had been alarmed on the side of Macedon, and were led to cross a new sea in
search of a new field, on which to exercise their military force. In
prosecution of their wars, from the earliest to the latest date of their
history, without intending the very conquest they made, perhaps without
foreseeing what advantage they were to reap from the subjection of distant
provinces, or in what manner they were to govern their new acquisitions,
they still proceeded to seize what came successively within their reach;
and, stimulated by a policy which engaged them in perpetual wars, which led
to perpetual victory and accessions of territory, they extended the
frontier of a state, which, but a few centuries before, had been confined
within the skirts of a village, to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Weser,
the Forth, and the Ocean.
It is vain to affirm that the genius of any nation is adverse to conquest.
Its real interests indeed most commonly are so; but every state, which is
prepared to defend itself, and to obtain victories, is likewise in hazard
of being tempted to conquer.
In Europe, where mercenary and disciplined armies are everywhere formed,
and ready to traverse the earth, where, like a flood pent up by slender
banks, they are only restrained by political forms, or a temporary balance
of power; if the sluices should break, what inundations may we not expect
to behold? Effeminate kingdoms and empires are spread from the sea of Corea
to the Atlantic ocean. Every state, by the defeat of its troops, may be
turned into a province; every army opposed in the field today may be hired
to-morrow; and every victory gained, may give the accession of a new
military force to the victor.
The Romans, with inferior arts of communication by sea and land, maintained
their dominion in a considerable part of Europe, Asia, and Africa, over
fierce and intractable nations: what may not the fleets and armies of
Europe, with the access they have by commerce to every part of the world,
and the facility of their conveyance, effect, if that ruinous maxim should
prevail, that the grandeur of a nation is to be estimated from the extent
of its territory; or, that the interest of any particular people consists
in reducing their neighbours to servitude?
SECTION VI
OF CIVIL LIBERTY
If war, either for depredation or defence, were the principal object of
nations, every tribe would, from its earliest state, aim at the condition
of a Tartar horde; and in all its successes would hasten to the grandeur of
a Tartar empire. The military leader would supersede the civil magistrate;
and preparations to fly with all their possessions, or to pursue with all
their forces, would in every society make the sum of their public
arrangements.
He who first, on the banks of the Wolga, or the Jenisca, had taught the
Scythian to mount the horse, to move his cottage on wheels, to harass his
enemy alike by his attacks and his flights, to handle at full speed the
lance and the bow, and when beat from his ground, to leave his arrows in
the wind to meet his pursuer; he who had taught his countrymen to use the
same animal for every purpose of the dairy, the shambles, and the field of
battle; would be esteemed the founder of his nation; or like Ceres and
Bacchus among the Greeks, would be invested with the honours of a god, as
the reward of his useful inventions. Amidst such institutions, the names
and achievements of Hercules and Jason might have been transmitted to
posterity; but those of Lycurgus or Solon, the heroes of political society,
could have gained no reputation, either fabulous or real, in the records of
fame.
Every tribe of warlike barbarians may entertain among themselves the
strongest sentiments of affection and honour, while they carry to the rest
of mankind the aspect of banditti and robbers. [Footnote: D'Arvieux's
History of the Arabs.] They may be indifferent to interest, and superior to
danger; but our sense of humanity, our regard to the rights of nations, our
admiration of civil wisdom and justice, even our effeminacy itself, make us
turn away with contempt, or with horror, from a scene which exhibits so few
of our good qualities, and which serves so much to reproach our weakness.
It is in conducting the affairs of civil society, that mankind find the
exercise of their best talents, as well as the object of their best
affections. It is in being grafted on the advantages of civil society, that
the art of war is brought to perfection; that the resources of armies, and
the complicated springs to be touched in their conduct, are best
understood. The most celebrated warriors were also citizens: opposed to a
Roman, or a Greek, the chieftain of Thrace, of Germany, or Gaul, was a
novice. The native of Pella learned the principles of his art from
Epaminondas and Pelopidas.
If nations, as hath been observed in the preceding section, must adjust
their policy on the prospect of war from abroad, they are equally bound to
provide for the attainment of peace at home. But there is no peace in the
absence of justice. It may subsist with divisions, disputes, and contrary
opinions; but not with the commission of wrongs. The injurious, and the
injured, are, as implied in the very meaning of the terms, in a state of
hostility.
Where men enjoy peace, they owe it either to their mutual regards and
affections, or to the restraints of law. Those are the happiest states
which procure peace to their members by the first of these methods: but it
is sufficiently uncommon to procure it even by the second. The first would
withhold the occasions of war and of competition; the second adjusts the
pretensions of men by stipulations and treaties. Sparta taught her citizens
not to regard interest: other free nations secure the interest of their
members, and consider this as a principal part of their rights.
Law is the treaty to which members of the same community have agreed, and
under which the magistrate and the subject continue to enjoy their rights,
and to maintain the peace of society. The desire of lucre is the great
motive to injuries: law therefore has a principal reference to property. It
would ascertain the different methods by which property may be acquired, as
by prescription, conveyance, and succession; and it makes the necessary
provisions for rendering the possession of property secure.
Beside avarice, there are other motives from which men are unjust; such as
pride, malice, envy, and revenge. The law would eradicate the principles
themselves, or at least prevent their effects.
From whatever motive wrongs are committed, there are different particulars
in which the injured may suffer. He may suffer in his goods, in his person,
or in the freedom of his conduct. Nature has made him master of every
action which is not injurious to others. The laws of his particular society
entitle him perhaps to a determinate station, and bestow on, him a certain
share in the government of his country. An injury, therefore, which in this
respect puts him under any unjust restraint, may be called an infringement
of his political rights.
Where the citizen is supposed to have rights of property and of station,
and is protected in the exercise of them, he is said to be free; and the
very restraints by which he is hindered from the commission of crimes, are
a part of his liberty. No person is free, where any person is suffered to
do wrong with impunity. Even the despotic prince on his throne, is not an
exception to this general rule. He himself is a slave, the moment he
pretends that force should decide any contest. The disregard he throws on
the rights of his people recoils on himself; and in the general uncertainty
of all conditions, there is no tenure more precarious than his own.
From the different particulars to which men refer, in speaking of liberty,
whether to the safety of the person and the goods, the dignity of rank, or
the participation of political importance, as well as from the different
methods by which their rights are secured, they are led to differ in the
interpretation of the very term; and every free nation is apt to suppose,
that freedom is to be found only among themselves; they measure it by their
own peculiar habits and system of manners.
Some having thought, that the unequal distribution of wealth is a
grievance, required a new division of property as the foundation of public
justice. This scheme is suited to democratical government; and in such only
it has been admitted with any degree of effect.
New settlements, like that of the people of Israel, and singular
establishments, like those of Sparta and Crete, have furnished examples of
its actual execution; but in most other states, even the democratical
spirit could attain no more than to prolong the struggle for Agrarian laws;
to procure, on occasion, the expunging of debts; and to keep the people in
mind, under all the distinctions of fortune, that they still had a claim to
equality.
The citizen at Rome, at Athens, and in many republics, contended for
himself, and his order. The Agrarian law was moved and debated for ages: it
served to awaken the mind; it nourished the spirit of equality, and
furnished a field on which to exert its force; but was never established
with any of its other and more formal effects.
Many of the establishments which serve to defend the weak from oppression,
contribute, by securing the possession of property, to favour its unequal
division, and to increase the ascendant of those from whom the abuses of
power may be feared. Those abuses were felt very early both at Athens and
Rome. [Footnote: Plutarch in the Life of Solon. Livy.]
It has been proposed to prevent the excessive accumulation of wealth in
particular hands, by limiting the increase of private fortunes, by
prohibiting entails, and by withholding the right of primogeniture in the
succession of heirs. It has been proposed to prevent the ruin of moderate
estates, and to restrain the use, and consequently the desire of great
ones, by sumptuary laws. These different methods are more or less
consistent with the interests of commerce, and may be adopted, in different
degrees, by a people whose national object is wealth: and they have their
degree of effect, by inspiring moderation, or a sense of equality, and by
stifling the passions by which mankind are prompted to mutual wrongs.
It appears to be, in a particular manner, the object of sumptuary laws, and
of the equal division of wealth, to prevent the gratification of vanity, to
check the ostentation of superior fortune, and, by this means, to weaken
the desire of riches, and to preserve, in the breast of the citizen, that
moderation and equity which ought to regulate his conduct.
This end is never perfectly attained in any state where the unequal
division of property is admitted, and where fortune is allowed to bestow
distinction and rank. It is indeed difficult, by any methods whatever, to
shut up this source of corruption. Of all the nations whose history is
known with certainty, the design itself, and the manner of executing it,
appear to have been understood in Sparta alone.
There property was indeed acknowledged by law; but in consequence of
certain regulations and practices, the most effectual, it seems, that
mankind have hitherto found out. The manners that prevail among simple
nations before the establishment of property, were in some measure
preserved; [Footnote: See Part II. Sec. 2.] the passion for riches was,
during many ages, suppressed; and the citizen was made to consider himself
as the property of his country, not as the owner of a private estate.
It was held ignominious either to buy or to sell the patrimony of a
citizen. Slaves were, in every family, intrusted with the care of its
effects, and freemen were strangers to lucrative arts; justice was
established on a contempt of the ordinary allurement to crimes; and the
preservatives of civil liberty applied by the state, were the dispositions
that were made to prevail in the hearts of its members.
