It is certain, that we must either, together with the commercial arts,

suffer their fruits to be enjoyed, and even in some measure admired; or,

like the Spartans, prohibit the art itself, while we are afraid of its

consequences, or while we think that the conveniencies it brings exceed

what nature requires. But we may propose to stop the advancement of arts at

any stage of their progress, and still incur the censure of luxury from

those who are not advanced so far. The housebuilder and the carpenter at

Sparta were limited to the use of the axe and the saw; but a Spartan

cottage might have passed for a palace in Thrace: and if the dispute were

to turn on the knowledge of what is physically necessary to the

preservation of human life, as the standard of what is morally lawful, the

faculties of physic, as well as of morality, would probably divide on the

subject, and leave every individual, as at present, to find some rule for

himself. The casuist, for the most part, considers the practice of his own

age and condition as a standard for mankind. If in one age or condition he

condemn the use of a coach, in another he would have no less censured the

wearing of shoes; and the very person who exclaims against the first, would

probably not have spared the second, if it had not been already familiar in

ages before his own. A censor born in a cottage, and accustomed to sleep

upon straw, does not propose that men should return to the woods and the

caves for shelter; he admits the reasonableness and the utility of what is

already familiar; and apprehends an excess and corruption, only in the

newest refinement of the rising generation.

The clergy of Europe have preached successively against every new fashion,

and every innovation in dress. The modes of youth are a subject of censure

to the old; and modes of the last age, in their turn, a matter of ridicule

to the flippant, and the young. Of this there is not always a better

account to be given, than that the old are disposed to be severe, and the

young to be merry.

The argument against many of the conveniencies of life, drawn from the mere

consideration of their not being necessary, was equally proper in the mouth

of the savage, who dissuaded from the first applications of industry, as it

is in that of the moralist, who insists on the vanity of the last. "Our

ancestors," he might say, "found their dwelling under this rock; they

gathered their food in the forest; they allayed their thirst from the

fountain; and they were clothed in the spoils of the beast they had slain.

Why should we indulge a false delicacy, or require from the earth fruits

which she is not accustomed to yield? The bow of our father is already too

strong for our arms; and the wild beast begins to lord it in the woods."

Thus the moralist may have found, in the proceedings of every age, those

topics of blame, from which he is so much disposed to arraign the manners

of his own; and our embarrassment on the subject is, perhaps, but a part of

that general perplexity which we undergo, in trying to define moral

characters by external circumstances, which may, or may not, be attended

with faults in the mind and the heart. One man finds a vice in the wearing

of linen; another does not, unless the fabric be fine: and if, meantime, it

be true, that a person may be dressed in manufacture either coarse or fine;

that he may sleep in the fields, or lodge in a palace; tread upon carpet,

or plant his foot on the ground; while the mind either retains, or has lost

its penetration, and its vigour, and the heart its affection to mankind, it

is vain, under any such circumstance, to seek for the distinctions of

virtue and vice, or to tax the polished citizen with weakness for any part

of his equipage, or for his wearing a fur, in which, perhaps, some savage

was dressed before him. Vanity is not distinguished by any peculiar species

of dress. It is betrayed by the Indian in the fantastic assortments of his

plumes, his shells, his party coloured furs, and in the time he bestows at

the glass and the toilet. Its projects in the woods and in the town are

the same: in the one, it seeks, with the visage bedaubed, and with teeth

artificially stained, for that admiration, which it courts in the other

with a gilded equipage, and liveries of state.

Polished nations, in their progress, often come to surpass the rude in

moderation, and severity of manners. "The Greeks," says Thucydides, "not

long ago, like barbarians, wore golden spangles in the hair, and went armed

in times of peace." Simplicity of dress in this people, became a mark of

politeness: and the mere materials with which the body is nourished or

clothed, are probably of little consequence to any people. We must look for

the characters of men in the qualities of the mind, not in the species of

their food, or in the mode of their apparel. What are now the ornaments of

the grave and severe; what is owned to be a real conveniency, were once the

fopperies of youth, or were devised to please the effeminate. The new

fashion, indeed, is often the mark of the coxcomb; but we frequently change

our fashions without multiplying coxcombs, or increasing the measures of

our vanity and folly.

Are the apprehensions of the severe, therefore, in every age, equally

groundless and unreasonable? Are we never to dread any error in the article

of a refinement bestowed on the means of subsistence, or the conveniencies

of life? The fact is, that men are perpetually exposed to the commission of

error in this article, not merely where they are accustomed to high

measures of accommodation, or to any particular species of food, but

wherever these objects, in general, may come to be preferred to their

character, to their country, or to mankind; they actually commit such

error, wherever they admire paltry distinctions or frivolous advantages;

wherever they shrink from small inconveniencies, and are incapable of

discharging their duty with vigour. The use of morality on this subject, is

not to limit men to any particular species of lodging, diet, or clothes;

but to prevent their considering these conveniencies as the principal

objects of human life. And if we are asked, where the pursuit of trifling

accommodations should stop, in order that a man may devote himself entirely

to the higher engagements of life? we may answer, that it should stop where

it is. This was the rule followed at Sparta: the object of the rule was, to

preserve the heart entire for the public, and to occupy men in cultivating

their own nature, not in accumulating wealth, and external conveniencies.

It was not expected otherwise, that the axe or the saw should be attended

with greater political advantage, than the plane and the chisel. When Cato

walked the streets of Rome without his robe, and without shoes, he did so,

most probably, in contempt of what his countrymen were so prone to admire;

not in hopes of finding a virtue in one species of dress, or a vice in

another.

Luxury, therefore, considered as a predilection in favour of the objects of

vanity, and the costly materials of pleasure, is ruinous to the human

character; considered as the mere use of accommodations and conveniencies

which the age has procured, rather depends on the progress which the

mechanical arts have made, and on the degree in which the fortunes of men

are unequally parcelled, than on the dispositions of particular men either

to vice or to virtue.

Different measures of luxury are, however, variously suited to different

constitutions of government. The advancement of arts supposes an unequal

distribution of fortune; and the means of distinction they bring, serve to

render the separation of ranks more sensible. Luxury is, upon this account,

apart from all its moral effects, adverse to the form of democratical

government; and, in any state of society, can be safely admitted in that

degree only in which the members of a community are supposed of unequal

rank, and constitute public order by the relations of superior and vassal.

High degrees of it appear salutary, and even necessary, in monarchical and

mixed governments; where, besides the encouragement to arts and commerce,

it serves to give lustre to those hereditary or constitutional dignities

which have a place of importance in the political system. Whether even here

luxury leads to abuse peculiar to ages of high refinement and opulence, we

shall proceed to consider in the following sections.

SECTION III.

OF THE CORRUPTION INCIDENT TO POLISHED NATIONS.

Luxury and corruption are frequently coupled together, and even pass for

synonymous terms. But, in order to avoid any dispute about words, by the

first we may understand that accumulation of wealth, and that refinement on

the ways of enjoying it, which are the objects of industry, or the fruits

of mechanic and commercial arts: and by the second a real weakness, or

depravity of the human character, which may accompany any state of those

arts, and be found under any external circumstances or condition

whatsoever. It remains to inquire, what are the corruptions incident to

polished nations, arrived at certain measures of luxury, and possessed of

certain advantages, in which they are generally supposed to excel?

We need not have recourse to a parallel between the manners of entire

nations, in the extremes of civilization and rudeness, in order to be

satisfied, that the vices of men are not proportioned to their fortunes; or

that the habits of avarice, or of sensuality, are not founded on any

certain measures of wealth, or determinate kind of enjoyment. Where the

situations of particular men are varied as much by their personal stations,

as they can be by the state of national refinements, the same passions for

interest, or pleasure, prevail in every condition. They arise from

temperament, or an acquired admiration of property; not from any particular

manner of life in which the parties are engaged, nor from any particular

species of property which may have occupied their cares and their wishes.

Temperance and moderation are, at least, as frequent among those whom we

call the superior, as they are among the lower classes of men; and however

we may affix the character of sobriety to mere cheapness of diet, and other

accommodations with which any particular age, or rank of men, appear to be

contented, it is well known, that costly materials are not necessary to

constitute a debauch, nor profligacy less frequent under the thatched roof,

than under the lofty ceiling. Men grow equally familiar with different

conditions, receive equal pleasure, and are equally allured to sensuality

in the palace and in the cave. Their acquiring in either, habits of

intemperance or sloth, depends on the remission of other pursuits, and on

the distaste of the mind to other engagements. If the affections of the

heart be awake, and the passions of love, admiration, or anger, be kindled,

the costly furniture of the palace, as well as the homely accommodations of

the cottage, are neglected: and men, when roused, reject their repose; or,

when fatigued, embrace it alike on the silken bed, or on the couch of

straw.

We are not, however, from hence to conclude, that luxury, with all its

concomitant circumstances, which either serve to favour its increase, or

which, in the arrangements of civil society, follow it as consequences, can

have no effect to the disadvantage of national manners. If that respite

from public dangers and troubles which gives a leisure for the practice of

commercial arts, be continued, or increased, into a disuse of national

efforts; if the individual, not called to unite with his country, be left

to pursue his private advantage; we may find him become effeminate,

mercenary, and sensual; not because pleasures and profits are become more

alluring, but because he has fewer calls to attend to other objects; and

because he has more encouragement to study his personal advantages, and

pursue his separate interests.

