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 which are in the power

of other men, checks it in the commission of injuries, and leaves the heart

open to the affections of generosity and kindness. It gives to the

untutored American that sentiment of candour, and of regard to the welfare

of others, which, in some degree, softens the arrogant pride of his

carriage, and in times of confidence and peace, without the assistance of

government or law, renders the approach and commerce of strangers secure.

Among this people, the foundations of honour are eminent abilities, and

great fortitude; not the distinctions of equipage and fortune: the talents

in esteem are such as their situation leads them to employ, the exact

knowledge of a country, and stratagem in war. On these qualifications, a

captain among the Caribbees underwent an examination. When a new leader was

to be chosen, a scout was sent forth to traverse the forests which led to

the enemy's country, and upon his return, the candidate was desired to find

the track in which he had travelled. A brook, or a fountain, was named to

him on the frontier, and he was desired to find the nearest path to a

particular station, and to plant a stake in the place. [Footnote: Lafitau]

They can, accordingly, trace a wild beast, or the human foot, over many

leagues of a pathless forest, and find their way across a woody and

uninhabited continent, by means of refined observations, which escape the

traveller who has been accustomed to different aids. They steer in slender

canoes, across stormy seas, with a dexterity equal to that of the most

experienced pilot. [Footnote: Charlevoix.] They carry a penetrating eye for

the thoughts and intentions of those with whom they have to deal; and when

they mean to deceive, they cover themselves with arts which the most

subtile can seldom elude. They harangue in their public councils with a

nervous and a figurative elocution; and conduct themselves in the

management of their treaties with a perfect discernment of their national

interests.

Thus being able masters in the detail of their own affairs, and well

qualified to acquit themselves on particular occasions, they study no

science, and go in pursuit of no general principles. They even seem

incapable of attending to any distant consequences, beyond those they have

experienced in hunting or war. They entrust the provision of every season

to itself; consume the fruits of the earth in summer; and, in winter, are

driven in quest of their prey, through woods, and over deserts covered with

snow. They do not form in one hour those maxims which may prevent the

errors of the next; and they fail in those apprehensions, which, in the

intervals of passion, produce ingenuous shame, compassion, remorse, or a

command of appetite. They are seldom made to repent of any violence; nor is

a person, indeed, thought accountable in his sober mood, for what he did in

the heat of a passion, or in a time of debauch.

Their superstitions are groveling and mean; and did this happen among rude

nations alone, we could not sufficiently admire the effects of politeness;

but it is a subject on which few nations are entitled to censure their

neighbours. When we have considered the superstitions of one people, we

find little variety in those of another. They are but a repetition of

similar weaknesses and absurdities, derived from a common source, a

perplexed apprehension of invisible agents, that are supposed to guide all

precarious events to which human foresight cannot extend.

In what depends on the known or the regular course of nature, the mind

trusts to itself; but in strange and uncommon situations, it is the dupe of

its own perplexity, and, instead of relying on its prudence or courage, has

recourse to divination, and a variety of observances, that, for being

irrational, are always the more revered. Superstition being founded in

doubts and anxiety, is fostered by ignorance and mystery. Its maxims, in

the mean time, are not always confounded with those of common life; nor

does its weakness or folly always prevent the watchfulness, penetration,

and courage, men are accustomed to employ in the management of common

affairs. A Roman consulting futurity by the pecking of birds, or a king of

Sparta inspecting the entrails of a beast, Mithridates consulting his women

on the interpretation of his dreams, are examples sufficient to prove, that

a childish imbecility on this subject is consistent with the greatest

military and political conduct.

Confidence in the effect of charms is not peculiar to any age or nation.

Few, even of the accomplished Greeks and Romans, were able to shake off

this weakness. In their case, it was not removed by the highest measures

of civilization. It has yielded only to the light of true religion, or to

the study of nature, by which we are led to substitute a wise providence

operating by physical causes, in the place of phantoms that terrify or

amuse the ignorant.

The principal point of honour among the rude nations of America, as indeed

in every instance where mankind are not greatly corrupted, is fortitude.

