both
constant and immutable; whereas, in all other theological systems,
morality being built upon arbritary opinions, not demonstrable and often
absurd, it changes, decays, expires with them, and leaves men in an
absolute depravation. It is true that because our system is founded
on facts and not on reveries, it will with much greater difficulty
be extended and adopted: but it will derive strength from this very
struggle, and sooner or later the eternal religion of Nature must
overturn the transient religions of the human mind.
This book was published for the first time in 1793, under the title of
The French Citizen's Catechism. It was at first intended for a national
work, but as it may be equally well entitled the Catechism of men of
sense and honor, it is to be hoped that it will become a book common
to all Europe. It is possible that its brevity may prevent it from
attaining the object of a popular classical work, but the author will be
satisfied if he has at least the merit of pointing out the way to make a
better.
ADVERTISEMENT OF THE AMERICAN EDITION.
VOLNEY'S RUINS;
OR MEDITATION ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES.
The superior merits of this work are too well known to require
commendation; but as it is not generally known that there are in
circulation three English translations of it, varying materially in
regard to faithfulness and elegance of diction, the publisher of the
present edition inserts the following extracts for the information of
purchasers and readers:
PARIS TRANSLATION,
First published in this Country by Dixon and Sickels.
INVOCATION.
Hail, solitary ruins! holy sepulchres, and silent walls! you I invoke;
to you I address my prayer. While your aspect averts, with secret
terror, the vulgar regard, it excites in my heart the charm of delicious
sentiments--sublime contemplations. What useful lessons! what affecting
and profound reflections you suggest to him who knows how to consult
you. When the whole earth, in chains and silence, bowed the neck before
its tyrants, you had already proclaimed the truths which they abhor,
and confounding the dust of the king with that of the meanest slave,
had announced to man the sacred dogma of Equality! Within your pale, in
solitary adoration of Liberty, I saw her Genius arise from the mansions
of the dead; not such as she is painted by the impassioned multitude,
armed with fire and sword, but under the august aspect of justice,
poising in her hand the sacred balance, wherein are weighed the actions
of men at the gates of eternity.
O Tombs! what virtues are yours! you appal the tyrant's heart, and
poison with secret alarm his impious joys; he flies, with coward step,
your incorruptible aspect, and erects afar his throne of insolence.
LONDON TRANSLATION.
INVOCATION.
Solitary ruins, sacred tombs, ye mouldering and silent walls, all hail!
To you I address my invocation. While the vulgar shrink from your aspect
with secret terror, my heart finds in the contemplation a thousand
delicious sentiments, a thousand admirable recollections. Pregnant, I
may truly call you, with useful lessons, with pathetic and irresistible
advice to the man who knows how to consult you. A while ago the whole
world bowed the neck in silence before the tyrants that oppressed it;
and yet in that hopeless moment you already proclaimed the truths that
tyrants hold in abhorrence: mixing the dust of the proudest kings with
that of the meanest slaves, you called upon us to contemplate this
example of Equality. From your caverns, whither the musing and anxious
love of Liberty led me, I saw escape its venerable shade, and with
unexpected felicity, direct its flight and marshal my steps the way to
renovated France.
Tombs! what virtues and potency do you exhibit! Tyrants tremble at your
aspect--you poison with secret alarm their impious pleasures--they turn
from you with impatience, and, coward like, endeavor to forget you amid
the sumptuousness of their palaces.
PHILADELPHIA TRANSLATION.
INVOCATION.
Hail, ye solitary ruins, ye sacred tombs, and silent walls! 'Tis your
auspicious aid that I invoke; 'tis to you my soul, wrapt in meditation,
pours forth its prayers! What though the profane and vulgar mind shrinks
with dismay from your august and awe-inspiring aspect; to me you unfold
the sublimest charms of contemplation and sentiment, and offer to my
senses the luxury of a thousand delicious and enchanting thoughts!
How sumptuous the feast to a being that has a taste to relish, and an
understanding to consult you! What rich and noble admonitions;
what exquisite and pathetic lessons do you read to a heart that is
susceptible of exalted feelings! When oppressed humanity bent in timid
silence throughout the globe beneath the galling yoke of slavery, it was
you that proclaimed aloud the birthright of those truths which tyrants
tremble at while they detect, and which, by sinking the loftiest head of
the proudest potentate, with all his boasted pageantry, to the level
of mortality with his meanest slave, confirmed and ratified by your
unerring testimony the sacred and immortal doctrine of Equality.
Musing within the precincts of your inviting scenes of philosophic
solitude, whither the insatiate love of true-born Liberty had led me, I
beheld her Genius ascending, not in the spurious character and habit of
a blood-thirsty Fury, armed with daggers and instruments of murder, and
followed by a frantic and intoxicated multitude, but under the placid
and chaste aspect of Justice, holding with a pure and unsullied hand the
sacred scales in which the actions of mortals are weighed on the brink
of eternity.
The first translation was made and published in London soon after the
appearance of the work in French, and, by a late edition, is still
adopted without alteration. Mr. Volney, when in this country in 1797,
expressed his disapprobation of this translation, alleging that the
translator must have been overawed by the government or clergy from
rendering his ideas faithfully; and, accordingly, an English gentleman,
then in Philadelphia, volunteered to correct this edition. But by his
endeavors to give the true and full meaning of the author with great
precision, he has so overloaded his composition with an exuberance
of words, as in a great measure to dissipate the simple elegance and
sublimity of the original. Mr. Volney, when he became better acquainted
with the English language, perceived this defect; and with the aid of
our countryman, Joel Barlow, made and published in Paris a new, correct,
and elegant translation, of which the present edition is a faithful and
correct copy.
CONTENTS
Publisher's Preface
Translator's Preface
Preface of London Edition
Preface of the American Edition
Advertisement of the American Edition
The Life of Volney
A List of Volney's Works
Invocation
Chap.
I. The Journey
II. The Reverie
III. The Apparition
IV. The Exposition
V. Condition of Man in the Universe
VI. The Primitive State of Man
VII. Principles of Society
VIII. Sources of the Evils of Societies
IX. Origin of Governments and Laws
X. General Causes of the Prosperity of Ancient States
XI. General Causes of the Revolutions and Ruin of Ancient States
XII. Lessons of Times Past repeated on the Present
XIII. Will the Human Race Improve
XIV. The Great Obstacle to Improvement
XV. The New Age
XVI. A Free and Legislative People
XVII. Universal Basis of all Right and all Law
XVIII. Consternation and Conspiracy of Tyrants
XIX. General Assembly of the Nations
XX. The Search of Truth
XXI. Problem of Religious Contradictions
XXII. Origin and Filiation of Religious Ideas
I. Origin of the Idea of God: Worship of the Elements
and of the Physical Powers of Nature
II. Second System. Worship of the Stars, or Sabeism
III. Third System. Worship of Symbols, or Idolatry
IV. Fourth System. Worship of two Principles, or Dualism
V. Moral and Mystical Worship, or System of a Future State
VI. Sixth System. The Animated World, or Worship of the
Universe under diverse Emblems
VII. Seventh System. Worship of the Soul of the World, that
is to say, the Element of Fire, Vital Principle
of the Universe
VIII. Eighth System. The World Machine: Worship of the Demi-
Ourgos, or Grand Artificer
IX. Religion of Moses, or Worship of the Soul of the World
(You-piter)
X. Religion of Zoroaster
XI. Budsoism, or Religion of the Samaneans
XII. Brahmism, or Indian System
XIII. Christianity, or the Allegorical Worship of the Sun
under the cabalistic names of Chrish-en or Christ
and Yesus or Jesus
XXIII. All Religions have the same Object
XXIV. Solution of the Problem of Contradictions
THE LAW OF NATURE.
Chap.
I. Of the Law of Nature
II. Characters of the Law of Nature
III. Principles of the Law of Nature relating to Man
IV. Basis of Morality: of Good, of Evil, of Sin, of Crime,
of Vice, and of Virtue
V. Of Individual Virtues
VI. On Temperance
VII. On Continence
VIII. On Courage and Activity
IX. On Cleanliness
X. On Domestic Virtues
XI. The Social Virtues; Justice
XII. Development of the Social Virtues
Volney's Answer to Dr. Priestly.
Appendix: The Zodiacal Signs and Constellations
LIFE OF VOLNEY.
By Count Daru.
Constantine Francis Chassebeuf De Volney was born in 1757 at Craon, in
that intermediate condition of life, which is of all the happiest, since
it is deprived only of fortune's too dangerous favors, and can aspire to
the social and intellectual advantages reserved for a laudable ambition.
From his earliest youth, he devoted himself to the search after truth,
without being disheartened by the serious studies which alone can
initiate us into her secrets. After having become acquainted with the
ancient languages, the natural sciences and history, and being admitted
into the society of the most eminent literary characters, he submitted,
at the age of twenty, to an illustrious academy, the solution of one of
the most difficult problems that the history of antiquity has left open
for discussion. This attempt received no encouragement from the learned
men who were appointed his judges; and the author's only appeal from
their sentence was to his courage and his efforts.
Soon after, a small inheritance having fallen to his lot, the difficulty
was how to spend it (these are his own words.) He resolved to employ
it in acquiring, by a long voyage, a new fund of information, and
determined to visit Egypt and Syria. But these countries could not be
explored to advantage without a knowledge of the language. Our young
traveller was not to be discouraged by this difficulty. Instead of
learning Arabic in Europe, he withdrew to a convent of Copts, until he
had made himself master of an idiom that is spoken by so many nations
of the East. This resolution showed one of those undaunted spirits that
remain unshaken amid the trials of life.
Although, like other travellers, he might have amused us with an account
of his hardships and the perils surmounted by his courage, he overcame
the temptation of interrupting his narrative by personal adventures. He
disdained the beaten track. He does not tell us the road he took, the
accidents he met with, or the impressions he received. He carefully
avoids appearing upon the stage; he is an inhabitant of the country,
who has long and well observed it, and who describes its physical,
political, and moral state. The allusion would be entire if an old
Arab could be supposed to possess all the erudition, all the European
philosophy, which are found united and in their maturity in a traveller
of twenty-five.
But though a master in all those artifices by which a narration is
rendered interesting, the young man is not to be discerned in the pomp
of labored descriptions. Although possessed of a lively and brilliant
imagination, he is never found unwarily explaining by conjectural
systems the physical or moral phenomena he describes. In his
observations he unites prudence with science. With these two guides he
judges with circumspection, and sometimes confesses himself unable to
account for the effects he has made known to us.
Thus his account has all the qualities that persuade--accuracy
and candor. And when, ten years later, a vast military enterprise
transported forty thousand travellers to the classic ground, which he
had trod unattended, unarmed and unprotected, they all recognized a sure
guide and an enlightened observer in the writer who had, as it seemed,
only preceded them to remove or point out a part of the difficulties of
the way.
The unanimous testimony of all parties proved the accuracy of his
account and the justness of his observations; and his Travels in Egypt
and Syria were, by universal suffrage, recommended to the gratitude and
the confidence of the public.
Before the work had undergone this trial it had obtained in the learned
world such a rapid and general success, that it found its way into
Russia. The empress, then (in 1787) upon the throne, sent the author
a medal, which he received with respect, as a mark of esteem for his
talents, and with gratitude, as a proof of the approbation given to his
principles. But when the empress declared against France, Volney sent
back the honorable present, saying: "If I obtained it from her esteem, I
can only preserve her esteem by returning it."
The revolution of 1789, which had drawn upon France the menaces of
Catharine, had opened to Volney a political career. As deputy in the
assembly of the states-general, the first words he uttered there were
in favor of the publicity of their deliberations. He also supported
the organization of the national guards, and that of the communes and
departments.
At the period when the question of the sale of the domain lands was
agitated (in 1790), he published an essay in which he lays down the
following principles: "The force of a State is in proportion to
its population; population is in proportion to plenty; plenty is in
proportion to tillage; and tillage, to personal and immediate interest,
that is to the spirit of property. Whence it follows, that the nearer
the cultivator approaches the passive condition of a mercenary, the less
industry and activity are to be expected from him; and, on the other
hand, the nearer he is to the condition of a free and entire proprietor,
the more extension he gives to his own forces, to the produce of his
lands, and the general prosperity of the State."
The author draws this conclusion, that a State is so much the more
powerful as it includes a greater number of proprietors,--that is, a
greater division of property.
Conducted into Corsica by that spirit of observation which belongs only
to men whose information is varied and extensive, he perceived at the
first glance all that could be done for the improvement of agriculture
in that country: but he knew that, for a people firmly attached to
ancient customs, there can exist no other demonstration or means of
persuasion than example. He purchased a considerable estate, and made
experiments on those kinds of tillage that he hoped to naturalize
in that climate. The sugar-cane, cotton, indigo and coffee soon
demonstrated the success of his efforts. This success drew upon him the
notice of the government. He was appointed director of agriculture and
commerce in that island, where, through ignorance, all new methods are
introduced with such difficulty.
It is impossible to calculate all the good that might have resulted from
this peaceable magistracy; and we know that neither instruction, zeal,
nor a persevering courage was wanting to him who had undertaken it.
Of this he had given convincing proofs. It was in obedience to another
sentiment, no less respectable, that he voluntarily interrupted the
course of his labors. When his fellow citizens of Angers appointed him
their deputy in the constituent assembly, he resigned the employment he
held under government, upon the principle that no man can represent
the nation and be dependent for a salary upon those by whom it is
administered.
Through respect for the independence of his legislative functions,
he had ceased to occupy the place he possessed in Corsica before his
election, but he had not ceased to be a benefactor of that country. He
returned thither after the session of the constituent assembly. Invited
into that island by the principal inhabitants, who were anxious to put
into practice his lessons, he spent there a part of the years 1792 and
1793.
On his return he published a work entitled: An Account of the Present
State of Corsica. This was an act of courage; for it was not a physical
description, but a political review of the condition of a population
divided into several factions and distracted by violent animosities.
Volney unreservedly revealed the abuses, solicited the interest of
France in favor of the Corsicans, without flattering them, and boldly
denounced their defects and vices; so that the philosopher obtained the
only recompense he could expect from his sincerity--he was accused by
the Corsicans of heresy.
To prove that he had not merited this reproach, he published soon after
a short treatise entitled: The Law of Nature, or Physical Principles of
Morality.
He was soon exposed to a much more dangerous charge, and this, it must
be confessed, he did merit. This philosopher, this worthy citizen, who
in our first National assembly had seconded with his wishes and his
talents the establishment of an order of things which he considered
favorable to the happiness of his country, was accused of not being
sincerely attached to that liberty for which he had contended; that is
to say, of being averse to anarchy. An imprisonment of ten months, which
only ended after the 9th of Thermidor, was a new trial reserved for his
courage.
The moment at which he recovered his liberty, was when the horror
inspired by criminal excesses had recalled men to those noble sentiments
which fortunately are one of the first necessaries of civilized life.
They sought for consolations in study and literature after so many
misfortunes, and organized a plan of public instruction.
It was in the first place necessary to insure the aptitude of those to
whom education should be confided; but as the systems were various, the
best methods and a unity of doctrine were to be determined. It was not
enough to interrogate the masters, they were to be formed, new ones were
to be created, and for that purpose a school was opened in 1794, wherein
the celebrity of the professors promised new instruction even to the
best informed. This was not, as was objected, beginning the edifice at
the roof, but creating architects, who were to superintend all the arts
requisite for constructing the building.
The more difficult their functions were, the greater care was to be
taken in the choice of the professors; but France, though then accused
of being plunged in barbarism, possessed men of transcendent talents,
already enjoying the esteem of all Europe, and we may be bold to say,
that by their labors, our literary glory had likewise extended its
conquests. Their names were proclaimed by the public voice, and Volney's
was associated with those of the men most illustrious in science and in
literature.*
* Lagrange, Laplace, Berthollet, Garat, Bernardin de Saint-
Pierre, Daubenton, Hauy, Volney, Sicard, Monge, Thouin, La
Harpe, Buache Mentelle.
This institution, however, did not answer the expectations that had been
formed of it, because the two thousand students that assembled from all
parts of France were not equally prepared to receive these transcendent
lessons, and because it had not been sufficiently ascertained how far
the theory of education should be kept distinct from education itself.
Volney's Lectures on History, which were attended by an immense
concourse of auditors, became one of his chief claims to literary glory.
When forced to interrupt them, by the suppression of the Normal school,
he might have reasonably expected to enjoy in his retirement that
consideration which his recent functions had added to his name. But,
disgusted with the scenes he had witnessed in his native land, he felt
that passion revive within him which, in his youth, had led him to visit
Africa and Asia. America, civilized within a century, and free only
within a few years, fixed his attention. There every thing was new,--the
inhabitants, the constitution, the earth itself. These were objects
worthy of his observation. When embarking for this voyage, however, he
felt emotions very different from those which formerly accompanied him
into Turkey. Then in the prime of life, he joyfully bid adieu to a
land where peace and plenty reigned, to travel amongst barbarians;
now, mature in years, but dismayed at the spectacle and experience of
injustice and persecution, it was with diffidence, as we learn from
himself, that he went to implore from a free people an asylum for a
sincere friend of that liberty that had been so profaned.
Our traveller had gone to seek for repose beyond the seas. He there
found himself exposed to aggression from a celebrated philosopher, Dr.
Priestley. Although the subject of this discussion was confined to the
investigation of some speculative opinions, published by the French
writer in his work entitled The Ruins, the naturalist in this attack
employed a degree of violence which added nothing to the force of his
arguments, and an acrimony of expression not to be expected from a
philosopher. M. Volney, though accused of Hottentotism and ignorance,
preserved in his defence, all the advantages that the scurrility of
his adversary gave over him. He replied in English, and Priestley's
countrymen could only recognize the Frenchman in the refinement and
politeness of his answer.
Whilst M. Volney was travelling in America, there had been formed in
France a literary body which, under the name of Institute, had attained
in a very few years a distinguished rank amongst the learned societies
of Europe. The name of the illustrious traveller was inscribed in it
at its formation, and he acquired new rights to the academical
honors conferred on him during his absence, by the publication of his
observations On the Climate and Soil of the United States.
These rights were further augmented by the historical and physiological
labors of the Academician. An examination and justification of The
Chronology of Herodotus, with numerous and profound researches on The
History of the most Ancient Nations, occupied for a long time him who
had observed their monuments and traces in the countries they inhabited.
The trial he had made of the utility of the Oriental languages inspired
him with an ardent desire to propagate the knowledge of them; and to be
propagated, he felt how necessary it was to render it less difficult.
In this view he conceived the project of applying to the study of the
idioms of Asia, a part of the grammatical notions we possess concerning
the languages of Europe. It only appertains to those conversant with
their relations of dissimilitude or conformity to appreciate the
possibility of realizing this system. The author has, however, already
received the most flattering encouragement and the most unequivocal
appreciation, by the inscription of his name amongst the members of
the learned and illustrious society founded by English commerce in the
Indian peninsula.
