No More Learning

In looking over any state to form a judgment on presents itself in two lights the external, and
the internal. The first, that relation which bears in point of friendship or enmity to other states. The second, that relation which its component parts, the governing and the governed, bear to each other. The first part of the external view of all states, their relation as friends, makes so trifling figure in history, that am very sorry to say, affords me but little matter on which to expatiate. The good offices done by one nation to its neighbor;* the support given in public distress; the relief afforded in gen
Had his lordship lived to our days, to have seen the noble relief given by this nation to the distressed Portuguese, he had perhaps owned this part of his argument a little weakened; but we do not think ourselves entitled to alter his lordship's words, but that we are bound to follow him exactly.
? ? ? *
it, it
I
it
a
it
;
? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
eral calamity; the protection granted in emergent danger; the mutual return of kindness and civility, would aiford a very ample and very pleasing subject for history. But, alas! all the history of all times, concerning all nations, does not afford matter enough to fill ten pages, though it should be spun out by the wire-drawing amplification of a Guicciardini himself. The glaring side is that of enmity. War is the mat ter which fills all history, and consequently the only or almost the only view in which we can see the
external of political society is in a hostile shape; and the only actions to which we have always seen, and still see all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one another. " War," says Machiavel, " ought to be the only study of a prince "; and by a prince, he means every sort of state, however con stituted. "He ought," says this great political doc tor, " to consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute military plans. " A meditation on the conduct of political societies made old Hobbes imagine, that war was the state of nature ; and truly, if a man judged of the individuals of our race by their conduct when united and packed'into nations and kingdoms, he might imagine that every sort of virtue was unnatural and foreign to the mind of Infin.
The first accounts we have of mankind are but so many accounts of their butcheries. All empires have been cemented in blood ; and, in those early periods, when the race of mankind began first to form them selves into parties and combinations, the first effect of the combination, and indeed the end for which it seems pin'posely formed, and best calculated, was
? ? ? ? 16
A. VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
their mutual destruction. All ancient history is dark and uncertain. One thing, however, is clear, ---there were conquerors, and conquests in those days; and, consequently, all that devastation by which they are formed, and all that oppression by which they are maintained. We know little of Sesostris, but that he
men; that he overran the Mediterranean coast as far as
led out of Egypt an army of above 700,000
Colchis; that in some places he met but little resist ance, and of course shed not a great deal of blood; but that he found in others a people. who knew the value of their liberties, and sold them dear. Who ever considers the army this conqueror headed, the space he traversed, and the opposition he frequently met, with the natural accidents of sickness, and the dearth and badness of provision to which he must have been subject in the variety of climates and coun tries his march lay through, if he knows anything, he must know that even the conqueror's army must have suffered greatly; and that of this immense num ber but a very small part could have returned to en
joy the plunder accumulated by the loss of so many of their companions, and the devastation of so consid erable a part of the world. Considering, I say, the vast army headed by this conqueror, whose unwieldy weight was almost alone sufficient to wear down its strength, it will be far from excess to suppose that one half was lost in the expedition. If this was the state of the victorious, and from the circumstances it must have been this at the least; the vanquished must have had a much heavier loss, as the greatest slaughter is always in the flight, and great carnage did in those times and countries ever attend the first rage of conquest. It will, therefore, be very reason
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
able to allow on their account as much as, added to the losses of the conqueror, may amount to a million of deaths, and then we shall see this conqueror, the oldest we have on the records of history, (though, as we have observed before, the chronology of these re mote times is extremely uncertain), opening the scene by a destruction of at least one million of his species, unprovoked but by his ambition, without any motives but pride, cruelty, and madness, and without any benefit to himself (for Justin expressly tells us he did not maintain his conquests), but solely to make so many people, in so distant countries, feel experiment ally how severe a scourge Providence intends for the human race, when he gives one man the power over many, and arms his naturally impotent and feeble rage with the hands of millions, who know no com mon principle of action, but a blind obedience to the passions of their ruler.
The next personage who figures in the tragedies of this ancient theatre is Semiramis; for we have no particulars of Ninus, but that he made immense and rapid conquests, which doubtless were not compassed without the usual carnage. We see an army of about
three millions employed by this martial queen in a War against the Indians. We see the Indians arming a. yet greater; and we behold a war continued with much fury, and with various success. This ends in the retreat of the queen, with scarce a third of the troops employed in the expedition ; an expedition
which, at this rate, must have cost two millions of souls on her part ; and it is not unreasonable to judge that the country which was the seat of war must have been an equal sufferer. But I am content to detract
from this, and to suppose that the Indians lost only 7012. 1. 2
? ? ? ? 18
A VLNDIGATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
half so much, and then the account stands thus: in this war alone (for Semiramis had other wars) in this single reign, and in this one spot of the globe, did three millions of souls expire, with all the horrid and shocking circumstances which attend all wars, and in a quarrel, in which none of the sufferers could have
'
monarchies must have poured out seas of blood in their formation, and in their destruction. The armies and fleets of Xerxes, their numbers, the glorious stand made against them, and the unfortunate event of all his mighty preparations, are known to everybody. In this expedition, draining half Asia of its inhabi tants, he led an army of about two millions to be slaughtered, and wasted by a thousand fatal acci dents, in the same place where his predecessors had before by a similar madness consumcd the flower of so many kingdoms, and wasted the force of so exten sive an empire. It is a cheap calculation to say, that the Persian empire, in its wars against the Greeks and
Scythians, threw away at least four millions of its subjects; to say nothing of its other wars, and the losses sustained in them. These were their losses abroad; but the war was brought home to them, first by Agesilaus, and afterwards by Alexander. I have not, in this retreat, the books necessary to make very exact calculations; nor is it necessary to give more than hints to one of your lordship's erndition. You will recollect his uninterrupted series of success. You will run over his battles. You will call to mind
the carnage which was made. You will give a glance at the whole, and you will agree with me, that to form this hero no less than twelve hundred thousand
the least rational concern.
