fear that sublime power, whose motive for creating me must have been
wise and good; and I submit to the moral laws which my reason deduces
from this view of my dependence on him.—It is not his power that I
fear—it is not to an arbitrary will, but to unerring _reason_ I
submit.—Submit—yes; I disregard the charge of arrogance, to the law that
regulates his just resolves; and the happiness I pant after must be the
same in kind, and produced by the same exertions as his—though unfeigned
humility overwhelms every idea that would presume to compare the
goodness which the most exalted created being could acquire, with the
grand source of life and bliss.
This fear of God makes me reverence myself.—Yes, Sir, the regard I have
for honest fame, and the friendship of the virtuous, falls far short of
the respect which I have for myself. And this, enlightened self-love, if
an epithet the meaning of which has been grossly perverted will convey
my idea, forces me to see; and, if I may venture to borrow a prostituted
term, to _feel_, that happiness is reflected, and that, in communicating
good, my soul receives its noble aliment.—I do not trouble myself,
therefore, to enquire whether this is the fear the _people_ of England
feel:—and, if it be _natural_ to include all the modifications which you
have annexed—it is not[13].
Besides, I cannot help suspecting that, if you had the _enlightened_
respect for yourself, which you affect to despise, you would not have
said that the constitution of our church and state, formed, like most
other modern ones, by degrees, as Europe was emerging out of barbarism,
was formed ‘under the auspices, and was confirmed by the sanctions, of
religion and piety.’ You have turned over the historic page; have been
hackneyed in the ways of men, and must know that private cabals and
public feuds, private virtues and vices, religion and superstition, have
all concurred to foment the mass and swell it to its present form; nay
more, that it in part owes its sightly appearance to bold rebellion and
insidious innovation. Factions, Sir, have been the leaven, and private
interest has produced public good.
These general reflections are not thrown out to insinuate that virtue
was a creature of yesterday: No; she had her share in the grand drama. I
guard against misrepresentation; but the man who cannot modify general
assertions, has scarcely learned the first rudiments of reasoning. I
know that there is a great portion of virtue in the Romish church, yet I
should not choose to neglect clothing myself with a garment of my own
righteousness, depending on a kind donative of works of supererogation.
I know that there are many clergymen, of all denominations, wise and
virtuous; yet I have not that respect for the whole body, which, you
say, characterizes our nation, ‘emanating from a certain plainness and
directness of understanding.’—Now we are stumbling on _inbred_ feelings
and secret lights again—or, I beg your pardon, it may be the furbished
up face which you choose to give to the argument.
It is a well-known fact, that when _we_, the people of England, have a
son whom we scarcely know what to do with—_we_ make a clergyman of him.
When a living is in the gift of a family, a son is brought up to the
church; but not always with hopes full of immortality. ‘Such sublime
principles are _not constantly_ infused into persons of exalted birth;’
they sometimes think of ‘the paltry pelf of the moment[14]’—and the
vulgar care of preaching the gospel, or practising self-denial, is left
to the poor curates, who, arguing on your ground, cannot have, from the
scanty stipend they receive, ‘very high and worthy notions of their
function and destination.’ This consecration _for ever_; a word, that
from lips of flesh is big with a mighty nothing, has not purged the
_sacred temple_ from all the impurities of fraud, violence, injustice,
and tyranny. Human passions still lurk in her _sanctum sanctorum_; and,
without the profane exertions of reason, vain would be her ceremonial
ablutions; morality would still stand aloof from this national religion,
this ideal consecration of a state; and men would rather choose to give
the goods of their body, when on their death beds, to clear the narrow
way to heaven, than restrain the mad career of passions during life.
Such a curious paragraph occurs in this part of your letter, that I am
tempted to transcribe it[15], and must beg you to elucidate it, if I
misconceive your meaning.
The only way in which the people interfere in government, religious or
civil, is in electing representatives. And, Sir, let me ask you, with
manly plainness—are these _holy_ nominations? Where is the booth of
religion? Does she mix her awful mandates, or lift her persuasive voice,
in those scenes of drunken riot and beastly gluttony? Does she preside
over those nocturnal abominations which so evidently tend to deprave the
manners of the lower class of people? The pestilence stops not here—the
rich and poor have one common nature, and many of the great families,
which, on this side adoration, you venerate, date their misery, I speak
of stubborn matters of fact, from the thoughtless extravagance of an
electioneering frolic.—Yet, after the effervescence of spirits, raised
by opposition, and all the little and tyrannic arts of canvassing are
over—quiet souls! they only intend to march rank and file to say YES—or
NO.
Experience, I believe, will shew that sordid interest, or licentious
thoughtlessness, is the spring of action at most elections.—Again, I beg
you not to lose sight of my modification of general rules. So far are
the people from being habitually convinced of the sanctity of the charge
they are conferring, that the venality of their votes must admonish them
that they have no right to expect disinterested conduct. But to return
to the church, and the habitual conviction of the people of England.
So far are the people from being ‘habitually convinced that no evil can
be acceptable, either in the act or the permission, to him whose essence
is good[16];’ that the sermons which they hear are to them almost as
unintelligible as if they were preached in a foreign tongue. The
language and sentiments rising above their capacities, very orthodox
Christians are driven to fanatical meetings for amusement, if not for
edification. The clergy, I speak of the body, not forgetting the respect
and affection which I have for individuals, perform the duty of their
profession as a kind of fee-simple, to entitle them to the emoluments
accruing from it; and their ignorant flock think that merely going to
church is meritorious.
So defective, in fact, are our laws, respecting religious
establishments, that I have heard many rational pious clergymen
complain, that they had no method of receiving their stipend that did
not clog their endeavours to be useful; whilst the lives of many less
conscientious rectors are passed in litigious disputes with the people
they engaged to instruct; or in distant cities, in all the ease of
luxurious idleness.
But you return to your old firm ground.—_Art thou there, True-penny?_
Must we swear to secure property, and make assurance doubly sure, to
give your perturbed spirit rest? Peace, peace to the manes of thy
patriotic phrensy, which contributed to deprive some of thy
fellow-citizens of their property in America: another spirit now walks
abroad to secure the property of the church.—The tithes are safe!—We
will not say for ever—because the time may come, when the traveller may
ask where proud London stood? when its _temples_, its laws, and its
trade, may be buried in one common ruin, and only serve as a by-word to
point a moral, or furnish senators, who wage a wordy war, on the other
side of the Atlantic, with tropes to swell their thundering bursts of
eloquence.
Who shall dare to accuse you of inconsistency any more, when you have so
staunchly supported the despotic principles which agree so perfectly
with the unerring interest of a large body of your fellow-citizens; not
the largest—for when you venerate parliaments—I presume it is not the
majority, as you have had the presumption to dissent, and loudly explain
your reasons.—But it was not my intention, when I began this letter, to
descend to the minutiæ of your conduct, or to weigh your infirmities in
a balance; it is only some of your pernicious opinions that I wish to
hunt out of their lurking holes; and to shew you to yourself, stripped
of the gorgeous drapery in which you have enwrapped your tyrannic
principles.