Yet their way of maintaining this point of honour, is very different from

that of the nations of Europe. Their ordinary method of making war is by

ambuscade; and they strive, by overreaching an enemy, to commit the

greatest slaughter, or to make the greatest number of prisoners, with the

least hazard to themselves. They deem it a folly to expose their own

persons in assaulting an enemy, and do not rejoice in victories which are

stained with the blood of their own people. They do not value themselves,

as in Europe, on defying their enemy upon equal terms. They even boast,

that they approach like foxes, or that they fly like birds, not less than

they devour like lions. In Europe, to fall in battle is accounted an

honour; among the natives of America it is reckoned disgraceful. [Footnote:

Charlevoix.] They reserve their fortitude for the trials they abide when

attacked by surprise, or when fallen into their enemies' hands; and when

they are obliged to maintain their own honour, and that of their own

nation, in the midst of torments that require efforts of patience more than

of valour.

On these occasions, they are far from allowing it to be supposed that they

wish to decline the conflict. It is held infamous to avoid it, even by a

voluntary death; and the greatest affront which can be offered to a

prisoner, is to refuse him the honours of a man, in the manner of his

execution. "Withhold," says an old man, in the midst of his torture, "the

stabs of your knife; rather let me die by fire, that those dogs, your

allies, from beyond the seas, may learn to suffer like men." [Footnote:

Colden.] With terms of defiance, the victim, in those solemn trials,

commonly excites the animosities of his tormentors, as well as his own; and

whilst we suffer for human nature, under the effect of its errors, we must

admire its force.

The people with whom this practice prevailed, were commonly desirous of

repairing their own losses, by adopting prisoners of war into their

families; and even, in the last moment, the hand which was raised to

torment, frequently gave the sign of adoption, by which the prisoner became

the child or the brother of his enemy, and came to share in all the

privileges of a citizen. In their treatment of those who suffered, they did

not appear to be guided by principles of hatred or revenge; they observed

the point of honour in applying as well as in bearing their torments; and,

by a strange kind of affection and tenderness, were directed to be most

cruel where they intend the highest respect; the coward was put to

immediate death by the hands of women; the valiant was supposed to be

entitled to all the trials of fortitude that men could invent or employ.

"It gave me joy," says an old man to his captive, "that so gallant a youth

was allotted to my share; I proposed to have placed you on the couch of my

nephew, who was slain by your countrymen; to have transferred all my

tenderness to you; and to have solaced my age in your company; but, maimed

and mutilated as you now appear, death is better than life; prepare

yourself therefore to die like a man." [Footnote: Charlevoix.]

It is perhaps with a view to these exhibitions, or rather in admiration of

fortitude, the principle from which they proceed, that the Americans are so

attentive, in their earliest years, to harden their nerves. [Footnote:

_Ib_. This writer says, that he has seen a boy and a girl, having

bound their naked arms together, place a burning coal between them, to try

who could endure it longest.] The children are taught to vie with each

other in bearing the sharpest torments; the youth are admitted into the

class of manhood, after violent proofs of their patience; and leaders are

put to the test by famine, burning, and suffocation. [Footnote: Lafitau.]

It might be apprehended, that among rude nations, where the means of

subsistence are procured with so much difficulty, the mind could never

raise itself above the consideration of this subject; and that man would,

in this condition, give examples of the meanest and most mercenary spirit.

The reverse, however, is true. Directed in this particular by the desires

of nature, men, in their simplest state, attend to the objects of appetite

no further than appetite requires; and their desires of fortune extend no

further than the meal which gratifies their hunger: they apprehend no

superiority of rank in the possession of wealth, such as might inspire any

habitual principle of covetousness, vanity, or ambition: they can apply to

no task that engages no immediate passion, and take pleasure in no

occupation that affords no dangers to be braved, and no honours to be won.

It was not among the ancient Romans alone that commercial arts, or a sordid

mind, were held in contempt. A like spirit prevails in every rude and

independent society. "I am a warrior, and not a merchant," said an American

to the governor of Canada, who proposed to give him goods in exchange for

some prisoners he had taken; "your clothes and utensils do not tempt

me; but my prisoners are now in your power, and you may seize them: if you

do, I must go forth and take more prisoners, or perish in the attempt; and

if that chance should befal me, I shall die like a man; but remember, that

our nation will charge you as the cause of my death." [Footnote:

Charlevoix.] With these apprehensions, they have an elevation, and a

stateliness of carriage, which the pride of nobility, where it is most

revered by polished nations, seldom bestows.

They are attentive to their persons, and employ much time, as well as

endure great pain, in the methods they take to adorn their bodies, to give

the permanent stains with which they are coloured, or preserve the paint,

which they are perpetually repairing, in order to appear with advantage.

