Those, then, who would make love and lust synonymous, confound the

effect with the cause of it: yet such is the force of education,

and a habit of thinking, as we are taught, that sometimes persons of

either sex are actually in love without feeling any carnal desires,

or penetrating into the intentions of nature, the end proposed by

her, without which they could never have been affected with that

sort of passion. That there are such is certain, but many more

whose pretences to those refined notions are only upheld by art and

dissimulation. Those, who are really such Platonic lovers, are commonly

the pale-faced weakly people, of cold and phlegmatic constitutions

in either sex; the hale and robust, of bilious temperament, and a

sanguine complexion, never entertain any love so spiritual as to

exclude all thoughts and wishes that relate to the body; but if the

most seraphic lovers would know the original of their inclination,

let them but suppose that another should have the corporal enjoyment

of the person beloved, and by the tortures they will suffer from

that reflection they will soon discover the nature of their passions:

whereas, on the contrary, parents and friends receive a satisfaction

in reflecting on the joys and comforts of a happy marriage, to be

tasted by those they wish well to.

The curious, that are skilled in anatomizing the invisible part of

man, will observe that the more sublime and exempt this love is from

all thoughts of sensuality, the more spurious it is, and the more it

degenerates from its honest original and primitive simplicity. The

power and sagacity as well as labour and care of the politician in

civilizing the society, has been no where more conspicuous, than in

the happy contrivance of playing our passions against one another. By

flattering our pride, and still increasing the good opinion we have

of ourselves on the one hand, and inspiring us on the other with

a superlative dread and mortal aversion against shame, the artful

moralists have taught us cheerfully to encounter ourselves, and if

not subdue, at least, so to conceal and disguise our darling passion,

lust, that we scarce know it when we meet with it in our breasts:

Oh! the mighty prize we have in view for all our self-denial! can any

man be so serious as to abstain from laughter, when he considers, that

for so much deceit and insincerity practiced upon ourselves as well

as others, we have no other recompense than the vain satisfaction

of making our species appear more exalted and remote from that

of other animals, than it really is; and we, in our consciences,

know it to be? yet this is fact, and in it we plainly perceive the

reason why it was necessary to render odious every word or action by

which we might discover the innate desire we feel to perpetuate our

kind; and why tamely to submit to the violence of a furious appetite

(which is painful to resist) and innocently to obey the most pressing

demand of nature without guile or hypocrisy, like other creatures,

should be branded with the ignominious name of brutality.

What we call love, then, is not a genuine, but an adulterated appetite,

or rather a compound, a heap of several contradictory passions blended

in one. As it is a product of nature warped by custom and education,

so the true origin and first motive of it, as I have hinted already,

is stifled in well-bred people, and concealed from themselves: all

which is the reason, that, as those affected with it, vary in age,

strength, resolution, temper, circumstances, and manners, the effects

of it are so different, whimsical, surprising, and unaccountable.

It is this passion that makes jealousy so troublesome, and the envy

of it often so fatal: those who imagine that there may be jealousy

without love, do not understand that passion. Men may not have the

least affection for their wives, and yet be angry with them for their

conduct, and suspicious of them either with or without a cause: but

what in such cases affects them is their pride, the concern for their

reputation. They feel a hatred against them without remorse; when

they are outrageous, they can beat them and go to sleep contentedly:

such husbands may watch their dames themselves, and have them observed

by others; but their vigilance is not so intense; they are not so

inquisitive or industrious in their searches, neither do they feel

that anxiety of heart at the fear of a discovery, as when love is

mixed with the passions.

What confirms me in this opinion is, that we never observe this

behaviour between a man and his mistress; for when his love is gone

and he suspects her to be false, he leaves her, and troubles his head

no more about her: whereas, it is the greatest difficulty imaginable,

even to a man of sense, to part with his mistress as long as he loves

her, whatever faults she may be guilty of. If in his anger he strikes

her, he is uneasy after it; his love makes him reflect on the hurt he

has done her, and he wants to be reconciled to her again. He may talk

of hating her, and many times from his heart wish her hanged, but if

he cannot get entirely rid of his frailty, he can never disentangle

himself from her: though she is represented in the most monstrous

guilt to his imagination, and he has resolved and swore a thousand

times never to come near her again, there is no trusting him, even

when he is fully convinced of her infidelity, if his love continues,

his despair is never so lasting, but between the blackest fits of it

he relents, and finds lucid intervals of hope; he forms excuses for

her, thinks of pardoning, and in order to it racks his invention for

possibilities that may make her appear less criminal.

Line 200. Real pleasures, comforts, ease.

That the highest good consisted in pleasure, was the doctrine of

Epicurus, who yet led a life exemplary for continence, sobriety, and

other virtues, which made people of the succeeding ages quarrel about

the signification of pleasure. Those who argued from the temperance

of the philosopher, said, That the delight Epicurus meant, was being

virtuous; so Erasmus in his Colloquies tells us, that there are no

greater Epicures than pious Christians. Others that reflected on the

dissolute manners of the greatest part of his followers, would have

it, that by pleasures he could have understood nothing but sensual

ones, and the gratification of our passions. I shall not decide

their quarrel, but am of opinion, that whether men be good or bad,

what they take delight in is their pleasure; and not to look out

for any further etymology from the learned languages, I believe an

Englishman may justly call everything a pleasure that pleases him,

and according to this definition, we ought to dispute no more about

men's pleasures than their tastes: Trahit sua quemque voluptas.

The worldly-minded, voluptuous, and ambitious man, notwithstanding

he is void of merit, covets precedence every where, and desires

to be dignified above his betters: he aims at spacious palaces,

and delicious gardens; his chief delight is in excelling others

in stately horses, magnificent coaches, a numerous attendance, and

dear-bought furniture. To gratify his lust, he wishes for genteel,

young, beautiful women of different charms and complexions, that

shall adore his greatness, and be really in love with his person:

his cellars he would have stored with the flower of every country

that produces excellent wines: his tables he desires may be served

with many courses, and each of them contain a choice variety of

dainties not easily purchased, and ample evidences of elaborate and

judicious cookery; while harmonious music, and well-couched flattery,

entertain his hearing by turns. He employs even in the meanest

trifles, none but the ablest and most ingenious workmen, that his

judgment and fancy may as evidently appear in the least things that

belong to him as his wealth and quality are manifested in those of

greater value. He desires to have several sets of witty, facetious,

and polite people to converse with, and among them he would have

some famous for learning and universal knowledge: for his serious

affairs, he wishes to find men of parts and experience, that should

be diligent and faithful. Those that are to wait on him he would have

handy, mannerly, and discreet, of comely aspect, and a graceful mien:

what he requires in them besides, is a respectful care of every thing

that is his, nimbleness without hurry, dispatch without noise, and an

unlimited obedience to his orders: nothing he thinks more troublesome

than speaking to servants; wherefore he will only be attended by such,

as by observing his looks have learned to interpret his will from the

slightest motions. He loves to see an elegant nicety in every thing

that approaches him, and in what is to be employed about his person,

he desires a superlative cleanliness to be religiously observed. The

chief officers of his household he would have to be men of birth,

honour and distinction, as well as order, contrivance, and economy; for

though he loves to be honoured by every body, and receives the respects

of the common people with joy, yet the homage that is paid him by

persons of quality is ravishing to him in a more transcendent manner.

While thus wallowing in a sea of lust and vanity, he is wholly

employed in provoking and indulging his appetites, he desires the

world should think him altogether free from pride and sensuality,

and put a favourable construction upon his most glaring vices: nay,

if his authority can purchase it, he covets to be thought wise,

brave, generous, good-natured, and endued with the virtues he thinks

worth having. He would have us believe that the pomp and luxury

he is served with are as many tiresome plagues to him; and all the

grandeur he appears in is an ungrateful burden, which, to his sorrow,

is inseparable from the high sphere he moves in; that his noble

mind, so much exalted above vulgar capacities, aims at higher ends,

and cannot relish such worthless enjoyments; that the highest of his

ambition is to promote the public welfare, and his greatest pleasure

to see his country flourish, and every body in it made happy. These

are called real pleasures by the vicious and earthly-minded, and

whoever is able, either by his skill or fortune, after this refined

manner at once to enjoy the world, and the good opinion of it, is

counted extremely happy by all the most fashionable part of the people.

But, on the other side, most of the ancient philosophers and grave

moralists, especially the Stoics, would not allow any thing to be a

real good that was liable to be taken from them by others. They wisely

considered the instability of fortune, and the favour of princes; the

vanity of honour, and popular applause; the precariousness of riches,

and all earthly possessions; and therefore placed true happiness in the

calm serenity of a contented mind, free from guilt and ambition; a mind

that, having subdued every sensual appetite, despises the smiles as

well as frowns of fortune, and taking no delight but in contemplation,

desires nothing but what every body is able to give to himself: a mind

that, armed with fortitude and resolution, has learned to sustain the

greatest losses without concern, to endure pain without affliction, and

to bear injuries without resentment. Many have owned themselves arrived

to this height of self-denial, and then, if we may believe them, they

were raised above common mortals, and their strength extended vastly

beyond the pitch of their first nature: they could behold the anger

of threatening tyrants and the most imminent dangers without terror,

and preserved their tranquillity in the midst of torments: death itself

they could meet with intrepidity, and left the world with no greater

reluctance than they had showed fondness at their entrance into it.

These among the ancients have always bore the greatest sway; yet

others that were no fools neither, have exploded those precepts as

impracticable, called their notions romantic, and endeavoured to prove,

that what these Stoics asserted of themselves, exceeded all human force

and possibility; and that therefore the virtues they boasted of could

be nothing but haughty pretence, full of arrogance and hypocrisy;

yet notwithstanding these censures, the serious part of the world,

and the generality of wise men that have lived ever since to this

day, agree with the Stoics in the most material points; as that there

can be no true felicity in what depends on things perishable; that

peace within is the greatest blessing, and no conquest like that of

our passions; that knowledge, temperance, fortitude, humility, and

other embellishments of the mind are the most valuable acquisitions;

that no man can be happy but he that is good: and that the virtuous

are only capable of enjoying real pleasures.