If the disparities of rank and fortune, which are necessary to the pursuit

or enjoyment of luxury, introduce false grounds of precedency and

estimation; if, on the mere considerations of being rich or poor, one order

of men are, in their own apprehension, elevated, another debased; if one be

criminally proud, another meanly dejected; and every rank in its place,

like the tyrant, who thinks that nations are made for himself, be disposed

to assume on the rights of mankind: although, upon the comparison, the

higher order may be least corrupted; or from education, and a sense of

personal dignity, have most good qualities remaining; yet the one becoming

mercenary and servile; the other imperious and arrogant; both regardless of

justice and of merit; the whole mass is corrupted, and the manners of a

society changed for the worse, in proportion as its members cease to act on

principles of equality, independence, or freedom.

Upon this view, and considering the merits of men in the abstract, a mere

change from the habits of a republic to those of a monarchy; from the love

of equality, to the sense of a subordination founded on birth, titles, and

fortune, is a species of corruption to mankind. But this degree of

corruption is still consistent with the safety and prosperity of some

nations; it admits of a vigorous courage, by which the rights of

individuals, and of kingdoms, may be long preserved.

Under the form of monarchy, while yet in its vigour, superior fortune is,

indeed, one mark by which the different orders of men are distinguished;

but there are some other ingredients, without which wealth is not admitted

as a foundation of precedency, and in favour of which it is often despised,

and lavished away. Such are birth and titles, the reputation of courage,

courtly manners, and a certain elevation of mind. If we suppose that these

distinctions are forgotten, and nobility itself only to be known by the

sumptuous retinue which money alone may procure; and by a lavish expense,

which the more recent fortunes can generally best sustain; luxury must then

be allowed to corrupt the monarchical as much as the republican state, and

to introduce a fatal dissolution of manners, under which men of every

condition, although they are eager to acquire, or to display their wealth,

have no remains of real ambition. They have neither the elevation of

nobles, nor the fidelity of subjects; they have changed into effeminate

vanity, that sense of honour which gave rules to the personal courage; and

into a servile baseness that loyalty, which bound each in his place to his

immediate superior, and the whole to the throne.

Nations are most exposed to corruption from this quarter, when the

mechanical arts, being greatly advanced, furnish numberless articles to be

applied in ornament to the person, in furniture, entertainment, or

equipage; when such articles as the rich alone can procure are admired; and

when consideration, precedence, and rank, are accordingly made to depend on

fortune.

In a more rude state of the arts, although wealth be unequally divided, the

opulent can amass only the simple means of subsistence: they can only fill

the granary, and furnish the stall; reap from more extended fields, and

drive their herds over a larger pasture. To enjoy their magnificence, they

must live in a crowd; and to secure their possessions, they must be

surrounded with friends that espouse their quarrels. Their honours, as well

as their safety, consist in the numbers who attend them; and their personal

distinctions are taken from their liberality, and supposed elevation of

mind. In this manner, the possession of riches serves only to make the

owner assume a character of magnanimity, to become the guardian of numbers,

or the public object of respect and affection. But when the bulky

constituents of wealth, and of rustic magnificence, can be exchanged for

refinements; and when the produce of the soil may be turned into equipage,

and mere decoration; when the combination of many is no longer required for

personal safety; the master may become the sole consumer of his own estate:

he may refer the use of every subject to himself; he may employ the

materials of generosity to feed a personal vanity, or to indulge a sickly

and effeminate fancy, which has learned to enumerate the trappings of

weakness or folly among the necessaries of life.

The Persian satrape, we are told, when he saw the king of Sparta at the

place of their conference stretched on the grass with his soldiers, blushed

at the provision he made for the accommodation of his own person; he

ordered the furs and the carpets to be withdrawn; he felt his own

inferiority; and recollected, that he was to treat with a man, not to vie

with a pageant in costly attire and magnificence.

When, amid circumstances that make no trial of the virtues or talents of

men, we have been accustomed to the air of superiority which people of

fortune derive from their retinue, we are apt to lose every sense of

distinction arising from merit, or even from abilities. We rate our fellow

citizens by the figure they are able to make; by their buildings, their

dress, their equipage, and the train of their followers. All these

circumstances make a part in our estimate of what is excellent; and if the

master himself is known to be a pageant in the midst of his fortune, we

nevertheless pay our court to his station, and look up with an envious,

servile, or dejected mind, to what is, in itself, scarcely fit to amuse

children; though, when it is worn as a badge of distinction, it inflames

the ambition of those we call the great, and strikes the multitude with awe

and respect.

We judge of entire nations by the productions of a few mechanical arts, and

think we are talking of men, while we are boasting of their estates, their

dress, and their palaces. The sense in which we apply the terms,

_great_, and _noble, high rank_, and _high life_, show that we have,

on such occasions, transferred the idea of perfection from the character

to the equipage; and that excellence itself is, in our esteem, a

mere pageant, adorned at a great expense by the labours of many workmen.

To those who overlook the subtile transitions of the imagination, it might

appear, since wealth can do no more than furnish the means of subsistence,

and purchase animal pleasures, that covetousness, and venality itself,

should keep pace with our fears of want, or with our appetite for sensual

enjoyments; and that where the appetite is satiated, and the fear of want

is removed, the mind should be at ease on the subject of fortune. But they

are not the mere pleasures that riches procure, nor the choice of viands

which cover the board of the wealthy, that inflame the passions of the

covetous and the mercenary. Nature is easily satisfied in all her

enjoyments. It is an opinion of eminence, connected with fortune; it is a

sense of debasement attending on poverty, which renders us blind to every

advantage, but that of the rich; and insensible to every disgrace, but that

of the poor. It is this unhappy apprehension, that occasionally prepares us

for the desertion of every duty, for a submission to every indignity, and

for the commission of every crime that can be accomplished in safety.

Aurengzebe was not more renowned for sobriety in his private station, and

in the conduct of a supposed dissimulation, by which he aspired to

sovereign power, than he continued to be, even on the throne of Indostan.

Simple, abstinent, and severe in his diet, and other pleasures, he still

led the life of a hermit, and occupied his time with a seemingly painful

application to the affairs of a great empire. [Footnote: Gemelli Careri.]

He quitted a station in which, if pleasure had been his object, he might

have indulged his sensuality without reserve; he made his way to a scene of

disquietude and care; he aimed at the summit of human greatness, in the

possession of imperial fortune, not at the gratifications of animal

appetite, or the enjoyment of ease. Superior to sensual pleasure, as well

as to the feelings of nature, he dethroned his father, and he murdered his

brothers, that he might roll on a carriage incrusted with diamond and

pearl; that his elephants, his camels, and his horses, on the march, might

form a line extending many leagues; might present a glittering harness to

the sun; and loaded with treasure, usher to the view of an abject and

admiring crowd that awful majesty, in whose presence they were to strike

the forehead on the ground, and be overwhelmed with the sense of his

greatness, and with that of their own debasement.

As these are the objects which prompt the desire of dominion, and excite

the ambitious to aim at the mastery of their fellow creatures; so they

inspire the ordinary race of men with a sense of infirmity and meanness,

that prepares them to suffer indignities, and to become the property of

persons, whom they consider as of a rank and a nature so much superior to

their own. The chains of perpetual slavery, accordingly, appear to be

riveted in the east, no less by the pageantry which is made to accompany

the possession of power, than they are by the fears of the sword, and the

terrors of a military execution. In the west, as well as the east, we are

willing to bow to the splendid equipage, and stand at an awful distance

from the pomp of a princely estate. We too may be terrified by the frowns,

or won by the smiles, of those whose favour is riches and honour, and whose

displeasure is poverty and neglect. We too may overlook the honours of the

human soul, from an admiration of the pageantries that accompany fortune.

The procession of elephants harnessed with gold might dazzle into slaves,

the people who derive corruption and weakness from the effect of their own

arts and contrivances, as well as those who inherit servility from their

ancestors, and are enfeebled by their natural temperament, and the

enervating charms of their soil and their climate.

It appears, therefore, that although the mere use of materials which

constitute luxury, may be distinguished from actual vice; yet nations under

a high state of the commercial arts, are exposed to corruption, by their

admitting wealth, unsupported by personal elevation and virtue, as the

great foundation of distinction, and by having their attention turned on

the side of interest, as the road to consideration and honour.

With this effect, luxury may serve to corrupt democratical states, by

introducing a species of monarchical subordination, without that sense of

high birth and hereditary honours which render the boundaries of rank fixed

and determinate, and which teach men to act in their stations with force

and propriety. It may prove the occasion of political corruption, even in

monarchical governments, by drawing respect towards mere wealth; by casting

a shade on the lustre of personal qualities, or family distinctions; and by

infecting all orders of men, with equal venality, servility, and cowardice.

SECTION IV.

The Same Subject Continued.

The increasing regard with which men appear, in the progress of commercial

arts, to study their profit, or the delicacy with which they refine on

their pleasures; even industry itself, or the habit of application to a

tedious employment, in which no honours are won, may, perhaps, be

considered as indications of a growing attention to interest, or of

effeminacy, contracted in the enjoyment of ease and conveniency. Every

successive art, by which the individual is taught to improve on his

fortune, is, in reality, an addition to his private engagements, and a new

avocation of his mind from the public.

