Colonization is not only a manifest expedient for, but an imperative duty
on, Great Britain. God seems to hold out his finger to us over the sea. But
it must be a national colonization, such as was that of the Scotch to
America; a colonization of hope, and not such as we have alone encouraged
and effected for the last fifty years, a colonization of despair.
* * * * *
The wonderful powers of machinery can, by multiplied production, render the
mere _arte facta _of life actually cheaper: thus money and all other things
being supposed the same in value, a silk gown is five times cheaper now
than in Queen Elizabeth's time; but machinery cannot cheapen, in any thing
like an equal degree, the immediate growths of nature or the immediate
necessaries of man. Now the _arte facta _are sought by the higher classes
of society in a proportion incalculably beyond that in which they are
sought by the lower classes; and therefore it is that the vast increase of
mechanical powers has not cheapened life and pleasure to the poor as it has
done to the rich. In some respects, no doubt, it has done so, as in giving
cotton dresses to maid-servants, and penny gin to all. A pretty benefit
truly!
* * * * *
I think this country is now suffering grievously under an excessive
accumulation of capital, which, having no field for profitable operation,
is in a state of fierce civil war with itself.
_May _6. 1833.
ROMAN CONQUEST.--CONSTANTINE.--PAPACY AND THE
SCHOOLMEN.
The Romans had no national clerisy; their priesthood was entirely a matter
of state, and, as far back as we can trace it, an evident stronghold of the
Patricians against the increasing powers of the Plebeians. All we know of
the early Romans is, that, after an indefinite lapse of years, they had
conquered some fifty or sixty miles round their city. Then it is that they
go to war with Carthage, the great maritime power, and the result of that
war was the occupation of Sicily. Thence they, in succession, conquered
Spain, Macedonia, Asia Minor, &c., and so at last contrived to subjugate
Italy, partly by a tremendous back blow, and partly by bribing the Italian
States with a communication of their privileges, which the now enormously
enriched conquerors possessed over so large a portion of the civilized
world. They were ordained by Providence to conquer and amalgamate the
materials of Christendom. They were not a national people; they
were truly--
_Romanos rerum dominos--_
--and that's all.
* * * * *
Under Constantine the spiritual power became a complete reflex of the
temporal. There were four patriarchs, and four prefects, and so on. The
Clergy and the Lawyers, the Church and the State, were opposed.
* * * * *
The beneficial influence of the Papacy upon the whole has been much over-
rated by some writers; and certainly no country in Europe received less
benefit and more harm from it than England. In fact, the lawful kings and
parliaments of England were always essentially Protestant in feeling for a
national church, though they adhered to the received doctrines of the
Christianity of the day; and it was only the usurpers, John, Henry IV.,
&c., that went against this policy. All the great English schoolmen, Scotus
Erigena[1], Duns Scotus, Ockham, and others, those morning stars of the
Reformation, were heart and soul opposed to Rome, and maintained the Papacy
to be Antichrist. The Popes always persecuted, with rancorous hatred, the
national clerisies, the married clergy, and disliked the universities which
grew out of the old monasteries. The Papacy was, and is, essentially extra-
national, and was always so considered in this country, although not
believed to be anti-Christian.
[Footnote 1:
John Scotus, or Erigena, was born, according to different authors, in
Wales, Scotland, or Ireland; but I do not find any account making him an
Englishman of Saxon blood. His death is uncertainly placed in the beginning
of the ninth century. He lived in well-known intimacy with Charles the
Bald, of France, who died about A. D. 874. He resolutely resisted the
doctrine of transubstantiation, and was publicly accused of heresy on that
account. But the king of France protected him--ED.]
_May_ 8. 1833.