I expect to be asked, why in the fable I have called those pleasures

real, that are directly opposite to those which I own the wise men of

all ages have extolled as the most valuable? My answer is, because I do

not call things pleasures which men say are best, but such as they seem

to be most pleased with; how can I believe that a mans chief delight is

in the embellishment of the mind, when I see him ever employed about,

and daily pursue the pleasures that are contrary to them? John never

cuts any pudding, but just enough that you cannot say he took none:

this little bit, after much chomping and chewing, you see goes down

with him like chopped hay; after that he falls upon the beef with

a voracious appetite, and crams himself up to his throat. Is it not

provoking, to hear John cry every day that pudding is all his delight,

and that he does not value the beef of a farthing.

I could swagger about fortitude and the contempt of riches as much

as Seneca himself, and would undertake to write twice as much in

behalf of poverty as ever he did; for the tenth part of his estate,

I could teach the way to his summum bonum as exactly as I know my way

home: I could tell people to extricate themselves from all worldly

engagements, and to purify the mind, they must divest themselves of

their passions, as men take out the furniture when they would clean

a room thoroughly; and I am clearly of the opinion, that the malice

and most severe strokes of fortune, can do no more injury to a mind

thus stripped of all fears, wishes, and inclinations, than a blind

horse can do in an empty barn. In the theory of all this I am very

perfect, but the practice is very difficult; and if you went about

picking my pocket, offered to take the victuals from before me when

I am hungry, or made but the least motion of spitting in my face,

I dare not promise how philosophically I should behave myself. But

that I am forced to submit to every caprice of my unruly nature, you

will say, is no argument, that others are as little masters of theirs,

and therefore, I am willing to pay adoration to virtue wherever I can

meet with it, with a proviso that I shall not be obliged to admit

any as such, where I can see no self-denial, or to judge of mens

sentiments from their words, where I have their lives before me.

I have searched through every degree and station of men, and confess,

that I have found no where more austerity of manners, or greater

contempt of earthly pleasures, than in some religious houses,

where people freely resigning and retiring from the world to combat

themselves, have no other business but subdue their appetites. What

can be a greater evidence of perfect chastity, and a superlative

love, to immaculate purity in men and women, than that in the

prime of their age, when lust is most raging, they should actually

seclude themselves from each others company, and by a voluntary

renunciation debar themselves for life, not only from uncleanness,

but even the most lawful embraces? those that abstain from flesh,

and often all manner of food, one would think in the right way, to

conquer all carnal desires; and I could almost swear, that he does

not consult his ease, who daily mauls his bare back and shoulders

with unconscionable stripes, and constantly roused at night from his

sleep, leaves his bed for his devotion. Who can despise riches more,

or show himself less avaricious than he, who will not so much as touch

gold or silver, no not with his feet? Or can any mortal show himself

less luxurious or more humble than the man, that making poverty his

choice, contents himself with scraps and fragments, and refuses to

eat any bread but what is bestowed upon him by the charity of others.

Such fair instances of self-denial, would make me bow down to virtue,

if I was not deterred and warned from it by so many persons of

eminence and learning, who unanimously tell me that I am mistaken,

and all I have seen is farce and hypocrisy; that what seraphic

love they may pretend to, there is nothing but discord among them;

and that how penitential the nuns and friars may appear in their

several convents, they none of them sacrifice their darling lusts:

that among the women, they are not all virgins that pass for such,

and that if I was to be let into their secrets, and examine some of

their subterraneous privacies, I should soon be convinced by scenes of

horror, that some of them must have been mothers. That among the men

I should find calumny, envy, and ill nature, in the highest degree,

or else gluttony, drunkenness, and impurities of a more execrable

kind than adultery itself: and as for the mendicant orders, that

they fer in nothing but their habits from other sturdy beggars, who

deceive people with a pitiful tone, and an outward show of misery,

and as soon as they are out of sight, lay by their cant, indulge

their appetites, and enjoy one another.

If the strict rules, and so many outward signs of devotion observed

among those religious orders, deserve such harsh censures, we may well

despair of meeting with virtue any where else; for if we look into the

actions of the antagonists and greatest accusers of those votaries,

we shall not find so much as the appearance of self-denial. The

reverend divines of all sects, even of the most reformed churches

in all countries, take care with the Cyclops Evangeliphorus first;

ut ventri bene sit, and afterwards, ne quid desit iis quæ sub ventre

sunt. To these they will desire you to add convenient houses, handsome

furniture, good fires in winter, pleasant gardens in summer, neat

clothes, and money enough to bring up their children; precedency in all

companies, respect from every body, and then as much religion as you

please. The things I have named are the necessary comforts of life,

which the most modest are not ashamed to claim, and which they are

very uneasy without. They are, it is true, made of the same mould,

and have the same corrupt nature with other men, born with the same

infirmities, subject to the same passions, and liable to the same

temptations, and therefore if they are diligent in their calling,

and can but abstain from murder, adultery, swearing, drunkenness,

and other heinous vices, their lives are all called unblemished,

and their reputations unspotted; their function renders them holy,

and the gratification of so many carnal appetites, and the enjoyment

of so much luxurious ease notwithstanding, they may set upon themselves

what value their pride and parts will allow them.

All this I have nothing against, but I see no self-denial, without

which there can be no virtue. Is it such a mortification not to desire

a greater share of worldly blessings, than what every reasonable

man ought to be satisfied with? Or, is there any mighty merit in not

being flagitious, and forbearing indecencies that are repugnant to

good manners, and which no prudent man would be guilty of, though he

had no religion at all?

I know I shall be told, that the reason why the clergy are so violent

in their resentments, when at any time they are but in the least

affronted, and show themselves so void of all patience when their

rights are invaded, is their great care to preserve their calling,

their profession from contempt, not for their own sakes, but to be

more serviceable to others. It is the same reason that makes them

solicitous about the comforts and conveniences of life; for should

they suffer themselves to be insulted over, be content with a coarser

diet, and wear more ordinary clothes than other people, the multitude,

who judge from outward appearances, would be apt to think that the

clergy was no more the immediate care of Providence than other folks,

and so not only undervalue their persons, but despise likewise all the

reproofs and instructions that came from them. This is an admirable

plea, and as it is much made use of, I will try the worth of it.

I am not of the learned Dr. Echard's opinion, that poverty is one of

those things that bring the clergy into contempt, any further than as

it may be an occasion of discovering their blind side: for when men

are always struggling with their low condition, and are unable to bear

the burden of it without reluctancy, it is then they show how uneasy

their poverty sits upon them, how glad they would be to have their

circumstances meliorated, and what a real value they have for the good

things of this world. He that harangues on the contempt of riches,

and the vanity of earthly enjoyments, in a rusty threadbare gown,

because he has no other, and would wear his old greasy hat no longer

if any body would give him a better; that drinks small beer at home

with a heavy countenance, but leaps at a glass of wine if he can catch

it abroad; that with little appetite feeds upon his own coarse mess,

but falls to greedily where he can please his palate, and expresses

an uncommon joy at an invitation to a splendid dinner: it is he that

is despised, not because he is poor, but because he knows not how to

be so, with that content and resignation which he preaches to others,

and so discovers his inclinations to be contrary to his doctrine. But,

when a man from the greatness of his soul (or an obstinate vanity,

which will do as well) resolving to subdue his appetites in good

earnest, refuses all the offers of ease and luxury that can be

made to him, and embracing a voluntary poverty with cheerfulness,

rejects whatever may gratify the senses, and actually sacrifices all

his passions to his pride, in acting this part, the vulgar, far from

contemning, will be ready to deify and adore him. How famous have the

Cynic philosophers made themselves, only by refusing to dissimulate

and make use of superfluities? Did not the most ambitious monarch the

world ever bore, condescend to visit Diogenes in his tub, and return

to a studied incivility, the highest compliment a man of his pride

was able to make?

Mankind are very willing to take one another's word, when they see some

circumstances that corroborate what is told them; but when our actions

directly contradict what we say, it is counted impudence to desire

belief. If a jolly hale fellow, with glowing cheeks and warm hands,

newly returned from some smart exercise, or else the cold bath, tells

us in frosty weather, that he cares not for the fire, we are easily

induced to believe him, especially if he actually turns from it, and

we know by his circumstances, that he wants neither fuel nor clothes:

but if we should hear the same from the mouth of a poor starved wretch,

with swelled hands, and a livid countenance, in a thin ragged garment,

we should not believe a word of what he said, especially if we saw

him shaking and shivering, creep toward the sunny bank; and we would

conclude, let him say what he could, that warm clothes, and a good

fire, would be very acceptable to him. The application is easy, and

therefore if there be any clergy upon earth that would be thought not

to care for the world, and to value the soul above the body, let them

only forbear showing a greater concern for their sensual pleasures

than they generally do for their spiritual ones, and they may rest

satisfied, that no poverty, while they bear it with fortitude, will

ever bring them into contempt, how mean soever their circumstances

may be.

Let us suppose a pastor that has a little flock intrusted to him,

of which he is very careful: He preaches, visits, exhorts, reproves

among his people with zeal and prudence, and does them all the kind

offices that lie in his power to make them happy. There is no doubt

but those under his care must be very much obliged to him. Now, we

shall suppose once more, that this good man, by the help of a little

self-denial, is contented to live upon half his income, accepting

only of twenty pounds a-year instead of forty, which he could claim;

and moreover, that he loves his parishioners so well, that he will

never leave them for any preferment whatever, no not a bishoprick,

though it be offered. I cannot see but all this might be an easy

task to a man who professes mortification, and has no value for

worldly pleasures; yet such a disinterested divine, I dare promise,

notwithstanding the degeneracy of mankind, will be loved, esteemed,

and have every body's good word; nay, I would swear, that though he

should yet further exert himself, give above half of his small revenue

to the poor, live upon nothing but oatmeal and water, lie upon straw,

and wear the coarsest cloth that could be made, his mean way of living

would never be reflected on, or be a disparagement either to himself

or the order he belonged to; but that on the contrary his poverty would

never be mentioned but to his glory, as long as his memory should last.

