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An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition

by Adam Ferguson · English · Gutenberg #8646 · 652,473 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition

Author: Adam Ferguson


        
Release date: August 1, 2005 [eBook #8646]
                Most recently updated: January 2, 2021

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Stan Goodman, William Craig, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY, EIGHTH EDITION ***




Produced by Stan Goodman, William Craig, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.




This is an authorized facsimile of the original book, and was produced in
1971 by microfilm-xerography by University Microfilms, A Xerox Company, Ann
Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.




AN ESSAY on the HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY.

       *       *       *       *       *

BY ADAM FERGUSON, L. L. D.



CONTENTS

       *       *       *       *       *

PART I. OF THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN NATURE.

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

SECTION II. Of the principles of Self Preservation

SECTION III. Of the principles of Union among Mankind

SECTION IV. Of the principles of War and Dissention

SECTION V. Of Intellectual Powers

SECTION VI. Of Moral Sentiment

SECTION VII. Of Happiness

SECTION VIII. The same subject continued

SECTION IX. Of National Felicity

SECTION X. The same subject continued

PART II. OF THE HISTORY OF RUDE NATIONS.

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

PART III. OF THE HISTORY OF POLICY AND ARTS.

SECTION I. Of the Influences of Climate and Situation

SECTION II. The History of Political Establishments

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

SECTION IV. Of Population and Wealth

SECTION V. Of National Defence and Conquest

SECTION VI. Of Civil Liberty

SECTION VII. Of the History of Arts

SECTION VIII. Of the History of Literature

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

SECTION I. Of the Separation of Arts and Professions

SECTION II. Of the Subordination consequent to the Separation of Arts and
Professions

SECTION III. Of the Manners of Polished and Commercial Nations

SECTION IV. The same subject continued

       *       *       *       *       *

PART V. OF THE DECLINE OF NATIONS.

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

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

SECTION III. Of Relaxations in the National Spirit incident to Polished
Nations

SECTION IV. The same subject continued

SECTION V. Of National Waste

PART VI. OF CORRUPTION AND POLITICAL SLAVERY.

SECTION I. Of corruption in general

SECTION II. Of Luxury

SECTION III. Of the Corruption incident to Polished Nations

SECTION IV. The same subject continued

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

SECTION VI. Of the Progress and Termination of Despotism

AN ESSAY

ON THE

HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY.

       *       *       *       *       *





PART FIRST.

OF THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN NATURE.


       *       *       *       *       *





SECTION I.

OF THE QUESTION RELATING TO THE STATE OF NATURE.


Natural productions are generally formed by degrees. Vegetables are raised
from a tender shoot, and animals from an infant state. The latter, being
active, extend together their operations and their powers, and have a
progress in what they perform, as well as in the faculties they acquire.
This progress in the case of man is continued to a greater extent than in
that of any other animal. Not only the individual advances from infancy to
manhood, but the species itself from rudeness to civilization. Hence the
supposed departure of mankind from the state of their nature; hence our
conjectures and different opinions of what man must have been in the first
age of his being. The poet, the historian, and the moralist frequently
allude to this ancient time; and under the emblems of gold, or of iron,
represent a condition, and a manner of life, from which mankind have either
degenerated, or on which they have greatly improved. On either supposition,
the first state of our nature must have borne no resemblance to what men
have exhibited in any subsequent period; historical monuments, even of the
earliest date, are to be considered as novelties; and the most common
establishments of human society are to be classed among the encroachments
which fraud, oppression, or a busy invention, have made upon the reign of
nature, by which the chief of our grievances or blessings were equally
withheld.

Among the writers who have attempted to distinguish, in the human
character, its original qualities, and to point out the limits between
nature and art, some have represented mankind in their first condition, as
possessed of mere animal sensibility, without any exercise of the faculties
that render them superior to the brutes, without any political union,
without any means of explaining their sentiments, and even without
possessing any of the apprehensions and passions which the voice and the
gesture are so well fitted to express. Others have made the state of nature
to consist in perpetual wars kindled by competition for dominion and
interest, where every individual had a separate quarrel with his kind, and
where the presence of a fellow creature was the signal of battle.

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

In every other instance, however, the natural historian thinks himself
obliged to collect facts, not to offer conjectures. When he treats of any
particular species of animals, he supposes that their present dispositions
and instincts are the same which they originally had, and that their
present manner of life is a continuance of their first destination. He
admits, that his knowledge of the material system of the world consists in
a collection of facts, or at most, in general tenets derived from
particular observations and experiments. It is only in what relates to
himself, and in matters the most important and the most easily known, that
he substitutes hypothesis instead of reality, and confounds the provinces
of imagination and reason, of poetry and science.

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

If both the earliest and the latest accounts collected from every quarter
of the earth, represent mankind as assembled in troops and companies; and
the individual always joined by affection to one party, while he is
possibly opposed to another; employed in the exercise of recollection and
foresight; inclined to communicate his own sentiments, and to be made
acquainted with those of others; these facts must be admitted as the
foundation of all our reasoning relative to man. His mixed disposition to
friendship or enmity, his reason, his use of language and articulate
sounds, like the shape and the erect position of his body, are to be
considered as so many attributes of his nature: they are to be retained in
his description, as the wing and the paw are in that of the eagle and the
lion, and as different degrees of fierceness, vigilance, timidity, or
speed, have a place in the natural history of different animals.

If the question be put, What the mind of man could perform, when left to
itself, and without the aid of any foreign direction? we are to look for
our answer in the history of mankind. Particular experiments which have
been found so useful in establishing the principles of other sciences,
could probably, on this subject, teach us nothing important, or new: we are
to take the history of every active being from his conduct in the situation
to which he is formed, not from his appearance in any forced or uncommon
condition; a wild man therefore, caught in the woods, where he had always
lived apart from his species, is a singular instance, not a specimen of any
general character. As the anatomy of an eye which had never received the
impressions of light, or that of an ear which had never felt the impulse of
sounds, would probably exhibit defects in the very structure of the organs
themselves, arising from their not being applied to their proper functions;
so any particular case of this sort would only show in what degree the
powers of apprehension and sentiment could exist where they had not been
employed, and what would be the defects and imbecilities of a heart in
which the emotions that arise in society had never been felt.

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

Nature, therefore, we shall presume, having given to every animal its mode
of existence, its dispositions and manner of life, has dealt equally with
the human race; and the natural historian who would collect the properties
of this species, may fill up every article now as well as he could have
done in any former age. The attainments of the parent do not descend in the
blood of his children, nor is the progress of man to be considered as a
physical mutation of the species. The individual, in every age, has the
same race to run from infancy to manhood, and every infant, or ignorant
person, now, is a model of what man was in his original state. He enters on
his career with advantages peculiar to his age; but his natural talent is
probably the same. The use and application of this talent is changing, and
men continue their works in progression through many ages together: they
build on foundations laid by their ancestors; and in a succession of years,
tend to a perfection in the application of their faculties, to which the
aid of long experience is required, and to which many generations must have
combined their endeavours. We observe the progress they have made; we
distinctly enumerate many of its steps; we can trace them back to a distant
antiquity, of which no record remains, nor any monument is preserved, to
inform us what were the openings of this wonderful scene. The consequence
is, that instead of attending to the character of our species, where the
particulars are vouched by the surest authority, we endeavour to trace it
through ages and scenes unknown; and, instead of supposing that the
beginning of our story was nearly of a piece with the sequel, we think
ourselves warranted to reject every circumstance of our present condition
and frame, as adventitious, and foreign to our nature. The progress of
mankind, from a supposed state of animal sensibility, to the attainment of
reason, to the use of language, and to the habit of society, has been
accordingly painted with a force of imagination, and its steps have been
marked with a boldness of invention, that would tempt us to admit, among
the materials of history, the suggestions of fancy, and to receive,
perhaps, as the model of our nature in its original state, some of the
animals whose shape has the greatest resemblance to ours. [Footnote:
_Rousseau_ sur l'origine de l'inegalité parmi les hommes.]

It would be ridiculous to affirm, as a discovery, that the species of the
horse was probably never the same with that of the lion; yet, in opposition
to what has dropped from the pens of eminent writers, we are obliged to
observe, that men have always appeared among animals a distinct and a
superior race; that neither the possession of similar organs, nor the
approximation of shape, nor the use of the hand, [Footnote: Traité de
l'esprit.] nor the continued intercourse with this sovereign artist, has
enabled any other species to blend their nature or their inventions with
his; that, in his rudest state, he is found to be above them; and in his
greatest degeneracy, never descends to their level. He is, in short, a man
in every condition; and we can learn nothing of his nature from the analogy
of other animals. If we would know him, we must attend to himself, to the
course of his life, and the tenor of his conduct. With him the society
appears to be as old as the individual, and the use of the tongue as
universal as that of the hand or the foot. If there was a time in which he
had his acquaintance with his own species to make, and his faculties to
acquire, it is a time of which we have no record, and in relation to which
our opinions can serve no purpose, and are supported by no evidence.

We are often tempted into these boundless regions of ignorance or
conjecture, by a fancy which delights in creating rather than in merely
retaining the forms which are presented before it: we are the dupes of a
subtilty, which promises to supply every defect of our knowledge, and, by
filling up a few blanks in the story of nature, pretends to conduct our
apprehension nearer to the source of existence. On the credit of a few
observations, we are apt to presume, that the secret may soon be laid open,
and that what is termed _wisdom_ in nature, may be referred to the
operation of physical powers. We forget that physical powers employed in
succession or together, and combined to a salutary purpose, constitute
those very proofs of design from which we infer the existence of God; and
that this truth being once admitted, we are no longer to search for the
source of existence; we can only collect the laws which the Author of
nature has established; and in our latest as well as our earliest
discoveries, only perceive a mode of creation or providence before unknown.