M. Volney developed his system in three works,* which prove that this
idea of uniting nations separated by immense distances and such various
idioms, had never ceased to occupy him for twenty-five years. Lest those
essays, of the utility of which he was persuaded, should be interrupted
by his death, with the clay-cold hand that corrected his last work, he
drew up a will which institutes a premium for the prosecution of his
labors. Thus he prolonged, beyond the term of a life entirely devoted to
letters, the glorious services he had rendered to them.
* On the Simplification of Oriental Languages, 1795. The
European Alphabet Applied to the Languages of Asia, 1819.
Hebrew Simplified, 1820.
This is not the place, nor does it belong to me to appreciate the merit
of the writings which render Volney's name illustrious. His name had
been inscribed in the list of the Senate, and afterwards of the House
of Peers. The philosopher who had travelled in the four quarters of
the world, and observed their social state, had other titles to his
admission into this body, than his literary glory. His public life, his
conduct in the constituent assembly, his independent principles, the
nobleness of his sentiments, the wisdom and fixity of his opinions, had
gained him the esteem of those who can be depended upon, and with whom
it is so agreeable to discuss political interests.
Although no man had a better right to have an opinion, no one was more
tolerant for the opinions of others. In State assemblies as well as
in Academical meetings, the man whose counsels were so wise, voted
according to his conscience, which nothing could bias; but the
philosopher forgot his superiority to hear, to oppose with moderation,
and sometimes to doubt. The extent and variety of his information,
the force of his reason, the austerity of his manners, and the noble
simplicity of his character, had procured him illustrious friends in
both hemispheres; and now that this erudition is extinct in the tomb,*
we may be allowed at least to predict that he was one of the very few
whose memory shall never die.
* He died in Paris on the 20th of April, 1820.
A list of the Works Published by Count Volney.
TRAVELS IN EGYPT AND SYRIA during the years 1783, 1784, and 1785: 2
vols. 8vo.--1787.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE TWELVE CENTURIES that preceded the entrance of Xerxes
into Greece.
CONSIDERATIONS ON THE TURKISH WAR, in 1788.
THE RUINS, or Meditations on the Revolutions of Empires--1791.
ACCOUNT OF THE PRESENT STATE OF CORSICA--1793.
THE LAW OF NATURE, or Physical Principles of Morality--1793.
ON THE SIMPLIFICATION OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES--1795.
A LETTER TO DR. PRIESTLEY--1797.
LECTURES ON HISTORY, delivered at the Normal School in the year 3--1800.
ON THE CLIMATE AND SOIL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, to which is
added an account of Florida, of the French colony of Scioto, of some
Canadian Colonies, and of the Savages--1803.
REPORT MADE TO THE CELTIC ACADEMY ON THE RUSSIAN WORK OF PROFESSOR
PALLAS, entitled "A Comparative Vocabulary of all the Languages in the
World."
THE CHRONOLOGY OF HERODOTUS conformable with his Text--1808 and 1809.
NEW RESEARCHES ON ANCIENT HISTORY, 3 vols. 8vo.--1814
THE EUROPEAN ALPHABET Applied to the Languages of Asia--1819.
A HISTORY OF SAMUEL--1819.
HEBREW SIMPLIFIED--1820.
INVOCATION.
Hail solitary ruins, holy sepulchres and silent walls! you I invoke; to
you I address my prayer. While your aspect averts, with secret terror,
the vulgar regard, it excites in my heart the charm of delicious
sentiments--sublime contemplations. What useful lessons, what affecting
and profound reflections you suggest to him who knows how to consult
you! When the whole earth, in chains and silence bowed the neck before
its tyrants, you had already proclaimed the truths which they abhor;
and confounding the dust of the king with that of the meanest slave,
had announced to man the sacred dogma of Equality. Within your pale, in
solitary adoration of Liberty, I saw her Genius arise from the mansions
of the dead; not such as she is painted by the impassioned multitude,
armed with fire and sword, but under the august aspect of Justice,
poising in her hand the sacred balance wherein are weighed the actions
of men at the gates of eternity!
O Tombs! what virtues are yours! You appal the tyrant's heart, and
poison with secret alarm his impious joys. He flies, with coward step,
your incorruptible aspect, and erects afar his throne of insolence.*
You punish the powerful oppressor; you wrest from avarice and extortion
their ill-gotten gold, and you avenge the feeble whom they have
despoiled; you compensate the miseries of the poor by the anxieties of
the rich; you console the wretched, by opening to him a last asylum from
distress; and you give to the soul that just equipoise of strength and
sensibility which constitutes wisdom--the true science of life. Aware
that all must return to you, the wise man loadeth not himself with the
burdens of grandeur and of useless wealth: he restrains his desires
within the limits of justice; yet, knowing that he must run his destined
course of life, he fills with employment all its hours, and enjoys the
comforts that fortune has allotted him. You thus impose on the impetuous
sallies of cupidity a salutary rein! you calm the feverish ardor
of enjoyments which disturb the senses; you free the soul from the
fatiguing conflict of the passions; elevate it above the paltry
interests which torment the crowd; and surveying, from your commanding
position, the expanse of ages and nations, the mind is only accessible
to the great affections--to the solid ideas of virtue and of glory.
* The cathedral of St. Denis is the tomb of the kings of
France; and it was because the towers of that edifice are
seen from the Castle of St. Germain, that Louis XIV. quitted
that admirable residence, and established a new one in the
savage forests of Versailles.
(This note, like many others, has been omitted from the
American editions. It seems pertinent to the subject, and
is explanatory of the text.--Pub.)
Ah! when the dream of life is over, what will then avail all its
agitations, if not one trace of utility remains behind?
O Ruins! to your school I will return! I will seek again the calm of
your solitudes; and there, far from the afflicting spectacle of the
passions, I will cherish in remembrance the love of man, I will
employ myself on the means of effecting good for him, and build my own
happiness on the promotion of his.
THE RUINS OF EMPIRES.
CHAPTER I.
THE JOURNEY.
In the eleventh year of the reign of Abd-ul-Hamid, son of Ahmid, emperor
of the Turks; when the Nogais-Tartars were driven from the Crimea, and a
Mussulman prince of the blood of Gengis-Kahn became the vassal and
guard of a Christian woman and queen,* I was travelling in the Ottoman
dominions, and through those provinces which were anciently the kingdoms
of Egypt and Syria.
* In the eleventh year of Abd-ul-Hamid, that is 1784 of the
Christian era, and 1198 of the Hegira. The emigration of
the Tartars took place in March, immediately on the
manifesto of the empress, declaring the Crimea to be
incorporated with Russia. The Mussulman prince of the blood
of Gengis-khan was Chahin-Guerai. Gengis-Khan was borne and
served by the kings whom he conquered: Chahin, on the
contrary, after selling his country for a pension of eighty
thousand roubles, accepted the commission of captain of
guards to Catherine II. He afterwards returned home, and
according to custom was strangled by the Turks.
My whole attention bent on whatever concerns the happiness of man in
a social state, I visited cities, and studied the manners of their
inhabitants; entered palaces, and observed the conduct of those who
govern; wandered over fields, and examined the condition of those
who cultivated them: and nowhere perceiving aught but robbery and
devastation, tyranny and wretchedness, my heart was oppressed with
sorrow and indignation.
I saw daily on my road fields abandoned, villages deserted, and cities
in ruin. Often I met with ancient monuments, wrecks of temples, palaces
and fortresses, columns, aqueducts and tombs. This spectacle led me to
meditate on times past, and filled my mind with contemplations the most
serious and profound.
Arrived at the city of Hems, on the border of the Orontes, and being
in the neighborhood of Palmyra of the desert, I resolved to visit its
celebrated ruins. After three days journeying through arid deserts,
having traversed the Valley of Caves and Sepulchres, on issuing into
the plain, I was suddenly struck with a scene of the most stupendous
ruins--a countless multitude of superb columns, stretching in avenues
beyond the reach of sight. Among them were magnificent edifices, some
entire, others in ruins; the earth every where strewed with fragments
of cornices, capitals, shafts, entablatures, pilasters, all of
white marble, and of the most exquisite workmanship. After a walk of
three-quarters of an hour along these ruins, I entered the enclosure of
a vast edifice, formerly a temple dedicated to the Sun; and accepting
the hospitality of some poor Arabian peasants, who had built their
hovels on the area of the temple, I determined to devote some days to
contemplate at leisure the beauty of these stupendous ruins.
Daily I visited the monuments which covered the plain; and one evening,
absorbed in reflection, I had advanced to the Valley of Sepulchres. I
ascended the heights which surround it from whence the eye commands the
whole group of ruins and the immensity of the desert. The sun had sunk
below the horizon: a red border of light still marked his track behind
the distant mountains of Syria; the full-orbed moon was rising in the
east, on a blue ground, over the plains of the Euphrates; the sky was
clear, the air calm and serene; the dying lamp of day still softened the
horrors of approaching darkness; the refreshing night breezes attempered
the sultry emanations from the heated earth; the herdsmen had given
their camels to repose, the eye perceived no motion on the dusky and
uniform plain; profound silence rested on the desert; the howlings only
of the jackal,* and the solemn notes of the bird of night, were heard
at distant intervals. Darkness now increased, and through the dusk could
only be discerned the pale phantasms of columns and walls. The solitude
of the place, the tranquillity of the hour, the majesty of the scene,
impressed on my mind a religious pensiveness. The aspect of a great city
deserted, the memory of times past, compared with its present state, all
elevated my mind to high contemplations. I sat on the shaft of a column,
my elbow reposing on my knee, and head reclining on my hand, my eyes
fixed, sometimes on the desert, sometimes on the ruins, and fell into a
profound reverie.
* An animal resembling a dog and a fox. It preys on other
small animals, and upon the bodies of the dead on the field
of battle. It is the Canis aureus of Linnaeus.
CHAPTER II.
THE REVERIE.
Here, said I, once flourished an opulent city; here was the seat of a
powerful empire. Yes! these places now so wild and desolate, were once
animated by a living multitude; a busy crowd thronged in these streets,
now so solitary. Within these walls, where now reigns the silence
of death, the noise of the arts, and the shouts of joy and festivity
incessantly resounded; these piles of marble were regular palaces; these
fallen columns adorned the majesty of temples; these ruined galleries
surrounded public places. Here assembled a numerous people for the
sacred duties of their religion, and the anxious cares of their
subsistence; here industry, parent of enjoyments, collected the riches
of all climes, and the purple of Tyre was exchanged for the precious
thread of Serica;* the soft tissues of Cassimere for the sumptuous
tapestry of Lydia; the amber of the Baltic for the pearls and perfumes
of Arabia; the gold of Ophir for the tin of Thule.
* The precious thread of Serica.--That is, the silk
originally derived from the mountainous country where the
great wall terminates, and which appears to have been the
cradle of the Chinese empire. The tissues of Cassimere.--
The shawls which Ezekiel seems to have described under the
appellation of Choud-choud. The gold of Ophir.--This
country, which was one of the twelve Arab cantons, and which
has so much and so unsuccessfully been sought for by the
antiquarians, has left, however, some trace of itself in
Ofor, in the province of Oman, upon the Persian Gulf,
neighboring on one side to the Sabeans, who are celebrated
by Strabo for their abundance of gold, and on the other to
Aula or Hevila, where the pearl fishery was carried on. See
the 27th chapter of Ezekiel, which gives a very curious and
extensive picture of the commerce of Asia at that period.
And now behold what remains of this powerful city: a miserable skeleton!
What of its vast domination: a doubtful and obscure remembrance! To
the noisy concourse which thronged under these porticoes, succeeds the
solitude of death. The silence of the grave is substituted for the busy
hum of public places; the affluence of a commercial city is changed into
wretched poverty; the palaces of kings have become a den of wild beasts;
flocks repose in the area of temples, and savage reptiles inhabit the
sanctuary of the gods. Ah! how has so much glory been eclipsed? how
have so many labors been annihilated? Do thus perish then the works of
men--thus vanish empires and nations?
And the history of former times revived in my mind; I remembered those
ancient ages when many illustrious nations inhabited these countries; I
figured to myself the Assyrian on the banks of the Tygris, the Chaldean
on the banks of the Euphrates, the Persian reigning from the Indus to
the Mediterranean. I enumerated the kingdoms of Damascus and Idumea, of
Jerusalem and Samaria, the warlike states of the Philistines, and
the commercial republics of Phoenicia. This Syria, said I, now so
depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and abounded
with towns, villages, and hamlets.* In all parts were seen cultivated
fields, frequented roads, and crowded habitations. Ah! whither have
flown those ages of life and abundance?--whither vanished those
brilliant creations of human industry? Where are those ramparts of
Nineveh, those walls of Babylon, those palaces of Persepolis, those
temples of Balbec and of Jerusalem? Where are those fleets of Tyre,
those dock-yards of Arad, those work-shops of Sidon, and that multitude
of sailors, of pilots, of merchants, and of soldiers? Where those
husbandmen, harvests, flocks, and all the creation of living beings
in which the face of the earth rejoiced? Alas! I have passed over this
desolate land! I have visited the palaces, once the scene of so much
splendor, and I beheld nothing but solitude and desolation. I sought the
ancient inhabitants and their works, and found nothing but a trace, like
the foot-prints of a traveller over the sand. The temples are fallen,
the palaces overthrown, the ports filled up, the cities destroyed; and
the earth, stripped of inhabitants, has become a place of sepulchres.
Great God! whence proceed such fatal revolutions? What causes have so
changed the fortunes of these countries? Wherefore are so many cities
destroyed? Why has not this ancient population been reproduced and
perpetuated?
* According to Josephus and Strabo, there were in Syria
twelve millions of souls, and the traces that remain of
culture and habitation confirm the calculation.
Thus absorbed in meditation, a crowd of new reflections continually
poured in upon my mind. Every thing, continued I, bewilders my judgment,
and fills my heart with trouble and uncertainty. When these countries
enjoyed what constitutes the glory and happiness of man, they were
inhabited by infidel nations: It was the Phoenician, offering human
sacrifices to Moloch, who gathered into his stores the riches of all
climates; it was the Chaldean, prostrate before his serpent-god,*
who subjugated opulent cities, laid waste the palaces of kings, and
despoiled the temples of the gods; it was the Persian, worshipper of
fire, who received the tribute of a hundred nations; they were the
inhabitants of this very city, adorers of the sun and stars, who erected
so many monuments of prosperity and luxury. Numerous herds, fertile
fields, abundant harvests--whatsoever should be the reward of piety--was
in the hands of these idolaters. And now, when a people of saints and
believers occupy these fields, all is become sterility and solitude.
The earth, under these holy hands, produces only thorns and briers. Man
soweth in anguish, and reapeth tears and cares. War, famine, pestilence,
assail him by turns. And yet, are not these the children of the
prophets? The Mussulman, Christian, Jew, are they not the elect children
of God, loaded with favors and miracles? Why, then, do these privileged
races no longer enjoy the same advantages? Why are these fields,
sanctified by the blood of martyrs, deprived of their ancient fertility?
Why have those blessings been banished hence, and transferred for so
many ages to other nations and different climes?
* The dragon Bell.
At these words, revolving in my mind the vicissitudes which have
transmitted the sceptre of the world to people so different in religion
and manners from those in ancient Asia to the most recent of Europe,
this name of a natal land revived in me the sentiment of my country; and
turning my eyes towards France, I began to reflect on the situation in
which I had left her.*
* In the year 1782, at the close of the American war.
I recalled her fields so richly cultivated, her roads so admirably
constructed, her cities inhabited by a countless people, her fleets
spread over every sea, her ports filled with the produce of both the
Indies: and then comparing the activity of her commerce, the extent of
her navigation, the magnificence of her buildings, the arts and industry
of her inhabitants, with what Egypt and Syria had once possessed, I was
gratified to find in modern Europe the departed splendor of Asia; but
the charm of my reverie was soon dissolved by a last term of comparison.
Reflecting that such had once been the activity of the places I was
then contemplating, who knows, said I, but such may one day be the
abandonment of our countries? Who knows if on the banks of the Seine,
the Thames, the Zuyder-Zee, where now, in the tumult of so many
enjoyments, the heart and the eye suffice not for the multitude of
sensations,--who knows if some traveller, like myself, shall not one day
sit on their silent ruins, and weep in solitude over the ashes of their
inhabitants, and the memory of their former greatness.
At these words, my eyes filled with tears: and covering my head with the
fold of my mantle, I sank into gloomy meditations on all human affairs.
Ah! hapless man, said I in my grief, a blind fatality sports with thy
destiny!* A fatal necessity rules with the hand of chance the lot of
mortals! But no: it is the justice of heaven fulfilling its decrees!--a
God of mystery exercising his incomprehensible judgments! Doubtless
he has pronounced a secret anathema against this land: blasting with
maledictions the present, for the sins of past generations. Oh! who
shall dare to fathom the depths of the Omnipotent?
* Fatality is the universal and rooted prejudice of the
East. "It was written," is there the answer to every thing.
Hence result an unconcern and apathy, the most powerful
impediments to instruction and civilization.
And sunk in profound melancholy, I remained motionless.
CHAPTER III.
THE APPARITION.
While thus absorbed, a sound struck my ear, like the agitation of a
flowing robe, or that of slow footsteps on dry and rustling grass.
Startled, I opened my mantle, and looking about with fear and trembling,
suddenly, on my left, by the glimmering light of the moon, through
the columns and ruins of a neighboring temple, I thought I saw an
apparition, pale, clothed in large and flowing robes, such as spectres
are painted rising from their tombs. I shuddered: and while agitated and
hesitating whether to fly or to advance toward the object, a distinct
voice, in solemn tones, pronounced these words:
How long will man importune heaven with unjust complaint? How long, with
vain clamors, will he accuse Fate as the author of his calamities? Will
he forever shut his eyes to the light, and his heart to the admonitions
of truth and reason? The light of truth meets him everywhere; yet he
sees it not! The voice of reason strikes his ear; and he hears it
not! Unjust man! if for a moment thou canst suspend the delusion which
fascinates thy senses, if thy heart can comprehend the language of
reason, interrogate these ruins! Read the lessons which they present to
thee! And you, evidences of twenty centuries, holy temples! venerable
tombs! walls once so glorious, appear in the cause of nature herself!
Approach the tribunal of sound reason, and bear testimony against unjust
accusations! Come and confound the declamations of a false wisdom or
hypocritical piety, and avenge the heavens and the earth of man who
calumniates them both!