That the people of England respect the national establishment I do not
deny; I recollect the melancholy proof which they gave, in this very
century, of their _enlightened_ zeal and reasonable affection. I
likewise know that, according to the dictates of a _prudent_ law, in a
commercial state, truth is reckoned a libel; yet I acknowledge, having
never made my humanity give place to Gothic gallantry, that I should
have been better pleased to have heard that Lord George Gordon was
confined on account of the calamities which he brought on his country,
than for a _libel_ on the queen of France.
But one argument which you adduce to strengthen your assertion, appears
to carry the preponderancy towards the other side.
You observe that ‘our education is so formed as to confirm and fix this
impression, (respect for the religious establishment); and that our
education is in a manner wholly in the hands of ecclesiastics, and in
all stages from infancy to manhood[17].’ Far from agreeing with you,
Sir, that these regulations render the clergy a more useful and
respectable body, experience convinces me that the very contrary is the
fact. In schools and colleges they may, in some degree, support their
dignity within the monastic walls; but, in paying due respect to the
parents of the young nobility under their tutorage, they do not forget,
obsequiously, to respect their noble patrons. The little respect paid,
in great houses, to tutors and chaplains proves, Sir, the fallacy of
your reasoning. It would be almost invidious to remark, that they
sometimes are only modern substitutes for the jesters of Gothic memory,
and serve as whetstones for the blunt wit of the noble peer who
patronizes them; and what respect a boy can imbibe for a _butt_, at
which the shaft of ridicule is daily glanced, I leave those to determine
who can distinguish depravity of morals under the specious mask of
refined manners.
Besides, the custom of sending clergymen to travel with their noble
pupils, as humble companions, instead of exalting, tends inevitably to
degrade the clerical character: it is notorious that they meanly submit
to the most servile dependence, and gloss over the most capricious
follies, to use a soft phrase, of the boys to whom they look up for
preferment. An airy mitre dances before them, and they wrap their
sheep’s clothing more closely about them, and make their spirits bend
till it is prudent to claim the rights of men and the honest freedom of
speech of an Englishman. How, indeed, could they venture to reprove for
his vices their patron: the clergy only give the true feudal emphasis to
this word. It has been observed, by men who have not superficially
investigated the human heart, that when a man makes his spirit bend to
any power but reason, his character is soon degraded, and his mind
shackled by the very prejudices to which he submits with reluctance. The
observations of experience have been carried still further; and the
servility to superiors, and tyranny to inferiors, said to characterize
our clergy, have rationally been supposed to arise naturally from their
associating with the nobility. Among unequals there can be no
society;—giving a manly meaning to the term; from such intimacies
friendship can never grow; if the basis of friendship is mutual respect,
and not a commercial treaty. Taken thus out of their sphere, and
enjoying their tithes at a distance from their flocks, is it not natural
for them to become courtly parasites, and intriguing dependents on great
patrons, or the treasury? Observing all this—for these things have not
been transacted in the dark—our young men of fashion, by a common,
though erroneous, association of ideas, have conceived a contempt for
religion, as they sucked in with their milk a contempt for the clergy.
The people of England, Sir, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
I will not go any further back to insult the ashes of departed popery,
did not settle the establishment, and endow it with princely revenues,
to make it proudly rear its head, as a part of the constitutional body,
to guard the liberties of the community; but, like some of the laborious
commentators on Shakespeare, you have affixed a meaning to laws that
chance, or, to speak more philosophically, the interested views of men,
settled, not dreaming of your ingenious elucidations.
What, but the rapacity of the only men who exercised their reason, the
priests, secured such vast property to the church, when a man gave his
perishable substance to save himself from the dark torments of
purgatory; and found it more convenient to indulge his depraved
appetites, and pay an exorbitant price for absolution, than listen to
the suggestions of reason, and work out his own salvation: in a word,
was not the separation of religion from morality the work of the
priests, and partly achieved in those _honourable_ days which you so
piously deplore?
That civilization, that the cultivation of the understanding, and
refinement of the affections, naturally make a man religious, I am proud
to acknowledge.—What else can fill the aching void in the heart, that
human pleasures, human friendships can never fill? What else can render
us resigned to live, though condemned to ignorance?—What but a profound
reverence for the model of all perfection, and the mysterious tie which
arises from a love of goodness? What can make us reverence ourselves,
but a reverence for that Being, of whom we are a faint image? That
mighty Spirit moves on the waters—confusion hears his voice, and the
troubled heart ceases to beat with anguish, for trust in Him bade it be
still. Conscious dignity may make us rise superior to calumny, and
sternly brave the winds of adverse fortune,—raised in our own esteem by
the very storms of which we are the sport—but when friends are unkind,
and the heart has not the prop on which it fondly leaned, where can a
tender suffering being fly but to the Searcher of hearts? and, when
death has desolated the present scene, and torn from us the friend of
our youth—when we walk along the accustomed path, and, almost fancying
nature dead, ask, Where art thou who gave life to these well-known
scenes? when memory heightens former pleasures to contrast our present
prospects—there is but one source of comfort within our reach;—and in
this sublime solitude the world appears to contain only the Creator and
the creature, of whose happiness he is the source.—These are human
feelings; but I know not of any common nature or common relation amongst
men but what results from reason. The common affections and passions
equally bind brutes together; and it is only the continuity of those
relations that entitles us to the denomination of rational creatures;
and this continuity arises from reflection—from the operations of that
reason which you contemn with flippant disrespect.
If then it appears, arguing from analogy, that reflection must be the
natural foundation of _rational_ affections, and of that experience
which enables one man to rise above another, a phenomenon that has never
been seen in the brute creation, it may not be stretching the argument
further than it will go to suppose, that those men who are obliged to
exercise their reason have the most reason, and are the persons pointed
out by Nature to direct the society of which they make a part, on any
extraordinary emergency.
Time only will shew whether the general censure, which you afterwards
qualify, if not contradict, and the unmerited contempt that you have
ostentatiously displayed of the National Assembly, be founded on reason,
the offspring of conviction, or the spawn of envy. Time may shew, that
this obscure throng knew more of the human heart and of legislation than
the profligates of rank, emasculated by hereditary effeminacy.
It is not, perhaps, of very great consequence who were the founders of a
state; savages, thieves, curates, or practitioners in the law. It is
true, you might sarcastically remark, that the Romans had always a
_smack_ of the old leaven, and that the private robbers, supposing the
tradition to be true, only became public depredators. You might have
added, that their civilization must have been very partial, and had more
influence on the manners than morals of the people; or the amusements of
the amphitheatre would not have remained an everlasting blot not only on
their humanity, but on their refinement, if a vicious elegance of
behaviour and luxurious mode of life is not a prostitution of the term.
However, the thundering censures which you have cast with a ponderous
arm, and the more playful bushfiring of ridicule, are not arguments that
will ever depreciate the National Assembly, for applying to their
understanding rather than to their imagination, when they met to settle
the newly acquired liberty of the state on a solid foundation.