We speak of art as distinguished from nature; but art itself is natural to
man. He is in some measure the artificer of his own frame, as well as of
his fortune, and is destined, from the first age of his being, to invent
and contrive. He applies the same talents to a variety of purposes, and
acts nearly the same part in very different scenes. He would be always
improving on his subject, and he carries this intention wherever he moves,
through the streets of the populous city, or the wilds of the forest. While
he appears equally fitted to every condition, he is upon this account
unable to settle in any. At once obstinate and fickle, he complains of
innovations, and is never sated with novelty. He is perpetually busied in
reformations, and is continually wedded to his errors. If he dwells in a
cave, he would improve it into a cottage; if he has already built, he would
still build to a greater extent. But he does not propose to make rapid and
hasty transitions; his steps are progressive and slow; and his force, like
the power of a spring, silently presses on every resistance; an effect is
sometimes produced before the cause is perceived; and with all his talent
for projects, his work is often accomplished before the plan is devised. It
appears, perhaps, equally difficult to retard or to quicken his pace; if
the projector complain he is tardy, the moralist thinks him unstable; and
whether his motions be rapid or slow, the scenes of human affairs
perpetually change in his management: his emblem is a passing stream, not a
stagnating pool. We may desire to direct his love of improvement to its
proper object, we may wish for stability of conduct; but we mistake human
nature, if we wish for a termination of labour, or a scene of repose.

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

Man finds his lodgment alike in the cave, the cottage, and the palace; and
his subsistence equally in the woods, in the dairy, or the farm. He assumes
the distinction of titles, equipage, and dress; he devises regular systems
of government, and a complicated body of laws; or naked in the woods has no
badge of superiority but the strength of his limbs and the sagacity of his
mind; no rule of conduct but choice; no tie with his fellow creatures but
affection, the love of company, and the desire of safety. Capable of a
great variety of arts, yet dependent on none in particular for the
preservation of his being; to whatever length he has carried his artifice,
there he seems to enjoy the conveniences that suit his nature, and to have
found the condition to which he is destined. The tree which an American, on
the banks of the Oroonoko [Footnote: Lafitau, moeurs des sauvages.], has
chosen to climb for the retreat, and the lodgment of his family, is to him
a convenient dwelling. The sopha, the vaulted dome, and the colonade, do
not more effectually content their native inhabitant.

If we are asked therefore, where the state of nature is to be found? we may
answer, it is here; and it matters not whether we are understood to speak
in the island of Great Britain, at the Cape of Good Hope, or the Straits of
Magellan. While this active being is in the train of employing his talents,
and of operating on the subjects around him, all situations are equally
natural. If we are told, that vice, at least, is contrary to nature; we may
answer, it is worse; it is folly and wretchedness. But if nature is only
opposed to art, in what situation of the human race are the footsteps of
art unknown? In the condition of the savage, as well as in that of the
citizen, are many proofs of human invention; and in either is not any
permanent station, but a mere stage through which this travelling being is
destined to pass. If the palace be unnatural, the cottage is so no less;
and the highest refinements of political and moral apprehension, are not
more artificial in their kind, than the first operations of sentiment and
reason.

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

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

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

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

Of all the terms that we employ in treating of human affairs, those of
_natural_ and _unnatural_ are the least determinate in their
meaning. Opposed to affectation, frowardness, or any other defect of the
temper or character, the natural is an epithet of praise; but employed to
specify a conduct which proceeds from the nature of man, can serve to
distinguish nothing; for all the actions of men are equally the result of
their nature. At most, this language can only refer to the general and
prevailing sense or practice of mankind; and the purpose of every important
enquiry on this subject may be served by the use of a language equally
familiar and more precise. What is just, or unjust? What is happy or
wretched, in the manners of men? What, in their various situations, is
favourable or adverse to their amiable qualities? are questions to which we
may expect a satisfactory answer; and whatever may have been the original
state of our species, it is of more importance to know the condition to
which we ourselves should aspire, than that which our ancestors may be
supposed to have left.




SECTION II.

OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF PRESERVATION.


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

Man, like the other animals, has certain instinctive propensities, which;
prior to the perception of pleasure or pain, and prior to the experience of
what is pernicious or useful, lead him to perform many functions which
terminate in himself, or have a relation to his fellow creatures. He has
one set of dispositions which tend to his animal preservation, and to the
continuance of his race; another which lead to society, and by inlisting
him on the side of one tribe or community, frequently engage him in war and
contention with the rest of mankind. His powers of discernment, or his
intellectual faculties, which, under the appellation of _reason_, are
distinguished from the analogous endowments of other animals, refer to the
objects around him, either as they are subjects of mere knowledge, or as
they are subjects of approbation or censure. He is formed not only to know,
but likewise to admire and to contemn; and these proceedings of his mind
have a principal reference to his own character, and to that of his fellow
creatures, as being the subjects on which he is chiefly concerned to
distinguish what is right from what is wrong. He enjoys his felicity
likewise on certain fixed and determinate conditions; and either as an
individual apart, or as a member of civil society, must take a particular
course, in order to reap the advantages of his nature. He is, withal, in a
very high degree susceptible of habits; and can, by forbearance or
exercise, so far weaken, confirm, or even diversify his talents, and his
dispositions, as to appear, in a great measure, the arbiter of his own rank
in nature, and the author of all the varieties which are exhibited in the
actual history of his species. The universal characteristics, in the mean
time, to which we have now referred, must, when we would treat of any part
of this history, constitute the first subject of our attention; and they
require not only to be enumerated, but to be distinctly considered.

The dispositions which tend to the preservation of the individual, while
they continue to operate in the manner of instinctive desires; are nearly
the same in man that they are in the other animals; but in him they are
sooner or later combined with reflection and foresight; they give rise to
his apprehensions on the subject of property, and make him acquainted with
that object of care which he calls his interest. Without the instincts
which teach the beaver and the squirrel, the ant and the bee, to make up
their little hoards for winter, at first improvident, and where no
immediate object of passion is near, addicted to sloth, he becomes, in
process of time, the great storemaster among animals. He finds in a
provision of wealth, which he is probably never to employ, an object of his
greatest solicitude, and the principal idol of his mind. He apprehends a
relation between his person and his property, which renders what he calls
his own in a manner a part of himself, a constituent of his rank, his
condition, and his character; in which, independent of any real enjoyment,
he may be fortunate or unhappy; and, independent of any personal merit, he
may be an object of consideration or neglect; and in which he may be
wounded and injured, while his person is safe, and every want of his nature
is completely supplied.

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

Although the consideration of interest is founded on the experience of
animal wants and desires, its object is not to gratify any particular
appetite, but to secure the means of gratifying all; and it imposes
frequently a restraint on the very desires from which it arose, more
powerful and more severe than those of religion or duty. It arises from the
principles of self preservation in the human frame; but is a corruption, or
at least a partial result, of those principles, and is upon many accounts
very improperly termed _self-love_.

Love is an affection which carries the attention of the mind beyond itself,
and is the sense of a relation to some fellow creature as to its object.
Being a complacency and a continued satisfaction in this object, it has,
independent of any external event, and in the midst of disappointment and
sorrow, pleasures and triumphs unknown to those who are guided by mere
considerations of interest; in every change of condition, it continues
entirely distinct from the sentiments which we feel on the subject of
personal success or adversity. But as the care a man entertains for his own
interest, and the attention his affection makes him pay to that of another,
may have similar effects, the one on his own fortune, the other on that of
his friend, we confound the principles from which he acts; we suppose that
they are the same in kind, only referred to different objects; and we not
only misapply the name of love, in conjunction with self, but, in a manner
tending to degrade our nature, we limit the aim of this supposed selfish
affection to the securing or accumulating the constituents of interest, of
the means of mere animal life.

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

By our supposed selfish maxims, notwithstanding, we generally exclude from
among the objects of our personal cares, many of the happier and more
respectable qualities of human nature. We consider affection and courage as
mere follies, that lead us to neglect, or expose ourselves; we make wisdom
consist in a regard to our interest; and without explaining what interest
means, we would have it understood as the only reasonable motive of action
with mankind. There is even a system of philosophy founded upon tenets of
this sort, and such is our opinion of what men are likely to do upon
selfish principles, that we think it must have a tendency very dangerous to
virtue. But the errors of this system do not consist so much in general
principles, as in their particular applications; not so much in teaching
men to regard themselves, as in leading them to forget, that their happiest
affections, their candour, and their independence of mind, are in reality
parts of themselves. And the adversaries of this supposed selfish
philosophy, where it makes self-love the ruling passion with mankind, have
had reason to find fault, not so much with its general representations of
human nature, as with the obtrusion of a mere innovation in language for a
discovery in science.

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

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

An affection or passion of any kind is sometimes said to give us an
interest in its object; and humanity itself gives an interest in the
welfare of mankind. This term _interest_, which commonly implies
little more than our property, is sometimes put for utility in general, and
this for happiness; insomuch, that, under these ambiguities, it is not
surprising we are still unable to determine, whether interest is the only
motive of human action, and the standard by which to distinguish our good
from our ill.

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




SECTION III.

OF THE PRINCIPLES OF UNION AMONG MANKIND.


Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed or quarrelled, in troops
and companies. The cause of their assembling, whatever it be, is the
principle of their alliance or union.