The Babylonian, Assyrian, Median, and Persian
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
lives must have been sacrificed; but no sooner had he fallen himself a sacrifice to his vices, than a thou sand breaches were made for ruin to enter, and give the last hand to this scene'of misery and destruction. His kingdom was rent and divided; which served to employ the more distinct parts to tear each other to
and bury the whole in blood and slaughter. The kings of Syria and of Egypt, the kings of Per
and Macedon, without intermission worried each other for above two hundred years ; until at last a strong power, arising in the west, rushed in upon them and silenced their tumults, by involving all the contending parties in the same destruction. It is little to say, that the contentions between the suc cessors of Alexander depopulated that part of the world of at least two millions.
The struggle between the Macedonians and Greeks, and, before that, the disputes of the Greek common wealths among themselves, for an unprofitable supe riority, form one of the bloodiest scenes in history. One is astonished how such a small spot could furnish men sufficient to sacrifice to the pitiful ambition of possessing five or six thousand more acres, or two or three more villages; yet to see the acrimony and bitterness with which this was disputed between the Athenians and Lacedemonians; what armies cut off; what fleets sunk and burnt; what a number of cities sacked, and their inhabitants slaughtered and cap tived; one would be induced to believe the decision of the fate of mankind, at least, depended upon it! But these disputes ended as all such ever have done, and ever will do; in a real weakness of all parties; a momentary shadow, and dream of power in some one; and the subjection of all to the yoke of a stran
pieces,
gamus
? ? ? ? 20 A VINDIGATION or NATURAL soonsrr.
gcr, who knows how to profit of their divisions. This, at least, was the case of the Greeks ; and surely, from the earliest accounts of them, to their absorption into the Roman empire, we cannot judge that their intes tine divisions, and their foreign wars, consumed less than three millions of their inhabitants.
What an Aceldama, what a field of blood Sicily has been in ancient times, whilst the mode of its government was controverted between the republican and tyrannical parties, and the possession struggled for by the natives, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and
the Romans, your lordship will easily recollect. You will remember the total destruction of such bodies as an army of 300,000 men. You will find every page of its history dyed in blood, and blotted and con founded by tumults, rebellions, massacres, assassina tions, proscriptions, and a series of horror beyond the histories perhaps of any other nation in the world; though the histories of all nations are made up of similar matter. I once more excuse myself in point of exactness for want of books. But I shall estimate the slaughters in this island but at two millions; which your lordship will find much short of the reality.
Let us pass by the wars, and the consequences of them, which wasted GreciaMagna, before the Roman power prevailed in that part of Italy. They are per haps exaggerated; therefore I shall only rate them at one million. Let us hasten to open that great scene which establishes the Roman empire, and forms the grand catastrophe of the ancient drama. This empire, whilst in its infancy, began by an effusion of human blood scarcely credible. The
? neighboring little states tcemcd for new destruction : the Sabines,
the Samnites, the }Equi, the Volsci, the Hetrurians,
? ? ? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
were broken by a series of slaughters which had no interruption, for some hundreds of years ; slaughters which upon all sides consumed more than two mil lions of the wretched people. The Gauls, rushing into Italy about this time, added the total destruc tion of their own armies to those of the ancient in habitants. In short, it were hardly possible to con ceive a more horrid and bloody picture, if that the Punic wars that ensued soon after did not present one that far exceeds it. Here we find that climax of
devastation and ruin, which seemed to shake the whole earth. The extent of this war, which vexed so many nations, and both elements, and the havoc of the human species caused in both, really astonishes beyond expression, when it is nakedly considered, and those matters which are apt to divert our atten tion from the characters, actions, and designs of the persons concerned, are not taken into the account. These wars, mean those called the Punic wars, could
not have stood the human race in less than three millions of the species. And yet this forms but part only, and very small part, of the havoc caused by the Roman ambition. The war with Mithridates was very little less bloody; that prince cut off at one stroke 150,000 Romans by massacre. In that war Sylla destroyed 300,000 men at Oheronea. He de
feated Mithridates' army under Dorilaus, and slew 300,000. This great and unfortunate prince lost another 300,000 before Cyzicum. In the course of the war he had innumerable other losses; and having many intervals of success, he revenged them severely. He was at last totally overthrown; and he crushed to pieces the king of Armenia, his ally, by the great ness of his ruin. All who had connections with him
? ? ? a
I it, a
a
? 22 A VINDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY.
