Italy is now warmer than in former times, the consequence may not be
necessary that it is more populous or better cultivated. If the other
countries of Europe were more savage and woody, the cold winds that
blew from them might affect the climate of Italy.
[99] The inhabitants of Marseilles lost not their superiority over
the Gauls in commerce and the mechanic arts till the Roman dominion
turned the latter from arms to agriculture and civil life. (See Strabo,
lib. 4.) That author, in several places, repeats the observation
concerning the improvement arising from the Roman arts and civility,
and he lived at the time when the change was new and would be more
sensible. So also Pliny: “Quis enim non, communicato orbe terrarum,
majestate Romani imperii, profecisse vitam putet, commercio rerum ac
societate festae pacis, omniaque etiam, quae occulta antea fuerant, in
promiscuo usu facta.” (Lib. 14, proœm.) “Numine deum electa [speaking
of Italy] quae coelum ipsum clarius faceret, sparsa congregaret
imperia, ritusque molliret, et tot populorum discordes, ferasque
linguas fermonis commercio contraheret ad colloquia, et humanitatem
homini daret; breviterque, una cunctarum gentium in toto orbe patria
fieret.” (Lib. 2, cap. 5.) Nothing can be stronger to this purpose
than the following passage from Tertullian, who lived about the age of
Severus:—“Certe quidem ipse orbis in promptu est, cultior de die et
instructior pristino. Omnia jam pervia, omnia nota, omnia negotiosa.
Solitudines famosas retro fundi amoenissimi obliteraverunt, silvas arva
domuerunt, feras pecora fugaverunt; arenae seruntur, saxa panguntur,
paludes eliquantur, tantae urbes, quantae non casae quondam. Jam nec
insulae horrent, nec scopuli terrent; ubique domus, ubique populus,
ubique respublica, ubique vita. Summum testimonium frequentiae humanae,
onerosi sumus mundo, vix nobis elementa sufficiunt; et necessitates
arctiores, et quaerelae apud omnes, dum jam nos natura non sustinet.”
(_De anima_, cap. 30.) The air of rhetoric and declamation which
appears in this passage diminishes somewhat from its authority, but
does not entirely destroy it. The same remark may be extended to the
following passage of Aristides the Sophist, who lived in the age of
Adrian. “The whole world,” says he, addressing himself to the Romans,
“seems to keep one holiday, and mankind, laying aside the sword which
they formerly wore, now betake themselves to feasting and to joy.
The cities, forgetting their ancient contentions, preserve only one
emulation, which shall embellish itself most by every art and ornament?
Theatres everywhere arise, amphitheatres, porticoes, aqueducts,
temples, schools, academies; and one may safely pronounce that the
sinking world has been again raised by your auspicious empire. Nor have
cities alone received an increase of ornament and beauty; but the whole
earth, like a garden or paradise, is cultivated and adorned; insomuch
that such of mankind as are placed out of the limits of your empire
(who are but few) seem to merit our sympathy and compassion.”
It is remarkable that though Diodorus Siculus makes the inhabitants of
Egypt, when conquered by the Romans, amount only to three millions, yet
Josephus (_De bello Jud._, lib. 2, cap. 16) says that its inhabitants,
excluding those of Alexandria, were seven millions and a half in the
reign of Nero, and he expressly says that he drew this account from
the books of the Roman publicans who levied the poll-tax. Strabo
(lib. 17) praises the superior police of the Romans with regard to
the finances of Egypt above that of its former monarchs, and no part
of administration is more essential to the happiness of a people;
yet we read in Athenæus (lib. 1, cap. 25), who flourished during the
reign of the Antonines, that the town Mareia, near Alexandria, which
was formerly a large city, had dwindled into a village. This is not,
properly speaking, a contradiction. Suidas (August) says that the
Emperor Augustus, having numbered the whole Roman Empire, found it
contained only 4,101,017 men (ἀνδρες). There is here surely some great
mistake, either in the author or transcriber; but this authority,
feeble as it is, may be sufficient to counterbalance the exaggerated
accounts of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus with regard to more early
times.
[100] Lib. 2, cap. 62. It may perhaps be imagined that Polybius, being
dependent on Rome, would naturally extol the Roman dominion; but, in
the first place, Polybius, though one sees sometimes instances of his
caution, discovers no symptoms of flattery. Secondly, this opinion is
only delivered in a single stroke, by the by, while he is intent upon
another subject, and it is allowed, if there be any suspicion of an
author’s insincerity, that these oblique propositions discover his real
opinion better than his more formal and direct assertions.