In collecting the materials of history, we are seldom willing to put up
with our subject merely as we find it. We are loth to be embarrassed with a
multiplicity of particulars, and apparent inconsistencies. In theory we
profess the investigation of general principles; and in order to bring the
matter of our inquiries within the reach of our comprehension, are disposed
to adopt any system. Thus, in treating of human affairs, we would draw
every consequence from a principle of union, or a principle of dissention.
The state of nature is a state of war, or of amity, and men are made to
unite from a principle of affection, or from a principle of fear, as is
most suitable to the system of different writers. The history of our
species indeed abundantly shows, that they are to one another mutual
objects both of fear and of love; and they who would prove them to have
been originally either in a state of alliance, or of war, have arguments in
store to maintain their assertions. Our attachment to one division, or to
one sect, seems often to derive much of its force from an animosity
conceived to an opposite one: and this animosity in its turn, as often
arises from a zeal in behalf of the side we espouse, and from a desire to
vindicate the rights of our party.

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

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

In accounting for actions we often forget that we ourselves have acted; and
instead of the sentiments which stimulate the mind in the presence of its
object, we assign as the motives of conduct with men, those considerations
which occur in the hours of retirement and cold reflection. In this mood
frequently we can find nothing important, besides the deliberate prospects
of interest; and a great work, like that of forming society, must in our
apprehension arise from deep reflections, and be carried on with a view to
the advantages which mankind derive from commerce and mutual support. But
neither a propensity to mix with the herd, nor the sense of advantages
enjoyed in that condition, comprehend all the principles by which men are
united together. Those bands are even of a feeble texture, when compared to
the resolute ardour with which a man adheres to his friend, or to his
tribe, after they have for some time run the career of fortune together.
Mutual discoveries of generosity, joint trials of fortitude redouble the
ardours of friendship, and kindle a flame in the human breast, which the
considerations of personal interest or safety cannot suppress. The most
lively transports of joy are seen, and the loudest shrieks of despair are
heard, when the objects of a tender affection are beheld in a state of
triumph or of suffering. An Indian recovered his friend unexpectedly on the
island of Juan Fernandes: he prostrated himself on the ground, at his feet.
"We stood gazing in silence," says Dampier, "at this tender scene." If we
would know what is the religion of a wild American, what it is in his heart
that most resembles devotion; it is not his fear of the sorcerer, nor his
hope of protection from the spirits of the air or the wood: it is the
ardent affection with which he selects and embraces his friend; with which
he clings to his side in every season of peril; and with which he invokes
his spirit from a distance, when dangers surprise him alone. [Footnote:
Charlevoix, Hist. of Canada.]

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

Mere acquaintance and habitude nourish affection, and the experience of
society brings every passion of the human mind upon its side. Its triumphs
and prosperities, its calamities and distresses, bring a variety and a
force of emotion, which can only have place in the company of our fellow
creatures. It is here that a man is made to forget his weakness, his cares
of safety, and his subsistence; and to act from those passions which make
him discover his force. It is here he finds that his arrows fly swifter
than the eagle, and his weapons wound deeper than the paw of the lion, or
the tooth of the boar. It is not alone his sense of a support which is
near, nor the love of distinction in the opinion of his tribe, that inspire
his courage, or swell his heart with a confidence that exceeds what his
natural force should bestow. Vehement passions of animosity or attachment
are the first exertions of vigour in his breast; under their influence
every consideration, but that of his object, is forgotten; dangers and
difficulties only excite him the more.

That condition is surely favourable to the nature of any being, in which
his force is increased; and if courage be the gift of society to man, we
have reason to consider his union with his species as the noblest part of
his fortune. From this source are derived, not only the force, but the very
existence of his happiest emotions; not only the better part, but almost
the whole of his rational character. Send him to the desert alone, he is a
plant torn from his roots: the form indeed may remain, but every faculty
droops and withers; the human personage and the human character cease to
exist.

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




SECTION IV.

OF THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR AND DISSENTION.


"There are some circumstances in the lot of mankind," says Socrates, "that
show them to be destined to friendship and amity: Those are, their mutual
need of each other; their mutual compassion; their sense of mutual benefit;
and the pleasures arising in company. There are other circumstances which
prompt them to war and dissention; the admiration and the desire which they
entertain for the same subjects; their opposite pretensions; and the
provocations which they mutually offer in the course of their
competitions."

When we endeavour to apply the maxims of natural justice to the solution of
difficult questions, we find that some cases may be supposed, and actually
happen, where oppositions take place, and are lawful, prior to any
provocation, or act of injustice; that where the safety and preservation of
numbers are mutually inconsistent, one party may employ his right of
defence, before the other has begun an attack. And when we join with such
examples, the instances of mistake, and misunderstanding, to which mankind
are exposed, we may be satisfied that war does not always proceed from an
intention to injure; and that even the best qualities of men, their
candour, as well as their resolution, may operate in the midst of their
quarrels.

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

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

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

The sense of a common danger, and the assaults of an enemy, have been
frequently useful to nations, by uniting their members more firmly
together, and by preventing the secessions and actual separations in which
their civil discord might otherwise terminate. And this motive to union
which is offered from abroad, may be necessary, not only in the case of
large and extensive nations, where coalitions are weakened by distance, and
the distinction of provincial names; but even in the narrow society of the
smallest states. Rome itself was founded by a small party which took its
flight from Alba; her citizens were often in danger of separating; and if
the villages and cantons of the Volsci had been further removed from the
scene of their dissentions, the Mons Sacer might have received a new colony
before the mother country was ripe for such a discharge. She continued long
to feel the quarrels of her nobles and her people; and kept open the gates
of Janus, to remind those parties of the duties they owed to their country.

Societies, as well as individuals, being charged with the care of their own
preservation, and having separate interests, which give rise to jealousies
and competitions, we cannot be surprised to find hostilities arise from
this source. But were there no angry passions of a different sort, the
animosities which attend an opposition of interest, should bear a
proportion to the supposed value of the subject. "The Hottentot nations,"
says Kolben, "trespass on each other by thefts of cattle and of women; but
such injuries are seldom committed, except with a view to exasperate their
neighbours, and bring them to a war." Such depredations then, are not the
foundation of a war, but the effects of a hostile intention already
conceived. The nations of North America, who have no herds to preserve,
nor settlements to defend, are yet engaged in almost perpetual wars, for
which they can assign no reason, but the point of honour, and a desire
to continue the struggle their fathers maintained. They do not regard
the spoils of an enemy; and the warrior who has seized any booty, easily
parts with it to the first person who comes in his way. [Footnote: See
Charlevoix's History of Canada.]

But we need not cross the Atlantic to find proofs of animosity, and to
observe, in the collision of separate societies, the influence of angry
passions, that do not arise from an opposition of interest. Human nature
has no part of its character of which more flagrant examples are given on
this side of the globe. What is it that stirs in the breasts of ordinary
men when the enemies of their country are named? Whence are the prejudices
that subsist between different provinces, cantons, and villages, of the
same empire and territory? What is it that excites one half of the nations
of Europe against the other? The statesman may explain his conduct on
motives of national jealousy and caution, but the people have dislikes and
antipathies, for which they cannot account. Their mutual reproaches of
perfidy and injustice, like the Hottentot depredations, are but symptoms of
an animosity, and the language of a hostile disposition, already conceived.
The charge of cowardice and pusillanimity, qualities which the interested
and cautious enemy should, of all others, like best to find in his rival,
is urged with aversion, and made the ground of dislike. Hear the peasants
on different sides of the Alps, and the Pyrenees, the Rhine, or the British
channel, give vent to their prejudices and national passions; it is among
them that we find the materials of war and dissention laid without the
direction of government, and sparks ready to kindle into a flame, which the
statesman is frequently disposed to extinguish. The fire will not always
catch where his reasons of state would direct, nor stop where the
concurrence of interest has produced an alliance. "My father," said a
Spanish peasant, "would rise from his grave, if he could foresee a war with
France." What interest had he, or the bones of his father, in the quarrels
of princes?

These observations seem to arraign our species, and to give an unfavourable
picture of mankind; and yet the particulars we have mentioned are
consistent with the most amiable qualities of our nature, and often furnish
a scene for the exercise of our greatest abilities. They are sentiments of
generosity and self denial that animate the warrior in defence of his
country; and they are dispositions most favourable to mankind, that become
the principles of apparent hostility to men. Every animal is made to
delight in the exercise of his natural talents and forces. The lion and the
tyger sport with the paw; the horse delights to commit his mane to the
wind, and forgets his pasture to try his speed in the field; the bull even
before his brow is armed, and the lamb while yet an emblem of innocence,
have a disposition to strike with the forehead, and anticipate, in play,
the conflicts they are doomed to sustain. Man too is disposed to
opposition, and to employ the forces of his nature against an equal
antagonist; he loves to bring his reason, his eloquence, his courage, even
his bodily strength to the proof. His sports are frequently an image of
war; sweat and blood are freely expended in play; and fractures or death
are often made to terminate the pastime of idleness and festivity. He was
not made to live for ever, and even his love of amusement has opened a way
to the grave.

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

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

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




SECTION V.

OF INTELLECTUAL POWERS.


Many attempts have been made to analyze the dispositions which we have now
enumerated; but one purpose of science, perhaps the most important, is
served, when the existence of a disposition is established. We are more
concerned in its reality, and in its consequences, than we are in its
origin, or manner of formation.

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

Persons who are occupied with different subjects, who act in different
scenes, generally appear to have different talents, or at least to have the
same faculties variously formed, and suited to different purposes. The
peculiar genius of nations, as well as of individuals, may in this manner
arise from the state of their fortunes. And it is proper that we endeavour
to find some rule, by which to judge of what is admirable in the capacities
of men, or fortunate in the application of their faculties, before we
venture to pass a judgment on this branch of their merits, or pretend to
measure the degree of respect they may claim by their different
attainments.