Their aversion to every sort of employment which they hold to be mean,

makes them pass great part of their time in idleness or sleep; and a man

who, in pursuit of a wild beast, or to surprise his enemy, will traverse a

hundred leagues on snow, will not, to procure his food, submit to any

species of ordinary labour. "Strange," says Tacitus, "that the same person

should be so much averse to repose, and so much addicted to sloth."

[Footnote: Mira diversitas naturae, ut idem homines sic ament intertiam et

oderint quietem.] Games of hazard are not the invention of polished ages;

men of curiosity have looked for their origin in vain, among the monuments

of an obscure antiquity; and it is probable that they belonged to times too

remote and too rude even for the conjectures of antiquarians to reach. The

very savage brings his furs, his utensils, and his beads, to the hazard

table: he finds here the passions and agitations which the applications of

a tedious industry could not excite; and while the throw is depending, he

tears his hair, and beats his breast, with a rage which the more

accomplished gamester has sometimes learned to repress: he often quits the

party naked and stripped of all his possessions; or where slavery is in

use, stakes his freedom to have one chance more to recover his former loss.

[Footnote: Tacitus, Lafitau, Charlevoix.]

With all these infirmities, vices, or respectable qualities, belonging to

the human species in its rudest state; the love of society, friendship, and

public affection, penetration, eloquence, and courage, appear to have been

its original properties, not the subsequent effects of device or invention.

If mankind are qualified to improve their manners, the materials to be

improved were furnished by nature; and the effect of this improvement is

not to inspire the sentiments of tenderness and generosity, nor to bestow

the principal constituents of a respectable character, but to obviate the

casual abuses of passion; and to prevent a mind, which feels the best

dispositions in their greatest force, from being at times likewise the

sport of brutal appetite, and of ungovernable violence.

Were Lycurgus employed anew to find a plan of government for the people we

have described, he would find them, in many important particulars, prepared

by nature herself to receive his institutions. His equality in matters of

property being already established, he would have no faction to apprehend

from the opposite interests of the poor and the rich; his senate, his

assembly of the people, is constituted; his discipline is in some measure

adopted, and the place of his helots is supplied by the task allotted to

one of the sexes. With all these advantages, he would still have had a very

important lesson for civil society to teach, that by which a few learn to

command, and the many are taught to obey: he would have all his precautions

to take against the future intrusion of mercenary arts, the admiration of

luxury, and the passion for interest: he would still perhaps have a more

difficult task than any of the former, in teaching his citizens the command

of appetite, and an indifference to pleasure, as well as a contempt of

pain; in teaching them to maintain in the field the formality of uniform

precautions, and as much to avoid being themselves surprised, as they

endeavour to surprise their enemy.

For want of these advantages, rude nations in general, though they are

patient of hardship and fatigue, though they are addicted to war, and are

qualified by their stratagem and valour to throw terror into the armies of

a more regular enemy; yet, in the course of a continual struggle, always

yield to the superior arts, and the discipline of more civilized nations.

Hence the Romans were able to overrun the provinces of Gaul, Germany, and

Britain; and hence the Europeans have a growing ascendancy over the nations

of Africa and America.

On the credit of a superiority which certain nations possess, they think

that they have a claim to dominion; and even Caesar appears to have

forgotten what were the passions, as well as the rights of mankind, when he

complained, that the Britons, after having sent him a submissive message to

Gaul, perhaps to prevent his invasion, still pretended to fight for their

liberties, and to oppose his descent on their island. [Footnote: Caesar

questus, quod quum ultro in continentem legatis missis pacem a se

petissent, bellum sine causa intulissent. _Lib_. 4.]

There is not, perhaps, in the whole description of mankind, a circumstance

more remarkable than that mutual contempt and aversion which nations, under

a different state of commercial arts, bestow on each other. Addicted to

their own pursuits, and considering their own condition as the standard of

human felicity, all nations pretend to the preference, and in their

practice give sufficient proof of sincerity. Even the savage, still less

than the citizen, can be made to quit that manner of life in which he is

trained: he loves that freedom of mind which will not be bound to any task,

and which owns no superior: however tempted to mix with polished nations,

and to better his fortune, the first moment of liberty brings him back to

the woods again; he droops and he pines in the streets of the populous

city; he wanders dissatisfied over the open and the cultivated field; he

seeks the frontier and the forest, where, with a constitution prepared to

undergo the hardships and the difficulties of the situation, he enjoys a

delicious freedom from care, and a seducing society, where no rules of

behaviour are prescribed, but the simple dictates of the heart.