But (says a charitable young gentlewoman) though you have the heart

to starve your parson, have you no bowels of compassion for his wife

and children? pray what must remain of forty pounds a year, after it

has been twice so unmercifully split? or would you have the poor woman

and the innocent babes likewise live upon oatmeal and water, and lie

upon straw, you unconscionable wretch, with all your suppositions

and self-denials; nay, is it possible, though they should all live

at your own murdering rate, that less than ten pounds a-year could

maintain a family?----Do not be in a passion, good Mrs. Abigail,

I have a greater regard for your sex than to prescribe such a lean

diet to married men; but I confess I forgot the wives and children:

The main reason was, because I thought poor priests could have no

occasion for them. Who could imagine, that the parson who is to teach

others by example as well as precept, was not able to withstand those

desires which the wicked world itself calls unreasonable? What is

the reason when an apprentice marries before he is out of his time,

that unless he meets with a good fortune, all his relations are angry

with him, and every body blames him? Nothing else, but because at

that time he has no money at his disposal, and being bound to his

master's service, has no leisure, and perhaps little capacity to

provide for a family. What must we say to a parson that has twenty,

or, if you will, forty pounds a-year, that being bound more strictly

to all the services a parish and his duty require, has little time,

and generally much less ability to get any more? Is it not very

reasonable he should marry? But why should a sober young man, who

is guilty of no vice, be debarred from lawful enjoyments? Right;

marriage is lawful, and so is a coach; but what is that to people

that have not money enough to keep one? If he must have a wife, let

him look out for money, or wait for a greater benefice, or something

else to maintain her handsomely, and bear all incident charges. But

nobody that has any thing herself will have him, and he cannot stay:

He has a very good stomach, and all the symptoms of health; it is not

every body that can live without a woman; it is better to marry than

burn.----What a world of self-denial is here? The sober young man is

very willing to be virtuous, but you must not cross his inclinations;

he promises never to be a deer-stealer, upon condition that he shall

have venison of his own, and no body must doubt, but that if it come

to the push, he is qualified to suffer martyrdom, though he owns that

he has not strength enough, patiently to bear a scratched finger.

When we see so many of the clergy, to indulge their lust, a brutish

appetite, run themselves after this manner upon an inevitable poverty,

which, unless they could bear it with greater fortitude, than they

discover in all their actions, must of necessity make them contemptible

to all the world, what credit must we give them, when they pretend that

they conform themselves to the world, not because they take delight

in the several decencies, conveniences, and ornaments of it, but only

to preserve their function from contempt, in order to be more useful

to others? Have we not reason to believe, that what they say is full

of hypocrisy and falsehood, and that concupiscence is not the only

appetite they want to gratify; that the haughty airs and quick sense

of injuries, the curious elegance in dress, and niceness of palate,

to be observed in most of them that are able to show them, are the

results of pride and luxury in them, as they are in other people,

and that the clergy are not possessed of more intrinsic virtue than

any other profession?

I am afraid, by this time I have given many of my readers a real

displeasure, by dwelling so long upon the reality of pleasure; but I

cannot help it, there is one thing comes into my head to corroborate

what I have urged already, which I cannot forbear mentioning: It is

this: Those who govern others throughout the world, are at least as

wise as the people that are governed by them, generally speaking: If,

for this reason, we would take pattern from our superiors, we have but

to cast our eyes on all the courts and governments in the universe,

and we shall soon perceive from the actions of the great ones, which

opinion they side with, and what pleasures those in the highest

stations of all seem to be most fond of: For, if it be allowable at

all to judge of people's inclinations, from their manner of living,

none can be less injured by it, than those who are the most at liberty

to do as they please.

If the great ones of the clergy, as well as the laity of any country

whatever, had no value for earthly pleasures, and did not endeavour

to gratify their appetites, why are envy and revenge so raging among

them, and all the other passions improved and refined upon in courts

of princes more than any where else, and why are their repasts,

their recreations, and whole manner of living always such as are

approved of, coveted, and imitated by the most sensual people of that

same country? If despising all visible decorations they were only in

love with the embellishments of the mind, why should they borrow so

many of the implements, and make use of the most darling toys of the

luxurious? Why should a lord treasurer, or a bishop, or even the grand

signior, or the pope of Rome, to be good and virtuous, and endeavour

the conquest of his passions, have occasion for greater revenues,

richer furniture, or a more numerous attention, as to personal service,

than a private man? What virtue is it the exercise of which requires

so much pomp and superfluity, as are to be seen by all men in power? A

man has as much opportunity to practise temperance, that has but one

dish at a meal, as he that is constantly served with three courses,

and a dozen dishes in each: One may exercise as much patience, and be

as full of self-denial on a few flocks, without curtains or tester,

as in a velvet bed that is sixteen foot high. The virtuous possessions

of the mind are neither charge nor burden: A man may bear misfortunes

with fortitude in a garret, forgive injuries a-foot, and be chaste,

though he has not a shirt to his back: and therefore I shall never

believe, but that an indifferent sculler, if he was intrusted with it,

might carry all the learning and religion that one man can contain,

as well as a barge with six oars, especially if it was but to cross

from Lambeth to Westminster; or that humility is so ponderous a virtue,

that it requires six horses to draw it.

To say that men not being so easily governed by their equals as by

their superiors, it is necessary, that to keep the multitude in awe,

those who rule over us should excel others in outward appearance,

and consequently, that all in high stations should have badges of

honour, and ensigns of power to be distinguished from the vulgar, is

a frivolous objection. This, in the first place, can only be of use to

poor princes, and weak and precarious governments, that being actually

unable to maintain the public peace, are obliged with a pageant show

to make up what they want in real power: so the governor of Batavia,

in the East Indies, is forced to keep up a grandeur, and live in a

magnificence above his quality, to strike a terror in the natives of

Java, who, if they had skill and conduct, are strong enough to destroy

ten times the number of their masters; but great princes and states

that keep large fleets at sea, and numerous armies in the field,

have no occasion for such stratagems; for what makes them formidable

abroad, will never fail to be their security at home. Secondly,

what must protect the lives and wealth of people from the attempts of

wicked men in all societies, is the severity of the laws, and diligent

administration of impartial justice. Theft, house-breaking, and murder,

are not to be prevented by the scarlet gowns of the aldermen, the gold

chains of the sheriffs, the fine trappings of their horses, or any

gaudy show whatever: Those pageant ornaments are beneficial another

way; they are eloquent lectures to apprentices, and the use of them

is to animate, not to deter: but men of abandoned principles must be

awed by rugged officers, strong prisons, watchful jailors, the hangman,

and the gallows. If London was to be one week destitute of constables

and watchmen to guard the houses a-nights, half the bankers would

be ruined in that time, and if my lord mayor had nothing to defend

himself but his great two handed sword, the huge cap of maintenance,

and his gilded mace, he would soon be stripped, in the very streets

to the city, of all his finery in his stately coach.

But let us grant that the eyes of the mobility are to be dazzled

with a gaudy outside; if virtue was the chief delight of great men,

why should their extravagance be extended to things not understood

by the mob, and wholly removed from public view, I mean their private

diversions, the pomp and luxury of the dining-room and the bed-chamber,

and the curiosities of the closet? few of the vulgar know that there

is wine of a guinea the bottle, that birds, no bigger than larks,

are often sold for half-a-guinea a-piece, or that a single picture

may be worth several thousand pounds: besides, is it to be imagined,

that unless it was to please their own appetites, men should put

themselves to such vast expences for a political show, and be so

solicitous to gain the esteem of those whom they so much despise in

every thing else? if we allow that the splendor and all the elegancy

of a court insipid, and only tiresome to the prince himself, and are

altogether made use of to preserve royal majesty from contempt, can

we say the same of half a dozen illegitimate children, most of them

the offspring of adultery, by the same majesty, got, educated, and

made princes at the expence of the nation! therefore, it is evident,

that this awing of the multitude, by a distinguished manner of living,

is only a cloak and pretence, under which, great men would shelter

their vanity, and indulge every appetite about them without reproach.

A burgomaster of Amsterdam, in his plain black suit, followed perhaps

by one footman, is fully as much respected, and better obeyed, than

a lord mayor of London, with all his splendid equipage, and great

train of attendance. Where there is a real power, it is ridiculous

to think that any temperance or austerity of life should ever render

the person, in whom that power is lodged, contemptible in his office,

from an emperor to the beadle of a parish. Cato, in his government

of Spain, in which he acquitted himself with so much glory, had only

three servants to attend him; do we hear that any of his orders were

ever slighted for this, notwithstanding that he loved his bottle? and

when that great man marched on foot through the scorching sands of

Libya, and parched up with thirst, refused to touch the water that

was brought him, before all his soldiers had drank, do we ever read

that this heroic forbearance weakened his authority, or lessened him

in the esteem of his army? but what need we go so far off? there has

not, for these many ages, been a prince less inclined to pomp and

luxury than the [2] present king of Sweden, who, enamoured with the

title of hero, has not only sacrificed the lives of his subjects, and

welfare of his dominions, but (what is more uncommon in sovereigns)

his own ease, and all the comforts of life, to an implacable spirit

of revenge; yet he is obeyed to the ruin of his people, in obstinately

maintaining a war that has almost utterly destroyed his kingdom.

Thus I have proved, that the real pleasures of all men in nature are

worldly and sensual, if we judge from their practice; I say all men in

nature, because devout Christians, who alone are to be excepted here,

being regenerated, and preternaturally assisted by the Divine grace,

cannot be said to be in nature. How strange it is, that they should

all so unanimously deny it! ask not only the divines and moralists

of every nation, but likewise all that are rich and powerful, about

real pleasure, and they will tell you, with the Stoics, that there

can be no true felicity in things mundane and corruptible: but then

look upon their lives, and you will find they take delight in no other.

What must we do in this dilemma? shall we be so uncharitable, as

judging from mens actions, to say, that all the world prevaricates, and

that this is not their opinion, let them talk what they will? or shall

we be so silly, as relying on what they say, to think them sincere in

their sentiments, and so not believe our own eyes? or shall we rather

endeavour to believe ourselves and them too, and say with Montaigne,

that they imagine, and are fully persuaded, that they believe what

they do not believe? these are his words: "some impose on the world,

and would be thought to believe what they really do not: but much the

greater number impose upon themselves, not considering, nor thoroughly

apprehending what it is to believe." But this is making all mankind

either fools or impostors, which, to avoid, there is nothing left us,

but to say what Mr. Bayle has endeavoured to prove at large in his

Reflections on Comets: "that man is so unaccountable a creature as

to act most commonly against his principle;" and this is so far from

being injurious, that it is a compliment to human nature, for we must

see either this or worse.