If you had given the same advice to a young history painter of
abilities, I should have admired your judgment, and re-echoed your
sentiments[18]. Study, you might have said, the noble models of
antiquity, till your imagination is inflamed; and, rising above the
vulgar practice of the hour, you may imitate without copying those great
originals. A glowing picture, of some interesting moment, would probably
have been produced by these natural means; particularly if one little
circumstance is not overlooked, that the painter had noble models to
revert to, calculated to excite admiration and stimulate exertion.
But, in settling a constitution that involved the happiness of millions,
that stretch beyond the computation of science, it was, perhaps,
necessary for the Assembly to have a higher model in view than the
_imagined_ virtues of their forefathers; and wise to deduce their
respect for themselves from the only legitimate source, respect for
justice. Why was it a duty to repair an ancient castle, built in
barbarous ages, of Gothic materials? Why were the legislators obliged to
rake amongst heterogeneous ruins; to rebuild old walls, whose
foundations could scarcely be explored, when a simple structure might be
raised on the foundation of experience, the only valuable inheritance
our forefathers could bequeath? Yet of this bequest we can make little
use till we have gained a stock of our own; and even then, their
inherited experience would rather serve as lighthouses, to warn us
against dangerous rocks or sand-banks, than as finger-posts that stand
at every turning to point out the right road.
Nor was it absolutely necessary that they should be diffident of
themselves when they were dissatisfied with, or could not discern the
_almost obliterated_ constitution of their ancestors[19]. They should
first have been convinced that our constitution was not only the best
modern, but the best possible one; and that our social compact was the
surest foundation of all the _possible_ liberty a mass of men could
enjoy, that the human understanding could form. They should have been
certain that our representation answered all the purposes of
representation; and that an established inequality of rank and property
secured the liberty of the whole community, instead of rendering it a
sounding epithet of subjection, when applied to the nation at large.
They should have had the same respect for our House of Commons that you,
vauntingly, intrude on us, though your conduct throughout life has
spoken a very different language; before they made a point of not
deviating from the model which first engaged their attention.
That the British House of Commons is filled with every thing illustrious
in rank, in descent, in hereditary, and acquired opulence, may be
true,—but that it contains every thing respectable in talents, in
military, civil, naval, and political distinction, is very
problematical. Arguing from natural causes, the very contrary would
appear to the speculatist to be the fact; and let experience say whether
these speculations are built on sure ground.
It is true you lay great stress on the effects produced by the bare idea
of a liberal descent[20]; but from the conduct of men of rank, men of
discernment would rather be led to conclude, that this idea obliterated
instead of inspiring native dignity, and substituted a factitious pride
that disemboweled the man. The liberty of the rich has its ensigns
armorial to puff the individual out with insubstantial honours; but
where are blazoned the struggles of virtuous poverty? Who, indeed, would
dare to blazon what would blur the pompous monumental inscription you
boast of, and make us view with horror, as monsters in human shape, the
superb gallery of portraits proudly set in battle array?
But to examine the subject more closely. Is it among the list of
possibilities that a man of rank and fortune _can_ have received a good
education? How can he discover that he is a man, when all his wants are
instantly supplied, and invention is never sharpened by necessity? Will
he labour, for every thing valuable must be the fruit of laborious
exertions, to attain knowledge and virtue, in order to merit the
affection of his equals, when the flattering attention of sycophants is
a more luscious cordial?
Health can only be secured by temperance; but is it easy to persuade a
man to live on plain food even to recover his health, who has been
accustomed to fare sumptuously every day? Can a man relish the simple
food of friendship, who has been habitually pampered by flattery? And
when the blood boils, and the senses meet allurements on every side,
will knowledge be pursued on account of its abstract beauty? No; it is
well known that talents are only to be unfolded by industry, and that we
must have made some advances, led by an inferior motive, before we
discover that they are their own reward.
But _full blown_ talents _may_, according to your system, be hereditary,
and as independent of ripening judgment, as the inbred feelings that,
rising above reason, naturally guard Englishmen from error. Noble
franchises! what a grovelling mind must that man have, who can pardon
his step-dame Nature for not having made him at least a lord?
And who will, after your description of senatorial virtues, dare to say
that our House of Commons has often resembled a bear-garden; and
appeared rather like a committee of _ways and means_ than a dignified
legislative body, though the concentrated wisdom and virtue of the whole
nation blazed in one superb constellation? That it contains a dead
weight of benumbing opulence I readily allow, and of ignoble ambition;
nor is there any thing surpassing belief in a supposition that the raw
recruits, when properly drilled by the minister, would gladly march to
the Upper House to unite hereditary honours to fortune. But talents,
knowledge, and virtue, must be a part of the man, and cannot be put, as
robes of state often are, on a servant or a block, to render a pageant
more magnificent.
Our House of Commons, it is true, has been celebrated as a school of
eloquence, a hot-bed for wit, even when party intrigues narrow the
understanding and contract the heart; yet, from the few proficients it
has accomplished, this inferior praise is not of great magnitude: nor of
great consequence, Mr. Locke would have added, who was ever of opinion
that eloquence was oftener employed to make ‘the worse appear the better
part,’ than to support the dictates of cool judgment. However, the
greater number who have gained a seat by their fortune and hereditary
rank, are content with their pre-eminence, and struggle not for more
hazardous honours. But you are an exception; you have raised yourself by
the exertion of abilities, and thrown the automatons of rank into the
back ground. Your exertions have been a generous contest for secondary
honours, or a grateful tribute of respect due to the noble ashes that
lent a hand to raise you into notice, by introducing you into the house
of which you have ever been an ornament, if not a support. But,
unfortunately, you have lately lost a great part of your popularity:
members were tired of listening to declamation, or had not sufficient
taste to be amused when you ingeniously wandered from the question, and
said certainly many good things, if they were not to the present
purpose. You were the Cicero of one side of the house for years; and
then to sink into oblivion, to see your blooming honours fade before
you, was enough to rouse all that was human in you—and make you produce
the impassioned _Reflections_ which have been a glorious revivification
of your fame.—Richard is himself again! He is still a great man, though
he has deserted his post, and buried in elogiums, on church
establishments, the enthusiasm that forced him to throw the weight of
his talents on the side of liberty and natural rights, when the
_will_[21] of the nation oppressed the Americans.
There appears to be such a mixture of real sensibility and fondly
cherished romance in your composition, that the present crisis carries
you out of yourself; and since you could not be one of the grand movers,
the next _best_ thing that dazzled your imagination was to be a
conspicuous opposer. Full of yourself, you make as much noise to
convince the world that you despise the revolution, as Rousseau did to
persuade his contemporaries to let him live in obscurity.
Reading your Reflections warily over, it has continually and forcibly
struck me, that had you been a Frenchman, you would have been, in spite
of your respect for rank and antiquity, a violent revolutionist; and
deceived, as you now probably are, by the passions that cloud your
reason, have termed your romantic enthusiasm an enlightened love of your
country, a benevolent respect for the rights of men. Your imagination
would have taken fire, and have found arguments, full as ingenious as
those you now offer, to prove that the constitution, of which so few
pillars remained, that constitution which time had almost obliterated,
was not a model sufficiently noble to deserve close adherence. And, for
the English constitution, you might not have had such a profound
veneration as you have lately acquired; nay, it is not impossible that
you might have entertained the same opinion of the English Parliament,
that you professed to have during the American war.