The individual was relieved from every solicitude that could arise on the
head of his fortune; he was educated, and he was employed for life in the
service of the public; he was fed at a place of common resort, to which he
could carry no distinction but that of his talents and his virtues; his
children were the wards and the pupils of the state; he himself was thought
to be a parent, and a director to the youth of his country, not the anxious
father of a separate family.
This people, we are told, bestowed some care in adorning their persons, and
were known from afar by the red or the purple they wore; but could not make
their equipage, their buildings, or their furniture, a subject of fancy, or
what we call taste. The carpenter and the housebuilder were restricted to
the use of the axe and the saw: their workmanship must have been simple,
and probably, in respect to its form, continued for ages the same. The
ingenuity of the artist was employed in cultivating his own nature, not in
adorning the habitations of his fellow citizens.
On this plan, they had senators, magistrates, leaders of armies, and
ministers of state; but no men of fortune. Like the heroes of Homer, they
distributed honours by the measure of the cup and the platter. A citizen
who, in his political capacity, was the arbiter of Greece, thought himself
honoured by receiving a double portion of plain entertainment at supper. He
was active, penetrating, brave, disinterested, and generous; but his
estate, his table, and his furniture might, in our esteem, have marred the
lustre of all his virtues. Neighbouring nations, however, applied for
commanders to this nursery of statesmen and warriors, as we apply for the
practitioners of every art to the countries in which they excel; for cooks
to France, and for musicians to Italy.
After all, we are, perhaps, not sufficiently instructed in the nature of
the Spartan laws and institutions, to understand in what manner all the
ends of this singular state were obtained; but the admiration paid to its
people, and the constant reference of contemporary historians to their
avowed superiority, will not allow us to question the facts. "When I
observed," says Xenophon, "that this nation, though not the most populous,
was the most powerful state of Greece, I was seized with wonder, and with
an earnest desire to know by what arts it attained its pre-eminence; but
when I came to the knowledge of its institutions, my wonder ceased. As one
man excels another, and as he who is at pains to cultivate his mind, must
surpass the person who neglects it; so the Spartans should excel every,
nation, being the only state in which virtue is studied as the object of
government."
The subjects of property, considered with a view to subsistence, or even to
enjoyment, have little effect in corrupting mankind, or in awakening the
spirit of competition and of jealousy; but considered with a view to
distinction and honour, where fortune constitutes rank, they excite the
most vehement passions, and absorb all the sentiments of the human soul:
they reconcile avarice and meanness with ambition and vanity; and lead men
through the practice of sordid and mercenary arts, to the possession of a
supposed elevation and dignity.
Where this source of corruption, on the contrary, is effectually stopped,
the citizen is dutiful, and the magistrate upright; any form of government
may be wisely, administered; places of trust are likely to be well
supplied; and by whatever rule office and power are bestowed, it is likely
that all the capacity and force that subsists in the state will come to be
employed in its service: for on this supposition, experience and abilities
are the only guides, and the only titles to public confidence; and if
citizens be ranged into separate classes, they become mutual checks by the
difference of their opinions, not by the opposition of their interested
designs.
We may easily account for the censures bestowed on the government of
Sparta, by those who considered it merely on the side of its forms. It was
not calculated to prevent the practice of crimes, by balancing against each
other the selfish and partial dispositions of men; but to inspire the
virtues of the soul, to procure innocence by the absence of criminal
inclinations, and to derive its internal peace from the indifference of its
members to the ordinary motives of strife and disorder. It were trifling to
seek for its analogy to any other constitution of state, in which its
principal characteristic and distinguishing feature is not to be found.
The collegiate sovereignty, the senate, and the ephori, had their
counterparts in other republics, and a resemblance has been found in
particular to the government of Carthage: [Footnote: Aristotle.] but what
affinity of consequence can be found between a state whose sole object was
virtue, and another whose principal object was wealth; between a people
whose associated kings, being lodged, in the same cottage, had no fortune
but their daily food; and a commercial republic, in which a proper estate
was required as a necessary qualification for the higher offices of state?
Other petty commonwealths expelled kings, when they became jealous of their
designs, or after having experienced their tyranny; here the hereditary
succession of kings was preserved: other states were afraid of the
intrigues and cabals of their members in competition for dignities; here
solicitation was required as the only condition upon which a place in the
senate was obtained. A supreme inquisitorial power was, in the persons of
the ephori, safely committed to a few men, who were drawn by lot, and
without distinction, from every order of the people: and if a contrast to
this, as well as to many other articles of the Spartan policy, be required,
it may be found in the general history of mankind.
But Sparta, under every supposed error of its form, prospered for ages, by
the integrity of its manners, and by the character of its citizens. When
that integrity was broken, this people did not languish in the weakness of
nations sunk in effeminacy. They fell into the stream by which other states
had been carried in the torrent of violent passions, and in the outrage of
barbarous times. They ran the career of other nations, after that of
ancient Sparta was finished they built walls, and began to improve their
possessions, after they ceased to improve their people; and on this new
plan, in their struggle for political life, they survived the system of
states that perished under the Macedonian dominion: they lived to act with
another which arose in the Achæan league; and were the last community of
Greece that became a village in the empire of Rome.
If it should be thought we have dwelt too long on the history of this
singular people, it may be remembered, in excuse, that they alone, in the
language of Xenophon, made virtue an object of state.
We must be contented to derive our freedom from a different source: to
expect justice from the limits which are set to the powers of the
magistrate, and to rely for protection on the laws which are made to secure
the estate and the person of the subject. We live in societies, where men
must be rich, in order to be great; where pleasure itself is often pursued
from vanity; where the desire of a supposed happiness serves to inflame the
worst of passions, and is itself the foundation of misery; where public
justice, like fetters applied to the body, may, without inspiring the
sentiments of candour and equity, prevent the actual commission of crimes.
Mankind come under this description the moment they are seized with their
passion for riches and power. But their description in every instance is
mixed: in the best there is an alloy of evil; in the worst, a mixture of
good. Without any establishments to preserve their manners, besides penal
laws, and the restraints of police, they derive, from instinctive feelings,
a love of integrity and candour, and from the very contagion of society
itself, an esteem for what is honourable and praiseworthy. They derive,
from their union and joint opposition to foreign enemies, a zeal for their
own community, and courage to maintain its rights. If the frequent neglect
of virtue, as a political object, tend to discredit the understandings of
men, its lustre, and its frequency, as a spontaneous offspring of the
heart, will restore the honours of our nature.
In every casual and mixed state of the national manners, the safety of
every individual, and his political consequence, depends much on himself,
but more on the party to which he is joined. For this reason, all who feel
a common interest, are apt to unite in parties; and, as far as that
interest requires, mutually support each other.
Where the citizens of any free community are of different orders, each
order has a peculiar set of claims and pretensions: relatively to the other
members of the state, it is a party; relatively to the differences of
interest among its own members, it may admit of numberless subdivisions.
But in every state there are two interests very readily apprehended; that
of a prince and his adherents, that of a nobility, or of any temporary
faction, opposed to the people.
Where the sovereign power is reserved by the collected body, it appears
unnecessary to think of additional establishments for securing the rights
of the citizen. But it is difficult, if not impossible, for the collective
body to exercise this power in a manner that supersedes the necessity of
every other political caution.
If popular assemblies assume every function of government; and if, in the
same tumultuous manner in which they can, with great propriety, express
their feelings, the sense of their rights, and their animosity to foreign
or domestic enemies, they pretend to deliberate on points of national
conduct, or to decide questions of equity and justice; the public is
exposed to manifold inconveniencies; and popular governments would, of all
others, be the most subject to errors in administration, and to weakness in
the execution of public measures.
To avoid these disadvantages, the people are always contented to delegate
part of their power. They establish a senate to debate, and to prepare, if
not to determine, questions that are brought to the collective body for a
final resolution. They commit the executive power to some council of this
sort, or to a magistrate who presides in their meetings. Under the use of
this necessary and common expedient, even while democratical forms are most
carefully guarded, there is one party of the few, another of the many. One
attacks, the other defends; and they are both ready to assume in their
turns. But though, in reality, a great danger to liberty arises on the part
of the people themselves, who, in times of corruption, are easily made the
instruments of usurpation and tyranny; yet, in the ordinary aspect of
government, the executive carries an air of superiority, and the rights of
the people seem always exposed to encroachment.
Though, on the day that the Roman people were assembled, the senators mixed
with the crowd, and the consul was no more than the servant of the
multitude; yet, when this awful meeting was dissolved, the senators met to
prescribe business for their sovereign, and the consul went armed with the
axe and the rods, to teach every Roman, in his separate capacity, the
submission which he owed to the state.
Thus, even where the collective body is sovereign, they are assembled only
occasionally; and though, on such occasions, they determine every question
relative to their rights and their interests as a people, and can assert
their freedom with irresistible force; yet they do not think themselves,
nor are they in reality, safe, without a more constant and more uniform
power operating in their favour.
The multitude is every where strong; but requires, for the safety of its
members, when separate as well as when assembled, a head to direct and to
employ its strength. For this purpose, the ephori, we are told, were
established at Sparta, the council of a hundred at Carthage, and the
tribunes at Rome. So prepared, the popular party has, in many instances,
been able to cope with its adversaries, and has even trampled on the
powers, whether aristocratical or monarchical, with which it would have
been otherwise unable to contend. The state, in such cases, commonly
suffered by the delays, interruptions, and confusions, which popular
leaders, from private envy, or a prevailing jealousy of the great, seldom
failed to create in the proceedings of government.
