Husbandmen, shepherds, and artificers, formed the three classes of lower
life in Egypt, but were nevertheless had in very great esteem,
particularly husbandmen and shepherds.(375) The body politic requires a
superiority and subordination of its several members; for as in the
natural body, the eye may be said to hold the first rank, yet its lustre
does not dart contempt upon the feet, the hands, or even on those parts
which are less honourable. In like manner, among the Egyptians, the
priests, soldiers, and scholars were distinguished by particular honours;
but all professions, to the meanest, had their share in the public esteem,
because the despising any man, whose labours, however mean, were useful to
the state, was thought a crime.
A better reason than the foregoing might have inspired them at the first
with these sentiments of equity and moderation, which they so long
preserved. As they all descended from Cham,(376) their common father, the
memory of their still recent origin occurring to the minds of all in those
first ages, established among them a kind of equality, and stamped, in
their opinion, a nobility on every person derived from the common stock.
Indeed the difference of conditions, and the contempt with which persons
of the lowest rank are treated, are owing merely to the distance from the
common root; which makes us forget that the meanest plebeian, when his
descent is traced back to the source, is equally noble with those of the
most elevated rank and titles.
Be that as it will, no profession in Egypt was considered as grovelling or
sordid. By this means arts were raised to their highest perfection. The
honour which cherished them mixed with every thought and care for their
improvement. Every man had his way of life assigned him by the laws, and
it was perpetuated from father to son. Two professions at one time, or a
change of that which a man was born to, were never allowed. By this means,
men became more able and expert in employments which they had always
exercised from their infancy; and every man, adding his own experience to
that of his ancestors, was more capable of attaining perfection in his
particular art. Besides, this wholesome institution, which had been
established anciently throughout Egypt, extinguished all irregular
ambition, and taught every man to sit down contented with his condition,
without aspiring to one more elevated, from interest, vain-glory, or
levity.
From this source flowed numberless inventions for the improvement of all
the arts, and for rendering life more commodious, and trade more easy. I
once could not believe that Diodorus was in earnest, in what he relates
concerning the Egyptian industry,(377) _viz._ that this people had found
out a way, by an artificial fecundity, to hatch eggs without the sitting
of the hen; but all modern travellers declare it to be a fact, which
certainly is worthy our investigation, and is said to be practised also in
Europe. Their relations inform us, that the Egyptians stow eggs in ovens,
which are heated to such a temperament, and with such just proportion to
the natural warmth of the hen, that the chickens produced by these means
are as strong as those which are hatched the natural way. The season of
the year proper for this operation is, from the end of December to the end
of April; the heat in Egypt being too violent in the other months. During
these four months, upwards of three hundred thousand eggs are laid in
these ovens, which, though they are not all successful, nevertheless
produce vast numbers of fowls at an easy rate. The art lies in giving the
ovens a due degree of heat, which must not exceed a fixed proportion.
About ten days are bestowed in heating these ovens, and very near as much
time in hatching the eggs. It is very entertaining, say these travellers,
to observe the hatching of these chickens, some of which show at first
nothing but their heads, others but half their bodies, and others again
come quite out of the egg: these last, the moment they are hatched, make
their way over the unhatched eggs, and form a diverting spectacle.
Corneille le Bruyn, in his Travels,(378) has collected the observations of
other travellers on this subject. Pliny likewise mentions it;(379) but it
appears from him, that the Egyptians, anciently, employed warm dung, not
ovens, to hatch eggs.
I have said, that husbandmen particularly, and those who took care of
flocks, were in great esteem in Egypt, some parts of it excepted, where
the latter were not suffered.(380) It was, indeed, to these two
professions that Egypt owed its riches and plenty. It is astonishing to
reflect what advantages the Egyptians, by their art and labour, drew from
a country of no great extent, but whose soil was made wonderfully fruitful
by the inundations of the Nile, and the laborious industry of the
inhabitants.
It will be always so with every kingdom whose governors direct all their
actions to the public welfare. The culture of lands, and the breeding of
cattle, will be an inexhaustible fund of wealth in all countries, where,
as in Egypt, these profitable callings are supported and encouraged by
maxims of state and policy: and we may consider it as a misfortune, that
they are at present fallen into so general a disesteem; though it is from
them that the most elevated ranks (as we esteem them) are furnished, not
only with the necessaries, but even the luxuries of life. “For,” says Abbé
Fleury, in his admirable work, _Of the manners of the Israelites_, where
the subject I am upon is thoroughly examined, “it is the peasant who feeds
the citizen, the magistrate, the gentleman, the ecclesiastic: and whatever
artifice and craft may be used to convert money into commodities, and
these back again into money; yet all must ultimately be owned to be
received from the products of the earth, and the animals which it sustains
and nourishes. Nevertheless, when we compare men’s different stations of
life together, we give the lowest place to the husbandman: and with many
people a wealthy citizen, enervated with sloth, useless to the public, and
void of all merit, has the preference, merely because he has more money,
and lives a more easy and delightful life.
“But let us imagine to ourselves a country where so great a difference is
not made between the several conditions; where the life of a nobleman is
not made to consist in idleness and doing nothing, but in a careful
preservation of his liberty; that is, in a due subjection to the laws and
the constitution; by a man’s subsisting upon his estate without a
dependence on any one, and being contented to enjoy a little with liberty,
rather than a great deal at the price of mean and base compliances: a
country, where sloth, effeminacy, and the ignorance of things necessary
for life, are held in just contempt; and where pleasure is less valued
than health and bodily strength: in such a country, it will be much more
for a man’s reputation to plough, and keep flocks, than to waste all his
hours in sauntering from place to place, in gaming and expensive
diversions.”
But we need not have recourse to Plato’s commonwealth, for instances of
men who have led these useful lives. It was thus that the greatest part of
mankind lived during near four thousand years; and that not only the
Israelites, but the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans, that is to say,
nations the most civilized, and most renowned for arms and wisdom. They
all inculcate the regard which ought to be paid to agriculture, and the
breeding of cattle: one of which (without saying any thing of hemp and
flax so necessary for our clothing) supplies us by corn, fruits, and
pulse, with not only a plentiful but delicious nourishment; and the other,
besides its supply of exquisite meats to cover our tables, almost alone
gives life to manufactures and trade, by the skins and stuffs it
furnishes.
Princes are commonly desirous, and their interest certainly requires it,
that the peasant who, in a literal sense, sustains the heat and burden of
the day, and pays so great a proportion of the national taxes, should meet
with favour and encouragement. But the kind and good intentions of princes
are too often defeated by the insatiable and merciless avarice of those
who are appointed to collect their revenues. History has transmitted to us
a fine saying of Tiberius on this head. A prefect of Egypt having
augmented the annual tribute of the province, and, doubtless, with the
view of making his court to the emperor, remitted to him a much larger sum
than was customary; that prince, who, in the beginning of his reign,
thought, or at least spoke justly, answered, “that it was his design not
to flay, but to shear his sheep.”(381)