To receive the informations of sense, is perhaps the earliest function of
an animal combined with an intellectual nature; and one great
accomplishment of the living agent consists in the force and sensibility of
his animal organs. The pleasures or pains to which he is exposed from this
quarter, constitute to him an important difference between the objects
which are thus brought to his knowledge; and it concerns him to distinguish
well, before he commits himself to the direction of appetite. He must
scrutinize the objects of one sense, by the perceptions of another; examine
with the eye, before he ventures to touch; and employ every means of
observation, before he gratifies the appetites of thirst and of hunger. A
discernment acquired by experience, becomes a faculty of his mind; and the
inferences of thought are sometimes not to be distinguished from the
perceptions of sense.

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

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

Whilst men continue to act from appetites and passions, leading to the
attainment of external ends, they seldom quit the view of their objects in
detail, to go far in the road of general inquiries. They measure the extent
of their own abilities, by the promptitude with which they apprehend what
is important in every subject, and the facility with which they extricate
themselves on every trying occasion. And these, it must be confessed, to a
being who is destined to act in the midst of difficulties, are the proper
test of capacity and force. The parade of words and general reasonings,
which sometimes carry an appearance of so much learning and knowledge, are
of little avail in the conduct of life. The talents from which they
proceed, terminate in mere ostentation, and are seldom connected with that
superior discernment which the active apply in times of perplexity; much
less with that intrepidity and force of mind which are required in passing
through difficult scenes.

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

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

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

To act in the view of his fellow creatures, to produce his mind in public,
to give it all the exercise of sentiment and thought, which pertain to man
as a member of society, as a friend, or an enemy, seems to be the principal
calling and occupation of his nature. If he must labour, that he may
subsist, he can subsist for no better purpose than the good of mankind; nor
can he have better talents than those which qualify him to act with men.
Here, indeed, the understanding appears to borrow very much from the
passions; and there is a felicity of conduct in human affairs, in which it
is difficult to distinguish the promptitude of the head from the ardour and
sensibility of the heart. Where both are united, they constitute that
superiority of mind, the frequency of which among men, in particular ages
and nations, much more than the progress they have made in speculation, or
in the practice of mechanic and liberal arts, should determine the rate of
their genius, and assign the palm of distinction and honour.

When nations succeed one another in the career of discoveries and
inquiries, the last is always the most knowing. Systems of science are
gradually formed. The globe itself is traversed by degrees, and the history
of every age, when past, is an accession of knowledge to those who succeed.
The Romans were more knowing than the Greeks; and every scholar of modern
Europe is, in this sense, more learned than the most accomplished person
that ever bore either of those celebrated names. But is he on that account
their superior?

Men are to be estimated, not from what they know, but from what they are
able to perform; from their skill in adapting materials to the several
purposes of life; from their vigour and conduct in pursuing the objects of
policy, and in finding the expedients of war and national defence. Even in
literature, they are to be estimated from the works of their genius, not
from the extent of their knowledge. The scene of mere observation was
extremely limited in a Grecian republic; and the bustle of an active life
appeared inconsistent with study: but there the human mind,
notwithstanding, collected its greatest abilities, and received its best
informations, in the midst of sweat and of dust.

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

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

If that time which is passed in relaxing the powers of the mind, and in
withholding every object but what tends to weaken and to corrupt, were
employed in fortifying those powers, and in teaching the mind to recognize
its objects, and its strength, we should not, at the years of maturity, be
so much at a loss for occupation; nor, in attending the chances of a gaming
table, misemploy our talents, or waste the fire which remains in the
breast. They, at least, who by their stations have a share in the
government of their country, might believe themselves capable of business;
and, while the state had its armies and councils, might find objects enough
to amuse, without throwing a personal fortune into hazard, merely to cure
the yawnings of a listless and insignificant life. It is impossible for
ever to maintain the tone of speculation; it is impossible not sometimes to
feel that we live among men.




SECTION VI.

OF MORAL SENTIMENT.


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

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

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

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

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

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

Can we explain the principles upon which mankind adjudge the preference of
characters, and upon which they indulge such vehement emotions of
admiration or contempt? If it be admitted that we cannot, are the facts
less true? Or must we suspend the movements of the heart, until they who
are employed in framing systems of science have discovered the principle
from which those movements proceed? If a finger burn, we care not for
information on the properties of fire: if the heart be torn, or the mind
overjoyed, we have not leisure for speculations on the subjects of moral
sensibility.

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

We must, in the result of every inquiry, encounter with facts which we
cannot explain; and to bear with this mortification would save us
frequently a great deal of fruitless trouble. Together with the sense of
our existence, we must admit many circumstances which come to our knowledge
at the same time, and in the same manner; and which do, in reality,
constitute the mode of our being. Every peasant will tell us, that a man
hath his rights; and that to trespass on those rights is injustice. If we
ask him farther, what he means by the term _right?_ we probably force
him to substitute a less significant, or less proper term, in the place of
this; or require him to account for what is an original mode of his mind,
and a sentiment to which he ultimately refers, when he would explain
himself upon any particular application of his language.

The rights of individuals may relate to a variety of subjects, and be
comprehended under different heads. Prior to the establishment of property,
and the distinction of ranks, men have a right to defend their persons, and
to act with freedom; they have a right to maintain the apprehensions of
reason, and the feelings of the heart; and they cannot for a moment
associate together, without feeling that the treatment they give or receive
may be just or unjust. It is not, however, our business here to carry the
notion of a right into its several applications, but to reason on the
sentiment of favour with which that notion is entertained in the mind. If
it be true, that men are united by instinct, that they act in society from
affections of kindness and friendship; if it be true, that even prior to
acquaintance and habitude, men, as such, are commonly to each other objects
of attention, and some degree of regard; that while their prosperity is
beheld with indifference, their afflictions are considered with
commiseration; if calamities be measured by the numbers and the qualities
of men they involve; and if every suffering of a fellow creature draws a
crowd of attentive spectators; if, even in the case of those to whom we do
not habitually wish any positive good, we are still averse to be the
instruments of harm; it should seem, that in these various appearances of
an amicable disposition, the foundations of a moral apprehension are
sufficiently laid, and the sense of a right which we maintain for
ourselves, is by a movement of humanity and candour extended to our fellow
creatures.

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

It may be difficult, however, to enumerate the motives of all the censures
and commendations which are applied to the actions of men. Even while we
moralize, every disposition of the human mind may have its share in forming
the judgment, and in prompting the tongue. As jealousy is often the most
watchful guardian of chastity, so malice is often the quickest to spy the
failings of our neighbour. Envy, affectation, and vanity, may dictate the
verdicts we give, and the worst principles of our nature may be at the
bottom of our pretended zeal for morality; but if we only mean to inquire,
why they who are well disposed to mankind apprehend, in every instance,
certain rights pertaining to their fellow creatures, and why they applaud
the consideration that is paid to those rights, we cannot assign a better
reason, than that the person who applauds, is well disposed to the welfare
of the parties to whom his applauses refer. Applause, however, is the
expression of a peculiar sentiment; an expression of esteem the reverse of
contempt. Its object is perfection, the reverse of defect. This sentiment
is not the love of mankind; it is that by which we estimate the qualities
of men, and the objects of our pursuit; that which doubles the force of
every desire or aversion, when we consider its object as tending to raise
or to sink our nature.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




SECTION VII.

OF HAPPINESS.


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

Those men are commonly esteemed the happiest, whose desires are most
frequently ratified. But if, in reality, the possession of what they
desire, and a continued fruition, were requisite to happiness, mankind for
the most part would have reason to complain of their lot. What they call
their enjoyments, are generally momentary; and the object of sanguine
expectation, when obtained, no longer continues to occupy the mind: a new
passion succeeds, and the imagination, as before, is intent on a distant
felicity.

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

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

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

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

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

If, in the absence of every sensation to which we commonly give the names
either of _enjoyment_ or _suffering,_ our very existence may have
its opposite qualities of _happiness_ or _misery;_ and if what we
call _pleasure_ or _pain,_ occupies but a small part of human
life, compared to what passes in contrivance and execution, in pursuits and
expectations, in conduct, reflection, and social engagements; it must
appear, that our active pursuits, at least on account of their duration,
deserve the greater part of our attention. When their occasions have
failed, the demand is not for pleasure, but for something to do; and the
very complaints of a sufferer are not so sure a mark of distress, as the
stare of the languid.

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

The men of this country, says one lady, should learn to sew and to knit; it
would hinder their time from being a burden to themselves, and to other
people. That is true, says another; for my part, though I never look
abroad, I tremble at the prospect of bad weather; for then the gentlemen
come moping to us for entertainment; and the sight of a husband in
distress, is but a melancholy spectacle.

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

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

The gratifications of animal appetite are of short duration; and sensuality
is but a distemper of the mind, which ought to be cured by remembrance, if
it were not perpetually inflamed by hope. The chase is not more surely
terminated by the death of the game, than the joys of the voluptuary by the
means of completing his debauch. As a band of society, as a matter of
distant pursuit, the objects of sense make an important part in the system
of human life. They lead us to fulfil the purposes of nature, in preserving
the individual, and in perpetuating the species; but to rely on their use
as a principal constituent of happiness, were an error in speculation, and
would be still more an error in practice. Even the master of the seraglio,
for whom all the treasures of empire are extorted from the hoards of its
frighted inhabitants, for whom alone the choicest emerald and the diamond
are drawn from the mine, for whom every breeze is enriched with perfumes,
for whom beauty is assembled from every quarter, and, animated by passions
that ripen under the vertical sun, is confined to the grate for his use, is
still, perhaps, more wretched than the very herd of the people, whose
labours and properties are devoted to relieve him of trouble, and to
procure him enjoyment.