Where the people, as in some larger communities, have only a share in the
legislature, they cannot overwhelm the collateral powers, who having
likewise a share, are in condition to defend themselves: where they act
only by their representatives, their force may be uniformly employed. And
they may make a part in a constitution of government more lasting than any
of those in which the people, possessing or pretending to the entire
legislature, are, when assembled, the tyrants, and, when dispersed, the
slaves of a distempered state. In governments properly mixed, the popular
interest, finding a counterpoise in that of the prince or of the nobles, a
balance is actually established between them, in which the public freedom
and the public order are made to consist.
From some such casual arrangement of different interests, all the varieties
of mixed government proceed; and on that degree of consideration which
every separate interest can procure to itself, depends the equity of the
laws they enact, and the necessity they are able to impose, of adhering
strictly to the terms of law in its execution. States are accordingly
unequally qualified to conduct the business of legislation, and unequally
fortunate in the completeness, and regular observance, of their civil code.
In democratical establishments, citizens, feeling themselves possessed of
the sovereignty, are not equally anxious, with the subjects of other
governments, to have their rights explained, or secured, by actual statute.
They trust to personal vigour, to the support of party, and to the sense of
the public.
If the collective body perform the office of judge, as well as of
legislator, they seldom think of devising rules for their own direction,
and are found still more seldom to follow any determinate rule, after it is
made. They dispense, at one time, with what they enacted at another; and in
their judicative, perhaps even more than in their legislative, capacity,
are guided by passions and partialities that arise from circumstances of
the case before them.
But under the simplest governments of a different sort, whether aristocracy
or monarchy, there is a necessity for law, and there are a variety of
interests to be adjusted in framing every statute. The sovereign wishes to
give stability and order to administration, by express and promulgated
rules. The subject wishes to know the conditions and limits of his duty. He
acquiesces or he revolts, according as the terms on which he is made to
live with the sovereign, or with his fellow subjects, are, or are not,
consistent with the sense of his rights.
Neither the monarch, nor the council of nobles, where either is possessed
of the sovereignty, can pretend to govern, or to judge at discretion. No
magistrate, whether temporary or hereditary, can with safety neglect that
reputation for justice and equity, from which his authority, and the
respect that is paid to his person, are in a great measure derived.
Nations, however, have been fortunate in the tenor, and in the execution of
their laws, in proportion as they have admitted every order of the people,
by representation or otherwise, to an actual share of the legislature.
Under establishments of this sort, law is literally a treaty, to which the
parties concerned have agreed, and have given their opinion in settling its
terms. The interests to be affected by a law, are likewise consulted in
making it. Every class propounds an objection, suggests an addition or an
amendment of its own. They proceed to adjust, by statute, every subject of
controversy: and while they continue to enjoy their freedom, they continue
to multiply laws, and to accumulate volumes, as if they could remove every
possible ground of dispute, and were secure of their rights, merely by
having put them in writing.
Rome and England, under their mixed governments, the one inclining to
democracy, and the other to monarchy, have proved the great legislators
among nations. The first has left the foundation, and great part of the
superstructure of its civil code to the continent of Europe: the other, in
its island, has carried the authority and government of law to a point of
perfection, which they never before attained in the history of mankind.
Under such favourable establishments, known customs, the practice and
decisions of courts, as well as positive statutes, acquire the authority of
laws; and every proceeding is conducted by some fixed and determinate rule.
The best and most effectual precautions are taken for the impartial
application of rules to particular cases; and it is remarkable, that, in
the two examples we have mentioned, a surprising coincidence is found in
the singular methods of their jurisdiction. The people in both reserved in
a manner the office of judgment to themselves, and brought the decision of
civil rights, or of criminal questions, to the tribunal of peers, who, in
judging of their fellow citizens, prescribed a condition of life for
themselves.
It is not in mere laws, after all, that we are to look for the securities
to justice, but in the powers by which these laws have been obtained, and
without whose constant support they must fall to disuse. Statutes serve to
record the rights of a people, and speak the intention of parties to defend
what the letter of the law has expressed; but without the vigour to
maintain what is acknowledged as a right, the mere record, or the feeble
intention, is of little avail.
A populace roused by oppression, or an order of men possessed of temporary
advantage, have obtained many charters, concessions, and stipulations, in
favour of their claims; but where no adequate preparation was made to
preserve them, the written articles were often forgotten, together with the
occasion on which they were framed.
The history of England, and of every free country, abounds with the example
of statutes enacted when the people or their representatives assembled, but
never executed when the crown or the executive was left to itself. The most
equitable laws on paper are consistent with the utmost despotism in
administration. Even the form of trial by juries in England had its
authority in law, while the proceedings of courts were arbitrary and
oppressive.
We must admire, as the key stone of civil liberty, the statute which forces
the secrets of every prison to be revealed, the cause of every commitment
to be declared, and the person of the accused to be produced, that he may
claim his enlargement, or his trial, within a limited time. No wiser form
was ever opposed to the abuses of power. But it requires a fabric no less
than the whole political constitution of Great Britain, a spirit no less
than the refractory and turbulent zeal of this fortunate people, to secure
its effects.
If even the safety of the person, and the tenure of property, which may be
so well defined in the words of a statute, depend, for their preservation,
on the vigour and jealousy of a free people, and on the degree of
consideration which every order of the state maintains for itself; it is
still more evident, that what we have called the political freedom, or the
right of the individual to act in his station for himself and the public,
cannot be made to rest on any other foundation. The estate may be saved,
and the person released, by the forms of a civil procedure; but the rights
of the mind cannot be sustained by any other force but its own.
SECTION VII.
OF THE HISTORY OF ARTS.
We have already observed, that art is natural to man; and that the skill he
acquires after many ages of practice, is only the improvement of a talent
he possessed at the first. Vitruvius finds the rudiments of architecture in
the form of a Scythian cottage. The armourer may find the first productions
of his calling in the sling and the bow; and the shipwright of his in the
canoe of the savage. Even the historian and the poet may find the original
essays of their arts in the tale, and the song, which celebrate the wars,
the loves, and the adventures of men in their rudest condition.
Destined to cultivate his own nature, or to mend his situation, man finds a
continual subject of attention, ingenuity, and labour. Even where he does
not propose any personal improvement, his faculties are strengthened by
those very exercises in which he seems to forget himself: his reason and
his affections are thus profitably engaged in the affairs of society; his
invention and his skill are exercised in procuring his accommodations and
his food; his particular pursuits are prescribed to him by circumstances of
the age, and of the country in which he lives: in one situation, he is
occupied with wars and political deliberations; in another, with the care
of his interest, of his personal ease, or conveniency. He suits his means
to the ends he has in view; and, by multiplying contrivances, proceeds, by
degrees, to the perfection of his arts. In every step of his progress, if
his skill be increased, his desire must likewise have time to extend: and
it would be as vain to suggest a contrivance of which he slighted the use,
as it would be to tell him of blessings which he could not command.
Ages are generally supposed to have borrowed from those who went before
them, and nations to have received their portion of learning or of art from
abroad. The Romans are thought to have learned from the Greeks, and the
moderns of Europe from both. From a few examples of this sort, we learn to
consider every science or art as derived, and admit of nothing original in
the practice or manners of any people. The Greek was a copy of the
Egyptian, and even the Egyptian was an imitator, though we have lost sight
of the model on which he was formed.
It is known, that men improve by example and intercourse; but in the case
of nations, whose members excite and direct each other, why seek from
abroad the origin of arts, of which every society, having the principles in
itself, only requires a favourable occasion to bring them to light? When
such occasion presents itself to any people, they generally seize it; and
while it continues, they improve the inventions to which it gave rise among
themselves, or they willingly copy from others: but they never employ their
own invention, nor look abroad, for instruction on subjects that do not lie
in the way of their common pursuits; they never adopt a refinement of which
they have not discovered the use.
Inventions, we frequently observe, are accidental; but it is probable, that
an accident which escapes the artist in one age, may be seized by one who
succeeds him, and who is better apprized of its use. Where circumstances
are favourable, and where a people is intent on the objects of any art,
every invention is preserved, by being brought into general practice; every
model is studied, and every accident is turned to account. If nations
actually borrow from their neighbours, they probably borrow only what they
are nearly in a condition to have invented themselves.
Any singular practice of one country, therefore, is seldom transferred to
another, till the way be prepared by the introduction of similar
circumstances. Hence our frequent complaints of the dulness or obstinacy of
mankind, and of the dilatory communication of arts from one place to
another. While the Romans adopted the arts of Greece, the Thracians and
Illyrians continued to behold them with indifference. Those arts were,
during one period, confined to the Greek colonies, and during another, to
the Roman. Even where they were spread by a visible intercourse, they were
still received by independent nations with the slowness of invention. They
made a progress not more rapid at Rome than they had done at Athens; and
they passed to the extremities of the Roman empire, only in company with
new colonies, and joined to Italian policy.
The modern race, who came abroad to the possession of cultivated provinces,
retained the arts they had practised at home: the new master hunted the
boar, or pastured his herds, where he might have raised a plentiful
harvest; he built a cottage in the view of a palace; he buried, in one
common ruin, the edifices, sculptures, paintings, and libraries, of the
former inhabitant: he made a settlement upon a plan of his own, be said
with assurance, that although the Roman and the modern literature savour
alike of the Greek original, yet mankind, in either instance, would not
have drank of this fountain, unless they had been hastening to open springs
of their own.
Sentiment and fancy, the use of the hand or the head, are not inventions of
particular men; and the flourishing of arts that depend on them, are, in
the case of any people, a proof rather of political felicity at home, than
of any instruction received from abroad, or of any natural superiority in
point of industry or talents.