What is that blind fatality, which without order and without law,
sports with the destiny of mortals? What is that unjust necessity, which
confounds the effect of actions, whether of wisdom or of folly? In what
consist the anathemas of heaven over this land? Where is that divine
malediction which perpetuates the abandonment of these fields? Say,
monuments of past ages! have the heavens changed their laws and the
earth its motion? Are the fires of the sun extinct in the regions of
space? Do the seas no longer emit their vapors? Are the rains and the
dews suspended in the air? Do the mountains withhold their springs? Are
the streams dried up? And do the plants no longer bear fruit and seed?
Answer, generation of falsehood and iniquity, hath God deranged the
primitive and settled order of things which he himself assigned to
nature? Hath heaven denied to earth, and earth to its inhabitants,
the blessings they formerly dispensed? If nothing hath changed in the
creation, if the same means now exist which before existed, why then are
not the present what former generations were? Ah! it is falsely that you
accuse fate and heaven! it is unjustly that you accuse God as the cause
of your evils! Say, perverse and hypocritical race! if these places are
desolate, if these powerful cities are reduced to solitude, is it God
who has caused their ruin? Is it his hand which has overthrown these
walls, destroyed these temples, mutilated these columns, or is it the
hand of man? Is it the arm of God which has carried the sword into your
cities, and fire into your fields, which has slaughtered the people,
burned the harvests, rooted up trees, and ravaged the pastures, or is
it the hand of man? And when, after the destruction of crops, famine
has ensued, is it the vengeance of God which has produced it, or the
mad fury of mortals? When, sinking under famine, the people have fed
on impure aliments, if pestilence ensues, is it the wrath of God which
sends it, or the folly of man? When war, famine and pestilence, have
swept away the inhabitants, if the earth remains a desert, is it God
who has depopulated it? Is it his rapacity which robs the husbandman,
ravages the fruitful fields, and wastes the earth, or is it the rapacity
of those who govern? Is it his pride which excites murderous wars,
or the pride of kings and their ministers? Is it the venality of his
decisions which overthrows the fortunes of families, or the corruption
of the organs of the law? Are they his passions which, under a thousand
forms, torment individuals and nations, or are they the passions of man?
And if, in the anguish of their miseries, they see not the remedies,
is it the ignorance of God which is to blame, or their ignorance? Cease
then, mortals, to accuse the decrees of Fate, or the judgments of the
Divinity! If God is good, will he be the author of your misery? If he is
just, will he be the accomplice of your crimes? No, the caprice of which
man complains is not the caprice of fate; the darkness that misleads his
reason is not the darkness of God; the source of his calamities is
not in the distant heavens, it is beside him on the earth; it is not
concealed in the bosom of the divinity; it dwells within himself, he
bears it in his own heart.
Thou murmurest and sayest: What! have an infidel people then enjoyed the
blessings of heaven and earth? Are the holy people of God less fortunate
than the races of impiety? Deluded man! where then is the contradiction
which offends thee? Where is the inconsistency which thou imputest to
the justice of heaven? Take into thine own hands the balance of rewards
and punishments, of causes and effects. Say: when these infidels
observed the laws of the heavens and the earth, when they regulated
well-planned labors by the order of the seasons and the course of
the stars, should the Almighty have disturbed the equilibrium of the
universe to defeat their prudence? When their hands cultivated these
fields with toil and care, should he have diverted the course of the
rains, suspended the refreshing dews, and planted crops of thorns?
When, to render these arid fields productive, their industry constructed
aqueducts, dug canals, and led the distant waters across the desert,
should he have dried up their sources in the mountains? Should he have
blasted the harvests which art had nourished, wasted the plains which
peace had peopled, overthrown cities which labor had created, or
disturbed the order established by the wisdom of man? And what is that
infidelity which founded empires by its prudence, defended them by
its valor, and strengthened them by its justice--which built powerful
cities, formed capacious ports, drained pestilential marshes, covered
the ocean with ships, the earth with inhabitants; and, like the
creative spirit, spread life and motion throughout the world? If such
be infidelity, what then is the true faith? Doth sanctity consist in
destruction? The God who peoples the air with birds, the earth with
animals, the waters with fishes--the God who animates all nature--is he
then a God of ruins and tombs? Demands he devastation for homage, and
conflagration for sacrifice? Requires he groans for hymns, murderers for
votaries, a ravaged and desolate earth for his temple? Behold then, holy
and believing people, what are your works! behold the fruits of your
piety! You have massacred the people, burned their cities, destroyed
cultivation, reduced the earth to a solitude; and you ask the reward
of your works! Miracles then must be performed! The people whom you
extirpated must be recalled to life, the walls rebuilt which you have
overthrown, the harvests reproduced which you have destroyed, the waters
regathered which you have dispersed; the laws, in fine, of heaven and
earth reversed; those laws, established by God himself, in demonstration
of his magnificence and wisdom; those eternal laws, anterior to all
codes, to all the prophets those immutable laws, which neither the
passions nor the ignorance of man can pervert. But that passion which
mistaketh, that ignorance which observeth neither causes nor effects,
hath said in its folly: "All things flow from chance; a blind fatality
poureth out good and evil upon the earth; success is not to the prudent,
nor felicity to the wise;" or, assuming the language of hypocrisy, she
hath said, "all things are from God; he taketh pleasure in deceiving
wisdom and confounding reason." And Ignorance, applauding herself in her
malice, hath said, "thus will I place myself on a par with that science
which confounds me--thus will I excel that prudence which fatigues and
torments me." And Avarice hath added: "I will oppress the weak, and
devour the fruits of his labors; and I will say, it is fate which hath
so ordained." But I! I swear by the laws of heaven and earth, and by the
law which is written in the heart of man, that the hypocrite shall be
deceived in his cunning--the oppressor in his rapacity! The sun shall
change his course, before folly shall prevail over wisdom and knowledge,
or ignorance surpass prudence, in the noble and sublime art of procuring
to man his true enjoyments, and of building his happiness on an enduring
foundation.
CHAPTER IV.
THE EXPOSITION
Thus spoke the Phantom. Confused with this discourse, and my heart
agitated with different reflections, I remained long in silence. At
length, taking courage, I thus addressed him: Oh, Genius of tombs and
ruins! Thy presence, thy severity, hath disordered my senses; but the
justice of thy discourse restoreth confidence to my soul. Pardon my
ignorance. Alas, if man is blind, shall his misfortune be also his
crime? I may have mistaken the voice of reason; but never, knowingly,
have I rejected its authority. Ah! if thou readest my heart, thou
knowest with what enthusiasm it seeketh truth. Is it not in its pursuit
that thou seest me in this sequestered spot? Alas! I have wandered over
the earth, I have visited cities and countries; and seeing everywhere
misery and desolation, a sense of the evils which afflict my fellow men
hath deeply oppressed my soul. I have said, with a sigh: is man then
born but for sorrow and anguish? And I have meditated upon human misery
that I might discover a remedy. I have said, I will separate myself from
the corruption of society; I will retire far from palaces where the mind
is depraved by satiety and from the hovel where it is debased by misery.
I will go into the desert and dwell among ruins; I will interrogate
ancient monuments on the wisdom of past ages; I will invoke from the
bosom of the tombs the spirit which once in Asia gave splendor to
states, and glory to nations; I will ask of the ashes of legislators,
by what secret causes do empires rise and fall; from what sources spring
the Prosperity and misfortunes of nations, on what principles can the
Peace of Society, and the happiness of man be established?
I ceased, and with submissive look awaited the answer of the Genius.
Peace and happiness, said he, attend those who practice justice! Since
thy heart, O mortal, with sincerity seeketh truth; since thine eyes can
still recognize her through the mist of prejudice, thy prayer shall not
be in vain. I will unfold to thy view that truth thou invokest; I will
teach thy reason that knowledge thou seekest; I will reveal to thee the
science of ages and the wisdom of the tombs.
Then approaching and laying his hand on my head, he said:
Rise, mortal, and extricate thy senses from the dust in which thou
movest.
Suddenly a celestial flame seemed to dissolve the bands which held us to
the earth; and, like a light vapor, borne on the wings of the Genius,
I felt myself wafted to the regions above. Thence, from the aerial
heights, looking down upon the earth, I perceived a scene altogether
new. Under my feet, floating in the void, a globe like that of the moon,
but smaller and less luminous, presented to me one of its phases; and
that phase* had the aspect of a disk varigated with large spots, some
white and nebulous, others brown, green or gray, and while I strained my
sight to distinguish what they were, the Genius exclaimed:
* See Plate representing half the terrestrial globe,
opposite page 10.
Disciple of Truth, knowest thou that object?
O Genius, answered I, if I did not see the moon in another quarter of
the heavens, I should have supposed that to be her globe. It has
the appearance of that planet seen through the telescope during the
obscuration of an eclipse. These varigated spots might be mistaken for
seas and continents.
They are seas and continents, said he, and those of the very hemisphere
which you inhabit.
What! said I, is that the earth--the habitation of man?
Yes, replied he, that brown space which occupies irregularly a great
portion of the disk, and envelops it almost on every side, is what you
call the great ocean, which advancing from the south pole towards the
equator, forms first the great gulf of India and Africa, then extends
eastward across the Malay islands to the confines of Tartary, while
towards the west it encircles the continents of Africa and of Europe,
even to the north of Asia.
That square peninsula under our feet is the arid country of the Arabs;
the great continent on its left, almost as naked in its interior, with
a little verdure only towards its borders, is the parched soil inhabited
by black-men.* To the north, beyond a long, narrow and irregular sea,**
are the countries of Europe, rich in meadows and cultivated fields. On
its right, from the Caspian Sea, extend the snowy and naked plains of
Tartary. Returning in this direction that white space is the vast and
barren desert of Cobi, which separates China from the rest of the world.
You see that empire in the furrowed plain which obliquely rounds itself
off from our sight. On yonder coasts, those ragged tongues of land
and scattered points are the peninsulas and islands of the Malays, the
wretched possessors of the spices and perfumes. That triangle which
advances so far into the sea, is the too famous peninsula of India.***
You see the winding course of the Ganges, the rough mountains of Thibet,
the lovely valley of Cachemere, the briny deserts of Persia, the banks
of the Euphrates and Tygris, the deep bed of the Jordan and the canals
of the solitary Nile.
* Africa.
** The Mediterranean.
*** Of what real good has been the commerce of India to the
mass of the people? On the contrary, how great the evil
occasioned by the superstition of this country having been
added the general superstition!
O Genius, said I, interrupting him, the sight of a mortal reaches not
to objects at such a distance. He touched my eyes, and immediately they
became piercing as those of an eagle; nevertheless the rivers still
appeared like waving lines, the mountains winding furrows, and the
cities little compartments like the squares of a chess-board.
And the Genius proceeded to enumerate and point out the objects to
me: Those piles of ruins, said he, which you see in that narrow valley
watered by the Nile, are the remains of opulent cities, the pride of the
ancient kingdom of Ethiopia.* Behold the wrecks of her metropolis, of
Thebes with her hundred palaces,** the parent of cities, and monument of
the caprice of destiny. There a people, now forgotten, discovered, while
others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences. A
race of men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled
hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and
religious systems which still govern the universe. Lower down, those
dusky points are the pyramids whose masses have astonished you. Beyond
that, the coast, hemmed in between the sea and a narrow ridge of
mountains, was the habitation of the Phoenicians. These were the famous
cities of Tyre, of Sidon, of Ascalon, of Gaza, and of Berytus. That
thread of water with no outlet, is the river Jordan; and those naked
rocks were once the theatre of events that have resounded throughout
the world. Behold that desert of Horeb, and that Mount Sinai; where,
by means beyond vulgar reach, a genius, profound and bold, established
institutions which have weighed on the whole human race. On that dry
shore which borders it, you perceive no longer any trace of splendor;
yet there was an emporium of riches. There were those famous Ports of
Idumea, whence the fleets of Phoenicia and Judea, coasting the Arabian
peninsula, went into the Persian gulf, to seek there the pearls of
Hevila, the gold of Saba and of Ophir. Yes, there on that coast of Oman
and of Barhain was the seat of that commerce of luxuries, which, by its
movements and revolutions, fixed the destinies of ancient nations.***
Thither came the spices and precious stones of Ceylon, the shawls of
Cassimere, the diamonds of Golconda, the amber of Maldivia, the musk of
Thibet, the aloes of Cochin, the apes and peacocks of the continent of
India, the incense of Hadramaut, the myrrh, the silver, the gold dust
and ivory of Africa; thence passing, sometimes by the Red Sea on the
vessels of Egypt and Syria, these luxuries nourished successively the
wealth of Thebes, of Sidon, of Memphis and of Jerusalem; sometimes,
ascending the Tygris and Euphrates, they awakened the activity of the
Assyrians, Medes, Chaldeans, and Persians; and that wealth, according
to the use or abuse of it, raised or reversed by turns their domination.
Hence sprung the magnificence of Persepolis, whose columns you
still perceive; of Ecbatana, whose sevenfold wall is destroyed; of
Babylon,**** now leveled with the earth; of Nineveh, of which scarce
the name remains; of Thapsacus, of Anatho, of Gerra, and of desolated
Palmyra. O names for ever glorious! fields of renown! countries of
never-dying memory! what sublime lessons doth your aspect offer! what
profound truths are written on the surface of your soil! remembrances of
times past, return into my mind! places, witnesses of the life of man in
so many different ages, retrace for me the revolutions of his fortune!
say, what were their springs and secret causes! say, from what sources
he derived success and disgrace! unveil to himself the causes of his
evils! correct him by the spectacle of his errors! teach him the wisdom
which belongeth to him, and let the experience of past ages become a
means of instruction, and a germ of happiness to present and future
generations.
* In the new Encyclopedia 3rd vol. Antiquities is published
a memoir, respecting the chronology of the twelve ages
anterior to the passing of Xerxes into Greece, in which I
conceive myself to have proved that upper Egypt formerly
composed a distinct kingdom known to the Hebrews by the name
of Kous and to which the appellation of Ethiopia was
specially given. This kingdom preserved its independence to
the time of Psammeticus; at which period, being united to
the Lower Egypt, it lost its name of Ethiopia, which
thenceforth was bestowed upon the nations of Nubia and upon
the different tribes of blacks, including Thebes, their
metropolis.
** The idea of a city with a hundred gates, in the common
acceptation of the word, is so absurd, that I am astonished
the equivoque has not before been felt.
It has ever been the custom of the East to call palaces and
houses of the great by the name of gates, because the
principal luxury of these buildings consists in the singular
gate leading from the street into the court, at the farthest
extremity of which the palace is situated. It is under the
vestibule of this gate that conversation is held with
passengers, and a sort of audience and hospitality given.
All this was doubtless known to Homer; but poets make no
commentaries, and readers love the marvellous.
This city of Thebes, now Lougsor, reduced to the condition
of a miserable village, has left astonishing monuments of
its magnificence. Particulars of this may be seen in the
plates of Norden, in Pocock, and in the recent travels of
Bruce. These monuments give credibility to all that Homer
has related of its splendor, and lead us to infer its
political power and external commerce.
Its geographical position was favorable to this twofold
object. For, on one side, the valley of the Nile, singularly
fertile, must have early occasioned a numerous population;
and, on the other, the Red Sea, giving communication with
Arabia and India, and the Nile with Abyssinia and the
Mediterranean, Thebes was thus naturally allied to the
richest countries on the globe; an alliance that procured it
an activity so much the greater, as Lower Egypt, at first a
swamp, was nearly, if not totally, uninhabited. But when at
length this country had been drained by the canals and dikes
which Sesostris constructed, population was introduced
there, and wars arose which proved fatal to the power of
Thebes. Commerce then took another route, and descended to
the point of the Red Sea, to the canals of Sesostris (see
Strabo), and wealth and activity were transferred to
Memphis. This is manifestly what Diodorus means when he
tells us (lib. i. sect. 2), that as soon as Memphis was
established and made a wholesome and delicious abode, kings
abandoned Thebes to fix themselves there. Thus Thebes
continued to decline, and Memphis to flourish, till the time
of Alexander, who, building Alexandria on the border of the
sea, caused Memphis to fall in its turn; so that prosperity
and power seem to have descended historically step by step
along the Nile; whence it results, both physically and
historically, that the existence of Thebes was prior to that
of the other cities. The testimony of writers is very
positive in this respect. "The Thebans," says Diodorus,
"consider themselves as the most ancient people of the
earth, and assert, that with them originated philosophy and
the science of the stars. Their situation, it is true, is
infinitely favorable to astronomical observation, and they
have a more accurate division of time into mouths and years
than other nations" etc.
What Diodorus says of the Thebans, every author, and himself
elsewhere, repeat of the Ethiopians, which tends more firmly
to establish the identity of this place of which I have
spoken. "The Ethiopians conceive themselves," says he, lib.
iii., "to be of greater antiquity than any other nation: and
it is probable that, born under the sun's path, its warmth
may have ripened them earlier than other men. They suppose
themselves also to be the inventors of divine worship, of
festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and every
other religious practice. They affirm that the Egyptians
are one of their colonies, and that the Delta, which was
formerly sea, became land by the conglomeration of the earth
of the higher country which was washed down by the Nile.
They have, like the Egyptians, two species of letters,
hieroglyphics, and the alphabet; but among the Egyptians the
first was known only to the priests, and by them transmitted
from father to son, whereas both species were common among
the Ethiopians."
"The Ethiopians," says Lucian, page 985, "were the first who
invented the science of the stars, and gave names to the
planets, not at random and without meaning, but descriptive
of the qualities which they conceived them to possess; and
it was from them that this art passed, still in an imperfect
state, to the Egyptians."
It would be easy to multiply citations upon this subject;
from all which it follows, that we have the strongest
reasons to believe that the country neighboring to the
tropic was the cradle of the sciences, and of consequence
that the first learned nation was a nation of Blacks; for it
is incontrovertible, that, by the term Ethiopians, the
ancients meant to represent a people of black complexion,
thick lips, and woolly hair. I am therefore inclined to
believe, that the inhabitants of Lower Egypt were originally
a foreign colony imported from Syria and Arabia, a medley of
different tribes of savages, originally shepherds and
fishermen, who, by degrees formed themselves into a nation,
and who, by nature and descent, were enemies of the Thebans,
by whom they were no doubt despised and treated as
barbarians.
I have suggested the same ideas in my Travels into Syria,
founded upon the black complexion of the Sphinx. I have
since ascertained that the antique images of Thebias have
the same characteristic; and Mr. Bruce has offered a
multitude of analogous facts; but this traveller, of whom I
heard some mention at Cairo, has so interwoven these facts
with certain systematic opinions, that we should have
recourse to his narratives with caution.
It is singular that Africa, situated so near us, should be
the least known country on the earth. The English are at
this moment making explorations, the success of which ought
to excite our emulation.
