Nulla fides regni sociis, omnisque potestas
Impatiens consortis erit.--------
LUCAN. Lib. i. 92.
No faith of partnership dominion owns:
Still discord hovers o'er divided thrones.
IT is well known, that many things appear plausible
in speculation, which can never be reduced to
practice; and that of the numberless projects that
have flattered mankind with theoretical speciousness,
few had served any other purpose than to show
the ingenuity of their contrivers. A voyage to the
moon, however romantick and absurd the scheme
may now appear, since the properties of air have
been better understood, seemed highly probable
to many of the aspiring wits in the last century,
who began to dote upon their glossy plumes, and
fluttered with impatience for the hour of their
departure:
------------Pereunt vestigia mille
Ante fugam, absentemque ferit gravis ungula campum.
Hills, vales and floods appear already crost;
And, ere he starts, a thousand steps are lost. POPE.
Among the fallacies which only experience can
detect, there are some, of which scarcely experience
itself can destroy the influence; some which, by a
captivating show of indubitable certainty, are
perpetually gaining upon the human mind; and which,
though every trial ends in disappointment, obtain
new credit as the sense of miscarriage wears gradually
away, persuade us to try again what we have
tried already, and expose us by the same failure to
double vexation.
Of this tempting, this delusive kind, is the
expectation of great performances by confederated
strength. The speculatist, when he has carefully
observed how much may be performed by a single
hand, calculates by a very easy operation the force
of thousands, and goes on accumulating power till
resistance vanishes before it, then rejoices in the
success of his new scheme, and wonders at the folly or
idleness of former ages, who have lived in want
of what might so readily be procured, and suffered
themselves to be debarred from happiness by obstacles
which one united effort would have so easily
surmounted.
But this gigantick phantom of collective power
vanishes at once into air and emptiness, at the first
attempt to put it into action. The different apprehensions,
the discordant passions, the jarring interests of
men, will scarcely permit that many should unite in
one undertaking.
Of a great and complicated design, some will never
be brought to discern the end; and of the several
means by which it may be accomplished, the choice
will be a perpetual subject of debate, as every man
is swayed in his determination by his own knowledge
or convenience. In a long series of action some
will languish with fatigue, and some be drawn of
by present gratifications; some will loiter because
others labour, and some will cease to labour because
others loiter: and if once they come within prospect
of success and profit, some will be greedy and
others envious; some will undertake more than they
can perform, to enlarge their claims of advantage;
some will perform less than they undertake, lest
their labours should chiefly turn to the benefit of
others.
The history of mankind informs us that a single
power is very seldom broken by a confederacy. States
of different interests, and aspects malevolent to each
other, may be united for a time by common distress;
and in the ardour of self-preservation fall unanimously
upon an enemy, by whom they are all equally
endangered. But if their first attack can be
withstood, time will never fail to dissolve their union:
success and miscarriage will be equally destructive:
after the conquest of a province, they will quarrel in
the division; after the loss of a battle, all will be
endeavouring to secure themselves by abandoning
the rest.
From the impossibility of confining numbers to
the constant and uniform prosecution of a common
interest, arises the difficulty of securing subjects
against the encroachment of governours. Power is
always gradually stealing away from the many to the
few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent;
it still contracts to a smaller number, till in time
it centres in a single person.
Thus all the forms of governments instituted
among mankind, perpetually tend towards monarchy;
and power, however diffused through the
whole community, is, by negligence or corruption,
commotion or distress, reposed at last in the chief
magistrate.
"There never appear," says Swift, "more than
five or six men of genius in an age; but if they were
united, the world could not stand before them."
It is happy, therefore, for mankind, that of this
union there is no probability. As men take in a
wider compass of intellectual survey, they are more
likely to choose different objects of pursuit; as they
see more ways to the same end, they will be less
easily persuaded to travel together; as each is better
qualified to form an independent scheme of private
greatness, he will reject with greater obstinacy the
project of another; as each is more able to distinguish
himself as the head of a party, he will less
readily be made a follower or an associate.