When the attentions of men are turned toward particular subjects, when the
acquisitions of one age are left entire to the next, when every individual
is protected in his place, and left to pursue the suggestion of his wants,
inventions accumulate; and it is difficult to find the original of any art.
The steps which lead to perfection are many; and we are at a loss on whom
to bestow the greatest share of our praise; on the first, or on the last,
who may have borne a part in the progress.
SECTION VIII.
OF THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE.
If we may rely on the general observations contained in the last section,
the literary, as well as mechanical arts, being a natural produce of the
human mind, will rise spontaneously wherever men are happily placed; and in
certain nations it is not more necessary to look abroad for the origin of
literature, than it is for the suggestion of any of the pleasures or
exercises in which mankind, under a state of prosperity and freedom, are
sufficiently inclined to indulge themselves.
We are apt to consider arts as foreign and adventitious to the nature of
man; but there is no art that did not find its occasion in human life, and
that was not, in some one or other of the situations in which our species
is found, suggested as a means for the attainment of some useful end. The
mechanic and commercial arts took their rise from the love of property, and
were encouraged by the prospects of safety and of gain: the literary and
liberal arts took their rise from the understanding, the fancy, and the
heart. They are mere exercises of the mind in search of its peculiar
pleasures and occupations; and are promoted by circumstances that suffer
the mind to enjoy itself.
Men are equally engaged by the past, the present, and the future, and are
prepared for every occupation that gives scope to their powers.
Productions, therefore, whether of narration, fiction, or reasoning, that
tend to employ the imagination, or move the heart; continue for ages a
subject of attention, and a source of delight. The memory of human
transactions being preserved in tradition or writing, is the natural
gratification of a passion that consists of curiosity, admiration, and the
love of amusement.
Before many books are written, and before science is greatly advanced, the
productions of mere genius are sometimes complete: the performer requires
not the aid of learning where his description of story relates to near and
contiguous objects; where it relates to the conduct and characters of men
with whom he himself has acted, and in whose occupations and fortunes he
himself has borne a part.
With this advantage, the poet is the first to offer the fruits of his
genius, and to lead in the career of those arts by which the mind is
destined to exhibit its imaginations, and to express its passions. Every
tribe of barbarians have their passionate or historic rhymes, which contain
the superstition, the enthusiasm, and the admiration of glory, with which
the breasts of men, in the earliest state of society, are possessed. They
delight in versification, either because the cadence of numbers is natural
to the language of sentiment, or because, not having the advantage of
writing, they are obliged to bring the ear in aid of the memory, in order
to facilitate the repetition, and ensure the preservation of their works.
When we attend to the language which savages employ on any solemn occasion,
it appears that man is a poet by nature. Whether at first obliged by the
mere defects of his tongue, and the scantiness of proper expressions, or
seduced by a pleasure of the fancy in stating the analogy of its objects,
he clothes every conception in image and metaphor. "We have planted the
tree of peace," says an American orator; "we have buried the axe under its
roots: we will henceforth repose under its shade; we will join to brighten
the chain that binds our nations together." Such are the collections of
metaphor which those nations employ in their public harangues. They have
likewise already adopted those lively figures, and that daring freedom of
language, which the learned have afterwards found so well fitted to express
the rapid transitions of the imagination, and the ardours of a passionate
mind.
If we are required to explain, how men could be poets, or orators, before
they were aided by the learning of the scholar and the critic? we may
inquire, in our turn, how bodies could fall by their weight, before the
laws of gravitation were recorded in books? Mind, as well as body, has
laws, which are exemplified in the course of nature, and which the critic
collects only after the example has shown what they are.
Occasioned, probably, by the physical connection we have mentioned, between
the emotions of a heated imagination, and the impressions received from
music and pathetic sounds, every tale among rude nations is repeated in
verse, and is made to take the form of a song. The early history of all
nations is uniform in this particular. Priests, statesmen, and
philosophers, in the first ages of Greece, delivered their instructions in
poetry, and mixed with the dealers in music and heroic fable.
It is not so surprising, however, that poetry should be the first species
of composition in every nation, as it is that a style, apparently so
difficult, and so far removed from ordinary use, should be almost as
universally the first to attain its maturity. The most admired of all poets
lived beyond the reach of history, almost of tradition. The artless song of
the savage, the heroic legend of the bard, have sometimes a magnificent
beauty, which no change of language can improve, and no refinements of the
critic reform. [Footnote: See Translations of Gallic Poetry, by James
McPherson.]
Under the supposed disadvantage of a limited knowledge, and a rude
apprehension, the simple poet has impressions that more than compensate the
defects of his skill. The best subjects of poetry, the characters of the
violent and the brave, the generous and the intrepid, great dangers, trials
of fortitude and fidelity, are exhibited within his view, or are delivered
in traditions which animate like truth, because they are equally believed.
He is not engaged in recalling, like Virgil or Tasso, the sentiments or
scenery of an age remote from his own; he needs not be told by the critic,
[Footnote: See Longinus.] to recollect what another would have thought, or
in what manner another would have expressed his conception. The simple
passions, friendship, resentment, and love, are the movements of his own
mind, and he has no occasion to copy. Simple and vehement in his
conceptions and feelings, he knows no diversity of thought, or of style, to
mislead or to exercise his judgment. He delivers the emotions of the heart,
in words suggested by the heart; for he knows no other. And hence it is,
that while we admire the judgment and invention of Virgil, and of other
later poets, these terms appear misapplied to Homer. Though intelligent, as
well as sublime, in his conceptions, we cannot anticipate the lights of his
understanding, nor the movements of his heart; he appears to speak from
inspiration, not from invention; and to be guided in the choice of his
thoughts and expressions by a supernatural instinct, not by reflection.
The language of early ages is, in one respect, simple and confined; in
another, it is varied and free: it allows liberties, which, to the poet of
after-times, are denied.
In rude ages men are not separated by distinctions of rank or profession.
They live in one manner, and speak one dialect. The bard is not to choose
his expression among the singular accents of different conditions. He has
not to guard his language from the peculiar errors of the mechanic, the
peasant, the scholar, or the courtier, in order to find that elegant
propriety, and just elevation, which is free from the vulgar of one class,
the pedantic of the second, or the flippant of the third. The name of every
object, and of every sentiment, is fixed; and if his conception has the
dignity of nature, his expression will have a purity which does not depend
on his choice.
With this apparent confinement in the choice of his words, he is at liberty
to break through the ordinary modes of construction; and in the form of a
language not established by rules, may find for himself a cadence agreeable
to the tone of his mind. The liberty he takes, while his meaning is
striking, and his language is raised, appears an improvement, not a
trespass on grammar. He delivers a style to the ages that follow, and
becomes a model from which his posterity judge.
But whatever may be the early disposition of mankind to poetry, or the
advantages they possess in cultivating this species of literature; whether
the early maturity of poetical compositions arise from their being the
first studied, or from their having a charm to engage persons of the
liveliest genius, who are best qualified to improve the eloquence of their
native tongue; it is a remarkable fact, that, not only in countries where
every vein of composition was original, and was opened in the order of
natural succession; but even at Rome, and in modern Europe, where the
learned began early to practise on foreign models, we have poets of every
nation, who are perused with pleasure, while the prose writers of the same
ages are neglected.
As Sophocles and Euripides preceded the historians and moralists of Greece,
not only Naevius and Ennius, who wrote the Roman history in verse, but
Lucilius, Plautus, Terence, and we may add Lucretius, were prior to Cicero,
Sallust, or Caesar. Dante and Petrarch went before any good prose writer in
Italy; Corneille and Racine brought on the fine age of prose compositions
in France; and we had in England, not only Chaucer and Spenser, but
Shakspeare and Milton, while our attempts in history or science were yet in
their infancy; and deserve our attention, only for the sake of the matter
they treat.
Hellanicus, who is reckoned among the first prose writers in Greece, and
who immediately preceded, or was the contemporary of Herodotus, set out
with declaring his intention to remove from history the wild
representations, and extravagant fictions, with which it had been disgraced
by the poets. [Footnote: Quoted by Demetrius Phalerius.] The want of
records or authorities, relating to any distant transactions, may have
hindered him, as it did his immediate successor, from giving truth all the
advantage it might have reaped from this transition to prose. There are,
however, ages in the progress of society, when such a proposition must be
favourably received. When men become occupied on the subjects of policy, or
commercial arts, they wish to be informed and instructed, as well as moved.
They are interested by what was real in past transactions. They build on
this foundation the reflections and reasonings they apply to present
affairs, and wish to receive information on the subject of different
pursuits, and of projects in which they begin to be engaged. The manners of
men, the practice of ordinary life, and the form of society, furnish their
subjects to the moral and political writer. Mere ingenuity, justness of
sentiment, and correct representation, though conveyed in ordinary
language, are understood to constitute literary merit, and by applying to
reason more than to the imagination and passions, meet with a reception
that is due to the instruction they bring.
The talents of men come to be employed in a variety of affairs, and their
inquiries directed to different subjects. Knowledge is important in every
department of civil society, and requisite to the practice of every art.
The science of nature, morals, politics, and history, find their, several
admirers; and even poetry itself, which retains its former station in the
region of warm imagination and enthusiastic passion, appears in a growing
variety of forms.
Matters have proceeded so far, without the aid of foreign examples, or the
direction of schools. The cart of Thespis was changed into a theatre, not
to gratify the learned, but to please the Athenian populace; and the prize
of poetical merit was decided by this populace equally before and after the
invention of rules. The Greeks were unacquainted with every language but
their own; and if they became learned, it was only by studying what they
themselves had produced: the childish mythology, which they are said to
have copied from Asia, was equally of little avail in promoting their love
of arts, or their success in the practice of them.