This contradiction in the frame of man is the reason that the theory

of virtue is so well understood, and the practice of it so rarely

to be met with. If you ask me where to look for those beautiful

shining qualities of prime ministers, and the great favourites

of princes that are so finely painted in dedications, addresses,

epitaphs, funeral sermons, and inscriptions, I answer, there, and

no where else. Where would you look for the excellency of a statue,

but in that part which you see of it? It is the polished outside

only that has the skill and labour of the sculptor to boast of; what

is out of sight is untouched. Would you break the head, or cut open

the breast to look for the brains or the heart, you would only show

your ignorance, and destroy the workmanship. This has often made

me compare the virtues of great men to your large China jars: they

make a fine show, and are ornamental even to a chimney; one would,

by the bulk they appear in, and the value that is set upon them,

think they might be very useful, but look into a thousand of them,

and you will find nothing in them but dust and cobwebs.

Line 201. ----The very poor

Liv'd better than the rich before.

If we trace the most flourishing nations in their origin, we shall

find, that in the remote beginnings of every society, the richest and

most considerable men among them were a great while destitute of a

great many comforts of life that are now enjoyed by the meanest and

most humble wretches: so that many things which were once looked upon

as the invention of luxury, are now allowed, even to those that are so

miserably poor as to become the objects of public charity, nay, counted

so necessary, that we think no human creature ought to want them.

In the first ages, man, without doubt, fed on the fruits of the earth,

without any previous preparation, and reposed himself naked like other

animals on the lap of their common parent: whatever has contributed

since to make life more comfortable, as it must have been the result

of thought, experience, and some labour, so it more or less deserves

the name of luxury, the more or less trouble it required, and deviated

from the primitive simplicity. Our admiration is extended no farther

than to what is new to us, and we all overlook the excellency of things

we are used to, be they never so curious. A man would be laughed at,

that should discover luxury in the plain dress of a poor creature, that

walks along in a thick parish gown, and a coarse shirt underneath it;

and yet what a number of people, how many different trades, and what a

variety of skill and tools must be employed to have the most ordinary

Yorkshire cloth? What depth of thought and ingenuity, what toil and

labour, and what length of time must it have cost, before man could

learn from a seed, to raise and prepare so useful a product as linen.

Must that society not be vainly curious, among whom this admirable

commodity, after it is made, shall not be thought fit to be used even

by the poorest of all, before it is brought to a perfect whiteness,

which is not to be procured but by the assistance of all the elements,

joined to a world of industry and patience? I have not done yet: can we

reflect not only on the cost laid out upon this luxurious invention,

but likewise on the little time the whiteness of it continues, in

which part of its beauty consists, that every six or seven days at

farthest it wants cleaning, and while it lasts is a continual charge

to the wearer; can we, I say, reflect on all this, and not think it

an extravagant piece of nicety, that even those who receive alms of

the parish, should not only have whole garments made of this operose

manufacture, but likewise that as soon as they are soiled, to restore

them to their pristine purity, they should make use of one of the

most judicious as well as difficult compositions that chemistry

can boast of; with which, dissolved in water by the help of fire,

the most detersive, and yet innocent lixivium is prepared that human

industry has hitherto been able to invent?

It is certain, time was that the things I speak of would have bore

those lofty expressions, and in which every body would have reasoned

after the same manner; but the age we live in would call a man fool,

who should talk of extravagance and nicety, if he saw a poor woman,

after having wore her crown cloth smock a whole week, wash it with

a bit of stinking soap of a groat a pound.

The arts of brewing, and making bread, have by slow degrees been

brought to the perfection they now are in, but to have invented

them at once, and à priori, would have required more knowledge and

a deeper insight into the nature of fermentation, than the greatest

philosopher has hitherto been endowed with; yet the fruits of both

are now enjoyed by the meanest of our species, and a starving wretch

knows not how to make a more humble, or a more modest petition,

than by asking for a bit of bread, or a draught of small beer.

Man has learned by experience, that nothing was softer than the small

plumes and down of birds, and found that heaped together, they would

by their elasticity, gently resist any incumbent weight, and heave up

again of themselves as soon as the pressure is over. To make use of

them to sleep upon was, no doubt, first invented to compliment the

vanity as well as ease of the wealthy and potent; but they are long

since become so common, that almost every body lies upon featherbeds,

and to substitute flocks in the room of them is counted a miserable

shift of the most necessitous. What a vast height must luxury have

been arrived to, before it could be reckoned a hardship to repose

upon the soft wool of animals!

From caves, huts, hovels, tents, and barracks, with which mankind

took up at first, we are come to warm and well-wrought houses, and

the meanest habitations to be seen in cities, are regular buildings,

contrived by persons skilled in proportions and architecture. If the

ancient Britons and Gauls should come out of their graves, with what

amazement would they gaze on the mighty structures every where raised

for the poor! Should they behold the magnificence of a Chelsey-College,

a Greenwich-Hospital, or what surpasses all them, a Des Invalides

at Paris, and see the care, the plenty, the superfluities and pomp,

which people that have no possessions at all are treated with in those

stately palaces, those who were once the greatest and richest of the

land would have reason to envy the most reduced of our species now.

Another piece of luxury the poor enjoy, that is not looked upon as

such, and which there is no doubt but the wealthiest in a golden age

would abstain from, is their making use of the flesh of animals to

eat. In what concerns the fashions and manners of the ages men live

in, they never examine into the real worth or merit of the cause,

and generally judge of things not as their reason, but custom direct

them. Time was when the funeral rites in the disposing of the dead,

were performed by fire, and the cadavers of the greatest emperors were

burnt to ashes. Then burying the corps in the ground was a funeral

for slaves, or made a punishment for the worst of malefactors. Now

nothing is decent or honourable but interring; and burning the body

is reserved for crimes of the blackest dye. At some times we look

upon trifles with horror, at other times we can behold enormities

without concern. If we see a man walk with his hat on in a church,

though out of service time, it shocks us; but if on a Sunday night we

meet half a dozen fellows drunk in the street, the sight makes little

or no impression upon us. If a woman at a merry-making dresses in

man's clothes, it is reckoned a frolic amongst friends, and he that

finds too much fault with it is counted censorious: upon the stage it

is done without reproach, and the most virtuous ladies will dispense

with it in an actress, though every body has a full view of her legs

and thighs; but if the same woman, as soon as she has petticoats on

again, should show her leg to a man as high as her knee, it would be

a very immodest action, and every body will call her impudent for it.

I have often thought, if it was not for this tyranny which custom

usurps over us, that men of any tolerable good-nature could never be

reconciled to the killing of so many animals, for their daily food, as

long as the bountiful earth so plentifully provides them with varieties

of vegetable dainties. I know that reason excites our compassion but

faintly, and therefore I would not wonder how men should so little

commiserate such imperfect creatures as crayfish, oysters, cockles,

and indeed all fish in general: as they are mute, and their inward

formation, as well as outward figure, vastly different from ours,

they express themselves unintelligibly to us, and therefore it is not

strange that their grief should not affect our understanding which

it cannot reach; for nothing stirs us to pity so effectually, as when

the symptoms of misery strike immediately upon our senses, and I have

seen people moved at the noise a live lobster makes upon the spit,

that could have killed half a dozen fowls with pleasure. But in such

perfect animals as sheep and oxen, in whom the heart, the brain and

nerves differ so little from ours, and in whom the separation of the

spirits from the blood, the organs of sense, and consequently feeling

itself, are the same as they are in human creatures; I cannot imagine

how a man not hardened in blood and massacre, is able to see a violent

death, and the pangs of it, without concern.

In answer to this, most people will think it sufficient to say, that

all things being allowed to be made for the service of man, there can

be no cruelty in putting creatures to the use they were designed for;

but I have heard men make this reply, while their nature within them

has reproached them with the falsehood of the assertion. There is of

all the multitude not one man in ten but what will own (if he was not

brought up in a slaughter-house), that of all trades he could never

have been a butcher; and I question whether ever any body so much

as killed a chicken without reluctancy the first time. Some people

are not to be persuaded to taste of any creatures they have daily

seen and been acquainted with, while they were alive; others extend

their scruple no further than to their own poultry, and refuse to

eat what they fed and took care of themselves; yet all of them will

feed heartily and without remorse on beef, mutton, and fowls, when

they are bought in the market. In this behaviour, methinks, there

appears something like a consciousness of guilt, it looks as if they

endeavoured to save themselves from the imputation of a crime (which

they know sticks somewhere) by removing the cause of it as far as they

can from themselves; and I can discover in it some strong remains of

primitive pity and innocence, which all the arbitrary power of custom,

and the violence of luxury, have not yet been able to conquer.

What I build upon I shall be told is a folly that wise men are not

guilty of: I own it; but while it proceeds from a real passion inherent

in our nature, it is sufficient to demonstrate, that we are born with

a repugnancy to the killing, and consequently the eating of animals;

for it is impossible that a natural appetite should ever prompt us

to act, or desire others to do, what we have an aversion to, be it

as foolish as it will.

Every body knows, that surgeons, in the cure of dangerous wounds and

fractures, the extirpations of limbs, and other dreadful operations,

are often compelled to put their patients to extraordinary torments,

and that the more desperate and calamitous cases occur to them,

the more the outcries and bodily sufferings of others must become

familiar to them; for this reason, our English law, out of a most

affectionate regard to the lives of the subject, allows them not to

be of any jury upon life and death, as supposing that their practice

itself is sufficient to harden and extinguish in them that tenderness,

without which no man is capable of setting a true value upon the lives

of his fellow-creatures. Now, if we ought to have no concern for what

we do to brute beasts, and there was not imagined to be any cruelty

in killing them, why should of all callings butchers, and only they,

jointly with surgeons, be excluded from being jurymen by the same law?

I shall urge nothing of what Pythagoras and many other wise men

have said concerning this barbarity of eating flesh; I have gone

too much out of my way already, and shall therefore beg the reader,

if he would have any more of this, to run over the following fable,

or else, if he be tired, to let it alone, with an assurance that in

doing of either he shall equally oblige me.

A Roman merchant, in one of the Carthaginian wars, was cast away upon

the coast of Afric: himself and his slave with great difficulty got

safe ashore; but going in quest of relief, were met by a lion of a

mighty size. It happened to be one of the breed that ranged in Æsop's

days, and one that could not only speak several languages, but seemed,

moreover, very well acquainted with human affairs. The slave got upon

a tree, but his master not thinking himself safe there, and having

heard much of the generosity of lions, fell down prostrate before him,

with all the signs of fear and submission. The lion who had lately

filled his belly, bids him rise, and for a while lay by his fears,

assuring him withal, that he should not be touched, if he could

give him any tolerable reasons why he should not be devoured. The

merchant obeyed; and having now received some glimmering hopes of

safety, gave a dismal account of the shipwreck he had suffered, and

endeavouring from thence to raise the lion's pity, pleaded his cause

with abundance of good rhetoric; but observing by the countenance of

the beast, that flattery and fine words made very little impression,

he betook himself to arguments of greater solidity, and reasoning

from the excellency of man's nature and abilities, remonstrated how

improbable it was that the gods should not have designed him for

a better use, than to be eat by savage beasts. Upon this the lion

became more attentive, and vouchsafed now and then a reply, till at

last the following dialogue ensued between them.