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

When we reckon the circumstances that correspond to the nature of any
animal, or to that of man in particular, such as safety, shelter, food, and
the other means of enjoyment, or preservation, we sometimes think that we
have found a sensible and a solid foundation on which to rest his felicity.
But those who are least disposed to moralize, observe, that happiness is
not connected with fortune, although fortune includes at once all the means
of subsistence, and the means of sensual indulgence. The circumstances that
require abstinence, courage, and conduct, expose us to hazard, and are in
description of the painful kind; yet the able, the brave, and the ardent,
seem most to enjoy themselves when placed in the midst of difficulties, and
obliged to employ the powers they possess.

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

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

If animal pleasure becomes insipid when the spirit is roused by a different
object, it is well known, likewise, that the sense of pain is prevented by
any vehement affection of the soul. Wounds received in a heat of passion,
in the hurry, the ardour, or consternation of battle, are never felt till
the ferment of the mind subsides. Even torments, deliberately applied, and
industriously prolonged, are borne with firmness, and with an appearance of
ease, when the mind is possessed with some vigorous sentiment, whether of
religion, enthusiasm, or love to mankind. The continued mortifications of
superstitious devotees in several ages of the Christian church; the wild
penances, still voluntarily borne, during many years, by the religionists
of the east; the contempt in which famine and torture are held by most
savage nations; the cheerful or obstinate patience of the soldier in the
field; the hardships endured by the sportsman in his pastime, show how much
we may err in computing the miseries of men, from the measures of trouble
and of suffering they seem to incur. And if there be a refinement in
affirming that their happiness is not to be measured by the contrary
enjoyments, it is a refinement which was made by Regulus and Cincinnatus
before the date of philosophy. Fabricius knew it while he had heard
arguments only on the opposite side. [Footnote: Plutarch in Vit. Pyrrh.] It
is a refinement, which every boy knows at his play, and every savage
confirms, when he looks from his forest on the pacific city, and scorns the
plantation, whose master he cares not to imitate.

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

The distinction betwixt mind and body is followed by consequences of the
greatest importance; but the facts to which we now refer, are not founded
on any tenets whatever. They are equally true, whether we admit or reject,
the distinction in question, or whether we suppose, that this living agent
is formed of one, or is an assemblage of separate natures. And the
materialist, by treating of man as of an engine, cannot make any change in
the state of his history. He is a being, who, by a multiplicity of visible
organs, performs a variety of functions. He bends his joints, contracts or
relaxes his muscles in our sight. He continues the beating of the heart in
his breast, and the flowing of the blood to every part of his frame. He
performs other operations which we cannot refer to any corporeal organ. He
perceives, he recollects, and forecasts; he desires, and he shuns; he
admires, and contemns. He enjoys his pleasures, or he endures his pain. All
these different functions, in some measure, go well or ill together. When
the motion of the blood is languid, the muscles relax, the understanding is
tardy, and the fancy is dull: when distemper assails him, the physician
must attend no less to what he thinks, than, to what he eats, and examine
the returns of his passion, together with the strokes of his pulse.

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

Man, however, at times, exempted from this mortifying lot, seems to act
without any regard to the length of his period. When he thinks intensely,
or desires with ardour, pleasures and pains from any other quarter assail
him in vain. Even in his dying hour, the muscles acquire a tone from his
spirit, and the mind seems to depart in its vigour, and in the midst of a
struggle to obtain the recent aim of its toil. Muley Moluck, borne on his
litter, and spent with disease, still fought the battle, in the midst of
which he expired; and the last effort he made, with a finger on his lips,
was a signal to conceal his death; [Footnote: Verlot's Revolutions of
Portugal] the precaution, perhaps, of all which he had hitherto taken, the
most necessary to prevent a defeat.

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

Mankind, in general, have courted occasions to display their courage, and
frequently, in search of admiration, have presented a spectacle, which to
those who have ceased to regard fortitude on its own account, becomes a
subject of horror. Scevola held his arm in the fire, to shake the soul of
Porsenna. The savage inures his body to the torture, that in the hour of
trial he may exult over his enemy. Even the Mussulman tears his flesh to
win the heart of his mistress, and comes in gaiety streaming with blood, to
shew that he deserves her esteem. [Footnote: Letters of the Right
Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.]

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




SECTION VIII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.


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

What, then, is that mysterious thing called _Happiness_ which may have
place in such a variety of stations, and to which circumstances, in one age
or nation thought necessary, are in another held to be destructive or of no
effect? It is not the succession of mere animal pleasures, which, apart
from the occupation or the company in which they engage us, can fill up but
a few moments in human life. On too frequent a repetition, those pleasures
turn to satiety and disgust; they tear the constitution to which they are
applied in excess, and, like the lightning of night, only serve to darken
the gloom through which they occasionally break. Happiness is not that
state of repose, or that imaginary freedom from care, which at a distance
is so frequent an object of desire, but with its approach brings a tedium,
or a languor, more unsupportable than pain itself. If the preceding
observations on this subject be just, it arises more from the pursuit, than
from the attainment of any end whatever; and in every new situation to
which we arrive, even in the course of a prosperous life, it depends more
on the degree in which our minds are properly employed, than it does on the
circumstances in which we are destined to act, on the materials which are
placed in our hands, or the tools with which we are furnished.

If this be confessed in respect to that class of pursuits which are
distinguished by the name of _amusement_, and which, in the case of
men who are commonly deemed the most happy, occupy the greater part of
human life, we may apprehend, that it holds, much more than is commonly
suspected, in many cases of business, where the end to be gained, and not
the occupation, is supposed to have the principal value.

The miser himself, we are told, can sometimes consider the care of his
wealth as a pastime, and has challenged his heir, to have more pleasure in
spending, than he in amassing his fortune. With this degree of indifference
to what may be the conduct of others; with this confinement of his care to
what he has chosen as his own province, more especially if he has conquered
in himself the passions of jealousy and envy, which tear the covetous mind;
why may not the man whose object is money, be understood to lead a life of
amusement and pleasure, not only more entire than that of the spendthrift,
but even as much as the virtuoso, the scholar, the man of taste, or any of
that class of persons who have found out a method of passing their leisure
without offence, and to whom the acquisitions made, or the works produced,
in their several ways, perhaps, are as useless as the bag to the miser, or
the counter to those who play from mere dissipation at any game of skill or
of chance?

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

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

If men can thus turn their amusements into a scene more serious and
interesting than that of business itself, it will be difficult to assign a
reason why business, and many of the occupations of human life, independent
of any distant consequences of future events, may not be chosen as an
amusement, and adopted on account of the pastime they bring. This is,
perhaps, the foundation, on which, without the aid of reflection, the
contented and the cheerful have rested the gaiety of their tempers. It is,
perhaps, the most solid basis of fortitude which any reflection can lay;
and happiness itself is secured by making a certain species of conduct our
amusements; and, by considering life in the general estimate of its value,
as well on every particular occasion, as a mere scene for the exercise of
the mind, and the engagements of the heart. "I will try and attempt every
thing," says Brutus; "I will never cease to recal my country from this
state of servility. If the event be favourable, it will prove matter of joy
to us all; if not, yet I, notwithstanding, shall rejoice." Why rejoice in a
disappointment? Why not be dejected, when his country was overwhelmed?
Because sorrow, perhaps, and dejection, can do no good. Nay, but they must
be endured when they come. And whence should they come to me? might the
Roman say: I have followed my mind, and can follow it still. Events may
have changed the situation in which I am destined to act; but can they
hinder my acting the part of a man? Shew me a situation in which a man can
neither act nor die, and I will own he is wretched.

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

The dispositions of men, and consequently their occupations, are commonly
divided into two principal classes; the selfish, and the social. The first
are indulged in solitude; and if they carry a reference to mankind, it is
that of emulation, competition, and enmity. The second incline us to live
with our fellow creatures, and to do them good; they tend to unite the
members of society together; they terminate in a mutual participation of
their cares and enjoyments, and render the presence of men an occasion of
joy. Under this class may be enumerated the passions of the sexes, the
affections of parents and children, general humanity, or singular
attachments; above all, that habit of the soul by which we consider
ourselves as but a part of some beloved community, and as but individual
members of some society, whose general welfare is to us the supreme object
of zeal, and the great rule of our conduct. This affection is a principle
of candour, which knows no partial distinctions, and is confined to no
bounds; it may extend its effects beyond our personal acquaintance; it may,
in the mind, and in thought, at least, make us feel a relation to the
universe, and to the whole creation of God. "Shall any one," says
Antoninus, "love the city of Cecrops, and you not love the city of God?"

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

The individual is charged with the care of his animal preservation. He may
exist in solitude, and, far removed from society, perform many functions of
sense, imagination, and reason. He is even rewarded for the proper
discharge of those functions; and all the natural exercises which relate to
himself, as well as to his fellow creatures, not only occupy without
distressing him, but, in many instances, are attended with positive
pleasures, and fill up the hours of life with agreeable occupation.