When the historian is struck with the events he has witnessed, or heard;
when he is excited to relate them by his reflections or his passions; when
the statesman, who is required to speak in public, is obliged to prepare
for every remarkable appearance in studied harangues; when conversation
becomes extensive and refined; and when the social feelings and reflections
of men are committed to writing, a system of learning may arise from the
bustle of an active life. Society itself is the school, and its lessons are
delivered in the practice of real affairs. An author writes from
observations he has made on his subject, not from the suggestion of books;
and every production carries the mark of his character as a man, not of his
mere proficiency as a student or scholar. It may be made a question,
whether the trouble of seeking for distant models, and of wading for
instruction, through dark allusions and languages unknown, might not have
quenched his fire, and rendered him a writer of a very inferior class.
If society may thus be considered as a school for letters, it is probable
that its lessons are varied in every separate state, and in every age. For
a certain period, the severe applications of the Roman people to policy and
war suppressed the literary arts, and appear to have stifled the genius
even of the historian and the poet. The institutions of Sparta gave a
professed contempt for whatever was not connected with the practical
virtues of a vigorous and resolute spirit: the charms of imagination, and
the parade of language, were by this people classed with the arts of the
cook and the perfumer: their songs in praise of fortitude are mentioned by
some writers; and collections of their witty sayings and repartees are
still preserved: they indicate the virtues and the abilities of an active
people, not their proficiency in science or literary taste. Possessed of
what was essential to happiness in the virtues of the heart, they had a
discernment of its value, unembarrassed by the numberless objects on which
mankind in general are so much at a loss to adjust their esteem: fixed in
their own apprehension, they turned a sharp edge on the follies of mankind.
"When will you begin to practise it?" was the question of a Spartan to a
person who, in an advanced age of life, was still occupied with questions
on the nature of virtue.
While this people confined their studies to one question, how to improve
and to preserve the courage and disinterested affections of the human
heart; their rivals, the Athenians, gave a scope to refinement on every
object of reflection or passion. By the rewards, either of profit or of
reputation, which they bestowed on every effort of ingenuity employed in
ministering to the pleasure, the decoration, or the conveniency of life; by
the variety of conditions in which their citizens were placed; by their
inequalities of fortune, and their several pursuits in war, politics,
commerce, and lucrative arts, they awakened whatever was either good or bad
in the natural dispositions of men. Every road to eminence was opened:
eloquence, fortitude, military skill, envy, detraction, faction, and
treason, even the muse herself, was courted to bestow importance among a
busy, acute, and turbulent people.
From this example, we may safely conclude, that although business is
sometimes a rival to study, retirement and leisure are not the principal
requisites to the improvement, perhaps not even to the exercise, of
literary talents. The most striking exertions of imagination and sentiment
have a reference to mankind: they are excited by the presence and
intercourse of men: they have most vigour when actuated in the mind by the
operation of its principal springs, by the emulations, the friendships, and
the oppositions which subsist among a forward and aspiring people. Amidst
the great occasions which put a free, and even a licentious society in
motion, its members become capable of every exertion; and the same scenes
which gave employment to Themistocles and Thrasybulus, inspired, by
contagion, the genius of Sophocles and Plato. The petulant and the
ingenious find an equal scope to their talents; and literary monuments
become the repositories of envy and folly, as well as of wisdom and virtue.
Greece, divided into many little states, and agitated, beyond any spot on
the globe, by domestic contentions and foreign wars, set the example in
every species of literature. The fire was communicated to Rome; not when
the state ceased to be warlike, and had discontinued her political
agitations, but when she mixed the love of refinement and of pleasure with
her national pursuits, and indulged an inclination to study in the midst of
ferments, occasioned by the wars and pretensions of opposite factions. It
was revived in modern Europe among the turbulent states of Italy, and
spread to the north, together with the spirit which shook the fabric of the
Gothic policy: it rose while men were divided into parties, under civil or
religious denominations, and when they were at variance on subjects held
the most important and sacred.
We may be satisfied, from the example of many ages, that liberal endowments
bestowed on learned societies, and the leisure with which they were
furnished for study, are not the likeliest means to excite the exertions of
genius: even science itself, the supposed offspring of leisure, pined in
the shade of monastic retirement. Men at a distance from the objects of
useful knowledge, untouched by the motives that animate an active and a
vigorous mind, could produce only the jargon of a technical language, and
accumulate the impertinence of academical forms.
To speak or to write justly from an observation of nature, it is necessary
to have felt the sentiments of nature. He who is penetrating and ardent in
the conduct of life, will probably exert a proportional force and ingenuity
in the exercise of his literary talents: and although writing may become a
trade, and require all the application and study which are bestowed on any
other calling; yet the principal requisites in this calling are, the spirit
and sensibility of a vigorous mind.
In one period, the school may take its light and direction from active
life; in another, it is true, the remains of an active spirit are greatly
supported by literary monuments, and by the history of transactions that
preserve the examples and the experience of former and of better times. But
in whatever manner men are formed for great efforts of elocution or
conduct, it appears the most glaring of all deceptions, to look for the
accomplishments of a human character in the mere attainments of
speculation, whilst we neglect the qualities of fortitude and public
affection, which are so necessary to render our knowledge an article of
happiness or of use.
PART FOURTH.
OF CONSEQUENCES THAT RESULT FROM THE ADVANCEMENT OF CIVIL AND COMMERCIAL
ARTS.
* * * * *
SECTION I.
OF THE SEPARATION OF ARTS AND PROFESSIONS.
It is evident, that, however urged by a sense of necessity, and a desire of
convenience, or favoured by any advantages of situation and policy, a
people can make no great progress in cultivating the arts of life, until
they have separated, and committed to different persons, the several tasks
which require a peculiar skill and attention. The savage, or the barbarian,
who must build and plant, and fabricate for himself, prefers, in the
interval of great alarms and fatigues, the enjoyments of sloth to the
improvement of his fortune: he is, perhaps, by the diversity of his wants,
discouraged from industry; or, by his divided attention, prevented from
acquiring skill in the management of any particular subject.
The enjoyment of peace, however, and the prospect of being able to exchange
one commodity for another, turns, by degrees, the hunter and the warrior
into a tradesman and a merchant. The accidents which distribute the means
of subsistence unequally, inclination, and favourable opportunities, assign
the different occupations of men; and a sense of utility leads them,
without end, to subdivide their professions.
The artist finds, that the more he can confine his attention to a
particular part of any work, his productions are the more perfect, and grow
under his hands in the greater quantities. Every undertaker in manufacture
finds, that the more he can subdivide the tasks of his workmen, and the
more hands he can employ on separate articles, the more are his expenses
diminished, and his profits increased. The consumer too requires, in every
kind of commodity, a workmanship more perfect than hands employed on a
variety of subjects can produce; and the progress of commerce is but a
continued subdivision of the mechanical arts.
Every craft may engross the whole of a man's attention, and has a mystery
which must be studied or learned by a regular apprenticeship. Nations of
tradesmen come to consist of members, who, beyond their own particular
trade, are ignorant of all human affairs, and who may contribute to the
preservation and enlargement of their commonwealth, without making its
interest an object of their regard or attention. Every individual is
distinguished by his calling, and has a place to which he is fitted. The
savage, who knows no distinction but that of his merit, of his sex, or of
his species, and to whom his community is the sovereign object of
affection, is astonished to find, that in a scene of this nature, his being
a man does not qualify him for any station whatever: he flies to the woods
with amazement, distaste, and aversion.
By the separation of arts and professions, the sources of wealth are laid
open; every species of material is wrought up to the greatest perfection,
and every commodity is produced in the greatest abundance. The state may
estimate its profits and its revenues by the number of its people. It may
procure, by its treasure, that national consideration and power, which the
savage maintains at the expense of his blood.
The advantage gained in the inferior branches of manufacture by the
separation of their parts, seem to be equalled by those which arise from a
similar device in the higher departments of policy and war. The soldier is
relieved from every care but that of his service; statesmen divide the
business of civil government into shares; and the servants of the public,
in every office, without being skilful in the affairs of state, may
succeed, by observing forms which are already established on the experience
of others. They are made, like the parts of an engine, to concur to a
purpose, without any concert of their own: and equally blind with the
trader to any general combination, they unite with him, in furnishing to
the state its resources, its conduct, and its force.
The artifices of the beaver, the ant, and the bee, are ascribed to the
wisdom of nature. Those of polished nations are ascribed to themselves, and
are supposed to indicate a capacity superior to that of rude minds. But the
establishments of men, like those of every animal, are suggested by nature,
and are the result of instinct, directed by the variety of situations in
which mankind are placed. Those establishments arose from successive
improvements that were made, without any sense of their general effect; and
they bring human affairs to a state of complication, which the greatest
reach of capacity with which human nature was ever adorned, could not have
projected; nor even when the whole is carried into execution, can it be
comprehended in its full extent.
Who could anticipate, or even enumerate, the separate occupations and
professions by which the members of any commercial state are distinguished;
the variety of devices which are practised in separate cells, and which the
artist, attentive to his own affair, has invented, to abridge or to
facilitate his separate task? In coming to this mighty end, every
generation, compared to its predecessors, may have appeared to be
ingenious; compared to its followers, may have appeared to be dull: and
human ingenuity, whatever heights it may have gained in a succession of
ages, continues to move with an equal pace, and to creep in making the
last, as well as the first, step of commercial or civil improvement.