Another observation which, by frequently occurring, has almost grown
into a conviction, is simply this, that had the English in general
reprobated the French revolution, you would have stood forth alone, and
been the avowed Goliah of liberty. But, not liking to see so many
brothers near the throne of fame, you have turned the current of your
passions, and consequently of your reasoning, another way. Had Dr.
Price’s sermon not lighted some sparks very like envy in your bosom, I
shrewdly suspect that he would have been treated with more candour; nor
is it charitable to suppose that any thing but personal pique and hurt
vanity could have dictated such bitter sarcasms and reiterated
expressions of contempt as occur in your Reflections.
But without fixed principles even goodness of heart is no security from
inconsistency, and mild affectionate sensibility only renders a man more
ingeniously cruel, when the pangs of hurt vanity are mistaken for
virtuous indignation, and the gall of bitterness for the milk of
Christian charity.
Where is the dignity, the infallibility of sensibility, in the fair
ladies, whom, if the voice of rumour is to be credited, the captive
negroes curse in all the agony of bodily pain, for the unheard of
tortures they invent? It is probable that some of them, after the sight
of a flagellation, compose their ruffled spirits and exercise their
tender feelings by the perusal of the last imported novel.—How true
these tears are to nature, I leave you to determine. But these ladies
may have read your Enquiry concerning the origin of our ideas of the
Sublime and Beautiful, and, convinced by your arguments, may have
laboured to be pretty, by counterfeiting weakness.
You may have convinced them that _littleness_ and _weakness_ are the
very essence of beauty; and that the Supreme Being, in giving women
beauty in the most supereminent degree, seemed to command them, by the
powerful voice of Nature, not to cultivate the moral virtues that might
chance to excite respect, and interfere with the pleasing sensations
they were created to inspire. Thus confining truth, fortitude, and
humanity, within the rigid pale of manly morals, they might justly
argue, that to be loved, woman’s high end and great distinction! they
should ‘learn to lisp, to totter in their walk, and nick-name God’s
creatures.’ Never, they might repeat after you, was any man, much less a
woman, rendered amiable by the force of those exalted qualities,
fortitude, justice, wisdom, and truth; and thus forewarned of the
sacrifice they must make to those austere, unnatural virtues, they would
be authorized to turn all their attention to their persons,
systematically neglecting morals to secure beauty.—Some rational old
woman indeed might chance to stumble at this doctrine, and hint, that in
avoiding atheism you had not steered clear of the mussulman’s creed; but
you could readily exculpate yourself by turning the charge on Nature,
who made our idea of beauty independent of reason. Nor would it be
necessary for you to recollect, that if virtue has any other foundation
than worldly utility, you have clearly proved that one half of the human
species, at least, have not souls; and that Nature, by making women
_little_, _smooth_, _delicate_, _fair_ creatures, never designed that
they should exercise their reason to acquire the virtues that produce
opposite, if not contradictory, feelings. The affection they excite, to
be uniform and perfect, should not be tinctured with the respect which
moral virtues inspire, lest pain should be blended with pleasure, and
admiration disturb the soft intimacy of love. This laxity of morals in
the female world is certainly more captivating to a libertine
imagination than the cold arguments of reason, that give no sex to
virtue. If beautiful weakness be interwoven in a woman’s frame, if the
chief business of her life be (as you insinuate) to inspire love, and
Nature has made an eternal distinction between the qualities that
dignify a rational being and this animal perfection, her duty and
happiness in this life must clash with any preparation for a more
exalted state. So that Plato and Milton were grossly mistaken in
asserting that human love led to heavenly, and was only an exaltation of
the same affection; for the love of the Deity, which is mixed with the
most profound reverence, must be love of perfection, and not compassion
for weakness.
To say the truth, I not only tremble for the souls of women, but for the
good natured man, whom every one loves. The _amiable_ weakness of his
mind is a strong argument against its immateriality, and seems to prove
that beauty relaxes the _solids_ of the soul as well as the body.
It follows then immediately, from your own reasoning, that respect and
love are antagonist principles; and that, if we really wish to render
men more virtuous, we must endeavour to banish all enervating
modifications of beauty from civil society. We must, to carry your
argument a little further, return to the Spartan regulations, and settle
the virtues of men on the stern foundation of mortification and
self-denial; for any attempt to civilize the heart, to make it humane by
implanting reasonable principles, is a mere philosophic dream. If
refinement inevitably lessens respect for virtue, by rendering beauty,
the grand tempter, more seductive; if these relaxing feelings are
incompatible with the nervous exertions of morality, the sun of Europe
is not set; it begins to dawn, when cold metaphysicians try to make the
head give laws to the heart.
But should experience prove that there is a beauty in virtue, a charm in
order, which necessarily implies exertion, a depraved sensual taste may
give way to a more manly one—and _melting_ feelings to rational
satisfactions. Both may be equally natural to man; the test is their
moral difference, and that point reason alone can decide.
Such a glorious change can only be produced by liberty. Inequality of
rank must ever impede the growth of virtue, by vitiating the mind that
submits or domineers; that is ever employed to procure nourishment for
the body, or amusement for the mind. And if this grand example be set by
an assembly of unlettered clowns, if they can produce a crisis that may
involve the fate of Europe, and ‘more than Europe[22],’ you must allow
us to respect unsophisticated reason, and reverence the active exertions
that were not relaxed by a fastidious respect for the beauty of rank, or
a dread of the deformity produced by any _void_ in the social structure.
After your contemptuous manner of speaking of the National Assembly,
after descanting on the coarse vulgarity of their proceedings, which,
according to your own definition of virtue, is a proof of its
genuineness; was it not a little inconsistent, not to say absurd, to
assert, that a dozen people of quality were not a sufficient
counterpoise to the vulgar mob with whom they condescended to associate?
Have we half a dozen leaders of eminence in our House of Commons, or
even in the fashionable world? yet the sheep obsequiously pursue their
steps with all the undeviating sagacity of instinct.
In order that liberty should have a firm foundation, an acquaintance
with the world would naturally lead cool men to conclude that it must be
laid, knowing the weakness of the human heart, and the ‘deceitfulness of
riches,’ either by _poor_ men, or philosophers, if a sufficient number
of men, disinterested from principle, or truly wise, could be found. Was
it natural to expect that sensual prejudices should give way to reason,
or present feelings to enlarged views?—No; I am afraid that human nature
is still in such a weak state, that the abolition of titles, the
corner-stone of despotism, could only have been the work of men who had
no titles to sacrifice. The National Assembly, it is true, contains some
honourable exceptions; but the majority had not such powerful feelings
to struggle with, when reason led them to respect the naked dignity of
virtue.