Oh vain and covetous animal (said the lion), whose pride and avarice

can make him leave his native soil, where his natural wants might

be plentifully supplied, and try rough seas and dangerous mountains

to find out superfluities, why should you esteem your species above

ours? And if the gods have given you a superiority over all creatures,

then why beg you of an inferior? Our superiority (answered the

merchant) consists not in bodily force, but strength of understanding;

the gods have endued us with a rational soul, which, though invisible,

is much the better part of us. I desire to touch nothing of you but

what is good to eat; but why do you value yourself so much upon that

part which is invisible? Because it is immortal, and shall meet with

rewards after death for the actions of this life, and the just shall

enjoy eternal bliss and tranquillity with the heroes and demi-gods in

the Elysian fields. What life have you led? I have honoured the gods,

and studied to be beneficial to man. Then why do you fear death, if

you think the gods as just as you have been? I have a wife and five

small children that must come to want if they lose me. I have two

whelps that are not big enough to shift for themselves, that are in

want now, and must actually be starved if I can provide nothing for

them: Your children will be provided for one way or other; at least

as well when I have eat you, as if you had been drowned.

As to the excellency of either species, the value of things among you

has ever increased with the scarcity of them, and to a million of men

there is hardly one lion; besides that, in the great veneration man

pretends to have for his kind, there is little sincerity farther than

it concerns the share which every one's pride has in it for himself;

it is a folly to boast of the tenderness shown, and attendance given

to your young ones, or the excessive and lasting trouble bestowed in

the education of them: Man being born the most necessitous and most

helpless animal, this is only an instinct of nature, which, in all

creatures, has ever proportioned the care of the parents to the wants

and imbecilities of the offspring. But if a man had a real value

for his kind, how is it possible that often ten thousand of them,

and sometimes ten times as many, should be destroyed in few hours,

for the caprice of two? All degrees of men despise those that are

inferior to them, and if you could enter into the hearts of kings

and princes, you would hardly find any but what have less value for

the greatest part of the multitudes they rule over, than those have

for the cattle that belong to them. Why should so many pretend to

derive their race, though but spuriously, from the immortal gods;

why should all of them suffer others to kneel down before them,

and more or less take delight in having divine honours paid them,

but to insinuate that themselves are of a more exalted nature, and

a species superior to that of their subjects?

Savage I am, but no creature can be called cruel, but what either

by malice or insensibility extinguishes his natural pity: The lion

was born without compassion; we follow the instinct of our nature;

the gods have appointed us to live upon the waste and spoil of other

animals, and as long as we can meet with dead ones, we never hunt after

the living. It is only man, mischievous man, that can make death a

sport. Nature taught your stomach to crave nothing but vegetables; but

your violent fondness to change, and great eagerness after novelties,

have prompted you to the destruction of animals without justice or

necessity, perverted your nature, and warped your appetites which way

soever your pride or luxury have called them. The lion has a ferment

within him that consumes the toughest skin and hardest bones, as well

as the flesh of all animals without exception: Your squeamish stomach,

in which the digestive heat is weak and inconsiderable, will not so

much as admit of the most tender parts of them, unless above half

the concoction has been performed by artificial fire before hand; and

yet what animal have you spared to satisfy the caprices of a languid

appetite? Languid I say; for what is man's hunger, if compared to the

lion's? Yours, when it is at the worst, makes you faint, mine makes

me mad: Oft have I tried with roots and herbs to allay the violence

of it, but in vain; nothing but large quantities of flesh can anywise

appease it.

Yet the fierceness of our hunger notwithstanding, lions have often

requited benefits received; but ungrateful and perfidious man feeds on

the sheep that clothes him, and spares not her innocent young ones,

whom he has taken into his care and custody. If you tell me the gods

made man master over all other creatures, what tyranny was it then

to destroy them out of wantonness? No, fickle, timorous animal, the

gods have made you for society, and designed that millions of you,

when well joined together, should compose the strong Leviathan. A

single lion bears some sway in the creation, but what is single man? A

small and inconsiderable part, a trifling atom of one great beast. What

nature designs, she executes; and it is not safe to judge of what she

purposed, but from the effects she shows: If she had intended that

man, as man from a superiority of species, should lord it over all

other animals, the tiger, nay, the whale and eagle would have obeyed

his voice.

But if your wit and understanding exceeds ours, ought not the lion,

in deference to that superiority, to follow the maxims of men, with

whom nothing is more sacred, than that the reason of the strongest

is ever the most prevalent? Whole multitudes of you have conspired

and compassed the destruction of one, after they had owned the gods

had made him their superior; and one has often ruined and cut off

whole multitudes, whom, by the same gods, he had sworn to defend and

maintain. Man never acknowledged superiority without power, and why

should I? The excellence I boast of is visible, all animals tremble

at the sight of the lion, not out of panic fear. The gods have given

me swiftness to overtake, and strength to conquer whatever comes near

me. Where is there a creature that has teeth and claws like mine,

behold the thickness of these massy jaw-bones, consider the width of

them, and feel the firmness of this brawny neck. The nimblest deer,

the wildest boar, the stoutest horse, and strongest bull, are my

prey wherever I meet them. Thus spoke the lion, and the merchant

fainted away.

The lion, in my opinion, has stretched the point too far; yet, when

to soften the flesh of male animals, we have by castration prevented

the firmness their tendons, and every fibre would have come to,

without it, I confess, I think it ought to move a human creature,

when he reflects upon the cruel care with which they are fattened for

destruction. When a large and gentle bullock, after having resisted a

ten times greater force of blows than would have killed his murderer,

falls stunned at last, and his armed head is fastened to the ground

with cords; as soon as the wide wound is made, and the jugulars are

cut asunder, what mortal can, without compassion, hear the painful

bellowings intercepted by his blood, the bitter sighs that speak

the sharpness of his anguish, and the deep sounding groans, with

loud anxiety, fetched from the bottom of his strong and palpitating

heart; look on the trembling and violent convulsions of his limbs;

see, while his reeking gore streams from him, his eyes become dim

and languid, and behold his strugglings, gasps, and last efforts for

life, the certain signs of his approaching fate? When a creature has

given such convincing and undeniable proofs of the terrors upon him,

and the pains and agonies he feels, is there a follower of Descartes

so inured to blood, as not to refute, by his commiseration, the

philosophy of that vain reasoner?

Line 307. ----For frugally

They now liv'd 'on their salary.

When people have small comings in, and are honest withal, it

is then that the generality of them begin to be frugal, and

not before. Frugality in ethics is called that virtue, from the

principle of which men abstain from superfluities, and, despising

the operose contrivances of art to procure either ease or pleasure,

content themselves with the natural simplicity of things, and are

carefully temperate in the enjoyment of them, without any tincture of

covetousness. Frugality thus limited, is perhaps scarcer than many may

imagine; but what is generally understood by it, is a quality more

often to be met with, and consists in a medium between profuseness

and avarice, rather leaning to the latter. As this prudent economy,

which some people call saving is in private families the most certain

method to increase an estate. So some imagine, that whether a country

be barren or fruitful, the same method, if generally pursued (which

they think practicable), will have the same effect upon a whole nation,

and that, for example, the English might be much richer than they are,

if they would be as frugal as some of their neighbours. This, I think,

is an error, which to prove, I shall first refer the reader to what

has been said upon this head in Remark on l. 180. and then go on thus.

Experience teaches us first, that as people differ in their views

and perceptions of things, so they vary in their inclinations; one

man is given to covetousness, another to prodigality, and a third is

only saving. Secondly, that men are never, or at least very seldom,

reclaimed from their darling passions, either by reason or precept,

and that if any thing ever draws them from what they are naturally

propense to, it must be a change in their circumstances or their

fortunes. If we reflect upon these observations, we shall find,

that to render the generality of a nation lavish, the product of

the country must be considerable, in proportion to the inhabitants,

and what they are profuse of cheap; that, on the contrary, to make

a nation generally frugal, the necessaries of life must be scarce,

and consequently dear; and that, therefore, let the best politician

do what he can, the profuseness or frugality of a people in general,

must always depend upon, and will, in spite of his teeth, be ever

proportioned to the fruitfulness and product of the country, the

number of inhabitants, and the taxes they are to bear. If any body

would refute what I have said, let them only prove from history,

that there ever was in any country a national frugality without a

national necessity.

Let us examine then what things are requisite to aggrandize and

enrich a nation. The first desirable blessings for any society of men,

are a fertile soil, and a happy climate, a mild government, and more

land than people. These things will render man easy, loving, honest,

and sincere. In this condition they may be as virtuous as they can,

without the least injury to the public, and consequently as happy

as they please themselves. But they shall have no arts or sciences,

or be quiet longer than their neighbours will let them; they must

be poor, ignorant, and almost wholly destitute of what we call the

comforts of life, and all the cardinal virtues together would not so

much as procure a tolerable coat or a porridge-pot among them: for

in this state of slothful ease and stupid innocence, as you need not

fear great vices, so you must not expect any considerable virtues. Man

never exerts himself but when he is roused by his desires: while they

lie dormant, and there is nothing to raise them, his excellence and

abilities will be for ever undiscovered, and the lumpish machine,

without the influence of his passions, may be justly compared to a

huge wind-mill without a breath of air.