Corruption, however, does not arise from the abuse of commercial arts

alone; it requires the aid of political situation; and is not produced by

the objects that occupy a sordid and a mercenary spirit, without the aid of

circumstances that enable men to indulge in safety any mean disposition

they have acquired.

Providence has fitted mankind for the higher engagements which they are

sometimes obliged to fulfil; and it is in the midst of such engagements

that they are most likely to acquire or to preserve their virtues. The

habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties, not

in enjoying the repose of a pacific station; penetration and wisdom are the

fruits of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure; ardour and

generosity are the qualities of a mind roused and animated in the conduct

of scenes that engage the heart, not the gifts of reflection or knowledge.

The mere intermission of national and political efforts is,

notwithstanding, sometimes mistaken for public good; and there is no

mistake more likely to foster the vices, or to flatter the weakness, of

feeble and interested men.

If the ordinary arts of policy, or rather if a growing indifference to

objects of a public nature, should prevail, and, under any free

constitution, put an end to those disputes of party, and silence that noise

of dissention which generally accompany the exercise of freedom, we may

venture to prognosticate corruption to the national manners, as well as

remissness to the national spirit. The period is come, when no engagement,

remaining on the part of the public, private interest, and animal pleasure,

become the sovereign objects of care. When men, being relieved from the

pressure of great occasions, bestow their attention on trifles; and having

carried what they are pleased to call _sensibility_ and _delicacy_, on

the subject of ease or molestation, as far as real weakness or folly can

go, have recourse to affectation, in order to enhance the pretended

demands, and accumulate the anxieties, of a sickly fancy, and enfeebled

mind.

In this condition, mankind generally flatter their own imbecility under the

name of _politeness_. They are persuaded, that the celebrated ardour,

generosity, and fortitude of former ages bordered on frenzy, or were the

mere effects of necessity, on men who had not the means of enjoying their

ease, or their pleasure. They congratulate themselves on having escaped the

storm which required the exercise of such arduous virtues; and with that

vanity which accompanies the human race in their meanest condition, they

boast of a scene of affectation, of languor, or of folly, as the standard

of human felicity, and as furnishing the properest exercise of a rational

nature.

It is none of the least menacing symptoms of an age prone to degeneracy,

that the minds of men become perplexed in the discernment of merit, as much

as the spirit becomes enfeebled in conduct, and the heart misled in the

choice of its objects: The care of mere fortune is supposed to constitute

wisdom; retirement from public affairs, and real indifference to mankind,

receive the applauses of moderation, and of virtue.

Great fortitude, and elevation of mind, have not always, indeed, been

employed in the attainment of valuable ends; but they are always

respectable, and they are always necessary when we would act for the good

of mankind, in any of the more arduous stations of life. While, therefore,

we blame their misapplication, we should beware of depreciating their

value. Men of a severe and sententious morality have not always

sufficiently observed this caution; nor have they been duly aware of the

corruptions they flattered, by the satire they employed against what is

aspiring and prominent in the character of the human soul.

It might have been expected, that, in an age of hopeless debasement, the

talents of Demosthenes and Tully, even the ill governed magnanimity of a

Macedonian, or the daring enterprise of a Carthaginian leader, might have

escaped the acrimony of a satirist, [Footnote: Juvenal's tenth satire] who

had so many objects of correction in his view, and who possessed the arts

of declamation in so high a degree.

I, demens, et saevos curre per Alpes,

Ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias,

is part of the illiberal censure which is thrown by this poet on the person

and action of a leader, who, by his courage and conduct, in the very

service to which the satire referred, had well nigh saved his country from

the ruin with which it was at last at last overwhelmed.

Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,

From Macedonia's madman to the Swede,

is a distich, in which another poet of beautiful talents has attempted to

depreciate a name, to which, probably, few of his readers are found to

aspire.

If men must go wrong, there is a choice of their errors, as well as of

their virtues. Ambition, the love of personal eminence, and the desire of

fame, although they sometimes lead to the commission of crimes, yet always

engage men in pursuits that require to be supported by some of the greatest

qualities of the human soul; and if eminence is the principal object of

pursuit, there is at least a probability, that those qualities may be

studied on which a real elevation of mind is raised. But when public alarms

have ceased, and contempt of glory is recommended as an article of wisdom,

the sordid habits, and mercenary dispositions, to which, under a general

indifference to national objects, the members of a polished or commercial

state are exposed, must prove at once the most effectual suppression of

every liberal sentiment, and the most fatal reverse of all those principles

from which communities derive their strength and their hopes of

preservation.

It is noble to possess happiness and independence, either in retirement, or

in public life. The characteristic of the happy, is to acquit themselves

well in every condition; in the court, or in the village; in the senate, or

in the private retreat. But if they affect any particular station, it is

surely that in which their actions may be rendered most extensively useful.

Our considering mere retirement, therefore, as a symptom of moderation and

of virtue, is either a remnant of that system, under which monks and

anchorets, in former ages, have been canonized; or proceeds from a habit of

thinking, which appears equally fraught with moral corruption, from our

considering public life as a scene for the gratification of mere vanity,

avarice, and ambition; never as furnishing the best opportunity for a just

and a happy engagement of the mind and the heart.

Emulation, and the desire of power, are but sorry motives to public

conduct; but if they have been, in any case, the principal inducements from

which men have taken part in the service of their country, any diminution

of their prevalence or force is a real corruption of national manners; and

the pretended moderation assumed by the higher orders of men, has a fatal

effect in the state. The disinterested love of the public is a principle,

without which some constitutions of government cannot subsist: but when we

consider how seldom this has appeared a reigning passion, we have little

reason to impute the prosperity or preservation of nations, in every case,

to its influence.

It is sufficient, perhaps, under one form of government, that men should be

fond of their independence; that they should be ready to oppose usurpation,

and to repel personal indignities: under another, it is sufficient, that

they should be tenacious of their rank, and of their honours; and instead

of a zeal for the public, entertain a vigilant jealousy of the rights which

pertain to themselves. When numbers of men retain a certain degree of

elevation and fortitude, they are qualified to give a mutual check to their

several errors, and are able to act in that variety of situations which the

different constitutions of government have prepared for their members: but,

under the disadvantages of a feeble spirit, however directed, and however

informed, no national constitution is safe; nor can any degree of

enlargement, to which a state has arrived, secure its political welfare.

In states where property, distinction, and pleasure, are thrown out as

baits to the imagination, and incentives to passion, the public seems to

rely for the preservation of its political life, on the degree of emulation

and jealousy with which parties mutually oppose and restrain each other.

The desires of preferment and profit in the breast of the citizen, are the

motives from which he excited to enter on public affairs, and are the

considerations which direct his political conduct. The suppression,

therefore, of ambition, of party animosity, and of public envy, is

probably, in every such case, not a reformation, but a symptom of weakness,

and a prelude to more sordid pursuits, and ruinous amusements.

On the eve of such a revolution in manners, the higher ranks, in every

mixed or monarchical government, have need to take care of themselves. Men

of business, and of industry, in the inferior stations of life, retain

their occupations, and are secured, by a kind of necessity, in the

possession of those habits on which they rely for their quiet; and for the

moderate enjoyments of life. But the higher orders of men, if they

relinquish the state, if they cease to possess that courage and elevation

of mind, and to exercise those talents which are employed in its defence

and in its government, are, in reality, by the seeming advantages of their

station, become the refuse of that society of which they once were the

ornament; and from being the most respectable, and the most happy, of its

members, are become the most wretched and corrupt. In their approach to

this condition, and in the absence of every manly occupation, they feel a

dissatisfaction and languor which they cannot explain: they pine in the

midst of apparent enjoyment; or, by the variety and caprice of their

different pursuits and amusements, exhibit a state of agitation, which,

like the disquiet of sickness, is not a proof of enjoyment or pleasure, but

of suffering and pain. The care of his buildings, his equipage, or his

table, is chosen by one; literary amusement, or some frivolous study, by

another. The sports of the country, and the diversions of the town; the

gaming table, [Footnote: These different occupations differ from each

other, in respect to their dignity and their innocence; but none of them

are the schools from which men are brought to sustain the tottering fortune

of nations; they are equally avocations from what ought to be the principal

pursuit of man, the good of mankind.] dogs, horses, and wine, are employed

to fill up the blank of a listless and unprofitable life. They speak of

human pursuits, as if the whole difficulty were to find something to do;

they fix on some frivolous occupation, as if there was nothing that

deserved to be done: they consider what tends to the good of their fellow

creatures, as a disadvantage to themselves: they fly from every scene in

which any efforts of vigour are required, or in which they might be allured

to perform any service to their country. We misapply our compassion in

pitying the poor; it were much more justly applied to the rich, who become

the first victims of that wretched insignificance, into which the members

of every corrupted state, by the tendency of their weaknesses and their

vices, are in haste to plunge themselves.

It is in this condition, that the sensual invent all those refinements on

pleasure, and devise those incentives to a satiated appetite, which tend

to foster the corruptions of a dissolute age. The effects of brutal

appetite, and the mere debauch, are more flagrant, and more violent,

perhaps, in rude ages, than they are in the later periods of commerce and

luxury: but that perpetual habit of searching for animal pleasure where it

is not to be found, in the gratifications of an appetite that is cloyed,

and among the ruins of an animal constitution, is not more fatal to the

virtues of the soul, than it is even to the enjoyment of sloth, or of

pleasure; it is not a more certain avocation from public affairs, or a

surer prelude to national decay, than it is a disappointment to our hopes

of private felicity.