SECTION III.

OF RUDE NATIONS UNDER THE IMPRESSIONS OF PROPERTY AND INTEREST.

It was a proverbial imprecation in use among the hunting nations on the

confines of Siberia, that their enemy might be obliged to live like a

Tartar, and have the folly of troubling himself with the charge of cattle.

[Footnote: Abulgaze's Genealogical History of the Tartars] Nature, it

seems, in their apprehension, by storing the woods and desert with game,

rendered the task of the herdsman unnecessary, and left to man only the

trouble of selecting and of seizing his prey.

The indolence of mankind, or rather their aversion to any application in

which they are not engaged by immediate instinct and passion, retards the

progress of industry and of impropriation. It has been found, however, even

while the means of subsistence are left in common, and the stock of the

public is yet undivided, that property is apprehended in different

subjects; that the fur and the bow belong to the individual; that the

cottage, with its furniture, are appropriated to the family.

When the parent begins to desire a better provision for his children than

is found under the promiscuous management of many co-partners, when he has

applied his labour and his skill apart, he aims at an exclusive possession,

and seeks the property of the soil, as well as the use of its fruits.

When the individual no longer finds among his associates the same

inclination to commit every subject to public use, he is seized with

concern for his personal fortune; and is alarmed by the cares which every

person entertains for himself. He is urged as much by emulation and

jealousy, as by the sense of necessity. He suffers considerations of

interest to rest on his mind, and when every present appetite is

sufficiently gratified, he can act with a view to futurity, or, rather

finds an object of vanity in having amassed what is become a subject of

competition, and a matter of universal esteem. Upon this motive, where

violence is restrained, he can apply his hand to lucrative arts, confine

himself to a tedious task, and wait with patience for the distant returns

of his labour.

Thus mankind acquire industry by many and by slow degrees. They are taught

to regard their interest; they are restrained from rapine; and they are

secured in the possession of what they fairly obtain; by these methods the

habits of the labourer, the mechanic, and the trader, are gradually formed.

A hoard, collected from the simple productions of nature, or a herd of

cattle, are, in every rude nation, the first species of wealth. The

circumstances of the soil, and the climate, determine whether the

inhabitant shall apply himself chiefly to agriculture or pasture; whether

he shall fix his residence, or be moving continually about with all his

possessions.

In the west of Europe; in America, from south to north, with a few

exceptions; in the torrid zone, and every where within the warmer climates;

mankind have generally applied themselves to some species of agriculture,

and have been disposed to settlement. In the north and middle region of

Asia, they depended entirely on their herds, and were perpetually shifting

their ground in search of new pasture. The arts which pertain to settlement

have been practised, and variously cultivated, by the inhabitants of

Europe. Those which are consistent with perpetual migration, have, from the

earliest accounts of history, remained nearly the same, with the Scythian

or Tartar. The tent pitched on a moveable carriage, the horse applied to

every purpose of labour, and of war, of the dairy, and of the butcher's

stall, from the earliest to the latest accounts, have made up the riches

and equipage of this wandering people.

But in whatever way rude nations subsist, there are certain points in

which, under the first impressions of property, they nearly agree. Homer

either lived with a people in this stage of their progress, or found

himself engaged to exhibit their character. Tacitus had made them the

subject of a particular treatise; and if this be an aspect under which

mankind deserve to be viewed, it must be confessed, that we have singular

advantages in collecting their features. The portrait has already been

drawn by the ablest hands, and gives, at one view, in the writings of these

celebrated authors, whatever has been scattered in the relations of

historians, or whatever we have opportunities to observe in the actual

manners of men, who still remain in a similar state.

In passing from the condition we have described, to this we have at present

in view, mankind still retain many marks of their earliest character. They

are still averse to labour, addicted to war, admirers of fortitude, and in

the language of Tacitus, more lavish of their blood than of their sweat.