Would you render a society of men strong and powerful, you must touch

their passions. Divide the land, though there be never so much to

spare, and their possessions will make them covetous: rouse them,

though but in jest, from their idleness with praises, and pride will

set them to work in earnest: teach them trades and handicrafts, and you

will bring envy and emulation among them: to increase their numbers,

set up a variety of manufactures, and leave no ground uncultivated; let

property be inviolably secured, and privileges equal to all men; suffer

nobody to act but what is lawful, and every body to think what he

pleases; for a country where every body may be maintained that will be

employed, and the other maxims are observed, must always be thronged,

and can never want people, as long as there is any in the world. Would

you have them bold and warlike, turn to military discipline, make good

use of their fear, and flatter their vanity with art and assiduity:

but would you, moreover, render them an opulent, knowing, and polite

nation, teach them commerce with foreign countries, and, if possible,

get into the sea, which to compass spare no labour nor industry, and

let no difficulty deter you from it; then promote navigation, cherish

the merchant, and encourage trade in every branch of it; this will

bring riches, and where they are, arts and sciences will soon follow:

and by the help of what I have named and good management, it is that

politicians can make a people potent, renowned, and flourishing.

But would you have a frugal and honest society, the best policy is to

preserve men in their native simplicity, strive not to increase their

numbers; let them never be acquainted with strangers or superfluities,

but remove, and keep from them every thing that might raise their

desires, or improve their understanding.

Great wealth, and foreign treasure, will ever scorn to come among

men, unless you will admit their inseparable companions, avarice and

luxury: where trade is considerable, fraud will intrude. To be at once

well-bred and sincere, is no less than a contradiction; and, therefore,

while man advances in knowledge, and his manners are polished, we must

expect to see, at the same time, his desires enlarged, his appetites

refined, and his vices increased.

The Dutch may ascribe their present grandeur to the virtue and

frugality of their ancestors as they please; but what made that

contemptible spot of ground so considerable among the principal powers

of Europe, has been their political wisdom in postponing every thing

to merchandise and navigation, the unlimited liberty of conscience

that is enjoyed among them, and the unwearied application with which

they have always made use of the most effectual means to encourage

and increase trade in general.

They never were noted for frugality before Philip II. of Spain began

to rage over them with that unheard of tyranny. Their laws were

trampled upon, their rights and large immunities taken from them,

and their constitution torn to pieces. Several of their chief nobles

were condemned and executed without legal form of process. Complaints

and remonstrances were punished as severely as resistance, and those

that escaped being massacred, were plundered by ravenous soldiers. As

this was intolerable to a people that had always been used to the

mildest of governments, and enjoyed greater privileges than any of

the neighbouring nations, so they chose rather to die in arms than

perish by cruel executioners. If we consider the strength Spain

had then, and the low circumstances those distressed states were

in, there never was heard of a more unequal strife; yet, such was

their fortitude and resolution, that only seven of those provinces,

uniting themselves together, maintained against the greatest and

best disciplined nation in Europe, the most tedious and bloody war,

that is to be met with in ancient or modern history.

Rather than to become a victim to the Spanish fury, they were contented

to live upon a third part of their revenues, and lay out far the

greatest part of their income in defending themselves against their

merciless enemies. These hardships and calamities of a war within

their bowels, first put them upon that extraordinary frugality; and

the continuance under the same difficulties for above fourscore years,

could not but render it customary and habitual to them. But all their

arts of saving, and penurious way of living, could never have enabled

them to make head against so potent an enemy, if their industry in

promoting their fishery and navigation in general, had not helped to

supply the natural wants and disadvantages they laboured under.

The country is so small and so populous, that there is not land enough

(though hardly an inch of it is unimproved) to feed the tenth part

of the inhabitants. Holland itself is full of large rivers, and

lies lower than the sea, which would run over it every tide, and

wash it away in one winter, if it was not kept out by vast banks

and huge walls: the repairs of those, as well as their sluices,

quays, mills, and other necessaries they are forced to make use of

to keep themselves from being drowned, are a greater expence to them,

one year with another, than could be raised by a general land tax of

four shillings in the pound, if to be deducted from the neat produce

of the landlord's revenue.

Is it a wonder, that people, under such circumstances, and loaden

with greater taxes, besides, than any other nation, should be obliged

to be saving? but why must they be a pattern to others, who, besides,

that they are more happily situated, are much richer within themselves,

and have, to the same number of people, above ten times the extent of

ground? The Dutch and we often buy and sell at the same markets, and

so far our views may be said to be the same: otherwise the interests

and political reasons of the two nations, as to the private economy

of either, are very different. It is their interest to be frugal,

and spend little; because they must have every thing from abroad,

except butter, cheese, and fish, and therefore of them, especially

the latter, they consume three times the quantity, which the same

number of people do here. It is our interest to eat plenty of beef

and mutton to maintain the farmer, and further improve our land,

of which we have enough to feed ourselves, and as many more, if it

was better cultivated. The Dutch perhaps have more shipping, and more

ready money than we, but then those are only to be considered as the

tools they work with. So a carrier may have more horses than a man

of ten times his worth, and a banker that has not above fifteen or

sixteen hundred pounds in the world, may have generally more ready

cash by him, than a gentleman of two thousand a-year. He that keeps

three or four stage-coaches to get his bread, is to a gentleman that

keeps a coach for his pleasure, what the Dutch are in comparison

to us; having nothing of their own but fish, they are carriers and

freighters to the rest of the world, while the basis of our trade

chiefly depends upon our own product.

Another instance, that what makes the bulk of the people saving,

are heavy taxes, scarcity of land, and such things that occasion a

dearth of provisions, may be given from what is observable among the

Dutch themselves. In the province of Holland there is a vast trade,

and an unconceivable treasure of money. The land is almost as rich

as dung itself, and (as I have said once already) not an inch of it

unimproved. In Gelderland, and Overyssel, there is hardly any trade,

and very little money: the soil is very indifferent, and abundance

of ground lies waste. Then, what is the reason that the same Dutch,

in the two latter provinces, though poorer than the first, are yet

less stingy and more hospitable? Nothing but that their taxes in

most things are less extravagant, and in proportion to the number of

people, they have a great deal more ground. What they save in Holland,

they save out of their bellies; it is eatables, drinkables, and fuel,

that their heaviest taxes are upon, but they wear better clothes,

and have richer furniture, than you will find in the other provinces.

Those that are frugal by principle, are so in every thing; but in

Holland the people are only sparing in such things as are daily wanted,

and soon consumed; in what is lasting they are quite otherwise: in

pictures and marble they are profuse; in their buildings and gardens

they are extravagant to folly. In other countries, you may meet with

stately courts and palaces of great extent, that belong to princes,

which nobody can expect in a commonwealth, where so much equality

is observed as there is in this; but in all Europe you shall find

no private buildings so sumptuously magnificent, as a great many

of the merchants and other gentlemen's houses are in Amsterdam, and

some other great cities of that small province; and the generality of

those that build there, lay out a greater proportion of their estates

on houses they dwell in, than any people upon the earth.

The nation I speak of was never in greater straits, nor their affairs

in a more dismal posture since they were a republic, than in the

year 1671, and the beginning of 1672. What we know of their economy

and constitution with any certainty, has been chiefly owing to Sir

William Temple, whose observations upon their manners and government,

it is evident from several passages in his memoirs, were made about

that time. The Dutch, indeed, were then very frugal; but since those

days, and that their calamities have not been so pressing (though

the common people, on whom the principal burden of all excises and

impositions lies, are perhaps much as they were), a great alteration

has been made among the better sort of people in their equipages,

entertainments, and whole manner of living.

Those who would have it, that the frugality of that nation flows not

so much from necessity, as a general aversion to vice and luxury,

will put us in mind of their public administration, and smallness

of salaries, their prudence in bargaining for, and buying stores

and other necessaries, the great care they take not to be imposed

upon by those that serve them, and their severity against them that

break their contracts. But what they would ascribe to the virtue

and honesty of ministers, is wholly due to their strict regulations,

concerning the management of the public treasure, from which their

admirable form of government will not suffer them to depart; and

indeed one good man may take another's word, if they so agree, but a

whole nation ought never to trust to any honesty, but what is built

upon necessity; for unhappy is the people, and their constitution

will be ever precarious, whose welfare must depend upon the virtues

and consciences of ministers and politicians.

The Dutch generally endeavour to promote as much frugality among their

subjects as it is possible, not because it is a virtue, but because

it is, generally speaking, their interest, as I have shown before;

for, as this latter changes, so they alter their maxims, as will be

plain in the following instance.

As soon as their East India ships come home, the Company pays off the

men, and many of them receive the greatest part of what they have been

earning in seven or eight, or some fifteen or sixteen years time. These

poor fellows are encouraged to spend their money with all profuseness

imaginable; and considering that most of them, when they set out first,

were reprobates, that under the tuition of a strict discipline, and a

miserable diet, have been so long kept at hard labour without money,

in the midst of danger, it cannot be difficult to make them lavish,

as soon as they have plenty.

They squander away in wine, women, and music, as much as people

of their taste and education are well capable of, and are suffered

(so they but abstain from doing of mischief), to revel and riot with

greater licentiousness than is customary to be allowed to others. You

may in some cities see them accompanied with three or four lewd women,

few of them sober, run roaring through the streets by broad day-light

with a fiddler before them: And if the money, to their thinking, goes

not fast enough these ways, they will find out others, and sometimes

fling it among the mob by handfuls. This madness continues in most

of them while they have any thing left, which never lasts long, and

for this reason, by a nick-name, they are called, Lords of six Weeks,

that being generally the time by which the Company has other ships

ready to depart; where these infatuated wretches (their money being

gone) are forced to enter themselves again, and may have leisure to

repent their folly.

In this stratagem there is a double policy: First, if the sailors that

have been inured to the hot climates and unwholesome air and diet,

should be frugal, and stay in their own country, the Company would be

continually obliged to employ fresh men, of which (besides that they

are not so fit for their business), hardly one in two ever lives in

some places of the East Indies, which often would prove great charge

as well as disappointment to them. The second is, that the large

sums so often distributed among those sailors, are by this means

made immediately to circulate throughout the country, from whence,

by heavy excises, and other impositions, the greatest part of it is

soon drawn back into the public treasure.

To convince the champions for national frugality by another argument,

that what they urge is impracticable, we will suppose that I am

mistaken in every thing which in Remark, l. 180, I have said in behalf

of luxury, and the necessity of it to maintain trade: after that let

us examine what a general frugality, if it was by art and management

to be forced upon people whether they have occasion for it or not,

would produce in such a nation as ours. We will grant, then, that all

the people in Great Britain shall consume but four-fifths of what

they do now, and so lay by one-fifth part of their income; I shall

not speak of what influence this would have upon almost every trade,

as well as the farmer, the grazier, and the landlord, but favourably

suppose (what is yet impossible), that the same work shall be done,

and consequently the same handicrafts be employed as there are

now. The consequence would be, that unless money should all at once

fall prodigiously in value, and every thing else, contrary to reason,

grow very dear, at the five years end all the working people, and the

poorest of labourers (for I would not meddle with any of the rest),

would be worth in ready cash as much as they now spend in a whole

year; which, by the bye, would be more money than ever the nation

had at once.