In these reflections, it has been the object not to ascertain a precise

measure to which corruption has risen in any of the nations that have

attained to eminence, or that have gone to decay; but to describe that

remissness of spirit, that weakness of soul, that state of national

debility, which is likely to end in political slavery; an evil which

remains to be considered as the last object of caution, and beyond which

there is no subject of disquisition, in the perishing fortunes of nations.

SECTION V.

OF CORRUPTION, AS IT TENDS TO POLITICAL SLAVERY.

Liberty, in one sense, appears to be the portion of polished nations alone.

The savage is personally free, because he lives unrestrained, and acts with

the members of his tribe on terms of equality. The barbarian is frequently

independent, from a continuance of the same circumstances, or because he

has courage and a sword. But good policy alone can provide for the regular

administration of justice, or constitute a force in the state, which is

ready on every occasion to defend the rights of its members.

It has been found, that, except in a few singular cases, the commercial and

political arts have advanced together. These arts have been in modern

Europe so interwoven, that we cannot determine which were prior in the

order of time, or derived most advantage from the mutual influences with

which they act and react on each other. It has been observed, that in some

nations, the spirit of commerce, intent on securing its profits, has led

the way to political wisdom. A people, possessed of wealth, and become

jealous of their properties, have formed the project of emancipation, and

have proceeded, under favour of an importance recently gained, still

farther to enlarge their pretensions, and to dispute the prerogatives which

their sovereign had been in use to employ. But it is in vain that we expect

in one age, from the possession of wealth, the fruit which it is said to

have borne in a former. Great accessions of fortune, when recent, when

accompanied with frugality, and a sense of independence, may render the

owner confident in his strength, and ready to spurn at oppression. The

purse which is open, not to personal expense, or to the indulgence of

vanity, but to support the interests of a faction, to gratify the higher

passions of party, render the wealthy citizen formidable to those who

pretend to dominion; but it does not follow, that in a time of corruption,

equal, or greater, measures of wealth, should operate to the same effect.

On the contrary, when wealth is accumulated only in the hands of the miser,

and runs to waste from those of the prodigal; when heirs of family find

themselves straitened and poor in the midst of affluence; when the cravings

of luxury silence even the voice of party and faction; when the hopes of

meriting the rewards of compliance, or the fear of losing what is held at

discretion, keep men in a state of suspense and anxiety; when fortune, in

short, instead of being considered as the instrument of a vigorous spirit,

becomes the idol of a covetous or a profuse, of a rapacious or a timorous

mind, the foundation on which freedom was built may serve to support a

tyranny; and what, in one age, raised the pretensions, and fostered the

confidence of the subject, may, in another, incline him to servility, and

furnish the price to be paid for his prostitutions. Even those who, in a

vigorous age, gave the example of wealth, in the hands of the people,

becoming an occasion of freedom, may, in times of degeneracy, verify

likewise the maxim of Tacitus, that the admiration of riches leads to

despotical government. [Footnote: Est ápud illos et opibus honos;

eoque unus imperitat, nullis jam exceptionibus, non precario jure

parendi. Nec arms ut apud ceteros Germanos in promiscuo, sed clausa

sub custode et quidem servo, &c. TACITUS _de Mor. Ger._ c.44.]

Men who have tasted of freedom, and who have felt their personal rights,

are not easily taught to bear with encroachments on either, and cannot,

without some preparation, come to submit to oppression. They may receive

this unhappy preparation under different forms of government, from

different hands, and arrive at the same end by different ways. They

follow one direction in republics, another in monarchies and in

mixed governments. But wherever the state has, by means that do not

preserve the virtue of the subject, effectually guarded his safety;

remissness, and neglect of the public, are likely to follow; and polished

nations of every description, appear to encounter a danger, on this

quarter, proportioned to the degree in, which they have, during any

continuance, enjoyed the uninterrupted possession of peace and prosperity.

Liberty results, we say, from the government of laws; and we are apt to

consider statutes, not merely as the resolutions and maxims of a people

determined to be free, not as the writings by which their rights are kept

on record; but as a power erected to guard them, and as a barrier which the

caprice of man cannot transgress.

When a basha, in Asia, pretends to decide every controversy by the rules of

natural equity, we allow that he is possessed of discretionary powers. When

a judge in Europe is left to decide, according to his own interpretation of

written laws, is he in any sense more restrained than the former? Have the

multiplied words of a statute an influence over the conscience and the

heart, more powerful than that of reason and nature? Does the party, in any

judicial proceeding, enjoy a less degree of safety, when his rights are

discussed, on the foundation of a rule that is open to the understandings

of mankind, than when they are referred to an intricate system, which it

has become the object of a separate profession to study and to explain?

If forms of proceeding, written statutes, or other constituents of law,

cease to be enforced by the very spirit from which they arose; they serve

only to cover, not to restrain, the iniquities of power: they are possibly

respected even by the corrupt magistrate, when they favour his purpose; but

they are contemned or evaded, when they stand in his way: and the influence

of laws, where they have any real effect in the preservation of liberty, is

not any magic power descending from shelves that are loaded with books, but

is, in reality, the influence of men resolved to be free; of men who,

having adjusted in writing the terms on which they are to live with the

state, and with their fellow subjects, are determined, by their vigilance

and spirit, to make these terms be fulfilled.

We are taught, under every form of government, to apprehend usurpations,

from the abuse, or from the extension of the executive power. In pure

monarchies, this power is commonly hereditary, and made to descend in a

determinate line. In elective monarchies, it is held for life. In

republics, it is exercised during a limited time. Where men, or families,

are called by election to the possession of temporary dignities, it is more

the object of ambition to perpetuate, than to extend their powers. In

hereditary monarchies, the sovereignty is already perpetual; and the aim of

every ambitious prince is to enlarge his prerogative. Republics, and, in

times of commotion, communities of every form, are exposed to hazard, not

from those only who are formally raised to places of, trust, but from every

person whatsoever, who is incited by ambition, and who is supported by

faction.

It is no advantage to a prince, or other magistrate, to enjoy more power

than is consistent with the good of mankind; nor is it of any benefit to a

man to be unjust: but these maxims are a feeble security against the

passions and follies of men. Those who are intrusted with power in any

degree, are disposed, from a mere dislike of constraint, to remove

opposition. Not only the monarch who wears a hereditary crown, but the

magistrate who holds his office for a limited time, grows fond of his

dignity. The, very minister, who depends for his place on the momentary

will of his prince, and whose personal interests are, in every respect,

those of a subject, still has the weakness to take an interest in the

growth of prerogative, and to reckon as gain to himself the encroachments

he has made on the rights of a people, with whom he himself and his family

are soon to be numbered.

Even with the best intentions towards mankind, we are inclined to think

that their welfare depends, not on the felicity of their own inclinations,

or the happy employment of their own talents, but on their ready compliance

with what we have devised for their good. Accordingly, the greatest virtue

of which any sovereign has hitherto shown an example, is not a desire of

cherishing in his people the spirit of freedom and of independence, but

what is in itself sufficiently rare and highly meritorious, a steady regard

to the distribution of justice in matters of property, a disposition to

protect and to oblige, to redress the grievances, and to promote the

interest of his subjects. It was from a reference to these objects, that

Titus computed the value of his time, and judged of its application. But

the sword, which in this beneficent hand was drawn to protect the subject,

and to procure a speedy and effectual distribution of justice, was likewise

sufficient, in the hands of a tyrant, to shed the blood of the innocent,

and to cancel the rights of men. The temporary proceedings of humanity,

though they suspended the exercise of oppression, did not break the

national chains: the prince was even the better enabled to procure that

species of good which he studied; because there was no freedom remaining,

and because there was nowhere a force to dispute his decrees, or to

interrupt their execution.

Was it in vain that Antoninus became acquainted with the characters of

Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, and Brutus? Was it in vain, that he

learned to understand the form of a free community, raised on the basis of

equality and justice; or of a monarchy, under which the liberties of the

subject were held the most sacred object of administration?[Footnote: M.

Antoninus, lib. I.] Did he mistake the means of procuring to mankind what

he points out as a blessing? Or did the absolute power with which he was

furnished, in a mighty empire, only disable him from executing what his

mind had perceived as a national good? In such a case, it were vain to

flatter the monarch or his people. The first cannot bestow liberty without

raising a spirit, which may, on occasion, stand in opposition to his own

designs; nor the latter receive this blessing, while they own that it is

in the right of a master to give or to withhold it. The claim of justice

is firm and peremptory. We receive favours with a sense of obligation and

kindness; but we would enforce our rights, and the spirit of freedom in

this exertion cannot take the tone of supplication or of thankfulness,

without betraying itself. "You have intreated Octavius," says Brutus to

Cicero, "that he would spare those who stand foremost among the citizens

of Rome. What if he will not? Must we perish? Yes; rather than owe our

safety to him."

Liberty is a right which every individual must be ready to vindicate for

himself, and which he who pretends to bestow as a favour, has by that very

act in reality denied. Even political establishments, though they appear to

be independent of the will and arbitration of men, cannot be relied on for

the preservation of freedom; they may nourish, but should not supersede

that firm and resolute spirit, with which the liberal mind is always

prepared to resist indignities, and to refer its safety to itself.