Weak minds are always timid. And what can equal the weakness of mind
produced by servile flattery, and the vapid pleasures that neither hope
nor fear seasoned? Had the constitution of France been new modelled, or
more cautiously repaired, by the lovers of elegance and beauty, it is
natural to suppose that the imagination would have erected a fragile
temporary building; or the power of one tyrant, divided amongst a
hundred, might have rendered the struggle for liberty only a choice of
masters. And the glorious _chance_ that is now given to human nature of
attaining more virtue and happiness than has hitherto blessed our globe,
might have been sacrificed to a meteor of the imagination, a bubble of
passion. The ecclesiastics, indeed, would probably have remained in
quiet possession of their sinecures; and your gall might not have been
mixed with your ink on account of the daring sacrilege that brought them
more on a level. The nobles would have had bowels for their younger
sons, if not for the misery of their fellow-creatures. An august mass of
property would have been transmitted to posterity to guard the temple of
superstition, and prevent reason from entering with her officious light.
And the pomp of religion would have continued to impress the senses, if
she were unable to subjugate the passions.
Is hereditary weakness necessary to render religion lovely? and will her
form have lost the smooth delicacy that inspires love, when stripped of
its Gothic drapery? Must every grand model be placed on the pedestal of
property? and is there no beauteous proportion in virtue, when not
clothed in a sensual garb?
Of these questions there would be no end, though they lead to the same
conclusion;—that your politics and morals, when simplified, would
undermine religion and virtue to set up a spurious, sensual beauty, that
has long debauched your imagination, under the specious form of natural
feelings.
And what is this mighty revolution in property? The present incumbents
only are injured, or the hierarchy of the clergy, an ideal part of the
constitution, which you have personified, to render your affection more
tender. How has posterity been injured by a distribution of the property
snatched, perhaps, from innocent hands, but accumulated by the most
abominable violation of every sentiment of justice and piety? Was the
monument of former ignorance and iniquity to be held sacred, to enable
the present possessors of enormous benefices to _dissolve_ in indolent
pleasures? Was not their convenience, for they have not been turned
adrift on the world, to give place to a just partition of the land
belonging to the state? And did not the respect due to the natural
equality of man require this triumph over Monkish rapacity? Were those
monsters to be reverenced on account of their antiquity, and their
unjust claims perpetuated to their ideal children, the clergy, merely to
preserve the sacred majesty of Property inviolate, and to enable the
Church to retain her pristine splendor? Can posterity be injured by
individuals losing the chance of obtaining great wealth, without
meriting it, by its being diverted from a narrow channel, and
disembogued into the sea that affords clouds to water all the land?
Besides, the clergy not brought up with the expectation of great
revenues will not feel the loss; and if bishops should happen to be
chosen on account of their personal merit, religion may be benefited by
the vulgar nomination.
The sophistry of asserting that Nature leads us to reverence our civil
institutions from the same principle that we venerate aged individuals,
is a palpable fallacy ‘that is so like truth, it will serve the turn as
well.’ And when you add, ‘that we have chosen our nature rather than our
speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions[23]’, the pretty
jargon seems equally unintelligible.
But it was the downfall of the visible power and dignity of the church
that roused your ire; you could have excused a little squeezing of the
individuals to supply present exigencies; the actual possessors of the
property might have been oppressed with something like impunity, if the
church had not been spoiled of its gaudy trappings. You love the church,
your country, and its laws, you repeatedly tell us, because they deserve
to be loved; but from you this is not a panegyric: weakness and
indulgence are the only incitements to love and confidence that you can
discern, and it cannot be denied that the tender mother you venerate
deserves, on this score, all your affection.
It would be as vain a task to attempt to obviate all your passionate
objections, as to unravel all your plausible arguments, often
illustrated by known truths, and rendered forcible by pointed
invectives. I only attack the foundation. On the natural principles of
justice I build my plea for disseminating the property artfully said to
be appropriated to religious purposes, but, in reality, to support idle
tyrants, amongst the society whose ancestors were cheated or forced into
illegal grants. Can there be an opinion more subversive of morality,
than that time sanctifies crimes, and silences the blood that calls out
for retribution, if not for vengeance? If the revenue annexed to the
Gallic church was greater than the most bigoted protestant would now
allow to be its reasonable share, would it not have been trampling on
the rights of men to perpetuate such an arbitrary appropriation of the
common stock, because time had rendered the fraudulent seizure
venerable? Besides, if Reason had suggested, as surely she must, if the
imagination had not been allowed to dwell on the fascinating pomp of
ceremonial grandeur, that the clergy would be rendered both more
virtuous and useful by being put more on a par with each other, and the
mass of the people it was their duty to instruct;—where was there room
for hesitation? The charge of presumption, thrown by you on the most
reasonable innovations, may, without any violence to truth, be retorted
on every reformation that has meliorated our condition, and even on the
improvable faculty that gives us a claim to the pre-eminence of
intelligent beings.
Plausibility, I know, can only be unmasked by shewing the absurdities it
glosses over, and the simple truths it involves with specious errors.
Eloquence has often confounded triumphant villainy; but it is probable
that it has more frequently rendered the boundary that separates virtue
and vice doubtful.—Poisons may be only medicines in judicious hands; but
they should not be administered by the ignorant, because they have
sometimes seen great cures performed by their powerful aid.
The many sensible remarks and pointed observations which you have mixed
with opinions that strike at our dearest interests, fortify those
opinions, and give them a degree of strength that render them formidable
to the wise, and convincing to the superficial. It is impossible to read
half a dozen pages of your book without admiring your ingenuity, or
indignantly spurning your sophisms. Words are heaped on words, till the
understanding is confused by endeavouring to disentangle the sense, and
the memory by tracing contradictions. After observing a host of these
contradictions, it can scarcely be a breach of charity to think that you
have often sacrificed your sincerity to enforce your favourite
arguments, and called in your judgment to adjust the arrangement of
words that could not convey its dictates.
A fallacy of this kind, I think, could not have escaped you when you
were treating the subject that called forth your bitterest
animadversions, the confiscation of the ecclesiastical revenue. Who of
the vindicators of the rights of men ever ventured to assert, that the
clergy of the present day should be punished on account of the
intolerable pride and inhuman cruelty of many of their predecessors[24]?
No; such a thought never entered the mind of those who warred with
inveterate prejudices. A desperate disease required a powerful remedy.
Injustice had no right to rest on prescription; nor has the character of
the present clergy any weight in the argument.
You find it very difficult to separate policy from justice: in the
political world they have frequently been separated with shameful
dexterity. To mention a recent instance. According to the limited views
of timid, or interested politicians, an abolition of the infernal slave
trade would not only be unsound policy, but a flagrant infringement of
the laws (which are allowed to have been infamous) that induced the
planters to purchase their estates. But is it not consonant with
justice, with the common principles of humanity, not to mention
Christianity, to abolish this abominable mischief? [25]There is not one
argument, one invective, levelled by you at the confiscators of the
church revenue, which could not, with the strictest propriety, be
applied by the planters and negro-drivers to our Parliament, if it
gloriously dared to shew the world that British senators were men: if
the natural feelings of humanity silenced the cold cautions of timidity,
till this stigma on our nature was wiped off, and all men were allowed
to enjoy their birth-right—liberty, till by their crimes they had
authorized society to deprive them of the blessing they had abused.