There is a degree, however, in which we suppose that the care of ourselves
becomes a source of painful anxiety and cruel passions; in which it
degenerates into avarice, vanity, or pride; and in which, by fostering
habits of jealousy and envy, of fear and malice, it becomes as destructive
of our own enjoyments, as it is hostile to the welfare of mankind. This
evil, however, is not to be charged upon any excess in the care of
ourselves, but upon a mere mistake in the choice of our objects. We look
abroad for a happiness which is to be found only in the qualities of the
heart: we think ourselves dependent on accidents; and are therefore kept in
suspense and solicitude. We think ourselves dependent on the will of other
men; and are therefore servile and timid: we think our felicity is placed
in subjects for which our fellow creatures are rivals and competitors; and
in pursuit of happiness, we engage in those scenes of emulation, envy,
hatred, animosity, and revenge, that lead to the highest pitch of distress.
We act, in short, as if to preserve ourselves were to retain our weakness,
and perpetuate our sufferings. We charge the ills of a distempered
imagination, and a corrupt heart, to the account of our fellow creatures,
to whom we refer the pangs of our disappointment or malice; and while we
foster our misery, are surprised that the care of ourselves is attended
with no better effects. But he who remembers that he is by nature a
rational being, and a member of society; that to preserve himself, is to
preserve his reason, and to preserve the best feelings of his heart; will
encounter with none of these inconveniencies; and in the care of himself,
will find subjects only of satisfaction and triumph.

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

While the gratifications of benevolence, therefore, are as much our own as
those of any other desire whatever, the mere exercises of this disposition
are, on many accounts, to be considered as the first and the principal
constituent of human happiness. Every act of kindness, or of care, in the
parent to his child; every emotion of the heart, in friendship or in love,
in public zeal, or general humanity, are so many acts of enjoyment and
satisfaction. Pity itself, and compassion, even grief and melancholy, when
grafted on some tender affection, partake of the nature of the stock; and
if they are not positive pleasures, are at least pains of a peculiar
nature, which we do not even wish to exchange but for a very real
enjoyment, obtained in relieving our object. Even extremes in this class of
our dispositions, as they are the reverse of hatred, envy, and malice, so
they are never attended with those excruciating anxieties, jealousies, and
fears, which tear the interested mind; or if, in reality, any ill passion
arise from a pretended attachment to our fellow creatures, that attachment
may be safely condemned, as not genuine. If we be distrustful or jealous,
our pretended affection is probably no more than a desire of attention and
personal consideration; a motive which frequently inclines us to be
connected with our fellow creatures; but to which we are as frequently
willing to sacrifice their happiness. We consider them as the tools of our
vanity, pleasure, or interest; not as the parties on whom we may bestow the
effects of our good will, and our love.

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

It should seem, therefore, to be the happiness of man, to make his social
dispositions the ruling spring of his occupations; to state himself as the
member of a community, for whose general good his heart may glow with an
ardent zeal, to the suppression of those personal cares which are the
foundation of painful anxieties, fear, jealousy, and envy; or, as Mr. Pope
expresses the same sentiment.

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

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

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

To the benevolent, the satisfaction of others is a ground of enjoyment; and
existence itself, in a world that is governed by the wisdom of God, is a
blessing. The mind, freed from cares that lead to pusillanimity and
meanness, becomes calm, active, fearless, and bold; capable of every
enterprise, and vigorous in the exercise of every talent, by which the
nature of man is adorned. On this foundation was raised the admirable
character, which, during a certain period of their story, distinguished the
celebrated nations of antiquity, and rendered familiar and ordinary in
their manners, examples of magnanimity, which, under governments less
favourable to the public affections, rarely occur; or which, without being
much practised, or even understood, are made subjects of admiration and
swelling panegyric. "Thus," says Xenophon, "died Thrasybulus; who indeed
appears to have been a good man." What valuable praise, and how significant
to those who know the story of this admirable person! The members of those
illustrious states, from the habit of considering themselves as part of a
community, or at least as deeply involved with some order of men in the
state, were regardless of personal considerations: they had a perpetual
view to objects which excite a great ardour in the soul; which led them to
act perpetually in the view of their fellow citizens, and to practise those
arts of deliberation, elocution, policy, and war, on which the fortunes of
nations, or of men, in their collective body, depend. To the force of mind
collected in this career, and to the improvements of wit which were made in
pursuing it, these nations owed, not only their magnanimity, and the
superiority of their political and military conduct, but even the arts of
poetry and literature, which among them were only the inferior appendages
of a genius otherwise excited, cultivated, and refined.

To the ancient Greek, or the Roman, the individual was nothing, and the
public every thing. To the modern, in too many nations of Europe, the
individual is every thing, and the public nothing. The state is merely a
combination of departments, in which consideration, wealth, eminence, or
power, are offered as the reward of service. It was the nature of modern
government, even in its first institution, to bestow on every individual a
fixed station and dignity, which he was to maintain for himself. Our
ancestors, in rude ages, during the recess of wars from abroad, fought for
their personal claims at home, and by their competitions, and the balance
of their powers, maintained a kind of political freedom in the state, while
private parties were subject to continual wrongs and oppressions. Their
posterity, in times more polished, have repressed the civil disorders in
which the activity of earlier ages chiefly consisted; but they employ the
calm they have gained, not in fostering a zeal for those laws, and that
constitution of government, to which they owe their protection, but in
practising apart, and each for himself, the several arts of personal
advancement, or profit, which their political establishments may enable
them to pursue with success. Commerce, which may be supposed to comprehend
every lucrative art, is accordingly considered as the great object of
nations, and the principal study of mankind.

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

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

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




SECTION IX.

OF NATIONAL FELICITY.


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

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

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

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

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

Great and powerful states are able to overcome and subdue the weak;
polished and commercial nations have more wealth, and practise a greater
variety of arts, than the rude: but the happiness of men, in all cases
alike, consists in the blessings of a candid, an active, and strenuous
mind. And if we consider the state of society merely as that into which
mankind are led by their propensities, as a state to be valued from its
effect in preserving the species, in ripening their talents, and exciting
their virtues, we need not enlarge our communities, in order to enjoy these
advantages. We frequently obtain them in the most remarkable degree, where
nations remain independent, and are of a small extent.

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

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

When we reason in behalf of our species, therefore, although we may lament
the abuses which sometimes arise from independence, and opposition of
interest; yet, whilst any degrees of virtue remain with mankind, we cannot
wish to crowd, under one establishment, numbers of men who may serve to
constitute several; or to commit affairs to the conduct of one senate, one
legislative or executive power, which, upon a distinct and separate
footing, might furnish an exercise of ability, and a theatre of glory to
many.

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

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

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

Independent communities, in the mean time, however weak, are averse to a
coalition, not only where it comes with an air of imposition, or unequal
treaty, but even where it implies no more than the admission of new members
to an equal share of consideration with the old. The citizen has no
interest in the annexation of kingdoms; he must find his importance
diminished, as the state is enlarged. But ambitious men, under the
enlargement of territory, find a more plentiful harvest of power, and of
wealth, while government itself is an easier task. Hence the ruinous
progress of empire; and hence free nations, under the show of acquiring
dominion, suffer themselves, in the end, to be yoked with the slaves they
had conquered.

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

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

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

Peace and unanimity are commonly considered as the principal foundations of
public felicity; yet the rivalship of separate communities, and the
agitations of a free people, are the principles of political life, and the
school of men. How shall we reconcile these jarring and opposite tenets? It
is, perhaps, not necessary to reconcile them. The pacific may do what they
can to allay the animosities, and to reconcile the opinions, of men; and it
will be happy if they can succeed in repressing their crimes, and in
calming the worst of their passions. Nothing, in the mean time, but
corruption or slavery can suppress the debates that subsist among men of
integrity, who bear an equal part in the administration of state.

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

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

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




SECTION X.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.


It is a common observation, that mankind were originally equal. They have
indeed by nature equal right to their preservation, and to the use of their
talents; but they are fitted for different stations; and when they are
classed by a rule taken from this circumstance, they suffer no injustice on
the side of their natural rights. It is obvious, that some mode of
subordination is as necessary to men as society itself; and this, not only
to attain the ends of government, but to comply with an order established
by nature.

Prior to any political institution whatever, men are qualified by a great
diversity of talents, by a different tone of the soul, and ardour of the
passions, to act a variety of parts. Bring them together, each will find
his place. They censure or applaud in a body; they consult and deliberate
in more select parties; they take or give an ascendant as individuals; and
numbers are by this means fitted to act in company, and to preserve their
communities, before any formal distribution of office is made. We are
formed to act in this manner; and if we have any doubts with relation to
the rights of government in general, we owe our perplexity more to the
subtilties of the speculative, than to any uncertainty in the feelings of
the heart. Involved in the resolutions of our company, we move with the
crowd before we have determined the rule by which its will is collected. We
follow a leader, before we have settled the ground of his pretensions, or
adjusted the form of his election; and it is not till after mankind have
committed many errors in the capacities of magistrate and subject, that
they think of making government itself a subject of rules.

If, therefore, in considering the variety of forms under which societies
subsist, the casuist is pleased to inquire, what title one man, or any
number of men, have to control his actions? he may be answered, none at
all, provided that his actions have no effect to the prejudice of his
fellow creatures; but if they have, the rights of defence, and the
obligation to repress the commission of wrongs, belong to collective
bodies, as well as to individuals. Many rude nations, having no formal
tribunals for the judgment of crimes, assemble, when alarmed by any
flagrant offence, and take their measures with the criminal as they would
with an enemy. But will this consideration, which confirms the title to
sovereignty, where it is exercised by the society in its collective
capacity, or by those to whom the powers of the whole are committed,
likewise support the claim to dominion, wherever it is casually lodged, or
even where it is only maintained by force?