[101] I must confess that that discourse of Plutarch concerning the
silence of the oracles is in general of so odd a texture, and so unlike
his other productions, that one is at a loss what judgment to form of
it. It is written in dialogue, which is a method of composition that
Plutarch commonly little affects. The personages he introduces advance
very wild, absurd, and contradictory opinions, more like visionary
systems or ravings of Plato than the solid sense of Plutarch. There
runs also through the whole an air of superstition and credulity which
resembles very little the spirit that appears in other philosophical
compositions of that author; for it is remarkable that though Plutarch
be an historian as superstitious as Herodotus or Livy, yet there is
scarcely in all antiquity a philosopher less superstitious, excepting
Cicero and Lucian. I must therefore confess that a passage of Plutarch,
cited from this discourse, has much less authority with me than if it
had been found in most of his other compositions.
There is only one other discourse of Plutarch liable to like
objections—viz., that concerning those whose punishment is delayed by
the Deity. It is also written in dialogue, contains like superstitious,
wild visions, and seems to have been chiefly composed in rivalship to
Plato, particularly his last book, _De Republica_.
And here I cannot but observe that Monsieur Fontenelle, a writer
eminent for candour, seems to have departed a little from his usual
character when he endeavours to throw a ridicule upon Plutarch on
account of passages to be met with in this dialogue concerning oracles.
The absurdities here put into the mouths of the several personages are
not to be ascribed to Plutarch. He makes them refute each other, and in
general he seems to intend the ridiculing of those very opinions which
Fontenelle would ridicule him for maintaining. (See _Histoires des
Oracles_.)
[102] He was contemporary with Cæsar and Augustus.
OF THE ORIGINAL CONTRACT.
As no party, in the present age, can support itself without a
philosophical or speculative system of principles annexed to its
political or practical one, we accordingly find that each of the
parties into which this nation is divided has reared up a fabric of the
former kind, in order to protect and cover that scheme of actions which
it pursues. The people being commonly very rude builders, especially
in this speculative way, and more especially still when actuated by
party zeal, it is natural to imagine that their workmanship must
be a little unshapely, and discover evident marks of that violence
and hurry in which it was raised. The one party, by tracing up the
origin of government to the Deity, endeavour to render government
so sacred and inviolate that it must be little less than
sacrilege, however disorderly it may become, to touch or invade it
in the smallest article. The other party, by founding government
altogether on the consent of the people, suppose that there is a kind
of original contract by which the subjects have reserved the power of
resisting their sovereign whenever they find themselves aggrieved by
that authority with which they have, for certain purposes, voluntarily
entrusted him. These are the speculative principles of the two parties,
and these too are the practical consequences deduced from them.
I shall venture to affirm that both these systems of speculative
principles are just, though not in the sense intended by the parties;
and that both the schemes of practical consequences are prudent, though
not in the extremes to which each party, in opposition to the other,
has commonly endeavoured to carry them.
That the Deity is the ultimate author of all government will never be
denied by any who admits a general providence, and allows that all
events in the universe are conducted by a uniform plan and directed
to wise purposes. As it is impossible for the human race to subsist,
at least in any comfortable or secure state, without the protection
of government, government must certainly have been intended by that
beneficent Being, who means the good of all His creatures; and as it
has universally, in fact, taken place in all countries and all ages,
we may conclude, with still greater certainty, that it was intended
by that omniscient Being, who can never be deceived by any event or
operation. But since he gave rise to it, not by any particular or
miraculous interposition but by his concealed and universal efficacy,
a sovereign cannot, properly speaking, be called his vicegerent in
any other sense than every power or force being derived from him
may be said to act by his commission. Whatever actually happens is
comprehended in the general plan or intention of providence; nor has
the greatest and most lawful prince any more reason, upon that account,
to plead a peculiar sacredness or inviolable authority, than
an inferior magistrate, or even a usurper, or even a robber and a
pirate. The same divine superintendent who, for wise purposes, invested
an Elizabeth or a Henry[103] with authority, did also, for purposes
no doubt equally wise, though unknown, bestow power on a Borgia or an
Angria. The same causes which gave rise to the sovereign power in every
state, established likewise every petty jurisdiction in it, and every
limited authority. A constable therefore, no less than a king, acts by
a divine commission, and possesses an indefeasible right.
When we consider how nearly equal all men are in their bodily force,
and even in their mental powers and faculties, till cultivated by
education, we must necessarily allow that nothing but their own consent
could at first associate them together, and subject them to any
authority. The people, if we trace government to its first origin in
the woods and deserts, are the source of all power and jurisdiction,
and voluntarily, for the sake of peace and order, abandoned their
native liberty, and received laws from their equal and companion.