The same arguments might be used in India, if any attempt were made to
bring back things to nature, to prove that a man ought never to quit the
cast that confined him to the profession of his lineal forefathers. The
Bramins would doubtless find many ingenious reasons to justify this
debasing, though venerable prejudice; and would not, it is to be
supposed, forget to observe that time, by interweaving the oppressive
law with many useful customs, had rendered it for the present very
convenient, and consequently legal. Almost every vice that has degraded
our nature might be justified by shewing that it had been productive of
_some_ benefit to society: for it would be as difficult to point out
positive evil as unallayed good, in this imperfect state. What indeed
would become of morals, if they had no other test than prescription? The
manners of men may change without end; but, wherever reason receives the
least cultivation—wherever men rise above brutes, morality must rest on
the same base. And the more man discovers of the nature of his mind and
body, the more clearly he is convinced, that to act according to the
dictates of reason is to conform to the law of God.
The test of honour may be arbitrary and fallacious, and, retiring into
subterfuge, elude close enquiry; but true morality shuns not the day,
nor shrinks from the ordeal of investigation. Most of the happy
revolutions that have taken place in the world have happened when weak
princes held the reins they could not manage; but are they, on that
account, to be canonized as saints or demi-gods, and pushed forward to
notice on the throne of ignorance? Pleasure wants a zest, if experience
cannot compare it with pain; but who courts pain to heighten his
pleasures? A transient view of society will further illustrate arguments
which appear so obvious that I am almost ashamed to produce
illustrations. How many children have been taught œconomy, and many
other virtues, by the extravagant thoughtlessness of their parents; yet
a good education is allowed to be an inestimable blessing. The tenderest
mothers are often the most unhappy wives; but can the good that accrues
from the private distress that produces a sober dignity of mind justify
the inflictor? Right or wrong may be estimated according to the point of
sight, and other adventitious circumstances; but, to discover its real
nature, the enquiry must go deeper than the surface, and beyond the
local consequences that confound good and evil together. The rich and
weak, a numerous train, will certainly applaud your system, and loudly
celebrate your pious reverence for authority and establishments—they
find it pleasanter to enjoy than to think; to justify oppression than
correct abuses.—_The rights of men_ are grating sounds that set their
teeth on edge; the impertinent enquiry of philosophic meddling
innovation. If the poor are in distress, they will make some
_benevolent_ exertions to assist them; they will confer obligations, but
not do justice. Benevolence is a very amiable specious quality; yet the
aversion which men feel to accept a right as a favour, should rather be
extolled as a vestige of native dignity, than stigmatized as the odious
offspring of ingratitude. The poor consider the rich as their lawful
prey; but we ought not too severely to animadvert on their ingratitude.
When they receive an alms they are commonly grateful at the moment; but
old habits quickly return, and cunning has ever been a substitute for
force.
That both physical and moral evil were not only foreseen, but entered
into the scheme of Providence, when this world was contemplated in the
Divine mind, who can doubt, without robbing Omnipotence of a most
exalted attribute? But the business of the life of a good man should be,
to separate light from darkness; to diffuse happiness, whilst he submits
to unavoidable misery. And a conviction that there is much unavoidable
wretchedness, appointed by the grand Disposer of all events, should not
slacken his exertions: the extent of what is possible can only be
discerned by God. The justice of God may be vindicated by a belief in a
future state; but, only by believing that evil is educing good for the
individual, and not for an imaginary whole. The happiness of the whole
must arise from the happiness of the constituent parts, or the essence
of justice is sacrificed to a supposed grand arrangement. And that may
be good for the whole of a creature’s existence, that disturbs the
comfort of a small portion. The evil which an individual suffers for the
good of the community is partial, it must be allowed, if the account is
settled by death.—But the partial evil which it suffers, during one
stage of existence, to render another stage more perfect, is strictly
just. The Father of all only can regulate the education of his children.
To suppose that, during the whole or part of its existence, the
happiness of any individual is sacrificed to promote the welfare of ten,
or ten thousand, other beings—is impious. But to suppose that the
happiness, or animal enjoyment, of one portion of existence is
sacrificed to improve and ennoble the being itself, and render it
capable of more perfect happiness, is not to reflect on either the
goodness or wisdom of God.
It may be confidently asserted that no man chooses evil, because it is
evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. And the
desire of rectifying these mistakes, is the noble ambition of an
enlightened understanding, the impulse of feelings that Philosophy
invigorates. To endeavour to make unhappy men resigned to their fate, is
the tender endeavour of short-sighted benevolence, of transient
yearnings of humanity; but to labour to increase human happiness by
extirpating error, is a masculine godlike affection. This remark may be
carried still further. Men who possess uncommon sensibility, whose quick
emotions shew how closely the eye and heart are connected, soon forget
the most forcible sensations. Not tarrying long enough in the brain to
be subject to reflection, the next sensations, of course, obliterate
them. Memory, however, treasures up these proofs of native goodness; and
the being who is not spurred on to any virtuous act, still thinks itself
of consequence, and boasts of its feelings. Why? Because the sight of
distress, or an affecting narrative, made its blood flow with more
velocity, and the heart, literally speaking, beat with sympathetic
emotion. We ought to beware of confounding mechanical instinctive
sensations with emotions that reason deepens, and justly terms the
feelings of _humanity_. This word discriminates the active exertions of
virtue from the vague declamation of sensibility.
The declaration of the National Assembly, when they recognized the
rights of men, was calculated to touch the humane heart—the downfall of
the clergy, to agitate the pupil of impulse. On the watch to find fault,
faults met your prying eye; a different prepossession might have
produced a different conviction.
When we read a book that supports our favourite opinions, how eagerly do
we suck in the doctrines, and suffer our minds placidly to reflect the
images that illustrate the tenets we have previously embraced. We
indolently acquiesce in the conclusion, and our spirit animates and
corrects the various subjects. But when, on the contrary, we peruse a
skilful writer, with whom we do not coincide in opinion, how attentive
is the mind to detect fallacy. And this suspicious coolness often
prevents our being carried away by a stream of natural eloquence, which
the prejudiced mind terms declamation—a pomp of words! We never allow
ourselves to be warmed; and, after contending with the writer, are more
confirmed in our opinion; as much, perhaps, from a spirit of
contradiction as from reason. A lively imagination is ever in danger of
being betrayed into error by favourite opinions, which it almost
personifies, the more effectually to intoxicate the understanding.
Always tending to extremes, truth is left behind in the heat of the
chace, and things are viewed as positively good, or bad, though they
wear an equivocal face.