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

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

In order to have a general and comprehensive knowledge of the whole, we
must be determined on this, as on every other subject, to overlook many
particulars and singularities, distinguishing different governments; to fix
our attention on certain points, in which many agree; and thereby establish
a few general heads, under which the subject may be distinctly considered.
When we have marked the characteristics which form the general points of
coincidence; when we have pursued them to their consequences in the several
modes of legislation, execution, and judicature, in the establishments
which relate to police, commerce, religion, or domestic life; we have made
an acquisition of knowledge, which, though it does not supersede the
necessity of experience, may serve to direct our inquiries, and, in the
midst of affairs, give an order and a method for the arrangement of
particulars that occur to our observation.

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

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

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

In the second, the sovereignty is lodged in a particular class, or order of
men; who, being once named, continue for life; or, by the hereditary
distinctions of birth and fortune, are advanced to a station of permanent
superiority. From this order, and by their nomination, all the offices of
magistracy are filled; and in the different assemblies which they
constitute, whatever relates to the legislation, the execution, or
jurisdiction, is finally determined.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The most perfect equality of rights can never exclude the ascendant of
superior minds, nor the assemblies of a collective body govern without the
direction of select councils. On this as account, popular government may be
confounded with aristocracy. But this alone does not constitute the
character of aristocratical government. Here the members of the state are
divided, at least, into two classes; of which one is destined to command,
the other to obey. No merits or defects can raise or sink a person from one
class to the other. The only effect of personal character is, to procure to
the individual a suitable degree of consideration with his own order, not
to vary his rank. In one situation he is taught to assume, in another to
yield the pre-eminence. He occupies the station of patron or client, and is
either the sovereign or the subject of his country. The whole citizens may
unite in executing the plans of state, but never in deliberating on its
measures, or enacting its laws. What belongs to the whole people under
democracy, is here confined to a part. Members of the superior order, are
among themselves, possibly, classed according to their abilities, but
retain a perpetual ascendant over those of inferior station. They are at
once the servants and the masters of the state, and pay, with their
personal attendance and with their blood, for the civil or military honours
they enjoy.

To maintain for himself, and to admit in his fellow citizen, a perfect
equality of privilege and station, is no longer the leading maxim of the
member of such a community. The rights of men are modified by their
condition. One order claims more than it is willing to yield; the other
must be ready to yield what it does not assume to itself; and it is with
good reason that Mr. Montesquieu gives to the principle of such governments
the name of _moderation_, not of _virtue_.

The elevation of one class is a moderated arrogance; the submission of the
other a limited deference. The first must be careful, by concealing the
invidious part of their distinction, to palliate what is grievous in the
public arrangement, and by their education, their cultivated manners, and
improved talents, to appear qualified for the stations they occupy. The
other, must be taught to yield, from respect and personal attachment, what
could not otherwise be extorted by force. When this moderation fails on
either side, the constitution totters. A populace enraged to mutiny, may
claim the right of equality to which they are admitted in democratical
states; or a nobility bent on dominion, may choose among themselves, or
find already pointed out to them, a sovereign, who, by advantages of
fortune, popularity, or abilities, is ready to seize for his own family,
that envied power which has already carried his order beyond the limits of
moderation, and infected particular men with a boundless ambition.
Monarchies have accordingly been found with the recent marks of
aristocracy. There, however, the monarch is only the first among the
nobles; he must be satisfied with a limited power; his subjects are ranged
into classes; he finds on every quarter a pretence to privilege that
circumscribes his authority; and he finds a force sufficient to confine his
administration within certain bounds of equity and determinate laws. Under
such governments, however, the love of equality is preposterous, and
moderation itself is unnecessary. The object of every rank is precedency,
and every order may display its advantages to their full extent. The
sovereign himself owes great part of his authority to the sounding titles
and the dazzling equipage which he exhibits in public. The subordinate
ranks lay claim to importance by a like exhibition, and for that purpose
carry in every instant the ensigns of their birth, or the ornaments of
their fortune. What else could mark out to the individual the relation in
which he stands to his fellow subjects, or distinguish the numberless ranks
that fill up the interval between the state of the sovereign and that of
the peasant? Or what else could, in states of a great extent, preserve any
appearance of order, among members disunited by ambition and interest, and
destined to form a community, without the sense of any common concern?

Monarchies are generally found where the state is enlarged, in population
and in territory, beyond the numbers and dimensions that are consistent
with republican government. Together with these circumstances, great
inequalities arise in the distribution of property; and the desire of
pre-eminence becomes the predominant passion. Every rank would exercise its
prerogative, and the sovereign is perpetually tempted to enlarge his own;
if subjects, who despair of precedence, plead for equality, he is willing
to favour their claims, and to aid them in reducing pretensions, with which
he himself is, on many occasions, obliged to contend. In the event of such
a policy, many invidious distinctions and grievances peculiar to
monarchical government, may, in appearance, be removed; but the state of
equality to which the subjects approach is that of slaves, equally
dependent on the will of a master, not that of freemen, in a condition to
maintain their own.

The principle of monarchy, according to Montesquieu, is honour. Men may
possess good qualities, elevation of mind, and fortitude; but the sense of
equality, that will hear no encroachment on the personal rights of the
meanest citizen; the indignant spirit, that will not court a protection,
nor accept as a favour what is due as a right; the public affection, which
is founded on the neglect of personal considerations, are neither
consistent with the preservation of the constitution, nor agreeable to the
habits acquired in any station assigned to its members.

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

Though the objects of consideration are rather the dignities of station
than personal qualities; though friendship cannot be formed by mere
inclination, nor alliances by the mere choice of the heart; yet men so
united, and even without changing their order, are highly susceptible of
moral excellence, or liable to many different degrees of corruption. They
may act a vigorous part as members of the state, an amiable one in the
commerce of private society; or they may yield up their dignity as
citizens, even while they raise their arrogance and presumption as private
parties.

In monarchy, all orders of men derive their honours from the crown; but
they continue to hold them as a right, and they exercise a subordinate
power in the state, founded on the permanent rank they enjoy, and on the
attachment of those whom they are appointed to lead and protect. Though
they do not force themselves into national councils and public assemblies,
and though the name of senate is unknown, yet the sentiments they adopt
must have weight with the sovereign; and every individual, in his separate
capacity, in some measure, deliberates for his country. In whatever does
not derogate from his rank, he has an arm ready to serve the community; in
whatever alarms his sense of honour, he has aversions and dislikes, which
amount to a negative on the will of his prince.

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

Despotism is monarchy corrupted, in which a court and a prince in
appearance remain, but in which every subordinate rank is destroyed; in
which the subject is told, that he has no rights; that he cannot possess
any property, nor fill any station independent of the momentary will of his
prince. These doctrines are founded on the maxims of conquest; they must be
inculcated with the whip and the sword; and are best received under the
terror of chains and imprisonment. Fear, therefore, is the principle which
qualifies the subject to occupy his station; and the sovereign, who holds
out the ensigns of terror so freely to others, has abundant reason to give
this passion a principal place with himself. That tenure which he has
devised for the rights of others, is soon applied to his own; and from his
eager desire to secure, or to extend his power, he finds it become, like
the fortunes of his people, a creature of mere imagination and unsettled
caprice.

Whilst we thus, with so much accuracy, can assign the ideal limits that may
distinguish constitutions of government, we find them, in reality, both in
respect to the principle and the form, variously blended together. In what
society are not men classed by external distinctions, as well as personal
qualities? In what state are they not actuated by a variety of principles;
justice, honour, moderation, and fear? It is the purpose of science not to
disguise this confusion in its object, but, in the multiplicity and
combination of particulars, to find the principal points which deserve our
attention; and which, being well understood, save us from the embarrassment
which the varieties of singular cases might otherwise create. In the same
degree in which governments require men to act from principles of virtue,
of honour, or of fear, they are more or less fully comprised under the
heads of republic, monarchy, or despotism, and the general theory is more
or less applicable to their particular case.

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

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

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

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

If men be anywhere arrived at this measure of depravity, there appears no
immediate hope of redress. Neither the ascendancy of the multitude, nor
that of the tyrant, will secure the administration of justice; neither the
license of mere tumult, nor the calm of dejection and servitude, will teach
the citizen that he was born for candour and affection to his fellow
creatures. And if the speculative would find that habitual state of war
which they are sometimes pleased to honour with the name of _the state of
nature_, they will find it in the contest that subsists between the
despotical prince and his subjects, not in the first approaches of a rude
and simple tribe to the condition and the domestic arrangement of nations.



AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY.


       *       *       *       *       *




PART SECOND.

OF THE HISTORY OF RUDE NATIONS.


       *       *       *       *       *





SECTION I.

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


The history of mankind is confined within a limited period, and from every
quarter brings an intimation that human affairs have had a beginning.
Nations, distinguished by the possession of arts, and the felicity of their
political establishments, have been derived from a feeble original, and
still preserve in their story the indications of a slow and gradual
progress, by which this distinction was gained. The antiquities of every
people, however diversified, and however disguised, contain the same
information on this point.

In sacred history, we find the parents of the species, as yet a single
pair, sent forth to inherit the earth, and to force a subsistence for
themselves amidst the briars and thorns which were made to abound on its
surface. Their race, which was again reduced to a few, had to struggle with
the dangers that await a weak and infant species; and after many ages
elapsed, the most respectable nations took their rise from one or a few
families that had pastured their flocks in the desert.

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

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

The Gauls and the Germans are come to our knowledge with the marks of a
similar condition; and the inhabitants of Britain, at the time of the first
Roman invasions; resembled, in many things, the present natives of North
America: they were ignorant of agriculture; they painted their bodies; and
used for clothing the skins of beasts.