It may even be doubted, whether the measure of national capacity increases
with the advancement of arts. Many mechanical arts, indeed, require no
capacity; they succeed best under a total suppression of sentiment and
reason; and ignorance is the mother of industry as well as of superstition.
Reflection and fancy are subject to err; but a habit of moving the hand, or
the foot, is independent of either. Manufactures, accordingly, prosper most
where the mind is least consulted, and where the workshop may, without any
great effort of imagination, be considered as an engine, the parts of which
are men.
The forest has been felled by the savage without the use of the axe, and
weights have been raised without the aid of the mechanical powers. The
merit of the inventor, in every branch, probably deserves a preference to
that of the performer; and he who invented a tool, or could work without
its assistance, deserved the praise of ingenuity in a much higher degree
than the mere artist, who, by its assistance, produces a superior work.
But if many parts in the practice of every art, and in the detail of every
department, require no abilities, or actually tend to contract and to limit
the views of the mind, there are others which lead to general reflections,
and to enlargement of thought. Even in manufacture, the genius of the
master, perhaps, is cultivated, while that of the inferior workman lies
waste. The statesman may have a wide comprehension of human affairs, while
the tools he employs are ignorant of the system in which they are
themselves combined. The general officer may be a great proficient in the
knowledge of war, while the skill of the soldier is confined to a few
motions of the hand and the foot. The former may have gained what the
latter has lost; and being occupied in the conduct of disciplined armies,
may practise on a larger scale all the arts of preservation, of deception,
and of stratagem, which the savage exerts in leading a small party, or
merely in defending himself.
The practitioner of every art and profession may afford matter of general
speculation to the man of science; and thinking itself, in this age of
separations, may become a peculiar craft. In the bustle of civil pursuits
and occupations, men appear in a variety of lights, and suggest matter of
inquiry and fancy, by which conversation is enlivened, and greatly
enlarged. The productions of ingenuity are brought to the market; and men
are willing to pay for whatever has a tendency to inform or amuse. By this
means the idle, as well as the busy, contribute to forward the progress of
arts, and bestow on polished nations that air of superior ingenuity, under
which they appear to have gained the ends that were pursued by the savage
in his forest, knowledge, order, and wealth.
SECTION II.
OF THE SUBORDINATION CONSEQUENT TO THE SEPARATION OF ARTS AND PROFESSIONS.
There is one ground of subordination in the difference of natural talents
and dispositions; a second in the unequal division of property; and a
third, not less sensible, in the habits which are acquired by the practice
of different arts.
Some employments are liberal, others mechanic. They require different
talents, and inspire different sentiments; and whether or not this be the
cause of the preference we actually give, it is certainly reasonable to
form our opinion of the rank that is due to men of certain professions and
stations, from the influence of their manner of life in cultivating the
powers of the mind, or in preserving the sentiments of the heart.
There is an elevation natural to man, by which he would be thought, in his
rudest state, however urged by necessity, to rise above the consideration
of mere subsistence, and the regards of interest: he would appear to act
only, from the heart, in its engagements of friendship or opposition; he
would shew himself only upon occasions of danger or difficulty, and leave
ordinary cares to the weak or the servile.
The same apprehensions, in every situation, regulate his notions of
meanness or of dignity. In that of polished society, his desire to avoid
the character of sordid, makes him conceal his regard for what relates
merely to his preservation or his livelihood. In his estimation, the
beggar, who depends upon charity; the labourer, who toils that he may eat;
the mechanic, whose art requires no exertion of genius, are degraded by the
object they pursue, and by the means they employ to attain it. Professions
requiring more knowledge and study; proceeding on the exercise of fancy,
and the love of perfection; leading to applause as well as to profit, place
the artist in a superior class, and bring him nearer to that station in
which men, because they are bound to no task, because they are left to
follow the disposition of the mind, and to take that part in society to
which they are led by the sentiments of the heart, or by the calls of the
public, are supposed to be highest.
This last was the station, which, in the distinction betwixt freemen and
slaves, the citizens of every ancient republic strove to gain, and to
maintain for themselves. Women, or slaves, in the earliest ages, had been
set apart for the purposes of domestic care, or bodily labour; and in the
progress of lucrative arts, the latter were bred to mechanical professions,
and were even intrusted with merchandise for the benefit of their masters.
Freemen would be understood to have no object beside those of politics and
war. In this manner, the honours of one half of the species were sacrificed
to those of the other; as stones from the same quarry are buried in the
foundation, to sustain the blocks which happen to be hewn for the superior
parts of the pile. In the midst of our encomiums bestowed on the Greeks and
the Romans, we are, by this circumstance, made to remember, that no human
institution is perfect.
In many of the Grecian states, the benefits arising to the free from this
cruel distinction, were not conferred equally on all the citizens. Wealth
being unequally divided, the rich alone were exempted from labour; the poor
were reduced to work for their own subsistence: interest was a reigning
passion in both, and the possession of slaves, like that of any other
lucrative property, became an object of avarice, not an exemption from
sordid attentions. The entire effects of the institution were obtained, or
continued to be enjoyed for any considerable time, at Sparta alone. We feel
its injustice; we suffer for the helot, under the severities and unequal
treatment to which he was exposed: but when we think only of the superior
order of men in this state; when we attend to that elevation and
magnanimity of spirit, for which danger had no terror, interest no means to
corrupt; when we consider them as friends, or as citizens, we are apt to
forget, like themselves, that slaves have a title to be treated like men.
We look for elevation of sentiment, and liberality of mind, among those
orders of citizens, who, by their condition, and their fortunes, are
relieved from sordid cares and attentions. This was the description of a
free man at Sparta; and if the lot of a slave among the ancients was really
more wretched than that of the indigent labourer and the mechanic among the
moderns, it may be doubted whether the superior orders, who are in
possession of consideration and honours, do not proportionally fail in the
dignity which befits their condition. If the pretensions to equal justice
and freedom should terminate in rendering every class equally servile and
mercenary, we make a nation of helots, and have no free citizens.
In every commercial state, notwithstanding any pretension to equal rights,
the exaltation of a few must depress the many. In this arrangement, we
think that the extreme meanness of some classes must arise chiefly from the
defect of knowledge, and of liberal education; and we refer to such
classes, as to an image of what our species must have been in its rude and
uncultivated state. But we forget how many circumstances, especially in
populous cities, tend to corrupt the lowest orders of men. Ignorance is the
least of their failings. An admiration of wealth unpossessed, becoming a
principle of envy, or of servility; a habit of acting perpetually with a
view to profit, and under a sense of subjection; the crimes to which they
are allured, in order to feed their debauch, or to gratify their avarice,
are examples, not of ignorance, but of corruption and baseness. If the
savage has not received our instructions, he is likewise unacquainted with
our vices. He knows no superior, and cannot be servile; he knows no
distinctions of fortune, and cannot be envious; he acts from his talents in
the highest station which human society can offer, that of the counsellor,
and the soldier of his country. Toward forming his sentiments, he knows all
that the heart requires to be known; he can distinguish the friend whom he
loves, and the public interest which awakens his zeal.
The principal objections, to democratical or popular government, are taken
from the inequalities which arise among men in the result of commercial
arts. And it must be confessed, that popular assemblies, when composed of
men whose dispositions are sordid, and whose ordinary applications are
illiberal, however they may be intrusted with the choice of their masters
and leaders, are certainly, in their own persons, unfit to command. How can
he who has confined his views to his own subsistence or preservation, be
intrusted with the conduct of nations? Such men, when admitted to
deliberate on matters of state, bring to its councils confusion and tumult,
or servility and corruption; and seldom suffer it to repose from ruinous
factions, or the effect of resolutions ill formed or ill conducted.
The Athenians retained their popular government under all these defects.
The mechanic was obliged, under a penalty, to appear in the public
market-place, and to hear debates on the subjects of war and of peace. He
was tempted by pecuniary rewards, to attend on the trial of civil and
criminal causes. But, notwithstanding an exercise tending so much to
cultivate their talents, the indigent came always with minds intent upon
profit, or with the habits of an illiberal calling. Sunk under the sense of
their personal disparity and weakness, they were ready to resign themselves
entirely to the influence of some popular leader, who flattered their
passions, and wrought on their fears; or, actuated by envy, they were ready
to banish from the state whomsoever was respectable and eminent in the
superior order of citizens; and whether from their neglect of the public at
one time, or their mal-administration at another, the sovereignty was every
moment ready to drop from their hands.
The people, in this case, are, in fact, frequently governed by one, or a
few, who know how to conduct them. Pericles possessed a species of princely
authority at Athens; Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar, either jointly or
successively, possessed for a considerable period the sovereign direction
at Rome.
Whether in great or in small states, democracy is preserved with
difficulty, under the disparities of condition, and the unequal cultivation
of the mind, which attend the variety of pursuits, and applications, that
separate mankind in the advanced state of commercial arts. In this,
however, we do but plead against the form of democracy, after the principle
is removed; and see the absurdity of pretensions to equal influence and
consideration, after the characters of men have ceased to be similar.
SECTION III.
OF THE MANNERS OF POLISHED AND COMMERCIAL NATIONS.
Mankind, when in their rude state, have a great uniformity of manners; but
when civilized, they are engaged in a variety of pursuits; they tread on a
larger field, and separate to a greater distance. If they be guided,
however, by similar dispositions, and by like suggestions of nature, they
will probably in the end, as well as in the beginning of their progress,
continue to agree in many particulars; and while communities admit, in
their members, that diversity of ranks and professions which we have
already described as the consequence or the foundation of commerce, they
will resemble each other in many effects of this distribution, and of other
circumstances in which they nearly concur.