[Footnote: Pigrum quin immo et iners videtur, sudore acquirere quod possis

sanguine parare.] They are fond of fantastic ornaments in their dress, and

endeavour to fill up the listless intervals of a life addicted to violence,

with hazardous sports, and with games of chance. Every servile occupation

they commit to women or slaves. But we may apprehend, that the individual

having now found a separate interest, the bands of society must become less

firm, and domestic disorders more frequent. The members of every community,

being distinguished among themselves by unequal possessions, the ground of

a permanent and palpable subordination is laid.

These particulars accordingly take place among mankind, in passing from the

savage to what may be called the barbarous state. Members of the same

community enter into quarrels of competition or revenge. They unite in

following leaders, who are distinguished by their fortunes, and by the

lustre of their birth. They join the desire of spoil with the love of

glory; and from an opinion, that what is acquired by force justly pertains

to the victor, they become hunters of men, and bring every contest to the

decision of the sword.

Every nation is a band of robbers, who prey without restraint, or remorse,

on their neighbours. Cattle, says Achilles, may be seized in every field;

and the coasts of the Aegean were accordingly pillaged by the heroes of

Homer, for no other reason than because those heroes chose to possess

themselves of the brass and iron, the cattle, the slaves, and the women,

which were found among the nations around them.

A Tartar mounted on his horse, is an animal of prey, who only enquires

where cattle are to be found, and how far he must go to possess them. The

monk, who had fallen under the displeasure of Mangu Chan, made his peace,

by promising, that the pope, and the Christian princes, should make a

surrender of all their herds. [Footnote: Rubruquis.]

A similar spirit reigned, without exception, in all the barbarous nations

of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The antiquities of Greece and Italy, and the

fables of every ancient poet, contain examples of its force. It was this

spirit that brought our ancestors first into the provinces of the Roman

empire; and that afterward, more perhaps than their reverence for the

cross, led them to the east, to share with the Tartars in the spoils of the

Saracen empire.

From the descriptions contained in the last section, we may incline to

believe, that mankind, in their simplest state; are on the eve of erecting

republics. Their love of equality, their habit of assembling in public

councils, and their zeal for the tribe to which they belong, are

qualifications that fit them to act under that species of government; and

they seem to have but a few steps to make in order to reach its

establishment. They have only to define the numbers of which their councils

shall consist, and to settle the forms of their meeting: they have only to

bestow a permanent authority for repressing disorders, and to enact a few

rules in favour of that justice they have already acknowledged, and from

inclination so strictly observe.

But these steps are far from being so easily made, as they appear on a

slight or a transient view. The resolution of choosing, from among their

equals, the magistrate to whom they give from thenceforward a right to

control their own actions, is far from the thoughts of simple men; and no

persuasion, perhaps, could make them adopt this measure, or give them any

sense of its use.

Even after nations have chosen a military leader, they do not entrust him

with any species of civil authority. The captain among the Caribbees did

not pretend to decide in domestic disputes; the terms _jurisdiction_

and _government_ were unknown in their tongue. [Footnote: History of

the Caribbees.]

Before this important change was admitted, men must be accustomed to the

distinction of ranks; and before they are sensible that subordination is

requisite, they must have arrived at unequal conditions by chance. In

desiring property, they only mean to secure their subsistence; but the

brave who lead in war, have likewise the largest share in its spoils. The

eminent are fond of devising hereditary honours; and the multitude, who

admire the parent, are ready to extend their esteem to his offspring.

Possessions descend, and the lustre of family grows brighter with age.

Hercules, who perhaps was an eminent warrior, became a god with posterity,

and his race was set apart for royalty and sovereign power. When the

distinctions of fortune and those of birth are conjoined, the chieftain

enjoys a pre-eminence, as well at the feast as in the field. His followers

take their place in subordinate stations; and instead of considering

themselves as parts of a community, they rank as the followers of a chief,

and take their designation from the name of their leader. They find a new

object of public affection in defending his person, and in supporting his

station; they lend of their substance to form his estate; they are guided

by his smiles and his frowns; and court as the highest distinction, a share

in the feast which their own contributions have furnished.

As the former state of mankind seemed to point at democracy, this seems to

exhibit the rudiments of monarchical government. But it is yet far short of

that establishment which is known in after ages by the name of

_monarchy_. The distinction between the leader and the follower, the

prince and the subject, is still but imperfectly marked: their pursuits and

occupations are not different; their minds are not unequally cultivated;

they feed from the same dish; they sleep together on the ground; the

children of the king, as well as those of the subject, are employed in

tending the flock; and the keeper of the swine was a prime counsellor at

the court of Ulysses.