Some celebrated writers have supposed that wit and judgment were
incompatible; opposite qualities, that, in a kind of elementary strife,
destroyed each other: and many men of wit have endeavoured to prove that
they were mistaken. Much may be adduced by wits and metaphysicians on
both sides of the question. But, from experience, I am apt to believe
that they do weaken each other, and that great quickness of
comprehension, and facile association of ideas, naturally preclude
profundity of research. Wit is often a lucky hit; the result of a
momentary inspiration. We know not whence it comes, and it blows where
it lifts. The operations of judgment, on the contrary, are cool and
circumspect; and coolness and deliberation are great enemies to
enthusiasm. If wit is of so fine a spirit, that it almost evaporates
when translated into another language, why may not the temperature have
an influence over it? This remark may be thought derogatory to the
inferior qualities of the mind: but it is not a hasty one; and I mention
it as a prelude to a conclusion I have frequently drawn, that the
cultivation of reason damps fancy. The blessings of Heaven lie on each
side; we must choose, if we wish to attain any degree of superiority,
and not lose our lives in laborious idleness. If we mean to build our
knowledge or happiness on a rational basis, we must learn to distinguish
the _possible_, and not fight against the stream. And if we are careful
to guard ourselves from imaginary sorrows and vain fears, we must also
resign many enchanting illusions: for shallow must be the discernment
which fails to discover that raptures and ecstasies arise from
error.—Whether it will always be so, is not now to be discussed; suffice
it to observe, that Truth is seldom arrayed by the Graces; and if she
charms, it is only by inspiring a sober satisfaction, which takes its
rise from a calm contemplation of proportion and simplicity. But, though
it is allowed that one man has by nature more fancy than another, in
each individual there is a spring-tide when fancy should govern and
amalgamate materials for the understanding; and a graver period, when
those materials should be employed by the judgment. For example, I am
inclined to have a better opinion of the heart of an _old_ man, who
speaks of Sterne as his favourite author, than of his understanding.
There are times and seasons for all things: and moralists appear to me
to err, when they would confound the gaiety of youth with the
seriousness of age; for the virtues of age look not only more imposing,
but more natural, when they appear rather rigid. He who has not
exercised his judgment to curb his imagination during the meridian of
life, becomes, in its decline, too often the prey of childish feelings.
Age demands respect; youth love: if this order is disturbed, the
emotions are not pure; and when love for a man in his grand climacteric
takes place of respect, it, generally speaking, borders on contempt.
Judgment is sublime, wit beautiful; and, according to your own theory,
they cannot exist together without impairing each other’s power. The
predominancy of the latter, in your endless Reflections, should lead
hasty readers to suspect that it may, in a great degree, exclude the
former.
But, among all your plausible arguments, and witty illustrations, your
contempt for the poor always appears conspicuous, and rouses my
indignation. The following paragraph in particular struck me, as
breathing the most tyrannic spirit, and displaying the most factitious
feelings. ‘Good order is the foundation of all good things. To be
enabled to acquire, the people, without being servile, must be tractable
and obedient. The magistrate must have his reverence, the laws their
authority. The body of the people must not find the principles of
natural subordination by art rooted out of their minds. They _must_
respect that property of which they _cannot_ partake. _They must labour
to obtain what by labour can be obtained; and when they find, as they
commonly do, the success disproportioned to the endeavour, they must be
taught their consolation in the final proportions of eternal justice._
Of this consolation, whoever deprives them, deadens their industry, and
strikes at the root of all acquisition as of all conservation. He that
does this, is the cruel oppressor, the merciless enemy, of the poor and
wretched; at the same time that, by his wicked speculations, he exposes
the fruits of successful industry, and the accumulations of fortune,’
(ah! there’s the rub) ‘to the plunder of the negligent, the
disappointed, and the unprosperous[26].’
This is contemptible hard-hearted sophistry, in the specious form of
humility, and submission to the will of Heaven.—It is, Sir, _possible_
to render the poor happier in this world, without depriving them of the
consolation which you gratuitously grant them in the next. They have a
right to more comfort than they at present enjoy; and more comfort might
be afforded them, without encroaching on the pleasures of the rich: not
now waiting to enquire whether the rich have any right to exclusive
pleasures. What do I say?—encroaching! No; if an intercourse were
established between them, it would impart the only true pleasure that
can be snatched in this land of shadows, this hard school of moral
discipline.
I know, indeed, that there is often something disgusting in the
distresses of poverty, at which the imagination revolts, and starts back
to exercise itself in the more attractive Arcadia of fiction. The rich
man builds a house, art and taste give it the highest finish. His
gardens are planted, and the trees grow to recreate the fancy of the
planter, though the temperature of the climate may rather force him to
avoid the dangerous damps they exhale, than seek the umbrageous retreat.
Every thing on the estate is cherished but man;—yet, to contribute to
the happiness of man, is the most sublime of all enjoyments. But if,
instead of sweeping pleasure-grounds, obelisks, temples, and elegant
cottages, as _objects_ for the eye, the heart was allowed to beat true
to nature, decent farms would be scattered over the estate, and plenty
smile around. Instead of the poor being subject to the griping hand of
an avaricious steward, they would be watched over with fatherly
solicitude, by the man whose duty and pleasure it was to guard their
happiness, and shield from rapacity the beings who, by the sweat of
their brow, exalted him above his fellows.
I could almost imagine I see a man thus gathering blessings as he
mounted the hill of life; or consolation, in those days when the spirits
lag, and the tired heart finds no pleasure in them. It is not by
squandering alms that the poor can be relieved, or improved—it is the
fostering sun of kindness, the wisdom that finds them employments
calculated to give them habits of virtue, that meliorates their
condition. Love is only the fruit of love; condescension and authority
may produce the obedience you applaud; but he has lost his heart of
flesh who can see a fellow-creature humbled before him, and trembling at
the frown of a being, whose heart is supplied by the same vital current,
and whose pride ought to be checked by a consciousness of having the
same infirmities.
What salutary dews might not be shed to refresh this thirsty land, if
men were more _enlightened_! Smiles and premiums might encourage
cleanliness, industry, and emulation.—A garden more inviting than Eden
would then meet the eye, and springs of joy murmur on every side. The
clergyman would superintend his own flock, the shepherd would then love
the sheep he daily tended; the school might rear its decent head, and
the buzzing tribe, let loose to play, impart a portion of their
vivacious spirits to the heart that longed to open their minds, and lead
them to taste the pleasures of men. Domestic comfort, the civilizing
relations of husband, brother, and father, would soften labour, and
render life contented.
Returning once from a despotic country to a part of England well
cultivated, but not very picturesque—with what delight did I not observe
the poor man’s garden!—The homely palings and twining woodbine, with all
the rustic contrivances of simple, unlettered taste, was a sight which
relieved the eye that had wandered indignant from the stately palace to
the pestiferous hovel, and turned from the awful contrast into itself to
mourn the fate of man, and curse the arts of civilization!
Why cannot large estates be divided into small farms? these dwellings
would indeed grace our land. Why are huge forests still allowed to
stretch out with idle pomp and all the indolence of Eastern grandeur?
Why does the brown waste meet the traveller’s view, when men want work?
But commons cannot be enclosed without _acts of parliament_ to increase
the property of the rich! Why might not the industrious peasant be
allowed to steal a farm from the heath? This sight I have seen;—the cow
that supported the children grazed near the hut, and the cheerful
poultry were fed by the chubby babes, who breathed a bracing air, far
from the diseases and the vices of cities. Domination blasts all these
prospects; virtue can only flourish amongst equals, and the man who
submits to a fellow-creature, because it promotes his worldly interest,
and he who relieves only because it is his duty to lay up a treasure in
heaven, are much on a par, for both are radically degraded by the habits
of their life.