Such, therefore, appears to have been the commencement of history with all
nations, and in such circumstances are we to look for the original
character of mankind. The inquiry refers to a distant period, and every
conclusion should build on the facts which are preserved for our use. Our
method, notwithstanding, too frequently, is to rest the whole on
conjecture; to impute every advantage of our nature to those arts which we
ourselves possess; and to imagine, that a mere negation of all our virtues
is a sufficient description of man in his original state. We are ourselves
the supposed standards of politeness and civilization; and where our own
features do not appear, we apprehend, that there is nothing which deserves
to be known. But it is probable that here, as in many other cases, we are
ill qualified, from our supposed knowledge of causes, to prognosticate
effects, or to determine what must have been the properties and operations,
even of our own nature, in the absence of those circumstances in which we
have seen it engaged. Who would, from mere conjecture, suppose, that the
naked savage would be a coxcomb and a gamester? that he would be proud or
vain, without the distinctions of title and fortune? and that his principal
care would be to adorn his person, and to find an amusement? Even if it
could be supposed that he would thus share in our vices, and, in the midst
of his forest, vie with the follies which are practised in the town; yet no
one would be so bold as to affirm, that he would likewise, in any
instance, excel us in talents and virtues; that he would have a
penetration, a force of imagination and elocution, an ardour of mind, an
affection and courage, which the arts, the discipline, and the policy of
few nations would be able to improve. Yet these particulars are a part in
the description which is delivered by those who have had opportunities of
seeing mankind in their rudest condition; and beyond the reach of such
testimony, we can neither safely take, nor pretend to give, information on
the subject.

If conjectures and opinions formed at a distance, have not sufficient
authority in the history of mankind, the domestic antiquities of every
nation must, for this very reason, be received with caution. They are, for
the most part, the mere conjectures or the fictions of subsequent ages; and
even where at first they contained some resemblance of truth, they still
vary with the imagination of those by whom they are transmitted, and in
every generation receive a different form. They are made to bear the stamp
of the times through which they have passed in the form of tradition, not
of the ages to which their pretended descriptions relate. The information
they bring, is not like the light reflected from a mirror, which delineates
the object from which it originally came; but, like rays that come broken
and dispersed from an opaque or unpolished surface, only give the colours
and features of the body from which they were last reflected.

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

It were absurd to quote the fable of the Iliad or the Odyssey, the legends
of Hercules, Theseus, or Oedipus, as authorities in matter of fact relating
to the history of mankind; but they may, with great justice, be cited to
ascertain what were the conceptions and sentiments, of the age in which
they were composed, or to characterize the genius of that people, with
whose imaginations they were blended, and by whom they were fondly
rehearsed and admired.

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

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

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

Our very learning, perhaps, where its influence extends, serves, in some
measure, to depress our national spirit. Our literature being derived from
nations of a different race, who flourished at a time when our ancestors
were in a state of barbarity, and consequently, when they were despised by
those who had attained to the literary arts, has given rise to a humbling
opinion, that we ourselves are the offspring of mean and contemptible
nations, with whom the human imagination and sentiment had no effect, till
the genius was in a manner inspired by examples, and directed by lessons
that were brought from abroad. The Romans, from whom our accounts are
chiefly derived, have admitted, in the rudeness of their own ancestors, a
system of virtues, which all simple nations perhaps equally possess; a
contempt of riches; love of their country, patience of hardship, danger,
and fatigue. They have, notwithstanding, vilified our ancestors for having
resembled their own; at least, in the defect of their arts, and in the
neglect of conveniencies which those arts are employed to procure.

It is from the Greek and the Roman historians, however, that we have not
only the most authentic and instructive, but even the most engaging
representations of the tribes from whom we descend. Those sublime and
intelligent writers understood human nature, and could collect its
features, and exhibit its characters, in every situation. They were ill
succeeded in this task by the early historians of modern Europe; who,
generally bred to the profession of monks, and confined to the monastic
life, applied themselves to record what they were pleased to denominate
facts, while they suffered the productions of genius to perish, and were
unable, either by the matter they selected, or the style of their
compositions, to give any representation of the active spirit of mankind in
any condition. With them, a narration was supposed to constitute history,
whilst it did not convey any knowledge of men; and history itself was
allowed to be complete, while, amidst the events and the succession of
princes that are recorded in the order of time, we are left to look in vain
for those characteristics of the understanding and the heart, which alone,
in every human transaction, render the story either engaging or useful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




SECTION II.

OF RUDE NATIONS PRIOR TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PROPERTY.


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

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

It must appear very evident, that property is a matter of progress. It
requires, among other particulars, which are the effects of time, some
method of defining possession. The very desire of it proceeds from
experience; and the industry by which it is gained, or improved, requires
such a habit of acting with a view to distant objects, as may overcome the
present disposition either to sloth or to enjoyment. This habit is slowly
acquired, and is in reality a principal distinction of nations in the
advanced state of mechanic and commercial arts.

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

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

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

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

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

Where no profit attends dominion, one party is as much averse to the
trouble of perpetual command, as the other is to the mortification of
perpetual submission. "I love victory, I love great actions," says
Montesquieu, in the character of Sylla; "but have no relish for the languid
detail of pacific government, or the pageantry of high station." He has
touched perhaps what is a prevailing sentiment in the simplest state of
society, when the weakness of motive suggested by interest, and the
ignorance of any elevation not founded on merit, supplies the place of
disdain.

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

This description, we may believe, is unequally applicable to different
nations, who have made unequal advances in the establishment of property.
Among the Caribbees, and the other natives of the warmer climates in
America, the dignity of chieftain is hereditary, or elective, and continued
for life: the unequal distribution of property creates a visible
subordination. [Footnote: Wafer's Account of the Isthmus of Darien.] But
among the Iroquois, and other nations of the temperate zone, the titles of
_magistrate_ and _subject_, of _noble_ and _mean_, are as little known
as those of _rich_ and _poor_. The old men, without being invested with
any coercive power, employ their natural authority in advising or in
prompting the resolutions of their tribe: the military leader is pointed
out by the superiority of his manhood and valour; the statesman is
distinguished only by the attention with which his counsel is heard; the
warrior by the confidence with which the youth of his nation follow him
to the field; and if their concerts must be supposed to constitute a
species of political government, it is one to which no language of ours
can be applied. Power is no more than the natural ascendancy of the mind;
the discharge of office no more than a natural exercise of the personal
character; and while the community acts with an appearance of order,
there is no sense of disparity in the breast of any of its members.
[Footnote: Colden's History of the Five Nations.]

In these happy, though informal proceedings, where age alone gives a place
in the council; where youth, ardour, and valour in the field, give a title
to the station of leader; where the whole community is assembled on any
alarming occasion, we may venture to say, that we have found the origin of
the senate, the executive power, and the assembly of the people;
institutions for which ancient legislators have been so much renowned. The
senate among the Greeks, as well as the Latins, appears, from the etymology
of its name, to have been originally composed of elderly men. The military
leader at Rome, in a manner not unlike to that of the American warrior,
proclaimed his levies, and the citizen prepared for the field, in
consequence of a voluntary engagement. The suggestions of nature, which
directed the policy of nations in the wilds of America, were followed
before on the banks of the Eurotas and the Tyber; and Lycurgus and Romulus
found the model of their institutions, where the members of every rude
nation find the earliest mode of uniting their talents, and combining their
forces.

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

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

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

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

This writer has observed, that the nations among whom he travelled in North
America, never mentioned acts of generosity or kindness under the notion of
duty. They acted from affection, as they acted from appetite, without
regard to its consequences. When they had done a kindness, they had
gratified a desire; the business was finished, and it passed from the
memory. When they received a favour, it might, or it might not, prove the
occasion of friendship: if it did not, the parties appeared to have no
apprehensions of gratitude, as a duty by which the one was bound to make a
return, or the other entitled to reproach the person who had failed in his
part. The spirit with which they give or receive presents, is the same
which, Tacitus observed among the ancient Germans; they delight in them,
but do not consider them as matter of obligation. [Footnote: Muneribus
gaudent, sed nec data imputant, nec acceptis obligantur.] Such gifts are of
little consequence, except when employed as the seal of a bargain or
treaty.

It was their favourite maxim, that no man is naturally indebted to another;
that he is not, therefore, obliged to bear with any imposition, or unequal
treatment. [Footnote: Charlevoix] Thus, in a principle apparently sullen
and inhospitable, they have discovered the foundation of justice, and
observe its rules, with a steadiness and candour which no cultivation has
been found to improve. The freedom which they give in what relates to the
supposed duties of kindness and friendship, serves only to engage the heart
more entirely, where it is once possessed with affection. We love to choose
our object without any restraint, and we consider kindness itself as a
task, when the duties of friendship are exacted by rule. We therefore, by
our demand for attentions, rather corrupt than improve the system of
morality; and by our exactions of gratitude, and out frequent proposals to
enforce its observance, we only shew that we have mistaken its nature; we
only give symptoms of that growing sensibility to interest, from which we
measure the expediency of friendship and generosity itself; and by which we
would introduce the spirit of traffic into the commerce of affection. In
consequence of this proceeding, we are often obliged to decline a favour,
with the same spirit that we throw off a servile engagement, or reject a
bribe. To the unrefined savage every favour is welcome, and every present
received without reserve or reflection.

The love of equality, and the love of justice, were originally the same;
and although, by the constitution of different societies, unequal
privileges are bestowed on their members; and although justice itself
requires a proper regard to be paid to such privileges; yet he who has
forgotten that men were originally equal, easily degenerates into a slave;
or, in the capacity of a master, is not to be trusted with the rights of
his fellow creatures. This happy principle gives to the mind its sense of
independence, renders it indifferent to the favours 

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