The chieftain, sufficiently distinguished from his tribe, to excite their

admiration, and to flatter their vanity by a supposed affinity to his noble

descent, is the object of their veneration, not of their envy: he is

considered as the common bond of connection, not as their common master; is

foremost in danger, and has a principal share in their troubles: his glory

is placed in the number of his attendants, in his superior magnanimity and

valour; that of his followers, in being ready to shed their blood in his

service. [Footnote: Tacitus de moribus Germanorum.]

The frequent practice of war tends to strengthen the bands of society, and

the practice of depredation itself engages men in trials of mutual

attachment and courage. What threatened to ruin and overset every good

disposition in the human breast, what seemed to banish justice from the

societies of men, tends to unite the species in clans and fraternities;

formidable indeed, and hostile to one another, but, in the domestic society

of each, faithful, disinterested, and generous. Frequent dangers, and the

experience of fidelity and valour, awaken the love of those virtues, render

them a subject of admiration, and endear their possessors.

Actuated by great passions, the love of glory, and the desire of victory;

roused by the menaces of an enemy, or stung with revenge; in suspense

between the prospects of ruin or conquest, the barbarian spends every

moment of relaxation in sloth. He cannot descend to the pursuits of

industry or mechanical labour: the beast of prey is a sluggard; the hunter

and the warrior sleeps, while women or slaves are made to toil for his

bread. But shew him a quarry at a distance, he is bold, impetuous, artful,

and rapacious; no bar can withstand his violence, and no fatigue can allay

his activity.

Even under this description, mankind are generous and hospitable to

strangers, as well as kind, affectionate, and gentle, in their domestic

society. [Footnote: Jean du Plan Carpen. Rubruquis, Caesar, Tacit.]

Friendship and enmity are to them terms of the greatest importance: they

mingle not their functions together; they have singled out their enemy, and

they have chosen their friend. Even in depredation, the principal object is

glory; and spoil is considered as the badge of victory. Nations and tribes

are their prey: the solitary traveller, by whom they can acquire only the

reputation of generosity, is suffered to pass unhurt, or is treated with

splendid munificence.

Though distinguished into small cantons under their several chieftains, and

for the most part separated by jealousy and animosity; yet when pressed by

wars and formidable enemies, they sometimes unite in greater bodies. Like

the Greeks in their expedition to Troy, they follow some remarkable leader,

and compose a kingdom of many separate tribes. But such coalitions are

merely occasional; and even during their continuance, more resemble a

republic than monarchy. The inferior chieftains reserve their importance,

and intrude, with an air of equality, into the councils of their leader, as

the people of their several clans commonly intrude upon them. [Footnote:

Kolbe: Description of the Cape of Good Hope.] Upon what motive indeed could

we suppose, that men who live together in the greatest familiarity, and

amongst whom the distinctions of rank are so obscurely marked, would resign

their personal sentiments and inclinations, or pay an implicit submission

to a leader who can neither overawe nor corrupt?

Military force must be employed to extort, or the hire of the venal to buy,

that engagement which the Tartar comes under to his prince, when he

promises, "That he will go where he shall be commanded; that he will come

when he shall be called; that he will kill whoever is pointed out to him;

and, for the future, that he will consider the voice of the King as a

sword." [Footnote: Simon de St. Quintin.]

These are the terms to which even the stubborn heart of the barbarian has

been reduced, in consequence of a despotism he himself had established; and

men have in that low state of the commercial arts, in Europe, as well as in

Asia, tasted of political slavery. When interest prevails in every breast,

the sovereign and his party cannot escape the infection: he employs the

force with which he is intrusted to turn his people into a property, and to

command their possessions for his profit or his pleasure. If riches are by

any people made the standard of good or of evil, let them beware of the

powers they intrust to their prince. "With the Suiones," says Tacitus,

"riches are in high esteem; and this people are accordingly disarmed, and

reduced to slavery." [Footnote: De moribus Germanorum.]

It is in this woful condition that mankind, being slavish, interested,

insidious, deceitful, and bloody, bear marks, if not of the least curable,

surely of the most lamentable sort of corruption. [Footnote: Chardin's

Travels.] Among them, war is the mere practice of rapine, to enrich the

individual; commerce is turned into a system of snares and impositions; and

government by turns oppressive or weak. It were happy for the human race,

when guided by interest, and not governed by laws, that being split into

nations of a moderate extent, they found in every canton some natural bar

to its farther enlargement, and met with occupation enough in maintaining

their independence, without being able to extend their dominion.