Let us now, overjoyed with this increase of wealth, take a view of

the condition the working people would be in, and, reasoning from

experience, and what we daily observe of them, judge what their

behaviour would be in such a case. Every body knows that there is a

vast number of journeymen weavers, tailors, clothworkers, and twenty

other handicrafts, who, if by four days labour in a week they can

maintain themselves, will hardly be persuaded to work the fifth;

and that there are thousands of labouring men of all sorts, who will,

though they can hardly subsist, put themselves to fifty inconveniences,

disoblige their masters, pinch their bellies, and run in debt to make

holidays. When men show such an extraordinary proclivity to idleness

and pleasure, what reason have we to think that they would ever work,

unless they were obliged to it by immediate necessity? When we see

an artificer that cannot be drove to his work before Tuesday, because

the Monday morning he has two shillings left of his last week's pay;

why should we imagine he would go to it at all, if he had fifteen or

twenty pounds in his pocket?

What would, at this rate, become of our manufactures? If the merchant

would send cloth abroad, he must make it himself, for the clothier

cannot get one man out of twelve that used to work for him. If what I

speak of was only to befal the journeymen shoemakers, and nobody else,

in less than a twelvemonth, half of us would go barefoot. The chief

and most pressing use there is for money in a nation, is to pay the

labour of the poor, and when there is a real scarcity of it, those

who have a great many workmen to pay, will always feel it first; yet

notwithstanding this great necessity of coin, it would be easier, where

property was well secured, to live without money, than without poor;

for who would do the work? For this reason the quantity of circulating

coin in a country, ought always to be proportioned to the number of

hands that are employed; and the wages of labourers to the price of

provisions. From whence it is demonstrable, that whatever procures

plenty, makes labourers cheap, where the poor are well managed;

who as they ought to be kept from starving, so they should receive

nothing worth saving. If here and there one of the lowest class by

uncommon industry, and pinching his belly, lifts himself above the

condition he was brought up in, nobody ought to hinder him; nay,

it is undeniably the wisest course for every person in the society,

and for every private family to be frugal; but it is the interest of

all rich nations, that the greatest part of the poor should almost

never be idle, and yet continually spend what they get.

All men, as Sir William Temple observes very well, are more prone to

ease and pleasure than they are to labour, when they are not prompted

to it by pride and avarice, and those that get their living by their

daily labour, are seldom powerfully influenced by either: so that

they have nothing to stir them up to be serviceable but their wants,

which it is prudence to relieve, but folly to cure. The only thing,

then, that can render the labouring man industrious, is a moderate

quantity of money; for as too little will, according as his temper

is, either dispirit or make him desperate, so too much will make him

insolent and lazy.

A man would be laughed at by most people, who should maintain that

too much money could undo a nation: yet this has been the fate of

Spain; to this the learned Don Diego Savedra ascribes the ruin of his

country. The fruits of the earth in former ages had made Spain so rich,

that King Lewis XI. of France being come to the court of Toledo, was

astonished at its splendour, and said, that he had never seen any thing

to be compared to it, either in Europe or Asia; he that in his travels

to the Holy Land had run through every province of them. In the kingdom

of Castile alone (if we may believe some writers), there were for the

holy war, from all parts of the world got together one hundred thousand

foot, ten thousand horse, and sixty thousand carriages for baggage,

which Alonso III. maintained at his own charge, and paid every day,

as well soldiers as officers and princes, every one according to his

rank and dignity: nay, down to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella

(who equipped Columbus), and some time after, Spain was a fertile

country, where trade and manufactures flourished, and had a knowing

industrious people to boast of. But as soon as that mighty treasure,

that was obtained with more hazard and cruelty than the world until

then had known, and which to come at, by the Spaniard's own confession,

had cost the lives of twenty millions of Indians; as soon, I say, as

that ocean of treasure came rolling in upon them, it took away their

senses, and their industry forsook them. The farmer left his plough,

the mechanic his tools, the merchant his compting-house, and every

body scorning to work, took his pleasure and turned gentleman. They

thought they had reason to value themselves above all their neighbours,

and now nothing but the conquest of the world would serve them.

The consequence of this has been, that other nations have supplied

what their own sloth and pride denied them; and when every body saw,

that notwithstanding all the prohibitions the government could make

against the exportation of bullion, the Spaniard would part with his

money, and bring it you aboard himself at the hazard of his neck,

all the world endeavoured to work for Spain. Gold and silver being by

this means yearly divided and shared among all the trading countries,

have made all things dear, and most nations of Europe industrious,

except their owners, who, ever since their mighty acquisitions,

sit with their arms across, and wait every year with impatience and

anxiety, the arrival of their revenues from abroad, to pay others for

what they have spent already: and thus by too much money, the making

of colonies and other mismanagements, of which it was the occasion,

Spain is, from a fruitful and well-peopled country, with all its mighty

titles and possessions, made a barren and empty thoroughfare through

which gold and silver pass from America to the rest of the world;

and the nation, from a rich, acute, diligent, and laborious, become

a slow, idle, proud, and beggarly people: So much for Spain. The

next country where money is called the product, is Portugal, and

the figure which that kingdom with all its gold makes in Europe,

I think is not much to be envied.

The great art then to make a nation happy, and what we call

flourishing, consists in giving every body an opportunity of being

employed; which to compass, let a government's first care be to

promote as great a variety of manufactures, arts, and handicrafts,

as human wit can invent; and the second, to encourage agriculture and

fishery in all their branches, that the whole earth may be forced to

exert itself as well as man; for as the one is an infallible maxim

to draw vast multitudes of people into a nation, so the other is the

only method to maintain them.

It is from this policy, and not the trifling regulations of lavishness

and frugality (which will ever take their own course, according to

the circumstances of the people), that the greatness and felicity of

nations must be expected; for let the value of gold and silver either

rise or fall, the enjoyment of all societies will ever depend upon

the fruits of the earth, and the labour of the people; both which

joined together are a more certain, a more inexhaustible, and a more

real treasure, than the gold of Brazil, or the silver of Potosi.

Line 321. No honour now, &c.

Honour, in its figurative sense, is a chimera without truth or being,

an invention of moralists and politicians, and signifies a certain

principle of virtue not related to religion, found in some men that

keeps them close to their duty and engagements whatever they be;

as for example, a man of honour enters into a conspiracy with others

to murder a king; he is obliged to go thorough stitch with it; and

if overcome by remorse or good nature, he startles at the enormity

of his purpose, discovers the plot, and turns a witness against his

accomplices, he then forfeits his honour, at least among the party

he belonged to. The excellency of this principle is, that the vulgar

are destitute of it, and it is only to be met with in people of the

better sort, as some oranges have kernels, and others not, though the

outside be the same. In great families it is like the gout, generally

counted hereditary, and all the lords children are born with it. In

some that never felt any thing of it, it is acquired by conversation

and reading (especially of romances), in others by preferment; but

there is nothing that encourages the growth of it more than a sword,

and upon the first wearing of one, some people have felt considerable

shoots of it in four and twenty hours.

The chief and most important care a man of honour ought to have,

is the preservation of this principle, and rather than forfeit it,

he must lose his employments and estate, nay, life itself; for which

reason, whatever humility he may show by way of good-breeding, he is

allowed to put an inestimable value upon himself, as a possessor of

this invisible ornament. The only method to preserve this principle,

is to live up to the rules of honour, which are laws he is to walk by:

himself is obliged always to be faithful to his trust, to prefer the

public interest to his own, not to tell lies, nor defraud or wrong

any body, and from others to suffer no affront, which is a term of

art for every action designedly done to undervalue him.

The men of ancient honour, of which I reckon Don Quixote to have been

the last upon record, were very nice observers of all these laws,

and a great many more than I have named; but the moderns seem to be

more remiss: they have a profound veneration for the last of them,

but they pay not an equal obedience to any of the other; and whoever

will but strictly comply with that I hint at, shall have abundance

of trespasses against all the rest connived at.

A man of honour is always counted impartial, and a man of sense of

course; for nobody never heard of a man of honour that was a fool:

for this reason, he has nothing to do with the law, and is always

allowed to be a judge in his own case; and if the least injury be

done either to himself or his friend, his relation, his servant, his

dog, or any thing which he is pleased to take under his honourable

protection, satisfaction must be forthwith demanded; and if it proves

an affront, and he that gave it like wise a man of honour, a battle

must ensue. From all this it is evident, that a man of honour must

be possessed of courage, and that without it his other principle

would be no more than a sword without a point. Let us, therefore,

examine what courage consists in, and whether it be, as most people

will have it, a real something that valiant men have in their nature

distinct from all their other qualities or not.

There is nothing so universally sincere upon earth, as the love

which all creatures, that are capable of any, bear to themselves;

and as there is no love but what implies a care to preserve the thing

beloved, so there is nothing more sincere in any creature than his

will, wishes, and endeavours, to preserve himself. This is the law of

nature, by which no creature is endued with any appetite or passion,

but what either directly or indirectly tends to the preservation

either of himself or his species.

The means by which nature obliges every creature continually to stir in

this business of self-preservation, are grafted in him, and, in man,

called desires, which either compel him to crave what he thinks will

sustain or please him, or command him to avoid what he imagines might

displease, hurt, or destroy him. These desires or passions have all

their different symptoms by which they manifest themselves to those

they disturb, and from that variety of disturbances they make within

us, their various denominations have been given them, as has been

shown already in pride and shame.

The passion that is raised in us when we apprehend that mischief is

approaching us, is called fear: the disturbance it makes within us is

always more or less violent in proportion, not of the danger, but our

apprehension of the mischief dreaded, whether real or imaginary. Our

fear then being always proportioned to the apprehension we have of

the danger, it follows, that while that apprehension lasts, a man can

no more shake off his fear than he can a leg or an arm. In a fright,

it is true, the apprehension of danger is so sudden, and attacks us

so lively (as sometimes to take away reason and senses), that when

it is over we often do not remember we had any apprehension at all;

but, from the event, it is plain we had it, for how could we have

been frightened if we had not apprehended that some evil or other

was coming upon us?