*** Ailah (Eloth), and Atsiom-Gaber (Hesien-Geber.) The
name of the first of these towns still subsists in its
ruins, at the point of the gulf of the Red Sea, and in the
route which the pilgrims take to Mecca. Hesion has at
present no trace, any more than Quolzoum and Faran: it was,
however, the harbor for the fleets of Solomon. The vessels
of this prince conducted by the Tyrians, sailed along the
coast of Arabia to Ophir, in the Persian Gulf, thus opening
a communication with the merchants of India and Ceylon.
That this navigation was entirely of Tyrian invention,
appears both from the pilots and shipbuilders employed by
the Jews, and the names that were given to the trading
islands, viz. Tyrus and Aradus, now Barhain. The voyage was
performed in two different modes, either in canoes of osier
and rushes, covered on the outside with skins done over with
pitch: (these vessels were unable to quit the Red Sea, or so
much as to leave the shore.) The second mode of carrying on
the trade was by means of vessels with decks of the size of
our river boats, which were able to pass the strait and to
weather the dangers of time ocean; but for this purpose it
was necessary to bring the wood from Mount Libanus and
Cilicia, where it is very fine and in great abundance. This
wood was first conveyed in floats from Tarsus to Phoenicia,
for which reason the vessels were called ships of Tarsus;
from whence it has been ridiculously inferred, that they
went round the promontory of Africa as far as Tortosa in
Spain. From Phoenicia it was transported on the backs of
camels to the Red Sea, which practice still continues,
because the shores of this sea are absolutely unprovided
with wood even for fuel. These vessels spent a complete
year in their voyage, that is, sailed one year, sojourned
another, and did not return till the third. This
tediousness was owing first to their cruising from port to
port, as they do at present; secondly, to their being
detained by the Monsoon currents; and thirdly, because,
according to the calculations of Pliny and Strabo, it was
the ordinary practice among the ancients to spend three
years in a voyage of twelve hundred leagues. Such a
commerce must have been very expensive, particularly as they
were obliged to carry with them their provisions, and even
fresh water. For this reason Solomon made himself master of
Palmyra, which was at that time inhabited, and was already
the magazine and high road of merchants by the way of the
Euphrates. This conquest brought Solomon much nearer to the
country of gold and pearls. This alternative of a route
either by the Red Sea or by the river Euphrates was to the
ancients, what in later times has been the alternative in a
voyage to the Indies, either by crossing the isthmus of Suez
or doubling the cape of Good Hope. It appears that till the
time of Moses, this trade was carried on across the desert
of Syria and Thebais; that afterwards it fell into the hands
of the Phoenicians, who fixed its site upon the Red Sea; and
that it was mutual jealousy that induced the kings of
Nineveh and Babylon to undertake the destruction of Tyre and
Jerusalem. I insist the more upon these facts, because I
have never seen any thing reasonable upon the subject.
**** It appears that Babylon occupied on the eastern banks
of the Euphrates a space of ground six leagues in length.
Throughout this space bricks are found by means of which
daily additions are made to the town of Helle. Upon many of
these are characters written with a nail similar to those of
Persepolis. I am indebted for these facts to M. de
Beauchamp, grand vicar of Babylon, a traveller equally
distinguished for his knowledge of astronomy and for his
veracity.
CHAPTER V.
CONDITION OF MAN IN THE UNIVERSE.
The Genius, after some moments of silence, resumed in these words:
I have told thee already, O friend of truth! that man vainly ascribes
his misfortunes to obscure and imaginary agents; in vain he seeks as the
source of his evils mysterious and remote causes. In the general order
of the universe his condition is, doubtless, subject to inconveniences,
and his existence governed by superior powers; but those powers are
neither the decrees of a blind fatality, nor the caprices of whimsical
and fantastic beings. Like the world of which he forms a part, man is
governed by natural laws, regular in their course, uniform in their
effects, immutable in their essence; and those laws,--the common source
of good and evil,--are not written among the distant stars, nor hidden
in codes of mystery; inherent in the nature of terrestrial beings,
interwoven with their existence, at all times and in all places,
they are present to man; they act upon his senses, they warn his
understanding, and give to every action its reward or punishment. Let
man then know these laws! let him comprehend the nature of the elements
which surround him, and also his own nature, and he will know the
regulators of his destiny; he will know the causes of his evils and the
remedies he should apply.
When the hidden power which animates the universe, formed the globe
which man inhabits, he implanted in the beings composing it, essential
properties which became the law of their individual motion, the bond of
their reciprocal relations, the cause of the harmony of the whole; he
thereby established a regular order of causes and effects, of principles
and consequences, which, under an appearance of chance, governs the
universe, and maintains the equilibrium of the world. Thus, he gave to
fire, motion and activity; to air, elasticity; weight and density to
matter; he made air lighter than water, metal heavier than earth, wood
less cohesive than steel; he decreed flame to ascend, stones to fall,
plants to vegetate; to man, who was to be exposed to the action of so
many different beings, and still to preserve his frail life, he gave
the faculty of sensation. By this faculty all action hurtful to his
existence gives him a feeling of pain and evil, and all which is
salutary, of pleasure and happiness. By these sensations, man, sometimes
averted from that which wounds his senses, sometimes allured towards
that which soothes them, has been obliged to cherish and preserve his
own life; thus, self-love, the desire of happiness, aversion to
pain, become the essential and primary laws imposed on man by nature
herself--the laws which the directing power, whatever it be, has
established for his government--and which laws, like those of motion in
the physical world, are the simple and fruitful principle of whatever
happens in the moral world.
Such, then, is the condition of man: on one side, exposed to the action
of the elements which surround him, he is subject to many inevitable
evils; and if, in this decree, nature has been severe, on the other
hand, just and even indulgent she has not only tempered the evils with
equivalent good, she has also enabled him to increase the good and
alleviate the evil. She seems to say:
"Feeble work of my hands, I owe thee nothing, and I give thee life; the
world wherein I placed thee was not made for thee, yet I give thee the
use of it; thou wilt find in it a mixture of good and evil; it is for
thee to distinguish them; for thee to guide thy footsteps in a path
containing thorns as well as roses. Be the arbiter of thine own fate; I
put thy destiny into thine own hands!"
Yes, man is made the architect of his own destiny; he, himself, hath
been the cause of the successes or reverses of his own fortune; and if,
on a review of all the pains with which he has tormented his own
life, he finds reason to weep over his own weakness or imprudence
yet, considering the beginnings from which he sat out, and the height
attained, he has, perhaps, still reason to presume on his strength, and
to pride himself on his genius.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PRIMITIVE STATE OF MAN.
Formed naked in body and in mind, man at first found himself thrown, as
it were by chance, on a rough and savage land: an orphan, abandoned by
the unknown power which had produced him, he saw not by his side beings
descended from heaven to warn him of those wants which arise only from
his senses, nor to instruct him in those duties which spring only
from his wants. Like to other animals, without experience of the past,
without foresight of the future, he wandered in the bosom of the forest,
guided only and governed by the affections of his nature. By the pain of
hunger, he was led to seek food and provide for his subsistence; by the
inclemency of the air, he was urged to cover his body, and he made him
clothes; by the attraction of a powerful pleasure, he approached a being
like himself, and he perpetuated his kind.
Thus the impressions which he received from every object, awakening his
faculties, developed by degrees his understanding, and began to instruct
his profound ignorance: his wants excited industry, dangers formed his
courage; he learned to distinguish useful from noxious plants, to
combat the elements, to seize his prey, to defend his life; and thus he
alleviated its miseries.
Thus self-love, aversion to pain, the desire of happiness, were the
simple and powerful excitements which drew man from the savage and
barbarous condition in which nature had placed him. And now, when his
life is replete with enjoyments, when he may count each day by the
comforts it brings, he may applaud himself and say:
"It is I who have produced the comforts which surround me; it is I who
am the author of my own happiness; a safe dwelling, convenient clothing,
abundant and wholesome nourishment, smiling fields, fertile hills,
populous empires, all is my work; without me this earth, given up
to disorder, would have been but a filthy fen, a wild wood, a dreary
desert."
Yes, creative man, receive my homage! Thou hast measured the span of the
heavens, calculated the volume of the stars, arrested the lightning in
its clouds, subdued seas and storms, subjected all the elements. Ah! how
are so many sublime energies allied to so many errors?
CHAPTER VII.
PRINCIPLES OF SOCIETY.
Wandering in the woods and on the banks of rivers in pursuit of game and
fish, the first men, beset with dangers, assailed by enemies, tormented
by hunger, by reptiles, by ravenous beasts, felt their own individual
weakness; and, urged by a common need of safety, and a reciprocal
sentiment of like evils, they united their resources and their strength;
and when one incurred a danger, many aided and succored him; when
one wanted subsistence, another shared his food with him. Thus men
associated to secure their existence, to augment their powers, to
protect their enjoyments; and self-love thus became the principle of
society.
Instructed afterwards by the experience of various and repeated
accidents, by the fatigues of a wandering life, by the distress of
frequent scarcity, men reasoned with themselves and said:
"Why consume our days in seeking scattered fruits from a parsimonious
soil? why exhaust ourselves in pursuing prey which eludes us in the
woods or waters? why not collect under our hands the animals that
nourish us? why not apply our cares in multiplying and preserving them?
We will feed on their increase, be clothed in their skins, and live
exempt from the fatigues of the day and solicitude for the morrow."
And men, aiding one another, seized the nimble goat, the timid sheep;
they tamed the patient camel, the fierce bull, the impetuous horse; and,
applauding their own industry, they sat down in the joy of their souls,
and began to taste repose and comfort: and self-love, the principle of
all reasoning, became the incitement to every art, and every enjoyment.
When, therefore, men could pass long days in leisure, and in
communication of their thoughts, they began to contemplate the earth,
the heavens, and their own existence as objects of curiosity and
reflection; they remarked the course of the seasons, the action of
the elements, the properties of fruits and plants; and applied their
thoughts to the multiplication of their enjoyments. And in some
countries, having observed that certain seeds contained a wholesome
nourishment in a small volume, convenient for transportation and
preservation, they imitated the process of nature; they confided to the
earth rice, barley, and corn, which multiplied to the full measure
of their hope; and having found the means of obtaining within a small
compass and without removal, plentiful subsistence and durable stores,
they established themselves in fixed habitations; they built houses,
villages, and towns; formed societies and nations; and self-love
produced all the developments of genius and of power.
Thus by the aid of his own faculties, man has raised himself to the
astonishing height of his present fortune. Too happy if, observing
scrupulously the law of his being, he had faithfully fulfilled its
only and true object! But, by a fatal imprudence, sometimes mistaking,
sometimes transgressing its limits, he has launched forth into a
labyrinth of errors and misfortunes; and self-love, sometimes unruly,
sometimes blind, became a principle fruitful in calamities.
CHAPTER VIII.
SOURCES OF THE EVILS OF SOCIETY.
In truth, scarcely were the faculties of men developed, when, inveigled
by objects which gratify the senses, they gave themselves up to
unbridled desires. The sweet sensations which nature had attached to
their real wants, to endear to them their existence, no longer satisfied
them. Not content with the abundance offered by the earth or produced
by industry, they wished to accumulate enjoyments and coveted those
possessed by their fellow men. The strong man rose up against the
feeble, to take from him the fruit of his labor; the feeble invoked
another feeble one to repel the violence. Two strong ones then said:
"Why fatigue ourselves to produce enjoyments which we may find in the
hands of the weak? Let us join and despoil them; they shall labor for
us, and we will enjoy without labor."
And the strong associating for oppression and the weak for resistance,
men mutually afflicted each other; and a general and fatal discord
spread over the earth, in which the passions, assuming a thousand new
forms, have generated a continued chain of misfortunes.
Thus the same self-love which, moderate and prudent, was a principle of
happiness and perfection, becoming blind and disordered, was transformed
into a corrupting poison; and cupidity, offspring and companion of
ignorance, became the cause of all the evils that have desolated the
earth.
Yes, ignorance and cupidity! these are the twin sources of all the
torments of man! Biased by these into false ideas of happiness, he has
mistaken or broken the laws of nature in his own relation with external
objects; and injuring his own existence, has violated individual
morality; shutting through these his heart to compassion, and his mind
to justice, he has injured and afflicted his equal, and violated social
morality. From ignorance and cupidity, man has armed against man, family
against family, tribe against tribe; and the earth is become a theatre
of blood, of discord, and of rapine. By ignorance and cupidity, a secret
war, fermenting in the bosom of every state, has separated citizen from
citizen; and the same society has divided itself into oppressors and
oppressed, into masters and slaves; by these, the heads of a nation,
sometimes insolent and audacious, have forged its chains within its
own bowels; and mercenary avarice has founded political despotism.
Sometimes, hypocritical and cunning, they have called from heaven a
lying power, and a sacrilegious yoke; and credulous cupidity has founded
religious despotism. By these have been perverted the ideas of good and
evil, just and unjust, vice and virtue; and nations have wandered in a
labyrinth of errors and calamities.
The cupidity of man and his ignorance,--these are the evil genii
which have wasted the earth! These are the decrees of fate which have
overthrown empires! These are the celestial anathemas which have smitten
these walls once so glorious, and converted the splendor of a populous
city into a solitude of mourning and of ruins! But as in the bosom of
man have sprung all the evils which have afflicted his life, there he
also is to seek and to find their remedies.
CHAPTER IX.
ORIGIN OF GOVERNMENT AND LAWS.
In fact, it soon happened that men, fatigued with the evils they
reciprocally inflicted, began to sigh for peace; and reflecting on their
misfortunes and the causes of them, they said:
"We are mutually injuring each other by our passions; and, aiming to
grasp every thing, we hold nothing. What one seizes to-day, another
takes to-morrow, and our cupidity reacts upon ourselves. Let us
establish judges, who shall arbitrate our rights, and settle our
differences! When the strong shall rise against the weak, the judge
shall restrain him, and dispose of our force to suppress violence;
and the life and property of each shall be under the guarantee and
protection of all; and all shall enjoy the good things of nature."
Conventions were thus formed in society, sometimes express, sometimes
tacit, which became the rule for the action of individuals, the measure
of their rights, the law of their reciprocal relations; and persons were
appointed to superintend their observance, to whom the people confided
the balance to weigh rights, and the sword to punish transgressions.
Thus was established among individuals a happy equilibrium of force and
action, which constituted the common security. The name of equity and of
justice was recognized and revered over the earth; every one, assured
of enjoying in peace, the fruits of his toil, pursued with energy the
objects of his attention; and industry, excited and maintained by the
reality or the hope of enjoyment, developed, all the riches of art
and of nature. The fields were covered with harvests, the valleys with
flocks, the hills with fruits, the sea with vessels, and man became
happy and powerful on the earth. Thus did his own wisdom repair the
disorder which his imprudence had occasioned; and that wisdom was only
the effect of his own organization. He respected the enjoyments of
others in order to secure his own; and cupidity found its corrective in
the enlightened love of self.
Thus the love of self, the moving principle of every individual, becomes
the necessary foundation of every association; and on the observance
of that law of our nature has depended the fate of nations. Have the
factitious and conventional laws tended to that object and accomplished
that aim? Every one, urged by a powerful instinct, has displayed all
the faculties of his being; and the sum of individual felicities has
constituted the general felicity. Have these laws, on the contrary,
restrained the effort of man toward his own happiness? His heart,
deprived of its exciting principle, has languished in inactivity, and
from the oppression of individuals has resulted the weakness of the
state.
As self-love, impetuous and improvident, is ever urging man against
his equal, and consequently tends to dissolve society, the art of
legislation and the merit of administrators consists in attempering
the conflict of individual cupidities, in maintaining an equilibrium of
powers, and securing to every one his happiness, in order that, in the
shock of society against society, all the members may have a common
interest in the preservation and defence of the public welfare.
The internal splendor and prosperity of empires then, have had for
their efficient cause the equity of their laws and government; and their
respective external powers have been in proportion to the number of
persons interested, and their degree of interest in the public welfare.
On the other hand, the multiplication of men, by complicating their
relations, having rendered the precise limitation of their rights
difficult, the perpetual play of the passions having produced incidents
not foreseen--their conventions having been vicious, inadequate, or
nugatory--in fine, the authors of the laws having sometimes mistaken,
sometimes disguised their objects; and their ministers, instead of
restraining the cupidity of others, having given themselves up to
their own; all these causes have introduced disorder and trouble into
societies; and the viciousness of laws and the injustice of governments,
flowing from cupidity and ignorance, have become the causes of the
misfortunes of nations, and the subversion of states.
CHAPTER X.
GENERAL CAUSES OF THE PROSPERITY OF ANCIENT STATES.
Such, O man who seekest wisdom, such have been the causes of revolution
in the ancient states of which thou contemplatest the ruins! To whatever
spot I direct my view, to whatever period my thoughts recur, the same
principles of growth or destruction, of rise or fall, present themselves
to my mind. Wherever a people is powerful, or an empire prosperous,
there the conventional laws are conformable with the laws of nature--the
government there procures for its citizens a free use of their
faculties, equal security for their persons and property. If, on the
contrary, an empire goes to ruin, or dissolves, it is because its laws
have been vicious, or imperfect, or trodden under foot by a corrupt
government. If the laws and government, at first wise and just, become
afterwards depraved, it is because the alternation of good and evil is
inherent to the heart of man, to a change in his propensities, to his
progress in knowledge, to a combination of circumstances and events; as
is proved by the history of the species.
In the infancy of nations, when men yet lived in the forest, subject to
the same wants, endowed with the same faculties, all were nearly equal
in strength; and that equality was a circumstance highly advantageous
in the composition of society: as every individual, thus feeling himself
sufficiently independent of every other, no one was the slave, none
thought of being the master of another. Man, then a novice, knew neither
servitude nor tyranny; furnished with resources sufficient for his
existence, he thought not of borrowing from others; owning nothing,
requiring nothing, he judged the rights of others by his own, and formed
ideas of justice sufficiently exact. Ignorant, moreover, in the art
of enjoyments, unable to produce more than his necessaries, possessing
nothing superfluous, cupidity remained dormant; or if excited, man,
attacked in his real wants, resisted it with energy, and the foresight
of such resistance ensured a happy balance.
Thus original equality, in default of compact, maintained freedom of
person, security of property, good manners, and order. Every one
labored by himself and for himself; and the mind of man, being occupied,
wandered not to culpable desires. He had few enjoyments, but his wants
were satisfied; and as indulgent nature had made them less than his
resources, the labor of his hands soon produced abundance--abundance,
population; the arts unfolded, culture extended, and the earth, covered
with numerous inhabitants, was divided into different dominions.
The relations of man becoming complicated, the internal order of
societies became more difficult to maintain. Time and industry having
generated riches, cupidity became more active; and because equality,
practicable among individuals, could not subsist among families, the
natural equilibrium was broken; it became necessary to supply it by a
factitious equilibrium; to set up chiefs, to establish laws; and in
the primitive inexperience, it necessarily happened that these
laws, occasioned by cupidity, assumed its character. But different
circumstances concurred to correct the disorder, and oblige governments
to be just.
