We may learn from the history of the past, if we will not accept the data
of the present, how climate, food, domesticity, or recognized customs of
society may alter the minds and dispositions of men; how they may
gradually build up governments, founded upon monstrous ideas, and yet in
unison with the compunctions of their conscience. Ascribe the origin to
any cause you will, it does not alter the revolting facts, nor lessen the
repulsiveness of the absurdity, nor the enormity of the crime. Volney
believed "that the social institutions called Government and Religion
were the true sources and regulators of the activity or indolence of
individuals and nations; that they were the efficient causes which, as
they extend or limit the natural or superfluous wants, limit or extend the
activity of all men. A proof that their influence operates in spite of the
difference of climate and soil is, that Tyre, Carthage, and Alexandria
formerly possessed the same industry as London, Paris, and Amsterdam; that
the Buccaneers and the Malayans have displayed equal turbulence and
courage with the Normans, and that the Russians and Polanders have the
apathy and indifference of the Hindoos and the Negroes. But, as civil and
religious institutions are perpetually varied and changed by the passions
of men, their influence changes and varies in very short intervals of
time. Hence it is that the Romans commanded by Scipio resembled so little
those governed by Tiberius, and that the Greeks of the age of Aristides
and Themistocles were so unlike those of the time of Constantine."
Volney observes that "the moral character of nations, taken from that of
individuals, chiefly depends on the social state in which they live; since
it is true that our actions are governed by our civil and religious laws,
and since our habits are no more than a repetition of those actions, and
our character only the disposition to act in such a manner under such
circumstances, it evidently follows that these must essentially depend on
the nature of the government and religion."
Says Addison, "In all despotic governments, though a particular prince may
favor arts and letters, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind, as you
may observe from Augustus's reign, how the Romans lost themselves by
degrees, until they fell to an equality with the most barbarous nations
that surrounded them. Look upon Greece under its free states, and you
would think its inhabitants lived in different climates and under
different heavens from those at present, so different are the geniuses
which are formed under Turkish slavery and Grecian liberty.
"Besides poverty and want, there are other reasons that debase the minds
of men who live under Slavery, though I look on this as the principal. The
natural tendency of despotic powers to ignorance and barbarity, though not
insisted upon by others, is, I think, an unanswerable argument against
that form of government, as it shows how repugnant it is to the good of
mankind and the perfection of human nature, which ought to be the great
end of all civil institutions."
"Liberty should reach every individual of a people, as they all share one
common nature; if it only spreads among particular branches there had
better be none at all, since such a liberty only aggravates the misfortune
of those who are deprived of it, by setting before them a disagreeable
subject of comparison."
"The pride of Athens," writes Mirabeau, "and the jealousy of the Greeks,
banished forever the liberty of those countries, so long fortunate."
Such is and always was our world, covered from time to time with
conquerors and slaves, because the conquering, in forging the irons of the
unhappy, with which they bound them, sharpen those which must bind them in
turn.
Such is and always will be man, from time to time despot and slave, for
man, denaturalized by servitude, becomes readily the most ferocious of
animals if he escapes an instant from oppression. There is but one step
from the despot to the slave, from the slave to the despot, and the chain
becomes them alike.