There is not disparity of rank, among men in rude ages, sufficient to give

their communities the form of legal monarchy; and in a territory of

considerable extent, when united under one head, the warlike and turbulent

spirit of its inhabitants seems to require the bridle of despotism and

military force. Where any degree of freedom remains, the powers of the

prince are, as they were in most of the rude monarchies of Europe,

extremely precarious, and depend chiefly on his personal character: where,

on the contrary, the powers of the prince are above the control of his

people, they are likewise above the restrictions of justice. Rapacity and

terror become the predominant motives of conduct, and form the character of

the only parties into which mankind are divided; that of the oppressor, and

that of the oppressed.

This calamity threatened Europe for ages, under the conquest and settlement

of its new inhabitants. [Footnote: See Hume's History of the Tudors. There

seemed to be nothing wanting to establish a perfect despotism in that

house, but a few regiments of troops under the command of the crown.] It

has actually taken place in Asia, where similar conquests have been made;

and even without the ordinary opiates of effeminacy, or a servile weakness,

founded on luxury, it has surprised the Tartar on his wain, in the rear of

his herds. Among this people, in the heart of a great continent, bold and

enterprising warriors arose; they subdued by surprise, or superior

abilities, the contiguous hordes; they gained, in their progress,

accessions of numbers and of strength; and, like a torrent increasing as it

descends, became too strong for any bar that could be opposed to their

passage. The conquering tribe, during a succession of ages, furnished the

prince with his guards; and while they themselves were allowed to share in

its spoils, were the voluntary tools of oppression. In this manner has

despotism and corruption found their way into regions so much renowned for

the wild freedom of nature: a power which was the terror of every

effeminate province is disarmed, and the nursery of nations is itself gone

to decay. [Footnote: See the History of the Huns.]

Where rude nations escape this calamity, they require the exercise of

foreign wars to maintain domestic peace; when no enemy appears from abroad,

they have leisure for private feud, and employ that courage in their

dissentions at home, which in time of war is employed in defence of their

country.

"Among the Gauls," says Caesar, "there are subdivisions, not only in every

nation, and in every district and village, but almost in every house, every

one must fly to some patron for protection." [Footnote: De Bello Gallico,

lib. 6.] In this distribution of parties, not only the feuds of clans, but

the quarrels of families, even the differences and competitions of

individuals, are decided by force. The sovereign, when unassisted by

superstition, endeavours in vain to employ his jurisdiction, or to procure

a submission to the decisions of law. By a people who are accustomed to owe

their possessions to violence, and who despise fortune itself without the

reputation of courage, no umpire is admitted but the sword. Scipio offered

his arbitration to terminate the competition of two Spaniards in a disputed

succession: "That," said they, "we have already refused to our relations:

we do not submit our difference to the judgment of men; and even among the

gods, we appeal to Mars alone." [Footnote: Livy.]

It is well known that the nations of Europe carried this mode of proceeding

to a degree of formality unheard of in other parts of the world: the civil

and criminal judge could, in most cases, do no more than appoint the lists,

and leave the parties to decide their cause by the combat: they apprehended

that the victor had a verdict of the gods in his favour: and when they

dropped in any instance this extraordinary form of process, they

substituted in its place some other more capricious appeal to chance; in

which they likewise thought that the judgment of the gods was declared.

The fierce nations of Europe were even fond of the combat, as an exercise

and a sport. In the absence of real quarrels, companions challenged each

other to a trial of skill, in which one of them frequently perished. When

Scipio celebrated the funeral of his father and his uncle, the Spaniards

came in pairs to fight, and by a public exhibition of their duels, to

increase the solemnity. [Footnote: Livy, lib. 3.]

In this wild and lawless state, where the effects of true religion would

have been so desirable, and so salutary, superstition frequently disputes

the ascendant even with the admiration of valour; and an order of men, like

the Druids among the ancient Gauls and Britons, [Footnote: Caesar.] or some

pretender to divination, as at the Cape of Good Hope, finds, in the credit

which is paid to his sorcery, a way to the possession of power: his magic

wand comes in competition with the sword itself; and, in the manner of the

Druids, gives the first rudiments of civil government to some, or, like the

supposed descendant of the sun among the Natchez, and the Lama among the

Tartars, to others, an early taste of despotism and absolute slavery.