States, in fact, being weak at first, and having foreign enemies to
fear, the chiefs found it their interest not to oppress their subjects;
for, by lessening the confidence of the citizens in their government,
they would diminish their means of resistance--they would facilitate
foreign invasion, and by exercising arbitrary power, have endangered
their very existence.
In the interior, the firmness of the people repelled tyranny; men had
contracted too long habits of independence; they had too few wants, and
too much consciousness of their own strength.
States being of a moderate size, it was difficult to divide their
citizens so as to make use of some for the oppression of others. Their
communications were too easy, their interest too clear and simple:
besides, every one being a proprietor and cultivator, no one needed to
sell himself, and the despot could find no mercenaries.
If, then, dissensions arose, they were between family and family,
faction and faction, and they interested a great number. The troubles,
indeed, were warmer; but fears from abroad pacified discord at home. If
the oppression of a party prevailed, the earth being still unoccupied,
and man, still in a state of simplicity, finding every where the same
advantages, the oppressed party emigrated, and carried elsewhere their
independence.
The ancient states then enjoyed within themselves numerous means of
prosperity and power. Every one finding his own well-being in the
constitution of his country, took a lively interest in its preservation.
If a stranger attacked it, having to defend his own field, his own
house, he carried into combat all the passions of a personal quarrel;
and, devoted to his own interests, he was devoted to his country.
As every action useful to the public attracted its esteem and gratitude,
every one became eager to be useful; and self-love multiplied talents
and civic virtues.
Every citizen contributing equally by his talents and person, armies
and funds were inexhaustible, and nations displayed formidable masses of
power.
The earth being free, and its possession secure and easy, every one
was a proprietor; and the division of property preserved morals, and
rendered luxury impossible.
Every one cultivating for himself, culture was more active, produce more
abundant; and individual riches became public wealth.
The abundance of produce rendering subsistence easy, population was
rapid and numerous, and states attained quickly the term of their
plenitude.
Productions increasing beyond consumption, the necessity of commerce
arose; and exchanges took place between people and people; which
augmented their activity and reciprocal advantages.
In fine, certain countries, at certain times, uniting the advantages
of good government with a position on the route of the most active
circulation, they became emporiums of flourishing commerce and seats of
powerful domination. And on the shores of the Nile and Mediterranean, of
the Tygris and Euphrates, the accumulated riches of India and of Europe
raised in successive splendor a hundred different cities.
The people, growing rich, applied their superfluity to works of common
and public use; and this was in every state, the epoch of those works
whose grandeur astonishes the mind; of those wells of Tyre, of those
dykes of the Euphrates, of those subterranean conduits of Media,* of
those fortresses of the desert, of those aqueducts of Palmyra, of those
temples, of those porticoes. And such labors might be immense, without
oppressing the nations; because they were the effect of an equal and
common contribution of the force of individuals animated and free.
* See respecting these monuments my Travels into Syria, vol.
ii. p. 214.
From the town or village of Samouat the course of the Euphrates is
accompanied with a double bank, which descends as far as its junction
with the Tygris, and from thence to the sea, being a length of about a
hundred leagues, French measure. The height of these artificial banks
is not uniform, but increases as you advance from the sea; it may be
estimated at from twelve to fifteen feet. But for them, the inundation
of the river would bury the country around, which is flat, to an extent
of twenty or twenty-five leagues and even notwithstanding these banks,
there has been in modern times an overflow, which has covered the whole
triangle formed by the junction of this river to the Tygris, being
a space of country of one hundred and thirty square leagues. By the
stagnation of these waters an epidemical disease of the most fatal
nature was occasioned. It follows from hence, 1. That all the flat
country bordering upon these rivers, was originally a marsh; 2. That
this marsh could not have been inhabited previously to the construction
of the banks in question; 3. That these banks could not have been the
work but of a population prior as to date; and the elevation of Babylon,
therefore, must have been posterior to that of Nineveh, as I think
I have chronologically demonstrated in the memoir above cited. See
Encyclopedia, vol. xiii, of Antiquities.
The modern Aderbidjan, which was a part of Medea, the mountains of
Koulderstan, and those of Diarbekr, abound with subterranean canals, by
means of which the ancient inhabitants conveyed water to their parched
soil in order to fertilize it. It was regarded as a meritorious act
and a religious duty prescribed by Zoroaster, who, instead of preaching
celibacy, mortifications, and other pretended virtues of the monkish
sort, repeats continually in the passages that are preserved respecting
him in the Sad-der and the Zend-avesta:
"That the action most pleasing to God is to plough and cultivate the
earth, to water it with running streams, to multiply vegetation and
living beings, to have numerous flocks, young and fruitful virgins, a
multitude of children," etc., etc.
Among the aqueducts of Palmyra it appears certain, that, besides those
which conducted water from the neighboring hills, there was one which
brought it even from the mountains of Syria. It is to be traced a long
way into the Desert where it escapes our search by going under ground.
Thus ancient states prospered, because their social institutions
conformed to the true laws of nature; and because men, enjoying liberty
and security for their persons and their property, might display all the
extent of their faculties,--all the energies of their self-love.
CHAPTER XI.
GENERAL CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTIONS AND RUIN OF ANCIENT STATES.
Cupidity had nevertheless excited among men a constant and universal
conflict, which incessantly prompting individuals and societies to
reciprocal invasions, occasioned successive revolutions, and returning
agitations.
And first, in the savage and barbarous state of the first men, this
audacious and fierce cupidity produced rapine, violence, and murder, and
retarded for a long time the progress of civilization.
When afterwards societies began to be formed, the effect of bad habits,
communicated to laws and governments, corrupted their institutions and
objects, and established arbitrary and factitious rights, which depraved
the ideas of justice, and the morality of the people.
Thus one man being stronger than another, their inequality--an accident
of nature--was taken for her law;* and the strong being able to take
the life of the weak, and yet sparing him, arrogated over his person an
abusive right of property; and the slavery of individuals prepared the
way for the slavery of nations.
*Almost all the ancient philosophers and politicians have laid it down
as a principle that men are born unequal, that nature his created some
to be free, and others to be slaves. Expressions of this kind are to be
found in Aristotle, and even in Plato, called the divine, doubtless in
the same sense as the mythological reveries which he promulgated. With
all the people of antiquity, the Gauls, the Romans, the Athenians,
the right of the strongest was the right of nations; and from the same
principle are derived all the political disorders and public national
crimes that at present exist.
Because the head of a family could be absolute in his house, he made his
own affections and desires the rule of his conduct; he gave or resumed
his goods without equality, without justice; and paternal despotism laid
the foundation of despotism in government.*
* Upon this single expression it would be easy to write a
long and important chapter. We might prove in it, beyond
contradiction, that all the abuses of national governments,
have sprung from those of domestic government, from that
government called patriarchal, which superficial minds have
extolled without having analyzed it. Numberless facts
demonstrate, that with every infant people, in every savage
and barbarous state, the father, the chief of the family, is
a despot, and a cruel and insolent despot. The wife is his
slave, the children his servants. This king sleeps or
smokes his pipe, while his wife and daughters perform all
the drudgery of the house, and even that of tillage and
cultivation, as far as occupations of this nature are
practised in such societies; and no sooner have the boys
acquired strength then they are allowed to beat the females
and make them serve and wait upon them as they do upon their
fathers. Similar to this is the state of our own
uncivilized peasants. In proportion as civilization
spreads, the manners become milder, and the condition of the
women improves, till, by a contrary excess, they arrive at
dominion, and then a nation becomes effeminate and corrupt.
It is remarkable that parental authority is great in
proportion as the government is despotic. China, India, and
Turkey are striking examples of this. One would suppose that
tyrants gave themselves accomplices and interested subaltern
despots to maintain their authority. In opposition to this
the Romans will be cited, but it remains to be proved that
the Romans were men truly free and their quick passage from
their republican despotism to their abject servility under
the emperors, gives room at least for considerable doubt as
to that freedom.
In societies formed on such foundations, when time and labor had
developed riches, cupidity restrained by the laws, became more artful,
but not less active. Under the mask of union and civil peace, it
fomented in the bosom of every state an intestine war, in which the
citizens, divided into contending corps of orders, classes, families,
unremittingly struggled to appropriate to themselves, under the name
of supreme power, the ability to plunder every thing, and render every
thing subservient to the dictates of their passions; and this spirit of
encroachment, disguised under all possible forms, but always the same in
its object and motives, has never ceased to torment the nations.
Sometimes, opposing itself to all social compact, or breaking that
which already existed, it committed the inhabitants of a country to the
tumultuous shock of all their discords; and states thus dissolved, and
reduced to the condition of anarchy, were tormented by the passions of
all their members.
Sometimes a nation, jealous of its liberty, having appointed agents to
administer its government, these agents appropriated the powers of which
they had only the guardianship: they employed the public treasures in
corrupting elections, gaining partisans, in dividing the people among
themselves. By these means, from being temporary they became perpetual;
from elective, hereditary; and the state, agitated by the intrigues of
the ambitious, by largesses from the rich and factious, by the venality
of the poor and idle, by the influence of orators, by the boldness of
the wicked, and the weakness of the virtuous, was convulsed with all the
inconveniences of democracy.
The chiefs of some countries, equal in strength and mutually fearing
each other, formed impious pacts, nefarious associations; and,
apportioning among themselves all power, rank, and honor, unjustly
arrogated privileges and immunities; erected themselves into separate
orders and distinct classes; reduced the people to their control; and,
under the name of aristocracy, the state was tormented by the passions
of the wealthy and the great.
Sacred impostors, in other countries, tending by other means to the
same object, abused the credulity of the ignorant. In the gloom of their
temples, behind the curtain of the altar, they made their gods act and
speak; gave forth oracles, worked miracles, ordered sacrifices, levied
offerings, prescribed endowments; and, under the names of theocracy and
of religion, the state became tormented by the passions of the priests.
Sometimes a nation, weary of its dissensions or of its tyrants, to
lessen the sources of evil, submitted to a single master; but if it
limited his powers, his sole aim was to enlarge them; if it left them
indefinite, he abused the trust confided to him; and, under the name of
monarchy, the state was tormented by the passions of kings and princes.
Then the factions, availing themselves of the general discontent,
flattered the people with the hope of a better master; dealt out gifts
and promises, deposed the despot to take his place; and their contests
for the succession, or its partition, tormented the state with the
disorders and devastations of civil war.
In fine, among these rivals, one more adroit, or more fortunate, gained
the ascendency, and concentrated all power within himself. By a strange
phenomenon, a single individual mastered millions of his equals, against
their will and without their consent; and the art of tyranny sprung also
from cupidity.
In fact, observing the spirit of egotism which incessantly divides
mankind, the ambitious man fomented it with dexterity, flattered the
vanity of one, excited the jealousy of another, favored the avarice of
this, inflamed the resentment of that, and irritated the passions of
all; then, placing in opposition their interests and prejudices, he
sowed divisions and hatreds, promised to the poor the spoils of the
rich, to the rich the subjection of the poor; threatened one man by
another, this class by that; and insulating all by distrust, created his
strength out of their weakness, and imposed the yoke of opinion,
which they mutually riveted on each other. With the army he levied
contributions, and with contributions he disposed of the army: dealing
out wealth and office on these principles, he enchained a whole people
in indissoluble bonds, and they languished under the slow consumption of
despotism.
Thus the same principle, varying its action under every possible form,
was forever attenuating the consistence of states, and an eternal circle
of vicissitudes flowed from an eternal circle of passions.
And this spirit of egotism and usurpation produced two effects equally
operative and fatal: the one a division and subdivision of societies
into their smallest fractions, inducing a debility which facilitated
their dissolution; the other, a preserving tendency to concentrate power
in a single hand,* which, engulfing successively societies and states,
was fatal to their peace and social existence.
* It is remarkable that this has in all instances been the
constant progress of societies; beginning with a state of
anarchy or democracy, that is, with a great division of
power they have passed to aristocracy, and from aristocracy
to monarchy. Does it not hence follow that those who
constitute states under the democratic form, destine them to
undergo all the intervening troubles between that and
monarchy; but it should at the same time be proved that
social experience is already exhausted for the human race,
and that this spontaneous movement is not solely the effect
of ignorance.
Thus, as in a state, a party absorbed the nation, a family the party,
and an individual the family; so a movement of absorption took place
between state and state, and exhibited on a larger scale in the
political order, all the particular evils of the civil order. Thus a
state having subdued a state, held it in subjection in the form of a
province; and two provinces being joined together formed a kingdom; two
kingdoms being united by conquest, gave birth to empires of gigantic
size; and in this conglomeration, the internal strength of states,
instead of increasing, diminished; and the condition of the people,
instead of ameliorating, became daily more abject and wretched, for
causes derived from the nature of things.
Because, in proportion as states increased in extent, their
administration becoming more difficult and complicated, greater energies
of power were necessary to move such masses; and there was no longer any
proportion between the duties of sovereigns and their ability to perform
their duties:
Because despots, feeling their weakness, feared whatever might develop
the strength of nations, and studied only how to enfeeble them:
Because nations, divided by the prejudices of ignorance and hatred,
seconded the wickedness of their governments; and availing themselves
reciprocally of subordinate agents, aggravated their mutual slavery:
Because, the balance between states being destroyed, the strong more
easily oppressed the weak.
Finally, because in proportion as states were concentrated, the people,
despoiled of their laws, of their usages, and of the government of
their choice, lost that spirit of personal identification with their
government, which had caused their energy.
And despots, considering empires as their private domains and the people
as their property, gave themselves up to depredations, and to all the
licentiousness of the most arbitrary authority.
And all the strength and wealth of nations were diverted to private
expense and personal caprice; and kings, fatigued with gratification,
abandoned themselves to all the extravagancies of factitious and
depraved taste.* They must have gardens mounted on arcades, rivers
raised over mountains, fertile fields converted into haunts for wild
beasts; lakes scooped in dry lands, rocks erected in lakes, palaces
built of marble and porphyry, furniture of gold and diamonds. Under
the cloak of religion, their pride founded temples, endowed indolent
priests, built, for vain skeletons, extravagant tombs, mausoleums and
pyramids;** millions of hands were employed in sterile labors; and the
luxury of princes, imitated by their parasites, and transmitted
from grade to grade to the lowest ranks, became a general source of
corruption and impoverishment.
* It is equally worthy of remark, that the conduct and
manners of princes and kings of every country and every age,
are found to be precisely the same at similar periods,
whether of the formation or dissolution of empires. History
every where presents the same pictures of luxury and folly;
of parks, gardens, lakes, rocks, palaces, furniture, excess
of the table, wine, women, concluding with brutality.
The absurd rock in the garden of Versailles has alone cost
three millions. I have sometimes calculated what might have
been done with the expense of the three pyramids of Gizah,
and I have found that it would easily have constructed from
the Red Sea to Alexandria, a canal one hundred and fifty
feet wide and thirty deep, completely covered in with cut
stones and a parapet, together with a fortified and
commercial town, consisting of four hundred houses,
furnished with cisterns. What a difference in point of
utility between such a canal and these pyramids!
** The learned Dupuis could not be persuaded that the
pyramids were tombs; but besides the positive testimony of
historians, read what Diodorus says of the religious and
superstitious importance every Egyptian attached to building
his dwelling eternal, b. 1.
During twenty years, says Herodotus, a hundred thousand men
labored every day to build the pyramid of the Egyptian
Cheops. Supposing only three hundred days a year, on
account of the sabbath, there will be 30 millions of days'
work in a year, and 600 millions in twenty years; at 15 sous
a day, this makes 450 millions of francs lost, without any
further benefit. With this sum, if the king had shut the
isthmus of Suez by a strong wall, like that of China, the
destinies of Egypt might have been entirely changed.
Foreign invasions would have been prevented, and the Arabs
of the desert would neither have conquered nor harassed that
country. Sterile labors! how many millions lost in putting
one stone upon another, under the forms of temples and
churches! Alchymists convert stones into gold; but
architects change gold into stone. Woe to the kings (as
well as subjects) who trust their purse to these two classes
of empirics!
And in the insatiable thirst of enjoyment, the ordinary revenues no
longer sufficing, they were augmented; the cultivator, seeing his
labors increase without compensation, lost all courage; the merchant,
despoiled, was disgusted with industry; the multitude, condemned to
perpetual poverty, restrained their labor to simple necessaries; and all
productive industry vanished.
The surcharge of taxes rendering lands a burdensome possession, the poor
proprietor abandoned his field, or sold it to the powerful; and fortune
became concentrated in a few hands. All the laws and institutions
favoring this accumulation, the nation became divided into a group
of wealthy drones, and a multitude of mercenary poor; the people were
degraded with indigence, the great with satiety, and the number of those
interested in the preservation of the state decreasing, its strength and
existence became proportionally precarious.
On the other hand, emulation finding no object, science no
encouragement, the mind sunk into profound ignorance.
The administration being secret and mysterious, there existed no means
of reform or amelioration. The chiefs governing by force or fraud,
the people viewed them as a faction of public enemies; and all harmony
ceased between the governors and governed.
And these vices having enervated the states of the wealthy part of Asia,
the vagrant and indigent people of the adjacent deserts and mountains
coveted the enjoyments of the fertile plains; and, urged by a cupidity
common to all, attacked the polished empires, and overturned the thrones
of their despots. These revolutions were rapid and easy; because the
policy of tyrants had enfeebled the subjects, razed the fortresses,
destroyed the warriors; and because the oppressed subjects remained
without personal interest, and the mercenary soldiers without courage.
And hordes of barbarians having reduced entire nations to slavery, the
empires, formed of conquerors and conquered, united in their bosom two
classes essentially opposite and hostile. All the principles of society
were dissolved: there was no longer any common interest, no longer any
public spirit; and there arose a distinction of casts and races, which
reduced to a regular system the maintenance of disorder; and he who was
born of this or that blood, was born a slave or a tyrant--property or
proprietor.
The oppressors being less numerous than the oppressed it was necessary
to perfect the science of oppression, in order to support this false
equilibrium. The art of governing became the art of subjecting the
many to the few. To enforce an obedience so contrary to instinct, the
severest punishments were established, and the cruelty of the laws
rendered manners atrocious. The distinction of persons establishing in
the state two codes, two orders of criminal justice, two sets of laws,
the people, placed between the propensities of the heart and the oath
uttered from the mouth, had two consciences in contradiction with
each other; and the ideas of justice and injustice had no longer any
foundation in the understanding.
Under such a system, the people fell into dejection and despair; and the
accidents of nature were added to the other evils which assailed them.
Prostrated by so many calamities, they attributed their causes to
superior and hidden powers; and, because they had tyrants on earth, they
fancied others in heaven; and superstition aggravated the misfortunes of
nations.