Were a nation, therefore, given to be moulded by a sovereign, as the clay

is put into the hands of the potter, this project of bestowing liberty on a

people who are actually servile, is, perhaps, of all others the most

difficult, and requires most to be executed in silence, and with the

deepest reserve. Men are qualified to receive this blessing only in

proportion as they are made to apprehend their own rights; and are made to

respect the just pretensions of mankind; in proportion as they are willing

to sustain, in their own persons, the burden of government, and of national

defence; and are willing to prefer the engagements of a liberal mind to the

enjoyment of sloth, or the delusive hopes of a safety purchased by

submission and fear.

I speak with respect, and, if I may be allowed the expression, even with

indulgence, to those who are intrusted with high prerogatives in the

political system of nations. It is, indeed, seldom their fault that states

are enslaved. What should be expected from them, but that being actuated by

human desires, they should be averse to disappointment, or even to delay;

and in the ardour with which they pursue their object, that they should

break through the barriers that would stop their career? If millions recede

before single men, and senates are passive, as if composed of members who

had no opinion or sense of their own; on whose side have the defences of

freedom given way, or to whom shall we impute their fall? To the subject,

who has deserted his station; or to the sovereign, who has only remained in

his own, and who, if the collateral or subordinate members of government

shall cease to question his power, must continue to govern without

restraint?

It is well known, that constitutions framed for the preservation of

liberty, must consist of many parts; and that senates, popular assemblies,

courts of justice, magistrates of different orders, must combine to balance

each other, while they exercise, sustain, or check the executive power. If

any part is struck out, the fabric must totter, or fall; if any member is

remiss, the others must encroach. In assemblies constituted by men of

different talents, habits, and apprehensions, it were something more than

human that could make them agree in every point of importance; having

different opinions and views, it were want of integrity to abstain from

disputes: our very praise of unanimity, therefore, is to be considered as a

danger to liberty. We wish for it at the hazard of taking in its place the

remissness of men grown indifferent to the public; the venality of those

who have sold the rights of their country; or the servility of others, who

give implicit obedience to a leader, by whom their minds are subdued. The

love of the public, and respect to its laws, are the points in which

mankind are bound to agree; but if, in matters of controversy, the sense of

any individual or party is invariably pursued, the cause of freedom is

already betrayed.

He whose office it is to govern a supine or an abject people, cannot, for a

moment, cease to extend his powers. Every execution of law, every movement

of the state, every civil and military operation, in which his power is

exerted, must serve to confirm his authority, and present him to the view

of the public as the sole object of consideration, fear, and respect. Those

very establishments which were devised, in one age, to limit or to direct

the exercise of an executive power, will serve, in another, to remove

obstructions, and to smooth its way; they will point out the channels in

which it may run, without giving offence, or without exciting alarms, and

the very councils which were instituted to check its encroachments, will,

in a time of corruption, furnish an aid to its usurpations.

The passion for independence, and the love of dominion, frequently arise

from a common source: there is, in both, an aversion to control; and he

who, in one situation, cannot brook a superior, may, in another, dislike to

be joined with an equal.

What the prince, under a pure or limited monarchy, is, by the constitution

of his country, the leader of a faction would willingly become in

republican governments. If he attains to this envied condition, his own

inclination, or the tendency of human affairs, seem to open before him the

career of a royal ambition: but the circumstances in which he is destined

to act, are very different from those of a king. He encounters with men who

are unused to disparity; he is obliged, for his own security, to hold the

dagger continually unsheathed. When he hopes to be safe, he possibly means

to be just; but is hurried, from the first moment of his usurpation, into

every exercise of despotical power. The heir of a crown has no such quarrel

to maintain with his subjects: his situation is flattering; and the heart

must be uncommonly bad that does not glow with affection to a people, who

are at once his admirers, his support, and the ornaments of this reign. In

him, perhaps, there is no explicit design of trespassing on the rights of

his subjects; but the forms intended to preserve their freedom are not, on

this account, always safe in his hands.

Slavery has been imposed upon mankind in the wantonness of a depraved

ambition, and tyrannical cruelties have been committed in the gloomy hours

of jealousy and terror; yet these demons are not necessary to the creation,

or to the support of an arbitrary power. Although no policy was ever more

successful than that of the Roman republic in maintaining a national

fortune; yet subjects, as well as their princes, frequently imagine that

freedom is a clog on the proceedings of government: they imagine, that

despotical power is best fitted to procure despatch and secrecy in the

execution of public councils; to maintain what they are pleased to call

_political order_, [Footnote: Our notion of order in civil society

being taken from the analogy of subjects inanimate and dead, is frequently

false; we consider commotion and action as contrary to its nature; we think

that obedience, secrecy, and the silent passing of affairs through the

hands of a few, are its real constituents. The good order of stones in a

wall, is their being properly fixed in the places for which they are hewn;

were they to stir, the building must fall: but the good order of men in

society, is their being placed where they are properly qualified to act.

The first is a fabric made of dead and inanimate parts, the second is made

of living and active members. When we seek in society for the order of mere

inaction and tranquillity, we forget the nature of our subject, and find

the order of slaves, not that of freemen.] and to give a speedy redress of

complaints. They even sometimes acknowledge, that if a succession of good

princes could be found, despotical government is best calculated for the

happiness of mankind. While they reason thus, they cannot blame a

sovereign, who, in the confidence that he is to employ his power for good

purposes, endeavours to extend its limits; and, in his own apprehension,

strives only to shake off the restraints which stand in the way of reason,

and which prevent the effect of his friendly intentions.

Thus prepared for usurpation, let him, at the head of a free state, employ

the force with which he is armed, to crush the seeds of apparent disorder

in every corner of his dominions; let him effectually curb the spirit of

dissention and variance among his people; let him remove the interruptions

to government, arising from the refractory humours and the private

interests of his subjects: let him collect the force of the state against

its enemies, by availing himself of all it can furnish in the way of

taxation and personal service: it is extremely probable that, even under

the direction of wishes for the good of mankind, he may break through every

barrier of liberty, and establish a despotism, while he flatters himself

that he only follows the dictates of sense and propriety.

When we suppose government to have bestowed a degree of tranquillity which

we sometimes hope to reap from it, as the best of its fruits, and public

affairs to proceed, in the several departments of legislation and

execution, with the least possible interruption to commerce and lucrative

arts; such a state, like that of China, by throwing affairs into separate

offices, where conduct consists in detail, and in the observance of forms,

by superseding all the exertions of a great or a liberal mind, is more akin

to despotism than we are apt to imagine.

Whether oppression, injustice, and cruelty, are the only evils which attend

on despotical government, may be considered apart. In the mean time it is

sufficient to observe, that liberty is never in greater danger than it is

when we measure national felicity by the blessings which a prince may

bestow, or by the mere tranquillity which may attend on equitable

administration. The sovereign may dazzle with his heroic qualities; he may

protect his subjects in the enjoyment of every animal advantage or

pleasure: but the benefits arising from liberty are of a different sort;

they are not the fruits of a virtue, and of a goodness, which operate in

the breast of one man, but the communication of virtue itself to many; and

such a distribution of functions in civil society, as gives to numbers the

exercises and occupations which pertain to their nature.

The best constitutions of government are attended with inconvenience; and

the exercise of liberty may, on many occasions, give rise to complaints.

When we are intent on reforming abuses, the abuses of freedom may lead us

to encroach on the subject from which they are supposed to arise. Despotism

itself has certain advantages, or at least, in times of civility and

moderation, may proceed with so little offence, as to give no public alarm.

These circumstances may lead mankind, in the very spirit of reformation, or

by mere inattention, to apply or to admit of dangerous innovations in the

state of their policy.

Slavery, however, is not always introduced by mistake; it is sometimes

imposed in the spirit of violence and rapine. Princes become corrupt as

well as their people; and whatever may have been the origin of despotical

government, its pretensions, when fully declared, give rise between the

sovereign and his subjects to a contest which force alone can decide. These

pretensions have a dangerous aspect to the person, the property, or the

life of every subject; they alarm every passion in the human breast; they

disturb the supine; they deprive the venal of his hire; they declare war on

the corrupt as well as the virtuous; they are tamely admitted only by the

coward; but even to him must be supported by a force that can work on his

fears. This force the conqueror brings from abroad; and the domestic

usurper endeavours to find in his faction at home.

When a people is accustomed to arms, it is, difficult for a part to subdue

the whole; or before the establishment of disciplined armies, it is

difficult for any usurper to govern the many by the help of a few. These

difficulties, however, the policy of civilized and commercial nations has

sometimes removed; and by forming a distinction between civil and military

professions, by committing the keeping and the enjoyment of liberty to

different hands, has prepared the way for the dangerous alliance of faction

with military power, in opposition to mere political forms and the rights

of mankind.

A people who are disarmed in compliance with this fatal refinement, have

rested their safety on the pleadings of reason and of justice at the

tribunal of ambition and of force. In such an extremity laws are quoted and

senators are assembled in vain. They who compose a legislature, or who

occupy the civil departments of state, may deliberate on the messages they

receive from the camp or the court; but if the bearer, like the centurion

who brought the petition of Octavius to the Roman senate, shew the hilt of

his sword, [Footnote: Sueton.] they find that petitions are become

commands, and that they themselves are become the pageants, not the

repositories of sovereign power.