Most people are of opinion, that this apprehension is to be conquered

by reason, but I confess I am not: Those that have been frightened

will tell you, that as soon as they could recollect themselves, that

is, make use of their reason, their apprehension was conquered. But

this is no conquest at all, for in a fright the danger was either

altogether imaginary, or else it is past by that time they can make

use of their reason; and therefore if they find there is no danger,

it is no wonder that they should not apprehend any: but, when the

danger is permanent, let them then make use of their reason, and they

will find that it may serve them to examine the greatness and reality

of the danger, and that, if they find it less than they imagined,

the apprehension will be lessened accordingly; but, if the danger

proves real, and the same in every circumstance as they took it to

be at first, then their reason, instead of diminishing, will rather

increase their apprehension. While this fear lasts, no creature can

fight offensively; and yet we see brutes daily fight obstinately, and

worry one another to death; so that some other passion must be able

to overcome this fear, and the most contrary to it is anger: which,

to trace to the bottom, I must beg leave to make another digression.

No creature can subsist without food, nor any species of them (I

speak of the more perfect animals) continue long unless young ones

are continually born as fast as the old ones die. Therefore the first

and fiercest appetite that nature has given them is hunger, the next

is lust; the one prompting them to procreate, as the other bids them

eat. Now, if we observe that anger is that passion which is raised

in us when we are crossed or disturbed in our desires, and that, as

it sums up all the strength in creatures, so it was given them, that

by it they might exert themselves more vigorously in endeavouring to

remove, overcome, or destroy whatever obstructs them in the pursuit

of self preservation; we shall find that brutes, unless themselves or

what they love, or the liberty of either are threatened or attacked,

have nothing worth notice that can move them to anger, but hunger

or lust. It is they that make them more fierce, for we must observe,

that the appetites of creatures are as actually crossed, while they

want and cannot meet with what they desire (though perhaps with less

violence) as when hindered from enjoying what they have in view. What

I have said will appear more plainly, if we but mind what nobody can

be ignorant of, which is this: all creatures upon earth live either

upon the fruits and product of it, or else the flesh of other animals,

their fellow-creatures. The latter, which we call beasts of prey,

nature has armed accordingly, and given them weapons and strength to

overcome and tear asunder those whom she has designed for their food,

and likewise a much keener appetite than to other animals that live

upon herbs, &c. For, as to the first, if a cow loved mutton as well as

she does grass, being made as she is, and having no claws or talons,

and but one row of teeth before, that are all of an equal length, she

would be starved even among a flock of sheep. Secondly, as to their

voraciousness, if experience did not teach us, our reason might: in the

first place, it is highly probable, that the hunger which can make a

creature fatigue, harass and expose himself to danger for every bit he

eats, is more piercing than that which only bids him eat what stands

before him, and which he may have for stooping down. In the second,

it is to be considered, that as beasts of prey have an instinct by

which they learn to crave, trace, and discover those creatures that

are good food for them; so the others have likewise an instinct that

teaches them to shun, conceal themselves, and run away from those

that hunt after them: from hence it must follow, that beasts of prey,

though they could almost eat forever, go yet more often with empty

bellies than other creatures, whose victuals neither fly from nor

oppose them. This must perpetuate as well as increase their hunger,

which hereby becomes a constant fuel to their anger.

If you ask me what stirs up this anger in bulls and cocks that

will fight to death, and yet are neither animals of prey, nor very

voracious, I answer, lust. Those creatures, whose rage proceeds from

hunger, both male and female, attack every thing they can master,

and fight obstinately against all: But the animals, whose fury is

provoked by a venereal ferment, being generally males, exert themselves

chiefly against other males of the same species. They may do mischief

by chance to other creatures; but the main objects of their hatred

are their rivals, and it is against them only that their prowess

and fortitude are shown. We see likewise in all those creatures,

of which the male is able to satisfy a great number of females, a

more considerable superiority in the male, expressed by nature in his

make and features, as well as fierceness, than is observed in other

creatures, where the male is contented with one or two females. Dogs,

though become domestic animals, are ravenous to a proverb, and those

of them that will fight being carnivorous, would soon become beasts

of prey, if not fed by us; what we may observe in them is an ample

proof of what I have hitherto advanced. Those of a true fighting

breed, being voracious creatures, both male and female, will fasten

upon any thing, and suffer themselves to be killed before they give

over. As the female is rather more salacious than the male; so there

is no difference in their make at all, what distinguishes the sexes

excepted, and the female is rather the fiercest of the two. A bull

is a terrible creature when he is kept up, but where he has twenty

or more cows to range among, in a little time he will become as tame

as any of them, and a dozen hens will spoil the best game cock in

England. Harts and deers are counted chaste and timorous creatures,

and so indeed they are almost all the year long, except in rutting

time, and then on a sudden they become bold to admiration, and often

make at the keepers themselves.

That the influence of those two principal appetites, hunger and lust,

upon the temper of animals, is not so whimsical as some may imagine,

may be partly demonstrated from what is observable in ourselves; for,

though our hunger is infinitely less violent than that of wolves and

other ravenous creatures, yet we see that people who are in health,

and have a tolerable stomach, are more fretful, and sooner put out

of humour for trifles when they stay for their victuals beyond their

usual hours, than at any other time. And again, though lust in man

is not so raging as it is in bulls, and other salacious creatures,

yet nothing provokes men and women both sooner, and more violently

to anger, than what crosses their amours, when they are heartily in

love; and the most fearful and tenderly educated of either sex, have

slighted the greatest dangers, and set aside all other considerations,

to compass the destruction of a rival.

Hitherto I have endeavoured to demonstrate, that no creature can

fight offensively as long as his fear lasts; that fear cannot be

conquered but by another passion; that the most contrary to it,

and most effectual to overcome it, is anger; that the two principal

appetites which, disappointed, can stir up this last-named passion,

are hunger and lust, and that, in all brute beasts, the proneness to

anger and obstinacy in fighting, generally depend upon the violence of

either or both those appetites together: From whence it must follow,

that what we call prowess, or natural courage in creatures, is nothing

but the effect of anger, and that all fierce animals must be either

very ravenous, or very lustful, if not both.

Let us now examine what by this rule we ought to judge of our own

species. From the tenderness of man's skin, and the great care that is

required for years together to rear him; from the make of his jaws, the

evenness of his teeth, the breadth of his nails, and the slightness

of both, it is not probable that nature should have designed him

for rapine; for this reason his hunger is not voracious as it is in

beasts of prey; neither is he so salacious as other animals that are

called so, and being besides very industrious to supply his wants,

he can have no reigning appetite to perpetuate his anger, and must

consequently be a timorous animal.

What I have said last must only be understood of man in his savage

state; for, if we examine him as a member of a society, and a taught

animal, we shall find him quite another creature: As soon as his

pride has room to play, and envy, avarice, and ambition begin to

catch hold of him, he is roused from his natural innocence and

stupidity. As his knowledge increases, his desires are enlarged,

and consequently his wants and appetites are multiplied: Hence it

must follow, that he will often be crossed in the pursuit of them,

and meet with abundance more disappointment to stir up his anger in

this than his former condition, and man would in a little time become

the most hurtful and obnoxious creature in the world, if let alone,

whenever he could over-power his adversary, if he had no mischief to

fear but from the person that angered him.

The first care, therefore, of all governments is, by severe punishments

to curb his anger when it does hurt, and so, by increasing his fears,

prevent the mischief it might produce. When various laws to restrain

him from using force are strictly executed, self-preservation must

teach him to be peaceable; and, as it is every body's business to

be as little disturbed as is possible, his fears will be continually

augmented and enlarged as he advances in experience, understanding, and

foresight. The consequence of this must be, that as the provocations

he will receive to anger will be infinite in the civilized state, so

his fears to damp it will be the same, and thus, in a little time,

he will be taught by his fears to destroy his anger, and by art to

consult, in an opposite method, the same self-preservation for which

nature before had furnished him with anger, as well as the rest of

his passions.

The only useful passion, then, that man is possessed of toward the

peace and quiet of a society, is his fear, and the more you work upon

it the more orderly and governable he will be; for how useful soever

anger may be to man, as he is a single creature by himself, yet the

society has no manner of occasion for it: But nature being always the

same, in the formation of animals, produces all creatures as like to

those that beget and bear them, as the place she forms them in, and the

various influences from without, will give her leave; and consequently

all men, whether they are born in courts or forests, are susceptible of

anger. When this passion overcomes (as among all degrees of people it

sometimes does) the whole set of fears man has, he has true courage,

and will fight as boldly as a lion or a tiger, and at no other time;

and I shall endeavour to prove, that whatever is called courage in man,

when he is not angry, is spurious and artificial.

It is possible, by good government, to keep a society always quiet

in itself, but nobody can ensure peace from without for ever. The

society may have occasion to extend their limits further, and enlarge

their territories, or others may invade theirs, or something else

will happen that man must be brought to fight; for how civilized

soever men may be, they never forget that force goes beyond reason:

The politician now must alter his measures, and take off some of

man's fears; he must strive to persuade him, that all what was told

him before of the barbarity of killing men ceases, as soon as these

men are enemies to the public, and that their adversaries are neither

so good nor so strong as themselves. These things well managed will

seldom fail of drawing the hardiest, the most quarrelsome, and the

most mischievous into combat; but unless they are better qualified,

I will not answer for their behaviour there: If once you can make

them undervalue their enemies, you may soon stir them up to anger,

and while that lasts they will fight with greater obstinacy than any

disciplined troops: But if any thing happens that was unforeseen,

and a sudden great noise, a tempest, or any strange or uncommon

accident that seems to threaten them, intervenes, fear seizes them,

disarms their anger, and makes them run away to a man.

This natural courage, therefore, as soon as people begin to have more

wit, must be soon exploded. In the first place, those that have felt

the smart of the enemy's blows, will not always believe what is said to

undervalue him, and are often not easily provoked to anger. Secondly,

anger consisting in an ebullition of the spirits, is a passion of no

long continuance (ira furor brevis est), and the enemies, if they

withstand the first shock of these angry people, have commonly the

better of it. Thirdly, as long as people are angry, all counsel and

discipline are lost upon them, and they can never be brought to use

art or conduct in their battles. Anger then, without which no creature

has natural courage, being altogether useless in a war to be managed

by stratagem, and brought into a regular art, the government must

find out an equivalent for courage that will make men fight.