Under every form of government, statesmen endeavour to remove the dangers
by which they are threatened from abroad, and the disturbances which molest
them at home. By this conduct, if successful, they in a few ages gain an
ascendant for their country; establish a frontier at a distance from its
capital; they find, in the mutual desires of tranquillity, which come to
possess mankind, and in those public establishments which tend to keep the
peace of society, a respite from foreign wars, and a relief from domestic
disorders. They learn to decide every contest without tumult, and to
secure, by the authority of law, every citizen in the possession of his
personal rights.
In this condition, to which thriving nations aspire, and which they in some
measure attain, mankind having laid the basis of safety, proceed to erect a
superstructure suitable to their views. The consequence is various in
different states; even in different orders of men of the same community;
and the effect to every individual corresponds with his station. It enables
the statesman and the soldier to settle the forms of their different
procedure; it enables the practitioner in every profession to pursue his
separate advantage; it affords the man of pleasure a time for refinement,
and the speculative, leisure for literary conversation or study.
In this scene, matters that have little reference to the active pursuits of
mankind, are made subjects of inquiry, and the exercise of sentiment and
reason itself becomes a profession. The songs of the bard, the harangues of
the statesman and the warrior, the tradition and the story of ancient
times, are considered as the models, or the earliest production, of so many
arts, which it becomes the object of different professions to copy or to
improve. The works of fancy, like the subjects of natural history, are
distinguished into classes and species; the rules of every particular kind
are distinctly collected; and the library is stored, like the warehouse,
with the finished manufacture of different artists, who, with the aids of
the grammarian and the critic, aspire, each in his particular way, to
instruct the head, or to move the heart.
Every nation is a motley assemblage of different characters, and contains,
under any political form, some examples of that variety, which the humours,
tempers, and apprehensions of men, so differently employed, are likely to
furnish. Every profession has its point of honour, and its system of
manners; the merchant his punctuality and fair dealing; the statesman his
capacity and address; the man of society his good breeding and wit. Every
station has a carriage, a dress, a ceremonial, by which it is
distinguished, and by which it suppresses the national character under that
of the rank, or of the individual.
This description may be applied equally to Athens and Rome, to London and
Paris. The rude, or the simple observer, would remark the variety he saw in
the dwellings and in the occupations, of different men, not in the aspect
of different nations. He would find, in the streets of the same city, as
great a diversity, as in the territory of a separate people. He could not
pierce through the cloud that was gathered before him, nor see how the
tradesman, mechanic, or scholar, of one country, should differ from those
of another. But the native of every province can distinguish the foreigner;
and when he himself travels, is struck with the aspect of a strange
country, the moment he passes the bounds of his own. The air of the person,
the tone of the voice, the idiom of language, and the strain of
conversation, whether pathetic or languid, gay or severe, are no longer the
same.
Many such differences may arise among polished nations, from the effects of
climate, or from sources of fashion, that are still more hidden or
unobserved; but the principal distinctions on which we can rest, are
derived from the part a people are obliged to act in their national
capacity; from the objects placed in their view by the state; or from the
constitution of government, which, prescribing the terms of society to its
subjects, had a great influence in forming their apprehensions and habits.
The Roman people, destined to acquire wealth by conquest, and by the spoil
of provinces; the Carthaginians, intent on the returns of merchandise, and
the produce of commercial settlements, must have filled the streets of
their several capitals with men of a different disposition and aspect. The
Roman laid hold of his sword when he wished to be great, and the state
found her armies prepared in the dwellings of her people. The Carthaginian
retired to his counter on a similar project; and, when the state was
alarmed, or had resolved on a war, lent of his profits to purchase an army
abroad.
The member of a republic, and the subject of a monarchy, must differ;
because they have different parts assigned to them by the forms of their
country: the one destined to live with his equals, or to contend, by his
personal talents and character, for pre-eminence; the other, born to a
determinate station, where any pretence to equality creates a confusion,
and where nought but precedence is studied. Each, when the institutions of
his country are mature, may find in the laws a protection to his personal
rights; but those rights themselves are differently understood, and with a
different set of opinions, give rise to a different temper of mind. The
republican must act in the state, to sustain his pretensions; he must join
a party, in order to be safe; he must lead one, in order to be great. The
subject of monarchy refers to his birth for the honour he claims; he waits
on a court, to shew his importance; and holds out the ensigns of dependence
and favour, to gain him esteem with the public.
If national institutions, calculated for the preservation of liberty,
instead of calling upon the citizen to act for himself, and to maintain his
rights, should give a security, requiring, on his part, no personal
attention or effort; this seeming perfection of government might weaken the
bands of society, and, upon maxims of independence, separate and estrange
the different ranks it was meant to reconcile. Neither the parties formed
in republics, nor the courtly assemblies, which meet in monarchical
governments, could take place, where the sense of a mutual dependence
should cease to summon their members together. The resorts for commerce
might be frequented, and mere amusement might be pursued in the crowd,
while the private dwelling became a retreat for reserve, averse to the
trouble arising from regards and attentions, which it might be part of the
political creed to believe of no consequence, and a point of honour to hold
in contempt.
This humour is not likely to grow either in republics or monarchies: it
belongs more properly to a mixture of both; where the administration of
justice may be better secured; where the subject is tempted to look for
equality, but where he finds only independence in its place; and where he
learns, from a spirit of equality, to hate the very distinctions to which,
on account of their real importance, he pays a remarkable deference.
In either of the separate forms of republic or monarchy, or in acting on
the principles of either, men are obliged to court their fellow citizens,
and to employ parts and address to improve their fortunes, or even to be
safe. They find in both a school for discernment and penetration; but in
the one, are taught to overlook the merits of a private character for the
sake of abilities that have weight with the public; and in the other to
overlook great and respectable talents, for the sake of qualities engaging
or pleasant in the scene of entertainment and private society. They are
obliged, in both, to adapt themselves with care to the fashion and manners
of their country. They find no place for caprice or singular humours. The
republican must be popular, and the courtier polite. The first must think
himself well placed in every company; the other must choose his resorts,
and desire to be distinguished only where the society itself is esteemed.
With his inferiors, he takes an air of protection; and suffers, in his
turn, the same air to be taken with himself. It did not, perhaps, require
in a Spartan, who feared nothing but a failure in his duty, who loved
nothing but his friend and the state, so constant a guard on himself to
support his character, as it frequently does in the subject of a monarchy,
to adjust his expense and his fortune to the desires of his vanity, and to
appear in a rank as high as his birth, or ambition, can possibly reach.
There is no particular, in the mean time, in which we are more frequently
unjust, than in applying to the individual the supposed character of his
country; or more frequently misled; than in taking our notion of a people
from the example of one, or a few of their members. It belonged to the
constitution of Athens, to have produced a Cleon, and a Pericles; but all
the Athenians were not, therefore, like Cleon, or Pericles. Themistocles
and Aristides lived in the same age; the one advised what was profitable,
the other told his country what was just.
SECTION IV.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
The law of nature, with respect to nations, is the same that it is with
respect to individuals: it gives to the collective body a right to preserve
themselves; to employ undisturbed the means of life; to retain the fruits
of labour; to demand the observance of stipulations and contracts. In the
case of violence, it condemns the aggressor, and establishes, on the part
of the injured, the right of defence, and a claim to retribution. Its
applications, however, admit of disputes, and give rise to variety in the
apprehension, as well as the practice of mankind.
Nations have agreed universally, in distinguishing right from wrong; in
exacting the reparation of injuries by consent or by force. They have
always reposed, in a certain degree, on the faith of treaties; but have
acted as if force were the ultimate arbiter in all their disputes, and the
power to defend themselves, the surest pledge of their safety. Guided by
these common apprehensions, they have differed from one another, not merely
in points of form, but in points of the greatest importance, respecting the
usage of war, the effects of captivity, and the rights of conquest and
victory.
When a number of independent communities have been frequently involved in
wars, and have had their stated alliances and oppositions, they adopt
customs which they make the foundation of rules, or of laws, to be
observed, or alleged, in all their mutual transactions. Even in war itself,
they would follow a system, and plead for the observance of forms in their
very operations for mutual destruction.
The ancient states of Greece and Italy derived their manners in war from
the nature of their republican government; those of modern Europe, from the
influence of monarchy, which, by its prevalence in this part of the world,
has a great effect on nations, even where it is not the form established.
Upon the maxims of this government, we apprehend a distinction between the
state and its members, as that between the king and the people, which
renders war an operation of policy, not of popular animosity. While we
strike at the public interest, we would spare the private; and we carry a
respect and consideration for individuals, which often stops the issues of
blood in the ardour of victory, and procures to the prisoner of war a
hospitable reception in the very city which he came to destroy. These
practices are so well established, that scarcely any provocation on the
part of an enemy, or any exigence of service, can excuse a trespass on the
supposed rules of humanity, or save the leader who commits it from becoming
an object of detestation and horror.
To this, the general practice of the Greeks and the Romans was opposite.
They endeavoured to wound the state by destroying its members, by
desolating its territory, and by ruining the possessions of its subjects.
They granted quarter only to enslave, or to bring the prisoner to a more
solemn execution; and an enemy, when disarmed, was, for the most part,
either sold in the market or killed, that he might never return to
strengthen his party. When this was the issue of war, it was no wonder that
battles were fought with desperation, and that every fortress was defended
to the last extremity. The game of human life went upon a high stake, and
was played with a proportional zeal.