The reflections of this section may be unequally applied to nations of

unequal extent. Small communities, however corrupted, are not prepared for

despotical government; their members, crowded together and contiguous to

the seats of power, never forget their relation to the public; they pry,

with habits of familiarity and freedom, into the pretensions of those who

would rule; and where the love of equality, and the sense of justice, have

failed, they act on motives of faction, emulation, and envy. The exiled

Tarquin had his adherents at Rome; but if by their means he had recovered

his station, it is probable that, in the exercise of his royalty, he must

have entered on a new scene of contention with the very party that restored

him to power.

In proportion as territory is extended, its parts lose their relative

importance to the whole. Its inhabitants cease to perceive their connection

with the state, and are seldom united in the execution of any national, or

even any factious designs. Distance from the seats of administration, and

indifference to the persons who contend for preferment, teach the majority

to consider themselves as the subjects of a sovereignty, not as the members

of a political body. It is even remarkable, that enlargement of territory,

by rendering the individual of less consequence to the public, and less

able to intrude with his counsel, actually tends to reduce national affairs

within a narrower compass, as well as to diminish the numbers who are

consulted in legislation, or in other matters of government.

The disorders to which a great empire is exposed, require speedy

prevention, vigilance, and quick execution. Distant provinces must be kept

in subjection by military force; and the dictatorial powers, which, in free

states, are sometimes raised to quell insurrections, or to oppose other

occasional evils, appear, under a certain extent of dominion, at all times

equally necessary to suspend the dissolution of a body, whose parts were

assembled, and must be cemented, by measures forcible, decisive, and

secret. Among the circumstances, therefore, which, in the event of national

prosperity, and in the result of commercial arts, lead to the establishment

of despotism, there is none, perhaps, that arrives at this termination with

so sure an aim, as the perpetual enlargement of territory. In every state,

the freedom of its members depends on the balance and adjustment of its

interior parts; and the existence of any such freedom among mankind,

depends on the balance of nations. In the progress of conquest, those who

are subdued are said to have lost their liberties; but from the history of

mankind, to conquer, or to be conquered, has appeared, in effect, the same.

SECTION VI.

OF THE PROGRESS AND TERMINATION OF DESPOTISM.

Mankind, when they degenerate, and tend to their ruin, as well as when they

improve, and gain real advantages, frequently proceed by slow, and almost

insensible steps. If, during ages of activity and vigour, they fill up the

measure of national greatness to a height which no human wisdom could at a

distance foresee; they actually incur, in ages of relaxation and weakness,

many evils which their fears did not suggest, and which, perhaps, they had

thought far removed by the tide of success and prosperity.

We have already observed, that where men are remiss or corrupted, the

virtue of their leaders, or the good intention of their magistrates, will

not always secure them in the possession of political freedom. Implicit

submission to any leader, or the uncontrolled exercise of any power, even

when it is intended to operate for the good of mankind, may frequently end

in the subversion of legal establishments. This fatal revolution, by

whatever means it is accomplished, terminates in military government; and

this, though the simplest of all governments, is rendered complete by

degrees. In the first period of its exercise over men who have acted as

members of a free community, it can have only laid the foundation, not

completed the fabric, of a despotical policy. The usurper who has

possessed, with an army, the centre of a great empire, sees around him,

perhaps, the shattered remains of a former constitution; he may hear the

murmurs of a reluctant and unwilling submission; he may even see danger in

the aspect of many, from whose hands he may have wrested the sword, but

whose minds he has not subdued, nor reconciled to his power.

The sense of personal rights, or the pretension to privilege and honours,

which remain among certain orders of men, are so many bars in the way of a

recent usurpation. If they are not suffered to decay with age, and to wear

away in the progress of a growing corruption, they must be broken with

violence, and the entrance to every new accession of power must be stained

with blood. The effect, even in this case, is frequently tardy. The Roman

spirit, we know, was not entirely extinguished under a succession of

masters, and under a repeated application of bloodshed and poison. The

noble and respectable family still aspired to its original honours; the

history of the republic, the writings of former times, the monuments of

illustrious men, and the lessons of philosophy fraught with heroic

conceptions, continued to nourish the soul in retirement, and formed those

eminent characters, whose elevation, and whose fate, are, perhaps, the most

affecting subjects of human story. Though unable to oppose the general bent

to servility, they became, on account of their supposed inclinations,

objects of distrust and aversion, and were made to pay with their blood,

the price of a sentiment which they fostered in silence, and which glowed

only in the heart.

While despotism proceeds in its progress, by what principle is the

sovereign conducted in the choice of measures that tend to establish his

government? By a mistaken apprehension of his own good, sometimes even that

of his people, and by the desire which he feels on every particular

occasion, to remove the obstructions which impede the execution of his

will. When he has fixed a resolution, whoever reasons or remonstrates

against it is an enemy; when his mind is elated, whoever pretends to

eminence, and is disposed to act for himself, is a rival. He would leave no

dignity in the state, but what is dependent on himself; no active power,

but what carries the expression of his momentary pleasure. [Footnote:

Insurgere paulatim munia senatus, magistratuum, legum in se trahere.]

Guided by a perception as unerring as that of instinct, he never fails to

select the proper objects of his antipathy or of his favour. The aspect of

independence repels him; that of servility attracts. The tendency of his

administration is to quiet every restless spirit, and to assume every

function of government to himself. [Footnote: It is ridiculous to hear men

of a restless ambition, who would be the only actors in every scene,

sometimes complain of a refractory spirit in mankind: as if the same

disposition, from which they desire to usurp every office, did not incline

every other person to reason and to act at least for himself.] When the

power is adequate to the end, it operates as much in the hands of those who

do not perceive the termination, as it does in the hands of others by whom

it is best understood: the mandates of either, when just, should not be

disputed; when erroneous or wrong, they are supported by force.

You must die, was the answer of Octavius to every suit from a people that

implored his mercy. It was the sentence which some of his successors

pronounced against every citizen that was eminent for his birth or his

virtues. But are the evils of despotism confined to the cruel and

sanguinary methods, by which a recent dominion over a refractory and a

turbulent people is established or maintained? And is death the greatest

calamity which can afflict mankind under an establishment by which they are

divested of all their rights? They are, indeed, frequently suffered to

live; but distrust and jealousy, the sense of personal meanness, and the

anxieties which arise from the care of a wretched interest, are made to

possess the soul; every citizen is reduced to a slave; and every charm by

which the community engaged its members, has ceased to exist. Obedience is

the only duty that remains, and this is exacted by force. If, under such an

establishment, it be necessary to witness scenes of debasement and horror,

at the hazard of catching the infection, death becomes a relief; and the

libation which Thrasea was made to pour from his arteries, is to be

considered as a proper sacrifice of gratitude to Jove the Deliverer.

[Footnote: Porrectisque utriusque brachii venis, postquam cruorem effudit,

humum super spargens, proprius vocato Quaestore, _Libemus_, inquit,

_Jovi Liberatori_. Specta juvenis; et omen quidem Dii prohibeant;

ceterum in ea tempora natus es, quibus firmare animum deceat constantibus

exemplis. _Tacit. Ann. lib._ 16.]

Oppression and cruelty are not always necessary to despotical government;

and even when present, are but a part of its evils. It is founded on

corruption, and on the suppression of all the civil and the political

virtues; it requires its subjects to act from motives of fear; it would

assuage the passions of a few men at the expense of mankind; and would

erect the peace of society itself on the ruins of that freedom and

confidence from which alone the enjoyment, the force, and the elevation of

the human mind, are found to arise.

During the existence of any free constitution, and whilst every individual

possessed his rank and his privilege, or had his apprehension of personal

rights, the members of every community were, to one another, objects of

consideration and of respect; every point to be carried in civil society

required the exercise of talents, of wisdom, persuasion, and vigour, as

well as of power. But it is the highest refinement of a despotical

government, to rule by simple commands, and to exclude every art but that

of compulsion. Under the influence of this policy, therefore, the occasions

which employed and cultivated the understandings of men, which awakened

their sentiments, and kindled their imaginations, are gradually removed;

and the progress by which mankind attained to the honours of their nature,

in being engaged to act in society upon a liberal footing, was not more

uniform, or less interrupted, than that by which they degenerate in this

unhappy condition.

When we hear of the silence which reigns in the seraglio, we are made to

believe, that speech itself is become unnecessary; and that the signs of

the mute are sufficient to carry the most important mandates of government.

No arts, indeed, are required to maintain an ascendant where terror alone

is opposed to force, where the powers of the sovereign are delegated entire

to every subordinate officer: nor can any station bestow a liberality of

mind in a scene of silence and dejection, where every breast is possessed

with jealousy and caution, and where no object, but animal pleasure,

remains to balance the sufferings of the sovereign himself, or those of his

subjects.

In other states, the talents of men are sometimes improved by the exercises

which belong to an eminent station; but here the master himself is probably

the rudest and least cultivated animal of the herd; he is inferior to the

slave whom he raises from a servile office to the first places of trust or

of dignity in his court. The primitive simplicity which formed ties of

familiarity and affection betwixt the sovereign and the keeper of his

herds, [Footnote: See Odyssey.] appears, in the absence of all affections,

to be restored, or to be counterfeited amidst the ignorance and brutality

which equally characterize all orders of men, or rather which level the

ranks, and destroy the distinction of persons in a despotical court.