Fatal doctrines and gloomy and misanthropic systems of religion arose,
which painted their gods, like their despots, wicked and envious. To
appease them, man offered up the sacrifice of all his enjoyments. He
environed himself in privations, and reversed the order of nature.
Conceiving his pleasures to be crimes, his sufferings expiations, he
endeavored to love pain, and to abjure the love of self. He persecuted
his senses, hated his life; and a self-denying and anti-social morality
plunged nations into the apathy of death.
But provident nature having endowed the heart of man with hope
inexhaustible, when his desires of happiness were baffled on this earth,
he pursued it into another world. By a sweet illusion he created for
himself another country--an asylum where, far from tyrants, he should
recover the rights of nature, and thence resulted new disorders. Smitten
with an imaginary world, man despised that of nature. For chimerical
hopes, he neglected realities. His life began to appear a troublesome
journey--a painful dream; his body a prison, the obstacle to his
felicity; and the earth, a place of exile and of pilgrimage, not worthy
of culture. Then a holy indolence spread over the political world;
the fields were deserted, empires depopulated, monuments neglected and
deserts multiplied; ignorance, superstition and fanaticism, combining
their operations, overwhelmed the earth with devastation and ruin.
Thus agitated by their own passions, men, whether collectively or
individually taken, always greedy and improvident, passing from slavery
to tyranny, from pride to baseness, from presumption to despondency,
have made themselves the perpetual instruments of their own misfortunes.
These, then, are the principles, simple and natural, which regulated
the destiny of ancient states. By this regular and connected series of
causes and effects, they rose or fell, in proportion as the physical
laws of the human heart were respected or violated; and in the course
of their successive changes, a hundred different nations, a hundred
different empires, by turns humbled, elevated, conquered, overthrown,
have repeated for the earth their instructive lessons. Yet these lessons
were lost for the generations which have followed! The disorders in
times past have reappeared in the present age! The chiefs of the nations
have continued to walk in the paths of falsehood and tyranny!--the
people to wander in the darkness of superstition and ignorance!
Since then, continued the Genius, with renewed energy, since the
experience of past ages is lost for the living--since the errors of
progenitors have not instructed their descendants, the ancient examples
are about to reappear; the earth will see renewed the tremendous scenes
it has forgotten. New revolutions will agitate nations and empires;
powerful thrones will again be overturned, and terrible catastrophes
will again teach mankind that the laws of nature and the precepts of
wisdom and truth cannot be infringed with impunity.
CHAPTER XII.
LESSONS OF TIMES PAST REPEATED ON THE PRESENT.
Thus spoke the Genius. Struck with the justice and coherence of his
discourse, assailed with a crowd of ideas, repugnant to my habits yet
convincing to my reason, I remained absorbed in profound silence. At
length, while with serious and pensive mien, I kept my eyes fixed on
Asia, suddenly in the north, on the shores of the Black sea, and in the
fields of the Crimea, clouds of smoke and flame attracted my attention.
They appeared to rise at the same time from all parts of the peninsula;
and passing by the isthmus into the continent, they ran, as if driven
by a westerly wind, along the oozy lake of Azof, and disappeared in the
grassy plains of Couban; and following more attentively the course of
these clouds, I observed that they were preceded or followed by swarms
of moving creatures, which, like ants or grasshoppers disturbed by the
foot of a passenger, agitated themselves with vivacity. Sometimes these
swarms appeared to advance and rush against each other; and numbers,
after the concussion, remained motionless. While disquieted at this
spectacle, I strained my sight to distinguish the objects.
Do you see, said the Genius, those flames which spread over the earth,
and do you comprehend their causes and effects?
Oh! Genius, I answered, I see those columns of flame and smoke, and
something like insects, accompanying them; but, when I can scarcely
discern the great masses of cities and monuments, how should I discover,
such little creatures? I can just perceive that these insects mimic
battle, for they advance, retreat, attack and pursue.
It is no mimicry, said the Genius, these are real battles.
And what, said I, are those mad animalculae, which destroy each other?
Beings of a day! will they not perish soon enough?
Then the Genius, touching my sight and hearing, again directed my eyes
towards the same object. Look, said he, and listen!
Ah! wretches, cried I, oppressed with grief, these columns of flame!
these insects! oh! Genius, they are men. These are the ravages of
war! These torrents of flame rise from towns and villages! I see the
squadrons who kindle them, and who, sword in hand overrun the country:
they drive before them crowds of old men, women, and children, fugitive
and desolate: I perceive other horsemen, who with shouldered lances,
accompany and guide them. I even recognize them to be Tartars by their
led horses,* their kalpacks, and tufts of hair: and, doubtless, they who
pursue, in triangular hats and green uniforms, are Muscovites. Ah! I now
comprehend, a war is kindled between the empire of the Czars and that of
the Sultans.
* A Tartar horseman has always two horses, of which he leads
one in hand. The Kalpeck is a bonnet made of the skin of a
sheep or other animal. The part of the head covered by this
bonnet is shaved, with the exception of a tuft, about the
size of a crown piece, and which is suffered to grow to the
length of seven or eight inches, precisely where our priests
place their tonsure. It is by this tuft of hair, worn by
the majority of Mussulmen, that the angel of the tomb is to
take the elect and carry them into paradise.
Not yet, replied the Genius; this is only a preliminary. These Tartars
have been, and might still he troublesome neighbors. The Muscovites are
driving them off, finding their country would be a convenient extension
of their own limits; and as a prelude to another revolution, the throne
of the Guerais is destroyed.
And in fact, I saw the Russian standards floating over the Crimea: and
soon after their flag waving on the Euxine.
Meanwhile, at the cry of the flying Tartars, the Mussulman empire was
in commotion. They are driving off our brethren, cried the children
of Mahomet: the people of the prophet are outraged! infidels occupy a
consecrated land and profane the temples of Islamism.* Let us arm; let
us rush to combat, to avenge the glory of God and our own cause.
* It is not in the power of the Sultan to cede to a foreign
power a province inhabited by true believers. The people,
instigated by the lawyers, would not fail to revolt. This
is one reason which has led those who know the Turks, to
regard as chimerical the ceding of Candia, Cyprus, and
Egypt, projected by certain European potentates.
And a general movement of war took place in both empires. In every part
armed men assembled. Provisions, stores, and all the murderous apparatus
of battle were displayed. The temples of both nations, besieged by an
immense multitude, presented a spectacle which fixed all my attention.
On one side, the Mussulmen gathered before their mosques, washed
their hands and feet, pared their nails, and combed their beards; then
spreading carpets upon the ground, and turning towards the south,
with their arms sometimes crossed and sometimes extended, they made
genuflexions and prostrations, and recollecting the disasters of the
late war, they exclaimed:
God of mercy and clemency! hast thou then abandoned thy faithful people?
Thou who hast promised to thy Prophet dominion over nations, and stamped
his religion by so many triumphs, dost thou deliver thy true believers
to the swords of infidels?
And the Imans and the Santons said to the people:
It is in chastisement of your sins. You eat pork; you drink wine; you
touch unclean things. God hath punished you. Do penance therefore;
purify; repeat the profession of faith;* fast from the rising to the
setting sun; give the tenth of your goods to the mosques; go to Mecca;
and God will render you victorious.
* There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet.
And the people, recovering courage, uttered loud cries:
There is but one God, said they transported with fury, and Mahomet is
his prophet! Accursed be he who believeth not!
God of goodness, grant us to exterminate these Christians; it is for
thy glory we fight, and our death is a martyrdom for thy name. And then,
offering victims, they prepared for battle.
On the other side, the Russians, kneeling, said:
We render thanks to God, and celebrate his power. He hath strengthened
our arm to humble his enemies. Hear our prayers, thou God of mercy! To
please thee, we will pass three days without eating either meat or eggs.
Grant us to extirpate these impious Mahometans, and to overturn their
empire. To thee we will consecrate the tenth of our spoil; to thee we
will raise new temples.
And the priests filled the churches with clouds of smoke, and said to
the people:
We pray for you, God accepteth our incense, and blesseth your arms.
Continue to fast and to fight; confess to us your secret sins; give
your wealth to the church; we will absolve you from your crimes, and you
shall die in a state of grace.
And they sprinkled water upon the people, dealt out to them, as amulets
and charms, small relics of the dead, and the people breathed war and
combat.
Struck with this contrast of the same passions, and grieving for their
fatal consequences, I was considering the difficulty with which the
common judge could yield to prayers so contradictory; when the Genius,
glowing with anger, spoke with vehemence:
What accents of madness strike my ear? What blind and perverse delirium
disorders the spirits of the nations? Sacrilegious prayers rise not from
the earth! and you, oh Heavens, reject their homicidal vows and impious
thanksgivings! Deluded mortals! is it thus you revere the Divinity?
Say then; how should he, whom you style your common father, receive the
homage of his children murdering one another? Ye victors! with what eye
should he view your hands reeking in the blood he hath created? And,
what do you expect, oh vanquished, from useless groans? Hath God
the heart of a mortal, with passions ever changing? Is he, like you,
agitated with vengeance or compassion, with wrath or repentance? What
base conception of the most sublime of beings! According to them, it
would seem, that God whimsical and capricious, is angered or appeased as
a man: that he loves and hates alternately; that he punishes or favors;
that, weak or wicked, he broods over his hatred; that, contradictory
or perfidious, he lays snares to entrap; that he punishes the evils he
permits; that he foresees but hinders not crimes; that, like a corrupt
judge, he is bribed by offerings; like an ignorant despot, he makes
laws and revokes them; that, like a savage tyrant, he grants or resumes
favors without reason, and can only be appeased by servility. Ah! now
I know the lying spirit of man! Contemplating the picture which he hath
drawn of the Divinity: No, said I, it is not God who hath made man after
the image of God; but man hath made God after the image of man; he hath
given him his own mind, clothed him with his own propensities;
ascribed to him his own judgments. And when in this medley he finds
the contradiction of his own principles, with hypocritical humility,
he imputes weakness to his reason, and names the absurdities of his own
mind the mysteries of God.
He hath said, God is immutable, yet he offers prayers to change him;
he hath pronounced him incomprehensible, yet he interprets him without
ceasing.
Imposters have arisen on the earth who have called themselves the
confidants of God; and, erecting themselves into teachers of the people,
have opened the ways of falsehood and iniquity; they have ascribed merit
to practices indifferent or ridiculous; they have supposed a virtue,
in certain postures, in pronouncing certain words, articulating certain
names; they have transformed into a crime the eating of certain meats,
the drinking of certain liquors, on one day rather than another. The
Jew would rather die than labor on the sabbath; the Persian would endure
suffocation, before he would blow the fire with his breath; the Indian
places supreme perfection in besmearing himself with cow-dung, and
pronouncing mysteriously the word Aum;* the Mussulman believes he has
expiated everything in washing his head and arms; and disputes, sword
in hand, whether the ablution should commence at the elbow, or finger
ends;** the Christian would think himself damned, if he ate flesh
instead of milk or butter. Oh sublime doctrines! Doctrines truly from
heaven! Oh perfect morals, and worthy of martyrdom or the apostolate!
I will cross the seas to teach these admirable laws to the savage
people--to distant nations; I will say unto them:
* This word is, in the religion of the Hindoos, a sacred
emblem of the Divinity. It is only to be pronounced in
secret, without being heard by any one. It is formed of
three letters, of which the first, a, signifies the
principal of all, the creator, Brama; the second, u, the
conservator, Vichenou; and the last, m, the destroyer, who
puts an end to all, Chiven. It is pronounced like the
monosyllable om, and expresses the unity of those three
Gods. The idea is precisely that of the Alpha and Omega
mentioned in the New Testament.
** This is one of the grand points of schism between the
partisans of Omar and those of Ali. Suppose two Mahometans
to meet on a journey, and to accost each other with
brotherly affection: the hour of prayer arrives; one begins
his ablution at his fingers, the other at the elbow, and
instantly they are mortal enemies. O sublime importance of
religious opinions! O profound philosophy of the authors of
them!
Children of nature, how long will you walk in the paths of ignorance?
how long will you mistake the true principles of morality and religion?
Come and learn its lessons from nations truly pious and learned, in
civilized countries. They will inform you how, to gratify God, you must
in certain months of the year, languish the whole day with hunger and
thirst; how you may shed your neighbor's blood, and purify yourself from
it by professions of faith and methodical ablutions; how you may steal
his property and be absolved on sharing it with certain persons, who
devote themselves to its consumption.
Sovereign and invisible power of the universe! mysterious mover of
nature! universal soul of beings! thou who art unknown, yet revered by
mortals under so many names! being incomprehensible and infinite! God,
who in the immensity of the heavens directest the movement of worlds,
and peoplest the abyss of space with millions of suns! say what do these
human insects, which my sight no longer discerns on the earth, appear in
thy eyes? To thee, who art guiding stars in their orbits, what are
those wormlings writhing themselves in the dust? Of what import to thy
immensity, their distinctions of parties and sects? And of what concern
the subtleties with which their folly torments itself?
And you, credulous men, show me the effect of your practices! In so many
centuries, during which you have been following or altering them, what
changes have your prescriptions wrought in the laws of nature? Is the
sun brighter? Is the course of the seasons varied? Is the earth more
fruitful, or its inhabitants more happy? If God be good, can your
penances please him? If infinite, can your homage add to his glory? If
his decrees have been formed on foresight of every circumstance, can
your prayers change them? Answer, O inconsistent mortals!
Ye conquerors of the earth, who pretend you serve God! doth he need your
aid? If he wishes to punish, hath he not earthquakes, volcanoes, and
thunder? And cannot a merciful God correct without extermination?
Ye Mussulmans, if God chastiseth you for violating the five precepts,
how hath he raised up the Franks who ridicule them? If he governeth
the earth by the Koran, by what did he govern it before the days of the
prophet, when it was covered with so many nations who drank wine, ate
pork, and went not to Mecca, whom he nevertheless permitted to raise
powerful empires? How did he judge the Sabeans of Nineveh and of
Babylon; the Persian, worshipper of fire; the Greek and Roman idolators;
the ancient kingdoms of the Nile; and your own ancestors, the Arabians
and Tartars? How doth he yet judge so many nations who deny, or know
not your worship--the numerous castes of Indians, the vast empire of
the Chinese, the sable race of Africa, the islanders of the ocean, the
tribes of America?
Presumptuous and ignorant men, who arrogate the earth to yourselves! if
God were to gather all the generations past and present, what would be,
in their ocean, the sects calling themselves universal, of Christians
and Mussulmans? What would be the judgments of his equal and common
justice over the real universality of mankind? Therein it is that your
knowledge loseth itself in incoherent systems; it is there that truth
shines with evidence; and there are manifested the powerful and simple
laws of nature and reason--laws of a common and general mover--of a God
impartial and just, who sheds rain on a country without asking who is
its prophet; who causeth his sun to shine alike on all the races of
men, on the white as on the black, on the Jew, on the Mussulman, the
Christian, and the Idolater; who reareth the harvest wherever cultivated
with diligence; who multiplieth every nation where industry and order
prevaileth; who prospereth every empire where justice is practised,
where the powerful are restrained, and the poor protected by the laws;
where the weak live in safety, and all enjoy the rights given by nature
and a compact formed in justice.
These are the principles by which people are judged! this the true
religion which regulates the destiny of empires, and which, O Ottomans,
hath governed yours! Interrogate your ancestors, ask of them by what
means they rose to greatness; when few, poor and idolaters, they came
from the deserts of Tartary and encamped in these fertile countries; ask
if it was by Islamism, till then unknown to them, that they conquered
the Greeks and the Arabs, or was it by their courage, their prudence,
moderation, spirit of union--the true powers of the social state? Then
the Sultan himself dispensed justice, and maintained discipline. The
prevaricating judge, the extortionate governor, were punished, and the
multitude lived at ease. The cultivator was protected from the rapine
of the janissary, and the fields prospered; the highways were safe, and
commerce caused abundance. You were a band of plunderers, but just among
yourselves. You subdued nations, but did not oppress them. Harassed by
their own princes, they preferred being your tributaries. What matters
it, said the Christian, whether my ruler breaks or adores images, if
he renders justice to me? God will judge his doctrines in the heavens
above.
You were sober and hardy; your enemies timid and enervated; you
were expert in battle, your enemies unskillful; your leaders were
experienced, your soldiers warlike and disciplined. Booty excited ardor,
bravery was rewarded, cowardice and insubordination punished, and all
the springs of the human heart were in action. Thus you vanquished
a hundred nations, and of a mass of conquered kingdoms compounded an
immense empire.
But other customs have succeeded; and in the reverses attending them,
the laws of nature have still exerted their force. After devouring your
enemies, your cupidity, still insatiable, has reacted on itself, and,
concentrated in your own bowels, has consumed you.
Having become rich, you have quarrelled for partition and enjoyment, and
disorder hath arisen in every class of society.
The Sultan, intoxicated with grandeur, has mistaken the object of his
functions; and all the vices of arbitrary power have been developed.
Meeting no obstacle to his appetites, he has become a depraved being;
weak and arrogant, he has kept the people at a distance; and their
voice has no longer instructed and guided him. Ignorant, yet flattered,
neglecting all instruction, all study, he has fallen into imbecility;
unfit for business, he has thrown its burdens on hirelings, and they
have deceived him. To satisfy their own passions, they have stimulated
and nourished his; they have multiplied his wants, and his enormous
luxury has consumed everything. The frugal table, plain clothing, simple
dwelling of his ancestors no longer sufficed. To supply his pomp, earth
and sea have been exhausted. The rarest furs have been brought from the
poles; the most costly tissues from the equator. He has devoured at
a meal the tribute of a city, and in a day that of a province. He has
surrounded himself with an army of women, eunuchs, and satellites. They
have instilled into him that the virtue of kings is to be liberal, and
the munificence and treasures of the people have been delivered into
the hands of flatterers. In imitation of their master, his servants
must also have splendid houses, the most exquisite furniture; carpets
embroidered at great cost, vases of gold and silver for the lowest uses,
and all the riches of the empire have been swallowed up in the Serai.
To supply this inordinate luxury, the slaves and women have sold their
influence, and venality has introduced a general depravation. The favor
of the sovereign has been sold to his vizier, and the vizier has sold
the empire. The law has been sold to the cadi, and the cadi has made
sale of justice. The altar has been sold to the priest, and the priest
has sold the kingdom of heaven. And gold obtaining everything, they
have sacrificed everything to obtain gold. For gold, friend has betrayed
friend, the child his parent, the servant his master, the wife her
honor, the merchant his conscience; and good faith, morals, concord, and
strength were banished from the state.