The conditions upon which they were willing to submit were either
expressed, or were so clear and obvious that it might well be esteemed
superfluous to express them. If this, then, be meant by the original
contract, it cannot be denied that all government is at first founded
on a contract, and that the most ancient rude combinations of mankind
were formed entirely by that principle. In vain are we sent to the
records to seek for this charter of our liberties. It was not written
on parchment, nor yet on leaves or barks of trees. It preceded the
use of writing and all the other civilized arts of life. But we trace
it plainly in the nature of man, and in the equality which we find in
all the individuals of that species. The force which now prevails,
and which is founded on fleets and armies, is plainly political, and
derived from authority, the effect of established government. A man’s
natural force consists only in the vigour of his limbs and the
firmness of his courage, which could never subject multitudes to the
command of one. Nothing but their own consent, and their sense of the
advantages of peace and order, could have had that influence.
But philosophers who have embraced a party (if that be not a
contradiction in terms) are not contented with these concessions.
They assert, not only that government in its earliest infancy arose
from consent or the voluntary combination of the people, but also
that, even at present, when it has attained its full maturity, it
rests on no other foundation. They affirm that all men are still
born equal, and owe allegiance to no prince or government unless
bound by the obligation and sanction of a promise. And as no man,
without some equivalent, would forgo the advantages of his native
liberty and subject himself to the will of another, this promise is
always understood to be conditional, and imposes on him no obligation
unless he meets with justice and protection from his sovereign. These
advantages the sovereign promises him in return, and if he fails in
the execution, he has broke, on his part, the articles of engagement,
and has thereby freed his subjects from all obligations to allegiance.
Such, according to these philosophers, is the foundation of authority
in every government, and such the right of resistance possessed by
every subject.
But would these reasoners look abroad into the world they would meet
with nothing that in the least corresponds to their ideas, or can
warrant so refined and philosophical a theory. On the contrary, we
find everywhere princes who claim their subjects as their property,
and assert their independent right of sovereignty from conquest or
succession. We find also everywhere subjects who acknowledge this
right in their princes, and suppose themselves born under obligations
of obedience to a certain sovereign, as much as under the ties of
reverence and duty to certain parents. These connections are always
conceived to be equally independent of our consent, in Persia
and China; in France and Spain; and even in Holland and England,
wherever the doctrines above mentioned have not been carefully
inculcated. Obedience or subjection becomes so familiar that most
men never make any inquiry about its origin or cause, more than about
the principle of gravity, resistance, or the most universal laws of
nature. Or if curiosity ever move them, so soon as they learn that they
themselves and their ancestors have for several ages, or from time
immemorial, been subject to such a government or such a family, they
immediately acquiesce and acknowledge their obligation to allegiance.
Were you to preach, in most parts of the world, that political
connections are founded altogether on voluntary consent or a mutual
promise, the magistrate would soon imprison you, as seditious, for
loosening the ties of obedience; if your friends did not shut you up,
as delirious, for advancing such absurdities. It is strange that an
act of the mind which every individual is supposed to have formed—and
after he came to the use of reason too, otherwise it could have no
authority—that this act, I say, should be so unknown to all of them,
that over the face of the whole earth there scarce remain any traces or
memory of it.
But the contract on which government is founded is said to be the
original contract, and consequently may be supposed too old to fall
under the knowledge of the present generation. If the agreement by
which savage men first associated and conjoined their force be here
meant, this is acknowledged to be real; but being so ancient, and being
obliterated by a thousand changes of government and princes, it cannot
now be supposed to retain any authority. If we would say anything to
the purpose, we must assert that every particular government which is
lawful, and which imposes any duty of allegiance on the subject, was at
first founded on consent and a voluntary compact. But besides that this
supposes the consent of the fathers to bind the children, even to the
most remote generations (which republican writers will never allow),
besides this, I say, it is not justified by history or experience in
any age or country of the world.
Almost all the governments which exist at present, or of which
there remains any record in story, have been founded originally either
on usurpation or conquest, or both, without any pretence of a fair
consent or voluntary subjection of the people. When an artful and bold
man is placed at the head of an army or faction, it is often easy for
him, by employing sometimes violence, sometimes false pretences, to
establish his dominion over a people a hundred times more numerous
than his partisans. He allows no such open communication that his
enemies can know with certainty their number or force. He gives them no
leisure to assemble together in a body to oppose him. Even all those
who are the instruments of his usurpation may wish his fall, but their
ignorance of each other’s intentions keeps them in awe, and is the sole
cause of his security. By such arts as these many governments have been
established, and this is all the original contract they have to boast
of.
The face of the earth is continually changing by the increase of small
kingdoms into great empires, by the dissolution of great empires into
smaller kingdoms, by the planting of colonies, by the migration of
tribes. Is there anything discoverable in all these events but force
and violence? Where is the mutual agreement or voluntary association so
much talked of?
Even the smoothest way by which a nation may receive a foreign master,
by marriage or a will, is not extremely honourable for the people; but
supposes them to be disposed of, like a dowry or a legacy, according to
the pleasure or interest of their rulers.
