This mixed system of opinion and sentiment had its origin in the ancient
chivalry; and the principle, though varied in its appearance by the
varying state of human affairs, subsisted and influenced through a long
succession of generations, even to the time we live in. If it should
ever be totally extinguished, the loss I fear will be great. It is this
which has given its character to modern Europe. It is this which has
distinguished it under all its forms of government, and distinguished
it, to its advantage, from the states of Asia, and possibly from those
states which flourished in the most brilliant periods of the antique
world. It was this which, without confounding ranks, had produced a
noble equality, and handed it down through all the gradations of social
life. It was this opinion which mitigated kings into companions,
and raised private men to be fellows with kings. Without force or
opposition, it subdued the fierceness of pride and power; it obliged
sovereigns to submit to the soft collar of social esteem, compelled
stern authority to submit to elegance, and gave a dominating vanquisher
of laws to be subdued by manners.
But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made
power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different
shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into
politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are
to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All
the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded
ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the
heart owns and the understanding ratifies as necessary to cover the
defects of our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in
our own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and
antiquated fashion.
On this scheme of things, a king is but a man, a queen is but a woman;
a woman is but an animal,--and an animal not of the highest order. All
homage paid to the sex in general as such, and without distinct views,
is to be regarded as romance and folly. Regicide, and parricide, and
sacrilege are but fictions of superstition, corrupting jurisprudence
by destroying its simplicity. The murder of a king, or a queen, or a
bishop, or a father, are only common homicide; and if the people are by
any chance, or in any way, gainers by it, a sort of homicide much
the most pardonable, and into which we ought not to make too severe a
scrutiny.
On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of
cold hearts and muddy understandings, and which is as void of solid
wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be
supported only by their own terrors, and by the concern which each
individual may find in them from his own private speculations, or can
spare to them from his own private interests. In the groves of THEIR
academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.
Nothing is left which engages the affections on the part of the
commonwealth. On the principles of this mechanic philosophy, our
institutions can never be embodied, if I may use the expression,
in persons, so as to create in us love, veneration, admiration, or
attachment. But that sort of reason which banishes the affections is
incapable of filling their place. These public affections, combined
with manners, are required sometimes as supplements, sometimes as
correctives, always as aids to law. The precept given by a wise man, as
well as a great critic, for the construction of poems, is equally true
as to states:--Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto. There
ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind
would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country
ought to be lovely.