In this great city, that proudly rears its head, and boasts of its
population and commerce, how much misery lurks in pestilential corners,
whilst idle mendicants assail, on every side, the man who hates to
encourage importers, or repress, with angry frown, the plaints of the
poor! How many mechanics, by a flux of trade or fashion, lose their
employment; whom misfortunes, not to be warded off, lead to the idleness
that vitiates their character and renders them afterwards averse to
honest labour! Where is the eye that marks these evils, more gigantic
than any of the infringements of property, which you piously deprecate?
Are these remediless evils? And is the humane heart satisfied with
turning the poor over to _another_ world, to receive the blessings this
could afford? If society was regulated on a more enlarged plan; if man
was contented to be the friend of man, and did not seek to bury the
sympathies of humanity in the servile appellation of master; if, turning
his eyes from ideal regions of taste and elegance, he laboured to give
the earth he inhabited all the beauty it is capable of receiving, and
was ever on the watch to shed abroad all the happiness which human
nature can enjoy;—he who, respecting the rights of men, wishes to
convince or persuade society that this is true happiness and dignity, is
not the cruel _oppressor_ of the poor, nor a short-sighted
philosopher—HE fears God and loves his fellow-creatures.—Behold the
whole duty of man!—the citizen who acts differently is a sophisticated
being.
Surveying civilized life, and seeing, with undazzled eye, the polished
vices of the rich, their insincerity, want of natural affections, with
all the specious train that luxury introduces, I have turned impatiently
to the poor, to look for man undebauched by riches or power—but, alas!
what did I see? a being scarcely above the brutes, over which he
tyrannized; a broken spirit, worn-out body, and all those gross vices
which the example of the rich, rudely copied, could produce. Envy built
a wall of separation, that made the poor hate, whilst they bent to their
superiors; who, on their part, stepped aside to avoid the loathsome
sight of human misery.
What were the outrages of a day[27] to these continual miseries? Let
those sorrows hide their diminished head before the tremendous mountain
of woe that thus defaces our globe! Man preys on man; and you mourn for
the idle tapestry that decorated a gothic pile, and the dronish bell
that summoned the fat priest to prayer. You mourn for the empty pageant
of a name, when slavery flaps her wing, and the sick heart retires to
die in lonely wilds, far from the abodes of men. Did the pangs you felt
for insulted nobility, the anguish that rent your heart when the
gorgeous robes were torn off the idol human weakness had set up, deserve
to be compared with the long-drawn sigh of melancholy reflection, when
misery and vice are thus seen to haunt our steps, and swim on the top of
every cheering prospect? Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific
perspectives of a hell beyond the grave?—Hell stalks abroad;—the lash
resounds on the slave’s naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no
longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labour, steals to a ditch to
bid the world a long good night—or, neglected in some ostentatious
hospital, breathes his last amidst the laugh of mercenary attendants.
Such misery demands more than tears—I pause to recollect myself; and
smother the contempt I feel rising for your rhetorical flourishes and
infantine sensibility.
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Taking a retrospective view of my hasty answer, and casting a cursory
glance over your _Reflections_, I perceive that I have not alluded to
several reprehensible passages, in your elaborate work; which I marked
for censure when I first perused it with a steady eye. And now I find it
almost impossible candidly to refute your sophisms, without quoting your
own words, and putting the numerous contradictions I observed in
opposition to each other. This would be an effectual refutation; but,
after such a tedious drudgery, I fear I should only be read by the
patient eye that scarcely wanted my assistance to detect the flagrant
errors. It would be a tedious process to shew, that often the most just
and forcible illustrations are warped to colour over opinions _you_ must
_sometimes_ have secretly despised; or, at least, have discovered, that
what you asserted without limitation, required the greatest. Some
subjects of exaggeration may have been superficially viewed; depth of
judgment is, perhaps, incompatible with the predominant features of your
mind. Your reason may have often been the dupe of your imagination; but
say, did you not sometimes angrily bid her be still, when she whispered
that you were departing from strict truth? Or, when assuming the awful
form of conscience, and only smiling at the vagaries of vanity, did she
not austerely bid you recollect your own errors, before you lifted the
avenging stone? Did she not sometimes wave her hand, when you poured
forth a torrent of shining sentences, and beseech you to concatenate
them—plainly telling you that the impassioned eloquence of the heart was
calculated rather to affect than dazzle the reader, whom it hurried
along to conviction? Did she not anticipate the remark of the wise, who
drink not at a shallow sparkling dream, and tell you that they would
discover when, with the dignity of sincerity, you supported an opinion
that only appeared to you with one face; or, when superannuated vanity
made you torture your invention?—But I forbear.
I have before animadverted on our method of electing representatives,
convinced that it debauches both the morals of the people and the
candidates, without rendering the member really responsible, or attached
to his constituents; but, amongst your other contradictions, you blame
the National Assembly for expecting any exertions from the servile
principle of responsibility, and afterwards insult them for not
rendering themselves responsible. Whether the one the French have
adopted will answer the purpose better, and be more than a shadow of
representation, time only can shew. In theory it appears more promising.
Your real or artificial affection for the English constitution seems to
me to resemble the brutal affection of some weak characters. They think
it a duty to love their relations with a blind, indolent tenderness,
that _will not_ see the faults it might assist to correct, if their
affection had been built on rational grounds. They love they know not
why, and they will love to the end of the chapter.
Is it absolute blasphemy to doubt of the omnipotence of the law, or to
suppose that religion might be more pure if there were fewer baits for
hypocrites in the church? But our manners, you tell us, are drawn from
the French, though you had before celebrated our native plainness[28].
If they were, it is time we broke loose from dependence——Time that
Englishmen drew water from their own springs; for, if manners are not a
painted substitute for morals, we have only to cultivate our reason, and
we shall not feel the want of an arbitrary model. Nature will suffice;
but I forget myself:—Nature and Reason, according to your system, are
all to give place to authority; and the gods, as Shakespeare makes a
frantic wretch exclaim, seem to kill us for their sport, as men do
flies.
Before I conclude my cursory remarks, it is but just to acknowledge that
I coincide with you in your opinion respecting the _sincerity_ of many
modern philosophers. Your consistency in avowing a veneration for rank
and riches deserves praise; but I must own that I have often indignantly
observed that some of the _enlightened_ philosophers, who talk most
vehemently of the native rights of men, borrow many noble sentiments to
adorn their conversation, which have no influence on their conduct. They
bow down to rank, and are careful to secure property; for virtue,
without this adventitious drapery, is seldom very respectable in their
eyes—nor are they very quick-sighted to discern real dignity of
character when no sounding name exalts the man above his fellows.—But
neither open enmity nor hollow homage destroys the intrinsic value of
those principles which rest on an eternal foundation, and revert for a
standard to the immutable attributes of God.