The pacha, who had purchased the government of his province, farmed
it out to others, who exercised every extortion. He sold in turn the
collection of the taxes, the command of the troops, the administration
of the villages; and as every employ has been transient, rapine, spread
from rank to rank, has been greedy and implacable. The revenue officer
has fleeced the merchant, and commerce was annihilated; the aga has
plundered the husbandman, and culture has degenerated. The laborer,
deprived of his stock, has been unable to sow; the tax was augmented,
and he could not pay it; the bastinado has been threatened, and he
has borrowed. Money, from want of security, being locked up from
circulation, interest was therefore enormous, and the usury of the rich
has aggravated the misery of the laborer.
When excessive droughts and accidents of seasons have blasted the
harvest, the government has admitted no delay, no indulgence for the
tax; and distress bearing hard on the village, a part of its inhabitants
have taken refuge in the cities; and their burdens falling on those who
remained, has completed their ruin, and depopulated the country.
If driven to extremity by tyranny and outrage, the villages have
revolted, the pacha rejoices. He wages war on them, assails their homes,
pillages their property, carries off their stock; and when the fields
have become a desert, he exclaims:
"What care I? I leave these fields to-morrow."
The earth wanting laborers, the rain of heaven and overflowing of
torrents have stagnated in marshes; and their putrid exhalations in a
warm climate, have caused epidemics, plagues, and maladies of all sorts,
whence have flowed additional suffering, penury, and ruin.
Oh! who can enumerate all the calamities of tyrannical government?
Sometimes the pachas declare war against each other, and for their
personal quarrels the provinces of the same state are laid waste.
Sometimes, fearing their masters, they attempt independence, and draw
on their subjects the chastisement of their revolt. Sometimes dreading
their subjects, they invite and subsidize strangers, and to insure their
fidelity set no bounds to their depredations. Here they persecute the
rich and despoil them under false pretences; there they suborn false
witnesses, and impose penalties for suppositious offences; everywhere
they excite the hatred of parties, encourage informations to
obtain amercements, extort property, seize persons; and when their
short-sighted avarice has accumulated into one mass all the riches of
a country, the government, by an execrable perfidy, under pretence of
avenging its oppressed people, takes to itself all their spoils, as if
they were the culprits, and uselessly sheds the blood of its agents for
a crime of which it is the accomplice.
Oh wretches, monarchs or ministers, who sport with the lives and
fortunes of the people! Is it you who gave breath to man, that you dare
take it from him? Do you give growth to the plants of the earth, that
you may waste them? Do you toil to furrow the field? Do you endure the
ardor of the sun, and the torment of thirst, to reap the harvest or
thrash the grain? Do you, like the shepherd, watch through the dews of
the night? Do you traverse deserts, like the merchant? Ah! on beholding
the pride and cruelty of the powerful, I have been transported with
indignation, and have said in my wrath, will there never then arise on
the earth men who will avenge the people and punish tyrants? A handful
of brigands devour the multitude, and the multitude submits to be
devoured! Oh! degenerate people! Know you not your rights? All authority
is from you, all power is yours. Unlawfully do kings command you on the
authority of God and of their lance--Soldiers be still; if God supports
the Sultan he needs not your aid; if his sword suffices, he needs not
yours; let us see what he can do alone. The soldiers grounded their
arms; and behold these masters of the world, feeble as the meanest of
their subjects! People! know that those who govern are your chiefs, not
your masters; your agents, not your owners; that they have no authority
over you, but by you, and for you; that your wealth is yours and they
accountable for it; that, kings or subjects, God has made all men equal,
and no mortal has the right to oppress his fellow-creatures.
But this nation and its chiefs have mistaken these holy truths. They
must abide then the consequences of their blindness. The decree is past;
the day approaches when this colossus of power shall be crushed and
crumbled under its own mass. Yes, I swear it, by the ruins of so many
empires destroyed. The empire of the Crescent shall follow the fate
of the despotism it has copied. A nation of strangers shall drive the
Sultan from his metropolis. The throne of Orkhan shall be overturned.
The last shoot of his trunk shall be broken off; and the horde of
Oguzians,* deprived of their chief, shall disperse like that of the
Nagois. In this dissolution, the people of the empire, loosened from the
yoke which united them, shall resume their ancient distinctions, and a
general anarchy shall follow, as happened in the empire of the Sophis;**
until there shall arise among the Arabians, Armenians, or Greeks,
legislators who may compose new states.
* Before the Turks took the name of their chief, Othman I.,
they bore that of Oguzians; and it was under this
appellation that they were driven out of Tartary by Gengis,
and came from the borders of Giboun to settle themselves in
Anatolia.
** In Persia, after the death of Thamas-Koulikan, each
province had its chief, and for forty years these chiefs
were in a constant state of war. In this view the Turks do
not say without reason: "Ten years of a tyrant are less
destructive than a single night of anarchy."
Oh! if there were on earth men profound and bold! what elements for
grandeur and glory! But the hour of destiny has already come; the cry of
war strikes my ear; and the catastrophe begins. In vain the Sultan leads
forth his armies; his ignorant warriors are beaten and dispersed. In
vain he calls his subjects; their hearts are ice. Is it not written? say
they, what matters who is our master? We cannot lose by the change.
In vain the true believers invoke heaven and the prophet. The prophet is
dead; and heaven without pity answers:
Cease to invoke me. You have caused your own misfortunes; cure them
yourselves. Nature has established laws; your part is to obey them.
Observe, reason, and profit by experience. It is the folly of man which
ruins him; let his wisdom save him. The people are ignorant; let them
gain instruction. Their chiefs are wicked; let them correct and amend;
for such is Nature's decree. Since the evils of society spring from
cupidity and ignorance, men will never cease to be persecuted, till they
become enlightened and wise; till they practise justice, founded on a
knowledge of their relations and of the laws of their organization.*
* A singular moral phenomenon made its appearance in Europe
in the year 1788. A great nation, jealous of its liberty,
contracted a fondness for a nation the enemy of liberty; a
nation friendly to the arts, for a nation that detests them;
a mild and tolerant nation, for a persecuting and fanatic
one; a social and gay nation, for a nation whose
characteristics are gloom and misanthropy; in a word, the
French were smitten with a passion for the Turks: they were
desirous of engaging in a war for them, and that at a time
when revolution in their own country was just at its
commencement. A man, who perceived the true nature of the
situation, wrote a book to dissuade them from the war: it
was immediately pretended that he was paid by the
government, which in reality wished the war, and which was
upon the point of shutting him up in a state prison. Another
man wrote to recommend the war: he was applauded, and his
word taken for the science, the politeness, and importance
of the Turks. It is true that he believed in his own
thesis, for he has found among them people who cast a
nativity, and alchymists who ruined his fortune; as he found
Martinists at Paris, who enabled him to sup with Sesostris,
and Magnetizers who concluded with destroying his existence.
Notwithstanding this, the Turks were beaten by the Russians,
and the man who then predicted the fall of their empire,
persists in the prediction. The result of this fall will be
a complete change of the political system, as far as it
relates to the coast of the Mediterranean. If, however, the
French become important in proportion as they become free,
and if they make use of the advantage they will obtain,
their progress may easily prove of the most honorable sort;
inasmuch as, by the wise decrees of fate, the true interest
of mankind evermore accords with their true morality.
CHAPTER XIII.
WILL THE HUMAN RACE IMPROVE?
At these words, oppressed with the painful sentiment with which their
severity overwhelmed me: Woe to the nations! cried I, melting in tears;
woe to myself! Ah! now it is that I despair of the happiness of man!
Since his miseries proceed from his heart; since the remedy is in his
own power, woe for ever to his existence! Who, indeed will ever be
able to restrain the lust of wealth in the strong and powerful? Who can
enlighten the ignorance of the weak? Who can teach the multitude to know
their rights, and force their chiefs to perform their duties? Thus the
race of man is always doomed to suffer! Thus the individual will not
cease to oppress the individual, a nation to attack a nation; and days
of prosperity, of glory, for these regions, shall never return. Alas!
conquerors will come; they will drive out the oppressors, and fix
themselves in their place; but, inheriting their power, they will
inherit their rapacity; and the earth will have changed tyrants, without
changing the tyranny.
Then, turning to the Genius, I exclaimed:
O Genius, despair hath settled on my soul. Knowing the nature of
man, the perversity of those who govern, and the debasement of the
governed--this knowledge hath disgusted me with life; and since there
is no choice but to be the accomplice or the victim of oppression, what
remains to the man of virtue but to mingle his ashes with those of the
tomb?
The Genius then gave me a look of severity, mingled with compassion; and
after a few moments of silence, he replied:
Virtue, then, consists in dying! The wicked man is indefatigable in
consummating his crime, and the just is discouraged from doing good at
the first obstacle he encounters! But such is the human heart. A
little success intoxicates man with confidence; a reverse overturns and
confounds him. Always given up to the sensation of the moment, he seldom
judges things from their nature, but from the impulse of his passion.
Mortal, who despairest of the human race, on what profound combination
of facts hast thou established thy conclusion? Hast thou scrutinized the
organization of sentient beings, to determine with precision whether the
instinctive force which moves them on to happiness is essentially weaker
than that which repels them from it? or, embracing in one glance the
history of the species, and judging the future by the past, hast thou
shown that all improvement is impossible? Say! hath human society, since
its origin, made no progress toward knowledge and a better state? Are
men still in their forests, destitute of everything, ignorant, stupid
and ferocious? Are all the nations still in that age when nothing was
seen upon the globe but brutal robbers and brutal slaves? If at any
time, in any place, individuals have ameliorated, why shall not the
whole mass ameliorate? If partial societies have made improvements, what
shall hinder the improvement of society in general? And if the first
obstacles are overcome, why should the others be insurmountable?
Art thou disposed to think that the human race degenerates? Guard
against the illusion and paradoxes of the misanthrope. Man, discontented
with the present, imagines for the past a perfection which never
existed, and which only serves to cover his chagrin. He praises the dead
out of hatred to the living, and beats the children with the bones of
their ancestors.
To prove this pretended retrograde progress from perfection we must
contradict the testimony of reason and of fact; and if the facts of
history are in any measure uncertain, we must contradict the living
fact of the organization of man; we must prove that he is born with
the enlightened use of his senses; that, without experience, he can
distinguish aliment from poison; that the child is wiser than the old
man; that the blind walks with more safety than the clear-sighted; that
the civilized man is more miserable than the savage; and, indeed, that
there is no ascending scale in experience and instruction.
Believe, young man, the testimony of monuments, and the voice of the
tombs. Some countries have doubtless fallen from what they were at
certain epochs; but if we weigh the wisdom and happiness of their
inhabitants, even in those times, we shall find more of splendor than of
reality in their glory; we shall find, in the most celebrated of ancient
states, enormous vices and cruel abuses, the true causes of their
decay; we shall find in general that the principles of government
were atrocious; that insolent robberies, barbarous wars and implacable
hatreds were raging from nation to nation;* that natural right was
unknown; that morality was perverted by senseless fanaticism and
deplorable superstition; that a dream, a vision, an oracle, were
constantly the causes of vast commotions. Perhaps the nations are not
yet entirely cured of all these evils; but their intensity at least is
diminished, and the experience of the past has not been wholly lost. For
the last three centuries, especially, knowledge has increased and been
extended; civilization, favored by happy circumstances, has made a
sensible progress; inconveniences and abuses have even turned to its
advantage; for if states have been too much extended by conquest,
the people, by uniting under the same yoke, have lost the spirit of
estrangement and division which made them all enemies one to the other.
If the powers of government have been more concentrated, there has been
more system and harmony in their exercise. If wars have become more
extensive in the mass, they are less bloody in detail. If men have gone
to battle with less personality, less energy, their struggles have been
less sanguinary and less ferocious; they have been less free, but less
turbulent; more effeminate, but more pacific. Despotism itself has
rendered them some service; for if governments have been more absolute,
they have been more quiet and less tempestuous. If thrones have become
a property and hereditary, they have excited less dissensions, and the
people have suffered fewer convulsions; finally, if the despots, jealous
and mysterious, have interdicted all knowledge of their administration,
all concurrence in the management of public affairs, the passions
of men, drawn aside from politics, have fixed upon the arts, and the
sciences of nature; and the sphere of ideas in every direction has been
enlarged; man, devoted to abstract studies, has better understood his
place in the system of nature, and his relations in society; principles
have been better discussed, final causes better explained, knowledge
more extended, individuals better instructed, manners more social, and
life more happy. The species at large, especially in certain countries,
has gained considerably; and this amelioration cannot but increase in
future, because its two principal obstacles, those even which, till
then, had rendered it slow and sometimes retrograde,--the difficulty of
transmitting ideas and of communicating them rapidly,--have been at last
removed.
* Read the history of the wars of Rome and Carthage, of
Sparta and Messina, of Athens and Syracuse, of the Hebrews
and the Phoenicians: yet these are the nations of which
antiquity boasts as being most polished!
Indeed, among the ancients, each canton, each city, being isolated
from all others by the difference of its language, the consequence was
favorable to ignorance and anarchy. There was no communication of ideas,
no participation of discoveries, no harmony of interests or of wills, no
unity of action or design; besides, the only means of transmitting and
of propagating ideas being that of speech, fugitive and limited,
and that of writing, tedious of execution, expensive and scarce, the
consequence was a hindrance of present instruction, loss of experience
from one generation to another, instability, retrogression of knowledge,
and a perpetuity of confusion and childhood.
But in the modern world, especially in Europe, great nations having
allied themselves in language, and established vast communities of
opinions, the minds of men are assimilated, and their affections
extended; there is a sympathy of opinion and a unity of action; then
that gift of heavenly Genius, the holy art of printing, having furnished
the means of communicating in an instant the same idea to millions of
men, and of fixing it in a durable manner, beyond the power of tyrants
to arrest or annihilate, there arose a mass of progressive instruction,
an expanding atmosphere of science, which assures to future ages a solid
amelioration. This amelioration is a necessary effect of the laws of
nature; for, by the law of sensibility, man as invincibly tends to
render himself happy as the flame to mount, the stone to descend, or the
water to find its level. His obstacle is his ignorance, which misleads
him in the means, and deceives him in causes and effects. He will
enlighten himself by experience; he will become right by dint of errors;
he will grow wise and good because it is his interest so to be.
Ideas being communicated through the nation, whole classes will gain
instruction; science will become a vulgar possession, and all men will
know what are the principles of individual happiness and of public
prosperity. They will know the relations they bear to society, their
duties and their rights; they will learn to guard against the illusions
of the lust of gain; they will perceive that the science of morals is
a physical science, composed, indeed, of elements complicated in their
operation, but simple and invariable in their nature, since they
are only the elements of the organization of man. They will see the
propriety of being moderate and just, because in that is found the
advantage and security of each; they will perceive that the wish to
enjoy at the expense of another is a false calculation of ignorance,
because it gives rise to reprisal, hatred, and vengeance, and that
dishonesty is the never-failing offspring of folly.
Individuals will feel that private happiness is allied to public good:
The weak, that instead of dividing their interests, they ought to unite
them, because equality constitutes their force:
The rich, that the measure of enjoyment is bounded by the constitution
of the organs, and that lassitude follows satiety:
The poor, that the employment of time, and the peace of the heart,
compose the highest happiness of man. And public opinion, reaching kings
on their thrones, will force them to confine themselves to the limits of
regular authority.
Even chance itself, serving the cause of nations, will sometimes give
them feeble chiefs, who, through weakness, will suffer them to become
free; and sometimes enlightened chiefs, who, from a principle of virtue,
will free them.
And when nations, free and enlightened, shall become like great
individuals, the whole species will have the same facilities as
particular portions now have; the communication of knowledge will extend
from one to another, and thus reach the whole. By the law of imitation,
the example of one people will be followed by others, who will adopt its
spirit and its laws. Even despots, perceiving that they can no longer
maintain their authority without justice and beneficence, will soften
their sway from necessity, from rivalship; and civilization will become
universal.
There will be established among the several nations an equilibrium of
force, which, restraining them all within the bounds of the respect due
to their reciprocal rights, shall put an end to the barbarous practice
of war, and submit their disputes to civil arbitration.* The human race
will become one great society, one individual family, governed by the
same spirit, by common laws, and enjoying all the happiness of which
their nature is susceptible.
* What is a people? An individual of the society at large.
What a war? A duel between two individual people. In what
manner ought a society to act when two of its members fight?
Interfere and reconcile, or repress them. In the days of
the Abbe de Saint Pierre this was treated as a dream, but
happily for the human race it begins to be realized.
Doubtless this great work will be long accomplishing; because the
same movement must be given to an immense body; the same leaven must
assimilate an enormous mass of heterogeneous parts. But this movement
shall be effected; its presages are already to be seen. Already the
great society, assuming in its course the same characters as partial
societies have done, is evidently tending to a like result. At first
disconnected in all its parts, it saw its members for a long time
without cohesion; and this general solitude of nations formed its
first age of anarchy and childhood; divided afterwards by chance into
irregular sections, called states and kingdoms, it has experienced
the fatal effects of an extreme inequality of wealth and rank; and the
aristocracy of great empires has formed its second age; then, these
lordly states disputing for preeminence, have exhibited the period of
the shock of factions.
At present the contending parties, wearied with discord, feel the want
of laws, and sigh for the age of order and of peace. Let but a virtuous
chief arise! a just, a powerful people appear! and the earth will raise
them to supreme power. The world is waiting for a legislative people; it
wishes and demands it; and my heart attends the cry.
Then turning towards the west: Yes, continued he, a hollow sound already
strikes my ear; a cry of liberty, proceeding from far distant shores,
resounds on the ancient continent. At this cry, a secret murmur against
oppression is raised in a powerful nation; a salutary inquietude alarms
her respecting her situation; she enquires what she is, and what she
ought to be; while, surprised at her own weakness, she interrogates her
rights, her resources, and what has been the conduct of her chiefs.
Yet another day--a little more reflection--and an immense agitation will
begin; a new-born age will open! an age of astonishment to vulgar minds,
of terror to tyrants, of freedom to a great nation, and of hope to the
human race!
CHAPTER XIV.
THE GREAT OBSTACLE TO IMPROVEMENT.
The Genius ceased. But preoccupied with melancholy thoughts, my mind
resisted persuasion; fearing, however, to shock him by my resistance, I
remained silent. After a while, turning to me with a look which pierced
my soul, he said:
Thou art silent, and thy heart is agitated with thoughts which it dares
not utter.
At last, troubled and terrified, I replied:
O Genius, pardon my weakness. Doubtless thy mouth can utter nothing but
truth; but thy celestial intelligence can seize its rays, where my gross
faculties can discern nothing but clouds. I confess it; conviction has
not penetrated my soul, and I feared that my doubts might offend thee.
And what is doubt, replied he, that it should be a crime? Can man
feel otherwise than as he is affected? If a truth be palpable, and
of importance in practice, let us pity him that misconceives it.