The reigning philosophy informs us, that the vast
bodies which constitute the universe, are regulated
in their progress through the ethereal spaces by the
perpetual agency of contrary forces; by one of which
they are restrained from deserting their orbits, and
losing themselves in the immensity of heaven;
and held off by the other from rushing together,
and clustering round their centre with everlasting
cohesion.
The same contrariety of impulse may be perhaps
discovered in the motions of men: we are formed
for society, not for combination; we are equally
unqualified to live in a close connexion with our
fellow-beings, and in total separation from them;
we are attracted towards each other by general
sympathy, but kept back from contact by private
interests.
Some philosophers have been foolish enough to
imagine, that improvements might be made in the
system of the universe, by a different arrangement
of the orbs of heaven; and politicians, equally
ignorant and equally presumptuous, may easily be led to
suppose, that the happiness of our world would be
promoted by a different tendency of the human
mind. It appears, indeed, to a slight and superficial
observer, that many things impracticable in our present
state, might be easily effected, if mankind were
better disposed to union and co-operation: but a little
reflection will discover, that if confederacies were
easily formed, they would lose their efficacy, since
numbers would be opposed to numbers, and unanimity
to unanimity; and instead of the present petty
competitions of individuals or single families,
multitudes would be supplanting multitudes, and
thousands plotting against thousands.
There is no class of the human species, of which
the union seems to have been more expected, than
of the learned: the rest of the world have almost always
agreed to shut scholars up together in colleges
and cloisters; surely not without hope, that they
would look for that happiness in concord, which they
were debarred from finding in variety; and that such
conjunctions of intellect would recompense the
munificence of founders and patrons, by performances
above the reach of any single mind.
But discord, who found means to roll her apple
into the banqueting chamber of the goddesses, has
had the address to scatter her laurels in the seminaries
of learning. The friendship of students and of
beauties is for the most part equally sincere, and
equally durable: as both depend for happiness on
the regard of others, on that of which the value
arises merely from comparison, they are both exposed
to perpetual jealousies, and both incessantly
employed in schemes to intercept the praises of each
other.
I am, however, far from intending to inculcate
that this confinement of the studious to studious
companions, has been wholly without advantage to
the publick: neighbourhood, where it does not
conciliate friendship, incites competition; and he that
would contentedly rest in a lower degree of excellence,
where he had no rival to dread, will be urged
by his impatience of inferiority to incessant
endeavours after great attainments.
These stimulations of honest rivalry are, perhaps,
the chief effects of academies and societies; for
whatever be the bulk of their joint labours, every single
piece is always the production of an individual, that
owes nothing to his colleagues but the contagion of
diligence, a resolution to write, because the rest are
writing, and the scorn of obscurity while the rest are
illustrious[g].
[g] It may not be uninteresting to place in immediate comparison
with this finished paper its first rough draught as given in
Boswell, vol. i.
"Confederacies difficult; why.
"Seldom in war a match for single persons--nor in peace;
therefore kings make themselves absolute. Confederacies in
learning--every great work the work of one. Bruy. Scholars
friendship like ladies. Scribebamus, &c. Mart. The apple of
discord--the laurel of discord--the poverty of criticism.
Swift's opinion of the power of six geniuses united. That union
scarce possible. His remarks just;--man a social, not steady
nature. Drawn to man by words, repelled by passions. Orb drawn
by attraction, rep. [repelled] by centrifugal.
"Common danger unites by crushing other passions--but they
return. Equality hinders compliance. Superiority produces
insolence and envy. Too much regard in each to private
interest;--too little.
"The mischiefs of private and exclusive societies.--The fitness
of social attraction diffused through the whole. The mischiefs
of too partial love of our country. Contraction of moral duties.
<gr>> Oi filoi, o<u?> filos>.
"Every man moves upon his own centre, and therefore repels others
from too near a contact, though he may comply with some general
laws.
Of confederacy with superiors every one knows the inconvenience.
With equals no authority;--every man his own opinion--his own
interest.
"Man and wife hardly united;--scarce ever without children.
Computation, if two to one against two, how many against five?
If confederacies were easy--useless;--many oppresses many.--If
possible only to some, dangerous. Principum amicitias."