The term _barbarian_, in this state of manners, could not be employed
by the Greeks or the Romans in that sense in which we use it: to
characterize, a people regardless of commercial arts; profuse of their own
lives, and those of others; vehement in their attachment to one society,
and implacable in their antipathy to another. This, in a great and shining
part of their history, was their own character, as well as that of some
other nations, whom, upon this very account, we distinguish by the
appellations of _barbarous_ or _rude._
It has been observed, that those celebrated nations are indebted, for a
great part of their estimation, not to the matter of their history, but to
the manner in which it has been delivered, and to the capacity of their
historians, and other writers. Their story has been told by men who knew
how to draw our attention on the proceedings of the understanding and of
the heart, more than on external effects; and who could exhibit characters
to be admired and loved, in the midst of actions which we should now
universally hate or condemn. Like Homer, the model of Grecian literature,
they could make us forget the horrors of a vindictive, cruel, and
remorseless treatment of an enemy, in behalf of the strenuous conduct, the
courage, and vehement affections, with which the hero maintained the cause
of his friend and of his country.
Our manners are so different, and the system upon which we regulate our
apprehensions, in many things so opposite, that no less could make us
endure the practice of ancient nations. Were that practice recorded by the
mere journalist, who retains only the detail of events, without throwing
any light on the character of the actors; who, like the Tartar historian,
tells us only what blood was spilt in the field, and how many inhabitants
were massacred in the city; we should never have distinguished the Greeks
from their barbarous neighbours, nor have thought, that the character of
civility pertained even to the Romans, till very late in their history, and
in the decline of their empire.
It would, no doubt, be pleasant to see the remarks of such a traveller as
we sometimes send abroad to inspect the manners of mankind, left,
unassisted by history, to collect the character of the Greeks from the
state of their country, or from their practice in war. "This country," he
might say, "compared to ours, has an air of barrenness and desolation. I
saw upon the road troops of labourers, who were employed in the fields; but
no where the habitations of the master and the landlord. It was unsafe, I
was told, to reside in the country; and the people of every district
crowded into towns to find a place of defence. It is, indeed, impossible,
that they can be more civilized, till they have established some regular
government, and have courts of justice to hear their complaints. At present
every town, nay, I may say, every village, acts for itself, and the
greatest disorders prevail. I was not indeed molested; for you must know,
that they call themselves nations, and do all their mischief under the
pretence of war.
"I do not mean to take any of the liberties of travellers, nor to vie with
the celebrated author of the voyage to Lilliput; but cannot help
endeavouring to communicate what I felt on hearing them speak of their
territory, their armies, their revenues, treaties, and alliances. Only
imagine the church-wardens and constables of Highgate or Hampstead turned
statesmen and generals, and you will have a tolerable conception of this
singular country. I passed through one state, where the best house in the
capital would not lodge the meanest of your labourers, and where your very
beggars would not choose to dine with the king; and yet they are thought a
great nation, and have no less than two kings. I saw one of them; but such
a potentate! He had scarcely clothes to his back; and for his majesty's
table, he was obliged to go to the eating-house with his subjects. They
have not a single farthing of money; and I was obliged to get food at the
public expense, there being none to be had in the market. You will imagine,
that there must have been a service of plate, and great attendance, to wait
on the illustrious stranger; but my fare was a mess of sorry pottage,
brought me by a naked slave, who left me to deal with it as I thought
proper: and even this I was in continual danger of having stolen from me by
the children; who are as vigilant to seize opportunities, and as dexterous
in snatching their food, as any starved greyhound you ever saw. The misery
of the whole people, in short, as well as my own, while I staid there, was
beyond description. You would think that their whole attention were to
torment themselves as much as they can: they are even displeased with one
of their kings for being well liked. He had made a present, while I was
there, of a cow to one favourite, and of a waistcoat to another; [Footnote:
Plutarch in the life of Agesilaus,] and it was publicly said, that this
method of gaining friends was robbing the public. My landlord told me very
gravely, that a man should come under no obligation that might weaken the
love which he owes to his country; nor form any personal attachment beyond
the mere habit of living with his friend, and of doing him a kindness when
he can.
"I asked him once, why they did not, for their own sakes, enable their
kings to assume a little more state? Because, says he, we intend them the
happiness of living with men. When I found fault with their houses, and
said, in particular, that I was surprised they did not build better
churches: What would you be then, says he, if you found religion in stone
walls? This will suffice for a sample of our conversation; and sententious
as it was, you may believe I did not stay long to profit by it.
"The people of this place are not quite so stupid. There is a pretty large
square of a market-place, and some tolerable buildings; and, I am told,
they have some barks and lighters employed in trade, which they likewise,
upon occasion, muster into a fleet, like my lord mayor's show. But what
pleases me most is, that I am likely to get a passage from hence, and bid
farewell to this wretched country. I have been at some pains to observe
their ceremonies of religion, and to pick up curiosities. I have copied
some inscriptions, as you will see when you come to peruse my journal, and
will then judge, whether I have met with enough to compensate the fatigues
and bad entertainment to which I have submitted. As for the people, you
will believe, from the specimen I have given you, that they could not be
very engaging company: though poor and dirty, they still pretend to be
proud; and a fellow who is not worth a groat, is above working for his
livelihood. They come abroad barefooted, and without any cover to the head,
wrapt up in the coverlets under which you would imagine they had slept.
They throw all off, and appear like so many naked cannibals, when they go
to violent sports and exercises; at which they highly value feats of
dexterity and strength. Brawny limbs, and muscular arms, the faculty of
sleeping out all nights, of fasting long, and of putting up with any kind
of food, are thought genteel accomplishments. They have no settled
government that I could learn; sometimes the mob, and sometimes the better
sort, do what they please: they meet in great crowds in the open air, and
seldom agree in any thing. If a fellow has presumption enough, and a loud
voice, he can make a great figure. There was a tanner here, some time ago,
who, for a while, carried every thing before him. He censured so loudly
what others had done, and talked so big of what might be performed, that he
was sent out at last to make good his words, and to curry the enemy instead
of his leather. [Footnote: Thucydides, lib. 4. Aristophanes] You will
imagine, perhaps, that he was pressed for a recruit; no; he was sent to
command the army. They are indeed seldom long of one mind, except in their
readiness to harass their neighbours. They go out in bodies, and rob,
pillage, and murder wherever they come." So far may we suppose our
traveller to have written; and upon a recollection of the reputation which
those nations have acquired at a distance, he might have added, perhaps,
"That he could not understand how scholars, fine gentlemen, and even women,
should combine to admire a people, who so little resemble themselves."
To form a judgment of the character from which they acted in the field, and
in their competitions with neighbouring nations, we must observe them at
home. They were bold and fearless in their civil dissentions; ready to
proceed to extremities, and to carry their debates to the decision of
force. Individuals stood distinguished by their personal spirit and vigour,
not by the valuation of their estates, or the rank of their birth. They had
a personal elevation founded on the sense of equality, not of precedence.
The general of one campaign was, during the next, a private soldier, and
served in the ranks. They were solicitous to acquire bodily strength;
because, in the use of their weapons, battles were a trial of the soldier's
strength, as well as of the leader's conduct. The remains of their statuary
shows a manly grace, an air of simplicity and ease, which being frequent in
nature, were familiar to the artist. The mind, perhaps, borrowed a
confidence and force, from the vigour and address of the body; their
eloquence and style bore a resemblance to the carriage of the person. The
understanding was chiefly cultivated in the practice of affairs. The most
respectable personages were obliged to mix with the crowd, and derived
their degree of ascendancy only from their conduct, their eloquence, and
personal vigour. They had no forms of expression, to mark a ceremonious and
guarded respect. Invective proceeded to railing, and the grossest terms
were often employed by the most admired and accomplished orators.
Quarrelling had no rules but the immediate dictates of passion, which ended
in words of reproach, in violence and blows. They fortunately went always
unarmed; and to wear a sword in times of peace, was among them the mark of
a barbarian. When they took arms in the divisions of faction, the
prevailing party supported itself by expelling their opponents, by
proscriptions, and bloodshed. The usurper endeavoured to maintain his
station by the most violent and prompt executions. He was opposed, in his
turn, by conspiracies and assassinations, in which the most respectable
citizens were ready to use the dagger.
Such was the character of their spirit, in its occasional ferments at home;
and it burst commonly with a suitable violence and force, against their
foreign rivals and enemies. The amiable plea of humanity was little
regarded by them in the operations of war. Cities were razed, or enslaved;
the captive sold, mutilated, or condemned to die.
When viewed on this side, the ancient nations have but a sorry plea for
esteem with the inhabitants of modern Europe, who profess to carry the
civilities of peace into the practice of war; and who value the praise of
indiscriminate lenity at a higher rate than even that of military prowess,
or the love of their country. And yet they have, in other respects, merited
and obtained our praise. Their ardent attachment to their country; their
contempt of suffering, and of death, in its cause; their manly
apprehensions of personal independence, which rendered every individual,
even under tottering establishments and imperfect laws, the guardian of
freedom to his fellow citizens; their activity of mind; in short, their
penetration, the ability of their conduct, and force of their spirit, have
gained them the first rank among nations.
If their animosities were great, their affections were proportionate; they,
perhaps, loved, where we only pity; and were stern and inexorable, where we
are not merciful, but only irresolute. After all, the merit of a man is
determined by his candour and generosity to his associates, by his zeal for
national objects, and by his vigour in maintaining political rights; not by
moderation alone, which proceeds frequently from indifference to national
and public interest, and which serves to relax the nerves on which the
force of a private, as well as a public, character depends.