His punishment will arise from his blindness. If it be uncertain or
equivocal, how is he to find in it what it has not? To believe without
evidence or proof, is an act of ignorance and folly. The credulous
man loses himself in a labyrinth of contradictions; the man of sense
examines and discusses, that he may be consistent in his opinions. The
honest man will bear contradiction; because it gives rise to evidence.
Violence is the argument of falsehood; and to impose a creed by
authority is the act and indication of a tyrant.
O Genius, said I, encouraged by these words, since my reason is free, I
strive in vain to entertain the flattering hope with which you endeavor
to console me. The sensible and virtuous soul is easily caught with
dreams of happiness; but a cruel reality constantly awakens it to
suffering and wretchedness. The more I meditate on the nature of man,
the more I examine the present state of societies, the less possible it
appears to realize a world of wisdom and felicity. I cast my eye over
the whole of our hemisphere; I perceive in no place the germ, nor do
I foresee the instinctive energy of a happy revolution. All Asia lies
buried in profound darkness. The Chinese, governed by an insolent
despotism,* by strokes of the bamboo and the cast of lots, restrained
by an immutable code of gestures, and by the radical vices of an
ill-constructed language,** appear to be in their abortive civilization
nothing but a race of automatons. The Indian, borne down by prejudices,
and enchained in the sacred fetters of his castes, vegetates in an
incurable apathy. The Tartar, wandering or fixed, always ignorant and
ferocious, lives in the savageness of his ancestors. The Arab, endowed
with a happy genius, loses its force and the fruits of his virtue in
the anarchy of his tribes and the jealousy of his families. The African,
degraded from the rank of man, seems irrevocably doomed to servitude.
In the North I see nothing but vilified serfs, herds of men with which
landlords stock their estates. Ignorance, tyranny, and wretchedness
have everywhere stupified the nations; and vicious habits, depraving
the natural senses, have destroyed the very instinct of happiness and of
truth.
* The emperor of China calls himself the son of heaven; that
is, of God: for in the opinion of the Chinese, the material
of heaven, the arbiter of fatality, is the Deity himself.
"The emperor only shows himself once in ten months, lest the
people, accustomed to see him, might lose their respect; for
he holds it as a maxim that power can only be supported by
force, that the people have no idea of justice, and are not
to be governed but by coercion." Narrative of two Mahometan
travellers in 851 and 877, translated by the Abbe Renaudot
in 1718.
Notwithstanding what is asserted by the missionaries, this
situation has undergone no change. The bamboo still reigns
in China, and the son of heaven bastinades, for the most
trivial fault, the Mandarin, who in his turn bastinades the
people. The Jesuits may tell us that this is the best
governed country in the world, and its inhabitants the
happiest of men: but a single letter from Amyot has
convinced me that China is a truly Turkish government, and
the account of Sonnerat confirms it. See Vol. II. of Voyage
aux Indes, in 4to.
** As long as the Chinese shall in writing make use of their
present characters, they can be expected to make no progress
in civilization. The necessary introductory step must be
the giving them an alphabet like our own, or of substituting
in the room of their language that of the Tartars. The
improvement made in the latter by M. de Lengles, is
calculated to introduce this change. See the Mantchou
alphabet, the production of a mind truly learned in the
formation of language.
In some parts of Europe, indeed, reason has begun to dawn, but even
there, do nations partake of the knowledge of individuals? Are the
talents and genius of governors turned to the benefit of the people? And
those nations which call themselves polished, are they not the same that
for the last three centuries have filled the earth with their injustice?
Are they not those who, under the pretext of commerce, have desolated
India, depopulated a new continent, and, at present, subject Africa
to the most barbarous slavery? Can liberty be born from the bosom
of despots? and shall justice be rendered by the hands of piracy and
avarice? O Genius, I have seen the civilized countries; and the mockery
of their wisdom has vanished before my sight. I saw wealth accumulated
in the hands of a few, and the multitude poor and destitute. I have seen
all rights, all powers concentered in certain classes, and the mass of
the people passive and dependent. I have seen families of princes, but
no families of the nation. I have seen government interests, but
no public interests or spirit. I have seen that all the science of
government was to oppress prudently; and the refined servitude of
polished nations appeared to me only the more irremediable.
One obstacle above all has profoundly struck my mind. On looking over
the world, I have seen it divided into twenty different systems of
religion. Every nation has received, or formed, opposite opinions; and
every one ascribing to itself the exclusive possession of the truth,
must believe the other to be wrong. Now if, as must be the fact in this
discordance of opinion, the greater part are in error, and are honest in
it, then it follows that our mind embraces falsehood as it does truth;
and if so, how is it to be enlightened? When prejudice has once seized
the mind, how is it to be dissipated? How shall we remove the bandage
from our eyes, when the first article in every creed, the first dogma in
all religion, is the absolute proscription of doubt, the interdiction of
examination, and the rejection of our own judgment? How is truth to make
herself known?--If she resorts to arguments and proofs, the timid man
stifles the voice of his own conscience; if she invokes the authority
of celestial powers, he opposes it with another authority of the same
origin, with which he is preoccupied; and he treats all innovation as
blasphemy. Thus man in his blindness, has riveted his own chains,
and surrendered himself forever, without defence, to the sport of his
ignorance and his passions.
To dissolve such fatal chains, a miraculous concurrence of happy
events would be necessary. A whole nation, cured of the delirium of
superstition, must be inaccessible to the impulse of fanaticism. Freed
from the yoke of false doctrine, a whole people must impose upon itself
that of true morality and reason. This people should be courageous and
prudent, wise and docile. Each individual, knowing his rights, should
not transgress them. The poor should know how to resist seduction,
and the rich the allurements of avarice. There should be found leaders
disinterested and just, and their tyrants should be seized with a spirit
of madness and folly. This people, recovering its rights, should
feel its inability to exercise them in person, and should name its
representatives. Creator of its magistrates, it should know at once to
respect them and to judge them. In the sudden reform of a whole nation,
accustomed to live by abuses, each individual displaced should bear with
patience his privations, and submit to a change of habits. This nation
should have the courage to conquer its liberty; the power to defend it,
the wisdom to establish it, and the generosity to extend it to others.
And can we ever expect the union of so many circumstances? But suppose
that chance in its infinite combinations should produce them, shall I
see those fortunate days. Will not my ashes long ere then be mouldering
in the tomb?
Here, sunk in sorrow, my oppressed heart no longer found utterance. The
Genius answered not, but I heard him whisper to himself:
Let us revive the hope of this man; for if he who loves his fellow
creatures be suffered to despair, what will become of nations? The past
is perhaps too discouraging; I must anticipate futurity, and disclose to
the eye of virtue the astonishing age that is ready to begin; that, on
viewing the object she desires, she may be animated with new ardor, and
redouble her efforts to attain it.
CHAPTER XV.
THE NEW AGE.
Scarcely had he finished these words, when a great tumult arose in the
west; and turning to that quarter, I perceived, at the extremity of
the Mediterranean, in one of the nations of Europe, a prodigious
movement--such as when a violent sedition arises in a vast city--a
numberless people, rushing in all directions, pour through the streets
and fluctuate like waves in the public places. My ear, struck with the
cries which resounded to the heavens, distinguished these words:
What is this new prodigy? What cruel and mysterious scourge is this? We
are a numerous people and we want hands! We have an excellent soil, and
we are in want of subsistence? We are active and laborious, and we live
in indigence! We pay enormous tributes, and we are told they are not
sufficient! We are at peace without, and our persons and property are
not safe within. Who, then, is the secret enemy that devours us?
Some voices from the midst of the multitude replied:
Raise a discriminating standard; and let all those who maintain and
nourish mankind by useful labors gather round it; and you will discover
the enemy that preys upon you.
The standard being raised, this nation divided itself at once into
two bodies of unequal magnitude and contrasted appearance. The one,
innumerable, and almost total, exhibited in the poverty of its clothing,
in its emaciated appearance and sun-burnt faces, the marks of misery and
labor; the other, a little group, an insignificant faction, presented in
its rich attire embroidered with gold and silver, and in its sleek and
ruddy faces, the signs of leisure and abundance.
Considering these men more attentively, I found that the great body was
composed of farmers, artificers, merchants, all professions useful
to society; and that the little group was made up of priests of every
order, of financiers, of nobles, of men in livery, of commanders of
armies; in a word, of the civil, military, and religious agents of
government.
These two bodies being assembled face to face, and regarding each other
with astonishment, I saw indignation and rage arising in one side, and
a sort of panic in the other. And the large body said to the little one:
Why are you separated from us? Are you not of our number?
No, replied the group; you are the people; we are a privileged class,
who have our laws, customs, and rights, peculiar to ourselves.
PEOPLE.--And what labor do you perform in our society?
PRIVILEGED CLASS.--None; we are not made to work.
PEOPLE.--How, then, have you acquired these riches?
PRIVILEGED CLASS.--By taking the pains to govern you.
PEOPLE.--What! is this what you call governing? We toil and you enjoy!
we produce and you dissipate! Wealth proceeds from us, and you absorb
it. Privileged men! class who are not the people; form a nation apart,
and govern yourselves.*
* This dialogue between the people and the indolent classes,
is applicable to every society; it contains the seeds of all
the political vices and disorders that prevail, and which
may thus be defined: Men who do nothing, and who devour the
substance of others; and men who arrogate to themselves
particular rights and exclusive privileges of wealth and
indolence. Compare the Mamlouks of Egypt, the nobility of
Europe, the Nairs of India, the Emirs of Arabia, the
patricians of Rome, the Christian clergy, the Imans, the
Bramins, the Bonzes, the Lamas, etc., etc., and you will
find in all the same characteristic feature:--Men living in
idleness at the expense of those who labor.
Then the little group, deliberating on this new state of things, some of
the most honorable among them said: We must join the people and partake
of their labors and burdens, for they are men like us, and our riches
come from them; but others arrogantly exclaimed: It would be a shame, an
infamy, for us to mingle with the crowd; they are born to serve us.
Are we not men of another race--the noble and pure descendants of the
conquerors of this empire? This multitude must be reminded of our rights
and its own origin.
THE NOBLES.--People! know you not that our ancestors conquered this
land, and that your race was spared only on condition of serving us?
This is our social compact! this the government constituted by custom
and prescribed by time.
PEOPLE.--O conquerors, pure of blood! show us your genealogies! we
shall then see if what in an individual is robbery and plunder, can be
virtuous in a nation.
And forthwith, voices were heard in every quarter calling out the nobles
by their names; and relating their origin and parentage, they told how
the grandfather, great-grandfather, or even father, born traders and
mechanics, after acquiring wealth in every way, had purchased their
nobility for money: so that but very few families were really of the
original stock. See, said these voices, see these purse-proud commoners
who deny their parents! see these plebian recruits who look upon
themselves as illustrious veterans! and peals of laughter were heard.
And the civil governors said: these people are mild, and naturally
servile; speak to them of the king and of the law, and they will return
to their duty. People! the king wills, the sovereign ordains!
PEOPLE.--The king can will nothing but the good of the people; the
sovereign can only ordain according to law.
CIVIL GOVERNORS.--The law commands you to be submissive.
PEOPLE.--The law is the general will; and we will a new order of things.
CIVIL GOVERNORS.--You are then a rebel people.
PEOPLE.--A nation cannot revolt; tyrants only are rebels.
CIVIL GOVERNORS.--The king is on our side; he commands you to submit.
PEOPLE.--Kings are inseparable from their nations. Our king cannot be
with you; you possess only his phantom.
And the military governors came forward. The people are timorous, said
they; we must threaten them; they will submit only to force. Soldiers,
chastise this insolent multitude.
PEOPLE.--Soldiers, you are of our blood! Will you strike your brothers,
your relatives? If the people perish who will nourish the army?
And the soldiers, grounding their arms, said to the chiefs:
We are likewise the people; show us the enemy!
Then the ecclesiastical governors said: There is but one resource left.
The people are superstitious; we must frighten them with the names of
God and religion.
Our dear brethren! our children! God has ordained us to govern you.
PEOPLE.--Show us your credentials from God!
PRIESTS.--You must have faith; reason leads astray.
PEOPLE.--Do you govern without reason?
PRIESTS.--God commands peace! Religion prescribes obedience.
PEOPLE.--Peace supposes justice. Obedience implies conviction of a duty.
PRIESTS.--Suffering is the business of this world.
PEOPLE.--Show us the example.
PRIESTS.--Would you live without gods or kings?
PEOPLE.--We would live without oppressors.
PRIESTS.--You must have mediators, intercessors.
PEOPLE.--Mediators with God and with the king! courtiers and priests,
your services are too expensive: we will henceforth manage our own
affairs.
And the little group said: We are lost! the multitude are enlightened.
And the people answered: You are safe; since we are enlightened we will
commit no violence; we only claim our rights. We feel resentments, but
we will forget them. We were slaves, we might command; but we only wish
to be free, and liberty is but justice.
CHAPTER XVI.
A FREE AND LEGISLATIVE PEOPLE.
Considering that all public power was now suspended, and that the
habitual restraint of the people had suddenly ceased, I shuddered with
the apprehension that they would fall into the dissolution of anarchy.
But, taking their affairs into immediate deliberation, they said:
It is not enough that we have freed ourselves from tyrants and
parasites; we must prevent their return. We are men, and experience
has abundantly taught us that every man is fond of power, and wishes
to enjoy it at the expense of others. It is necessary, then, to guard
against a propensity which is the source of discord; we must establish
certain rules of duty and of right. But the knowledge of our rights,
and the estimation of our duties, are so abstract and difficult as to
require all the time and all the faculties of a man. Occupied in our
own affairs, we have not leisure for these studies; nor can we
exercise these functions in our own persons. Let us choose, then, among
ourselves, such persons as are capable of this employment. To them we
will delegate our powers to institute our government and laws. They
shall be the representatives of our wills and of our interests. And in
order to attain the fairest representation possible of our wills and our
interests, let it be numerous, and composed of men resembling ourselves.
Having made the election of a numerous body of delegates, the people
thus addressed them:
We have hitherto lived in a society formed by chance, without fixed
agreements, without free conventions, without a stipulation of rights,
without reciprocal engagements,--and a multitude of disorders and evils
have arisen from this precarious state. We are now determined on forming
a regular compact; and we have chosen you to adjust the articles.
Examine, then, with care what ought to be its basis and its conditions;
consider what is the end and the principles of every association;
recognize the rights which every member brings, the powers which he
delegates, and those which he reserves to himself. Point out to us the
rules of conduct--the basis of just and equitable laws. Prepare for us a
new system of government; for we realize that the one which has
hitherto guided us is corrupt. Our fathers have wandered in the paths
of ignorance, and habit has taught us to follow in their footsteps.
Everything has been done by fraud, violence, and delusion; and the true
laws of morality and reason are still obscure. Clear up, then, their
chaos; trace out their connection; publish their code, and we will adopt
it.
And the people raised a large throne, in the form of a pyramid, and
seating on it the men they had chosen, said to them:
We raise you to-day above us, that you may better discover the whole of
our relations, and be above the reach of our passions. But remember that
you are our fellow-citizens; that the power we confer on you is our own;
that we deposit it with you, but not as a property or a heritage; that
you must be the first to obey the laws you make; that to-morrow you
redescend among us, and that you will have acquired no other right but
that of our esteem and gratitude. And consider what a tribute of glory
the world, which reveres so many apostles of error, will bestow on the
first assembly of rational men, who shall have declared the unchangeable
principles of justice, and consecrated, in the face of tyrants, the
rights of nations.
CHAPTER XVII.
UNIVERSAL BASIS OF ALL RIGHT AND ALL LAW.
The men chosen by the people to investigate the true principles of
morals and of reason then proceeded in the sacred object of their
mission; and, after a long examination, having discovered a fundamental
and universal principle, a legislator arose and said to the people:
Here is the primordial basis, the physical origin of all justice and of
all right.
Whatever be the active power, the moving cause, that governs the
universe, since it has given to all men the same organs, the same
sensations, and the same wants, it has thereby declared that it has
given to all the same right to the use of its treasures, and that all
men are equal in the order of nature.
And, since this power has given to each man the necessary means of
preserving his own existence, it is evident that it has constituted them
all independent one of another; that it has created them free; that no
one is subject to another; that each one is absolute proprietor of his
own person.
Equality and liberty are, therefore, two essential attributes of man,
two laws of the Divinity, constitutional and unchangeable, like the
physical properties of matter.
Now, every individual being absolute master of his own person, it
follows that a full and free consent is a condition indispensable to all
contracts and all engagements.
Again, since each individual is equal to another, it follows that the
balance of what is received and of what is given, should be strictly in
equilibrium; so that the idea of justice, of equity, necessarily imports
that of equality.*
* The etymology of the words themselves trace out to us this
connection: equilibrium, equalitas, equitas, are all of one
family, and the physical idea of equality, in the scales of
a balance, is the source and type of all the rest.
Equality and liberty are therefore the physical and unalterable basis
of every union of men in society, and of course the necessary and
generating principle of every law and of every system of regular
government.*
* In the Declaration of Rights, there is an inversion of
ideas in the first article, liberty being placed before
equality, from which it in reality springs. This defect is
not to be wondered at; the science of the rights of man is a
new science: it was invented yesterday by the Americans,
to-day the French are perfecting it, but there yet remains a
great deal to be done. In the ideas that constitute it
there is a genealogical order which, from us basis, physical
equality, to the minutest and most remote branches of
government, ought to proceed in an uninterrupted series of
inferences.
A disregard of this basis has introduced in your nation, and in every
other, those disorders which have finally roused you. It is by returning
to this rule that you may reform them, and reorganize a happy order of
society.
But observe, this reorganization will occasion a violent shock in
your habits, your fortunes, and your prejudices. Vicious contracts and
abusive claims must be dissolved, unjust distinctions and ill founded
property renounced; you must indeed recur for a moment to a state of
nature. Consider whether you can consent to so many sacrifices.
Then, reflecting on the cupidity inherent in the heart of man, I thought
that this people would renounce all ideas of amelioration.
But, in a moment, a great number of men, advancing toward the pyramid,
made a solemn abjuration of all their distinctions and all their riches.
Establish for us, said they, the laws of equality and liberty; we will
possess nothing in future but on the title of justice.
Equality, liberty, justice,--these shall be our code, and shall be
written on our standards.
And the people immediately raised a great standard, inscribed with
these three words, in three different colors. They displayed it over the
pyramid of the legislators, and for the first time the flag of universal
justice floated on the face of the earth.
And the people raised before the pyramid a new altar, on which they
placed a golden balance, a sword, and a book with this inscription:
TO EQUAL LAW, WHICH JUDGES AND PROTECTS.
And having surrounded the pyramid and the altar with a vast
amphitheatre, all the people took their seats to hear the publication
of the law. And millions of men, raising at once th
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