Caprice and passion are the rules of government with the prince. Every

delegate of power is left to act by the same direction; to strike when he

is provoked; to favour when he is pleased. In what relates to revenue,

jurisdiction, or police, every governor of a province acts like a leader in

an enemy's country; comes armed with the terrors of fire and sword; and

instead of a tax, levies a contribution by force he ruins or spares as

either may serve his purpose. When the clamours of the oppressed, or the

reputation of a treasure amassed at the expense of a province, have reached

the ears of the sovereign, the extortioner is indeed made to purchase

impunity by imparting a share, or by forfeiting the whole of his spoil; but

no reparation is made to the injured; nay, the crimes of the minister are

first employed to plunder the people, and afterwards punished to fill the

coffers of the sovereign.

In this total discontinuance of every art that relates to just government

and national policy, it is remarkable, that even the trade of the soldier

is itself great neglected. Distrust and jealousy, on the part of the

prince, come in aid of his ignorance and incapacity; and these causes

operating together, serve to destroy the very foundation on which his power

is established. Any undisciplined rout of armed men passes for an army,

whilst a weak, dispersed, and unarmed people are sacrificed to military

disorder, or exposed to depredation on the frontier from an enemy, whom the

desire of spoil, or the hopes of conquest, may have drawn to their

neighbourhood.

The Romans extended their empire till they left no polished nation to be

subdued, and found a frontier which was every where surrounded by fierce

and barbarous tribes; they even pierced through uncultivated deserts, in

order to remove to a greater distance the molestation of such troublesome

neighbours, and in order to possess the avenues through which they feared

their attacks. But this policy put the finishing hand to the internal

corruption of the state. A few years of tranquillity were sufficient to

make even the government forget its danger; and, in the cultivated

province, prepared for the enemy a tempting prize and an easy victory.

When by the conquest and annexation of every rich and cultivated province,

the measure of empire is full, two parties are sufficient to comprehend

mankind; that of the pacific and the wealthy, who dwell within the pale of

empire; and that of the poor, the rapacious, and the fierce, who are inured

to depredation and war. The last bear to the first nearly the same relation

which the wolf and the lion bear to the fold; and they are naturally

engaged in a state of hostility.

Were despotic empire, meantime, to continue for ever unmolested from

abroad, while it retains that corruption on which it was founded, it

appears to have in itself no principle of new life, and presents no hope of

restoration to freedom and political vigour. That which the despotical

_master has sown, cannot quicken unless it die_; it must languish and

expire by the effect of its own abuse, before the human spirit can spring

up anew, or bear those fruits which constitute the honour and the felicity

of human nature. In times of the greatest debasement, indeed, commotions

are felt; but very unlike the agitations of a free people: they are either

the agonies of nature, under the sufferings to which men are exposed; or

mere tumults, confined to a few who stand in arms about the prince, and

who, by, their conspiracies, assassinations, and murders, serve only to

plunge the pacific inhabitants still deeper in the horrors of fear or

despair. Scattered in the provinces, unarmed, unacquainted with the

sentiments of union and confederacy, restricted by habit to a wretched

economy, and dragging a precarious life on those possessions which the

extortions of government have left; the people can nowhere, under these

circumstances, assume the spirit of a community, nor form any liberal

combination for their own defence. The injured may complain; and while he

cannot obtain the mercy of government, he may implore the commiseration of

his fellow subject. But that fellow subject is comforted, that the hand of

oppression has not seized on himself: he studies his interest, or snatches

his pleasure, under that degree of safety which obscurity and concealment

bestow.

The commercial arts, which seem to require no foundation in the minds of

men, but the regard to interest; no encouragement, but the hopes of gain,

and the secure possession of property, must perish under the precarious

tenure of slavery, and under the apprehension of danger arising from the

reputation of wealth. National poverty, however, and the suppression of

commerce, are the means by which despotism comes to accomplish its own

destruction. Where there are no longer any profits to corrupt, or fears to

deter, the charm of dominion is broken, and the naked slave, as awake from

a dream, is astonished to find he is free. When the fence is destroyed, the

wilds are open, and the herd breaks loose. The pasture of the cultivated

field is no longer preferred to that of the desert. The sufferer willingly

flies where the extortions of government cannot overtake him; where even

the timid and the servile may recollect they are men; where the tyrant may

threaten, but where he is known to be no more than a fellow creature; where

he can take nothing but life, and even this at the hazard of his own.

Agreeably to this description, the vexations of tyranny have overcome, in

many parts of the East, the desire of settlement. The inhabitants of a

village quit their habitations, and infest the public ways; those of the

valleys fly to the mountains, and, equipt for flight, or possessed of a

strong hold, subsist by depredation, and by the war they make on their

former masters.

These disorders conspire with the impositions of government to render the

remaining settlements still less secure: but while devastation and ruin

appear on every side, mankind are forced anew upon those confederacies,

acquire again that personal confidence and vigour, that social attachment,

that use of arms, which, in former times, rendered a small tribe the seed

of a great nation; and which may again enable the emancipated slave to

begin the career of civil and commercial arts. When human nature appears in

the utmost state of corruption, it has actually begun to reform.

In this manner, the scenes of human life have been frequently shifted.

Security and presumption forfeit the advantages of prosperity; resolution

and conduct retrieve the ills of adversity; and mankind while they have

nothing on which to rely but their virtue, are prepared to gain every

advantage; and while they confide most in their good fortune, are most

exposed to feel its reverse. We are apt to draw these observations into

rule; and when we are no longer willing to act for our country, we plead,

in excuse of our own weakness or folly, a supposed fatality in human

affairs.

The institutions of men, if not calculated for the preservation of virtue,

are, indeed, likely to have an end as well as a beginning: but so long as

they are effectual to this purpose, they have at all times an equal

principle of life, which nothing but an external force can suppress; no

nation ever suffered internal decay but from the vice of its members. We

are sometimes willing to acknowledge this vice in our countrymen; but who

was ever willing to acknowledge it in himself? It may be suspected,

however, that we do more than acknowledge it, when we cease to oppose its

effects, and when we plead a fatality, which, at least, in the breast of

every individual, is dependent on himself. Men of real fortitude,

integrity, and ability, are well placed in every scene; they reap, in every

condition, the principal enjoyments of their nature; they are the happy

instruments of Providence employed for the good of mankind; or, if we must

change this language, they show, that while they are destined to live, the

states they compose are likewise doomed by the fates to survive, and to

prosper.

THE END

VALUABLE WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED, BY ANTHONY FINLEY, _Corner of Chesnut

and Fourth Streets, Philadelphia._

THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS; OR, AN ESSAY

Towards an analysis of the principles by which men naturally judge

concerning the conduct and character, first of their neighbours, and

afterwards of themselves,

To which is added,

_A Dissertation on the Origin of Languages._ BY ADAM SMITH, LL.D.

F.R.B. FIRST AMERICAN FROM THE TWELFTH EDINBURGH EDITION.

* * * * *

_Extract from "An Account of the Life and Writings of Dr. Adam Smith, by

Dugald Stewart, F.R.S. Edinburgh."_

(Speaking of Dr. S.'s Theory of Moral Sentiments, he says) "No work,

undoubtedly, can be mentioned, ancient or modern, which exhibits so

complete a view of those facts, with respect to our moral perception, which

it is one great object of this branch of science to refer to their general

laws; and upon this account, it well deserves the careful study of all

whose taste leads them to prosecute similar inquiries. These facts are

indeed frequently expressed in a language which involves the author's

peculiar theories; but they are always presented in the most happy and

beautiful light; and it is easy for an attentive reader, by stripping them

of hypothetical terms, to state them to himself with that logical

precision, which, in such very difficult disquisitions, can alone conduct

us with certainty to the truth.

"It is proper to observe, farther, that, with the theoretical doctrines of

the book, there are every where interwoven, with singular taste and

address, the purest and most elevated maxims concerning the practical

conduct of life; and that it abounds throughout with interesting and

instructive delineations of characters and manners. A considerable part of

it too is employed in collateral inquiries, which, upon every hypothesis

that can be formed concerning the foundation of morals, are of equal

importance. Of this kind is the speculation with respect to the influence

of fortune on our moral sentiments; and another speculation no less

valuable, with respect to the influence of custom and fashion on the same

part of our constitution.

"When the subject of this work leads the author to address the imagination

and the heart: the variety and felicity of his illustrations--the richness

and fluency of his eloquence--and the skill with which he wins the

attention and commands the passions of his readers, leave him, among our

English moralists, without a rival."

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PART I.

_Of the Propriety of Action_.

Section I. _Of the Sense of Propriety_.

Chap. I. Of Sympathy.

Chap. II. Of the Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy.

Chap. III. Of the manner in which we judge of the Propriety or Impropriety

of the Affections of other Men, by their concord or dissonance with our

own.

Chap. IV. The same subject continued.

Chap. V. Of the Amiable and Respectable Virtues.

Section II. _Of the Degrees of the different Passions which are

consistent with Propriety_.

Introduction.

Chap. I. Of the Passions which take their origin from the body.

Chap. II. Of those Passions which take their origin from a particular turn

or habit of the Imagination.

Chap. III. Of the unsocial Passions.

Chap. IV. Of the social Passions.

Chap. V. Of the selfish Passions.

Section III. _Of the Effects of Prosperity and Adversity upon the

Judgment of Mankind with regard to the Propriety of Action; and why it is

more easy to obtain their approbation in the one state than in the

other_.