But where no force interposes, and election takes place, what is this
election so highly vaunted? It is either the combination of a few great
men who decide for the whole, and will allow no opposition, or it is
the fury of a rabble that follow a seditious leader, who is not known,
perhaps, to a dozen among them, and who owes his advancement merely to
his own impudence, or to the momentary caprice of his fellows.
Are these disorderly elections, which are rare too, of such
mighty authority as to be the only lawful foundation of all government
and allegiance?
In reality there is not a more terrible event than a total dissolution
of government, which gives liberty to the multitude, and makes the
determination or choice of a new establishment depend upon a number
which nearly approaches the body of the people; for it never comes
entirely to the whole body of them. Every wise man, then, wishes to
see, at the head of a powerful and obedient army, a general who may
speedily seize the prize and give to the people a master, which they
are so unfit to choose for themselves. So little correspondent is fact
and reality to those philosophical notions.
Let not the establishment at the Revolution deceive us, or make us so
much in love with a philosophical origin to government as to imagine
all others monstrous and irregular. Even that event was far from
corresponding to these refined ideas. It was only the succession,
and that only in the regal part of the government, which was then
changed; and it was only the majority of seven hundred who determined
that change for near ten millions. I doubt not, indeed, but the bulk
of these ten millions acquiesced willingly in the determination; but
was the matter left, in the least, to their choice? Was it not justly
supposed to be from that moment decided, and every man punished who
refused to submit to the new sovereign? How otherways could the matter
have ever been brought to any issue or conclusion?
The Republic of Athens was, I believe, the most extensive democracy
which we read of in history. Yet if we make the requisite allowances
for the women, the slaves, and the strangers, we shall find that
that establishment was not at first made, nor any law ever voted, by
a tenth part of those who were bound to pay obedience to it; not to
mention the islands and foreign dominions which the Athenians claimed
as theirs by right of conquest. And as it is well known that popular
assemblies in that city were always full of licence and disorder,
notwithstanding the forms and laws by which they were checked, how
much more disorderly must they be where they form not the established
constitution, but meet tumultuously on the dissolution of the ancient
government in order to give rise to a new one? How chimerical must it
be to talk of a choice in any such circumstances?
The Achæans enjoyed the freest and most perfect democracy of all
antiquity; yet they employed force to oblige some cities to enter into
their league, as we learn from Polybius.
Henry IV. and Henry VII. of England had really no other title to the
throne but a parliamentary election; yet they never would acknowledge
it, for fear of weakening their authority. Strange! if the only real
foundation of all authority be consent and promise.
It is vain to say that all governments are, or should be, at first,
founded on popular consent, as much as the necessity of human affairs
will admit. This favours entirely my pretension. I maintain that human
affairs will never admit of this consent; seldom of the appearance of
it. But that conquest or usurpation—that is, in plain terms, force—by
dissolving the ancient governments, is the origin of almost all the
new ones which ever were established in the world; and that in the few
cases, where consent may seem to have taken place, it was commonly so
irregular, so confined, or so much intermixed either with fraud or
violence, that it cannot have any great authority.
My intention here is not to exclude the consent of the people from
being one just foundation of government where it has place. It is
surely the best and most sacred of any. I only pretend that it has very
seldom had place in any degree, and never almost in its full extent;
and that therefore some other foundation of government must also be
admitted.
Were all men possessed of so inflexible a regard to justice that, of
themselves, they would totally abstain from the properties of others,
they had for ever remained in a state of absolute liberty without
subjection to any magistrates or political society; but this
is a state of perfection, of which human nature is justly esteemed
incapable. Again, were all men possessed of so just an understanding
as always to know their own interest, no form of government had ever
been submitted to but what was established on consent, and was fully
canvassed by each member of the society; but this state of perfection
is likewise much superior to human nature. Reason, history, and
experience show us that all political societies have had an origin much
less accurate and regular; and were one to choose a period of time
when the people’s consent was least regarded in public transactions,
it would be precisely on the establishment of a new government. In a
settled constitution their inclinations are often studied; but during
the fury of revolutions, conquests, and public convulsions, military
force or political craft usually decides the controversy.
When a new government is established, by whatever means, the people are
commonly dissatisfied with it, and pay obedience more from fear and
necessity than from any idea of allegiance or of moral obligation. The
prince is watchful and jealous, and must carefully guard against every
beginning or appearance of insurrection. Time, by degrees, removes
all these difficulties, and accustoms the nation to regard, as their
lawful or native princes, that family whom at first they considered as
usurpers or foreign conquerors. In order to found this opinion, they
have no recourse to any notion of voluntary consent or promise, which,
they know, never was in this case either expected or demanded. The
original establishment was formed by violence, and submitted to from
necessity. The subsequent administration is also supported by power,
and acquiesced in by the people, not as a matter of choice, but of
obligation. They imagine not that their consent gives their prince a
title; but they willingly consent because they think that, from long
possession, he has acquired a title independent of their choice or
inclination.