We are generally at a loss to conceive how mankind can subsist under

customs and manners extremely different from our own; and we are apt to

exaggerate the misery of barbarous times, by an imagination of what we

ourselves should suffer in a situation to which we are not accustomed. But

every age hath its consolations, as well as its sufferings. [Footnote:

Priscus, when employed on an embassy to Attila, was accosted in Greek, by a

person who wore the dress of a Scythian. Having expressed surprise, and

being desirous to know the cause of his stay in so wild a company, was

told, that this Greek had been a captive, and for some time a slave, till

he obtained his liberty in reward of some remarkable action. "I live more

happily here," says he, "than ever I did under the Roman government: for

they who live with the Scythians, if they can endure the fatigues of war,

have nothing else to molest them; they enjoy their possessions undisturbed;

whereas you are continually a prey to foreign enemies, or to bad

government; you are forbid to carry arms in your own defence; you suffer

from the remissness and ill conduct of those who are appointed to protect

you; the evils of peace are even worse than those of war; no punishment is

ever inflicted on the powerful or the rich; no mercy is shown to the poor;

although your institutions were wisely devised, yet, in the

management of corrupted men, their effects are pernicious and cruel."

_Excerpta de legationibus._] In the interval of occasional outrages,

the friendly intercourse of men, even in their rudest condition, is

affectionate and happy. [Footnote: D'Arvieux's History of the wild Arabs.]

In rude ages the persons and properties of individuals are secure; because

each has a friend, as well as an enemy; and if the one is disposed to

molest, the other is ready to protect; and the very admiration of valour,

which in some instances tends to sanctify violence, inspires likewise

certain maxims of generosity and honour, that tend to prevent the

commission of wrongs.

Men bear with the defects of their policy, as they do with hardships and

inconveniencies in their manner of living. The alarms and the fatigues of

war become a necessary recreation to those who are accustomed to them, and

who have the tone of their passions raised above less animating or trying

occasions. Old men, among the courtiers of Attila, wept when they heard of

heroic deeds, which they themselves could no longer perform. [Footnote:

Ibid.] And among the Celtic nations, when age rendered the warrior unfit

for his former toils, it was the custom, in order to abridge the languors

of a listless and inactive life, to sue for death at the hands of his

friends. [Footnote:

Ubi transcendit florentes viribus annos,

Impatiens aevi spernit novisse senectam.

Silius, lib. i. 225.]

With all this ferocity of spirit, the rude nations of the west were subdued

by the policy and more regular warfare of the Romans. The point of honour

which the barbarians of Europe adopted as individuals, exposed them to a

peculiar disadvantage, by rendering them, even in their national wars,

averse to assailing their enemy by surprise, or taking the benefit of

stratagem; and though separately bold and intrepid, yet, like other rude

nations, they were, when assembled in great bodies, addicted to

superstition, and subject to panics.

They were, from a consciousness of their personal courage and force,

sanguine on the eve of battle; they were, beyond the bounds of moderation,

elated on success, and dejected in adversity; and being disposed to

consider every event as a judgment of the gods, they were never qualified

by an uniform application or prudence to make the most of their forces, to

repair their misfortunes, or to improve their advantages.

Resigned to the government of affection and passion, they were generous and

faithful where they had fixed an attachment; implacable, froward, and

cruel, where they had conceived a dislike: addicted to debauchery, and the

immoderate use of intoxicating liquors, they deliberated on the affairs of

state in the heat of their riot; and in the same dangerous moments,

conceived the designs of military enterprise, or terminated their domestic

dissentions by the dagger or the sword.

In their wars they preferred death to captivity. The victorious armies of

the Romans, in entering a town by assault, or in forcing an encampment,

have found the mother in the act of destroying her children, that they

might not be taken; and the dagger of the parent, red with the blood of his

family, ready to be plunged at last into his own breast. [Footnote: Liv.

lib. xli. 11. Dio Cass.]

In all these particulars, we perceive that vigour of spirit, which renders

disorder itself respectable, and which qualifies men, if fortunate in their

situation, to lay the basis of domestic liberty, as well as to maintain

against foreign enemies their national independence and freedom.

AN ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY

* * * * *

PART THIRD.

OF THE HISTORY OF POLICY AND ARTS.

* * * * *