Chap. I. That though our sympathy with sorrow is generally a more lively

sensation than our sympathy with toy, it commonly falls much more short of

the violence of what is naturally felt by the person principally concerned.

Chap. II. Of the origin of Ambition, and of the distinction of Ranks.

Chap. III. Of the corruption of our Moral Sentiments, which is occasioned

by this disposition to admire the rich and the great, and to despise or

neglect persons of poor and mean condition.

PART II.

_Of Merit and Demerit; or of the objects of reward and punishment_.

Section I. _Of the Sense of Merit and Demerit_.

Introduction.

Chap. I. That whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude,

appears to deserve reward; and that, in the same manner, whatever appears

to be the proper object of resentment, appears to deserve punishment.

Chap. II. Of the proper objects of gratitude and resentment.

Chap. III. That where there is no approbation of the conduct of the person

who confers the benefit, there is little sympathy with the gratitude of him

who receives it: and that on the contrary, where there is no disapprobation

of the motives of the person who does the mischief, there is no sort of

sympathy with the resentment of him who suffers it.

Chap. IV. Recapitulation of the foregoing chapters.

Chap. V. The Analysis of the sense of Merit and Demerit.

SECTION II. _Of Justice and Beneficence._

Chap. I. Comparison of those two virtues.

Chap. II. Of the sense of Justice, of Remorse, and of the consciousness of

Merit.

Chap. III. Of the utility of this constitution of Nature.

SECTION III. _Of the Influence of Fortune upon the Sentiments of Mankind,

with regard to the Merit or Demerit of Actions._

Introduction.

Chap. I. Of the causes of this influence of Fortune.

Chap. II. Of the extent of this influence of Fortune.

Chap. III. Of the final cause of this irregularity of Sentiments.

PART III. _Of the Foundation our Judgments concerning our own sentiments

and conduct, and of the sense of Duty._

Chap. I. Of the principle of Self-approbation and of Self-disapprobation.

Chap. II. Of the love of Praise, and of that of Praise-worthiness; and of

the dread of Blame, and that of Blame-worthiness.

Chap. III. Of the Influence and Authority of Conscience.

Chap. IV. Of the nature of Self-deceit, and of the Origin and Use of

general Rules.

Chap. V. Of the Influence and Authority of the general Rules of Morality,

and that they are justly regarded as the laws of the Deity.

Chap. VI. In what cases the Sense of Duty ought to be the sole principle of

our conduct; and in what cases it ought to concur with other motives.

PART IV. _Of the Effect of Utility upon the Sentiment of Approbation._

Chap. I. Of the Beauty which the appearance of Utility bestows upon all the

productions of Art, and of the extensive influence of this species of

Beauty.

Chap. II. Of the Beauty which the appearance of Utility bestows upon the

characters and actions of men; and how far the perception of this beauty

may be regarded as one of the original principles of approbation.

PART V. _Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon the Sentiments of

Moral Approbation and Disapprobation._

Chap. I. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon our notions of Beauty

and Deformity.

Chap. II. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon Moral Sentiments.

PART VI. _Of the Character of Virtue._

Introduction. Section I. _Of the Character of the Individual, so far as

it affects his own Happiness; or of Prudence_.

Section II. _Of the Character of the Individual, so far as it can affect

the happiness of other People_.

Introduction.

Chap. I. Of the order in which Individuals are recommended by nature to our

care and attention.

Chap. II. Of the order in which Societies are by nature recommended to our

beneficence.

Chap. III. Of Universal Benevolence.

Section III. _Of Self-Command_.

Conclusion of the Sixth Part.

PART VII.

_Of Systems of Moral Philosophy_.

Section I. _Of the questions which ought to be examined in a Theory of

Moral Sentiments_.

Section II. _Of the different Accounts which have been given of the

nature of Virtue_.

Introduction.

Chap. I. Of those systems which make Virtue consist in propriety.

Chap. II. Of those systems which make Virtue consist in prudence.

Chap. III. Of those systems which make Virtue consist in benevolence.

Chap. IV. Of licentious Systems.

Section III. _Of the different Systems which have been formed concerning

the Principle of Approbation_.

Introduction.

Chap. I. Of those systems which deduce the principle of Approbation from

Self-love.

Chap. II. Of those systems which make Reason the principle of Approbation.

Chap. III. Of those systems which make Sentiment the principle of

Approbation.

Section IV. _Of the manner in which different Authors have treated of the

Practical Rules of Morality_.

_Considerations concerning the first Formation of Languages, &c._

_An Epitome of Ancient Geography_, Sacred and Profane, being an

abridgment of D'Anville's Geography, with improvements, from various other

authors; by which the omissions of D'Anville are supplied, and his errors

corrected. Accompanied with an account of the origin and migration of

ancient nations.--By Robert Mayo, M. D. author of "A New System of

Mythology," &c. 150 cents.

_A Classical Atlas_, elegantly coloured, containing a series of Select

Maps from _Wilkinson's Atlas Classica_, and _Le Sage's_

_Historical Atlas_, for the use of those studying Ancient History and

Geography in the seminaries in the United States--folio, bound, $5.

_Letters to a Young Lady_, on a variety of Useful Subjects; calculated

to improve the heart, to form the manners, and to enlighten the

understanding. By the Rev. John Bennett. _Seventh_ American edition,

on fine paper, with plates. Various bindings, from $1.25 to 3.50.

_Scientific Dialogues_, intended for the instruction and entertainment

of Young People: in which the first principles of Natural and Experimental

Philosophy are fully explained. By the Rev. J. Joyce. Third edition, 3

vols. Plates. $3.

_A Dictionary of Select and Popular Quotations_, which are in constant

use; taken from the Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Greek languages,

(also _including a complete collection of Law Maxims_) translated into

English, with illustrations, historical and idiomatic. Third American

edition, corrected, with copious additions. $1.50.

_The Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation_, shewn from

the state of Religion in the Ancient Heathen world, &c. By John Leland, D.

D. Author of a "View of the Deistical Writers," 2 vols. 8vo. $6.50.

_Memoirs and Remains_ of the late Rev. Charles Buck, author of "A

Theological Dictionary," "Miscellanies," &c. containing copious extracts

from his Diary, and interesting letters to his friends; interspersed with

various observations explanatory and illustrative Of his character and

works. By John Styles, D. D. Boards, $1.25, bound $1.50.

_Gethsemane_, or Thoughts on the Sufferings of Christ. By the author

of the "Guide to Domestic Happiness," and "The Refuge." Boards 88 cents,

bound, $1.12-1/2.

* * * * *

A. FINLEY HAS CONSTANTLY FOR SALE, A VALUABLE COLLECTION OF Theological

Works, Family Bibles, &c.

Among which are,

The entire works of Dr. Isaac Watts, 6 vols. 4to. The same, 9 vols. 8vo.

Rev. Dr. Lardner's works, 5 vols. 4to. Hederici Lexicon, 4to. Parkhurst's

Greek and Hebrew Lexicons. Turretteni (J. A.) Opera Omnia, 3 vols. 4to.

Clerk's (J.) Paraphrase and Philological, Commentary, on the Five Books of

Moses, 4 vols. folio. Dr. Guyse's Paraphrase of the New Testament, 6 vols.

8vo. Massilon's Sermons, 2 vols. 8vo.

Dubois's Account of the Religion, Customs, &c. &c. of the people of India,

2 vols. 8vo.

Scott's Family Bibles, Quarto and Octavo. Henry's Commentary, 6 vols. 4to.

&c. &c.

_Anatomical Engravings, by Charles and John Bell, viz._

_Charles Bell's Engravings of the Arteries_, illustrating the Anatomy

of the Human Body, and serving as an introduction to the Surgery of the

Arteries. Elegantly printed in _Royal_ 8vo. Twelve coloured Plates,

with copious letter-press explanations, references to Bell's and Wistar's

Anatomy, &c.--Second improved American edition, handsomely bound. Price $6.

_John Bell's Engravings of the Bones, Muscles and Joints_, in two

parts--

Part 1. Containing Engravings of the Bones, 16 Plates, 4to. with

explanations. Bound $6 50.

Part 2.--Engravings of the Muscles and Joints, 17 Plates, 4to. with

explanations. Bound $7.

_The two parts may be had bound together_. Price $12.

_Charles Bell's Series of Engravings_, explaining the course of the

_Nerves_, containing nine large and very elegant plates, with copious

explanations, 4to. Extra boards $6--handsomely bound $6 50.

These several volumes of _Engravings_ by the Messrs. Bell, which are

so highly estimated in Great Britain, are also strongly recommended by

professional gentlemen throughout the Union. They form a system of Anatomy,

in themselves, and must be considered as a very important addition to every

Medical Library.

_The Nurse's Guide and Family Assistant_, containing friendly cautions

to the heads of families and others, very necessary to be observed in order

to preserve health and long life; with ample directions to Nurses who

attend the sick, women in childbed, &c. &c. By Robert Wallace Johnson, M.

D. Second American edition corrected and improved, $1.

_Medical Inquiries and Observations, &c_. by Dr. Benjamin Rush, 5th

edition, 2 vols. $7.

_Zoonomia_, by Dr. Darwin, 4th edition, 2 vols. $7.

Together with

All the Greek and Latin Classics; and every description of French and

English

SCHOOL BOOKS,

that are used in the various Seminaries in this country.

Library Companies, Teachers and others supplied on very liberal terms.