shared the same fate. The merciless genius of Sylla had its full scope ; and the streets of Athens were not the only ones which ran with blood. At this period, the sword, glutted with foreign slaughter, turned its edge upon the bowels of the Roman republic it self; and presented a scene of cruelties and treasons enough almost to obliterate the memory of all the external devastations. I intended, my lord, to have proceeded in a sort of method in estimating the num bers of mankind cut oif in these wars which we have on record. But I am obliged to alter my design. Such a tragical uniformity of havoc and murder would disgust your lordship as much as it would me; and I confess I already feel my eyes ache by keeping them so long intent on so bloody a prospect. I shall observe little on the Servile, the Social, the Gallic, and Spanish wars; nor upon those with Jugurtha,
nor Antiochus, nor many others equally important, and carried on with equal fury. The butchcries of Julius Caesar alone are calculated by somebody else ; the numbers he has been the means of destroying have been reckoned at 1,200,000. But to give your lordship an idea that may serve as a standard, by which to measure, in some degree, the others; you will turn your eyes on Judea; avery inconsiderable spot of the earth in itself, though ennobled by the singular events which had their rise in that country.
This spot happened, it matters not here by what means, to become at several times extremely populous, and to supply men for slaughters scarcely credible, if other well-known and well-attested ones had not given them a color. The first settling of the Jews here was attended by an almost entire extirpation of all the former inhabitants. Their own civil wars, and
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY.
23
those with their petty neighbors, consumed vast mul titudes almost every year for several centuries; and the irruptions of the kings of Babylon and Assyria made_ immense ravages. Yet we have their history but partially, in an indistinct, confused manner; so that I shall only throw the strong point of light upon that part which coincides with Roman history, and of that part only on the point of time when they re eeived the great and final stroke which made them no more a nation; a stroke which is allowed to have cut ofi" little less than two millions of that people. I say nothing of the loppings made from that stock whilst it stood; nor from the suckers that grew out
of the old root ever since. But in this inconsider able part of the globe, such carnage has been made in two or three short reigns, and that this great car nage, great as makes but minute part of what the histories of that people inform us they suffered; what shall we judge of countries more extended, and which have waged wars by far more considerable?
Instances of this sort compose the uniform of his tory. But there have been periods when no less than universal destruction to the race of mankind seems to have been threatened. Such was that when the Goths, the Vandals, and the Huns, poured into Gaul, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Africa, carrying destruction before them as they advanced, and leaving horrid deserts every way behind them. Vastum ubique lentium, secreti colles fumantia procul tecta nemo ex
ploratorilms obvius, what Tacitus calls facies victorioe. It always so; but was here emphatically so. From the north proceeded the swarms of Goths, Vandals, Huns, Ostrogoths, who ran towards the south, into Africa itself, which suffered as all to the north had
? ? ? is
is ;
it is,
;
ai
a a
if,
? 24 A vmmcar1on or NATURAL socmrr.
done. About this time, another torrent of barba rians, animated by the same fury, and encouraged by the same success, poured out of the south, and rav aged all to the northeast and west, to the remotest parts of Persia on one hand, and to the banks of the Loire or farther on the other; destroying all the proud and curious monuments of human art, that not even the memory might seem to survive of the former inhabitants. What has been done since, and what will continue to be done while the same induce ments to war continue, I shall not dwell upon. I shall only in one word mention the horrid effects of bigotry and avarice, in the conquest of Spanish America; a conquest, on a low estimation, effected by the murder of ten millions of the species. I shall draw to a conclusion of this part, by making a gen eral calculation of the whole. I think I have actually mentioned above thirty-six millions. I have not par ticularized any more. I don't pretend to exactness ; therefore, for the sake of a general view, I shall lay together all those actually slain in battles, or who have perished in a no less miserable manner by the other destructive consequences of war from the begin ning of the world to this day, in the four parts of it, at a thousand times as much; no exaggerated calcu lation, allowing for time and extent. We have not perhaps spoke of the five--hundredth part; I am sure I have not of what is actually ascertained in history ; but how much of these butcheries are only expressed in generals, what part of time history has never reached, and what vast spaces of the habitable globe it has not embraced, I need not mention to your lordship. I need not enlarge on those torrents of silent and inglorious blood which have glutted the
? ? ? ? 0
A VTNDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
'
22-)
thirsty sands of Afric, or discolored the polar snow, or fed the savage forests of America for so many ages of continual war. Shall I, to justify my calculations from the charge of extravagance, add to the account those skirmishes which happen in all wars, without being singly of sufficient dignity in mischief, to merit a place in history, but which by their frequency com pensate for this comparative innocence? shall I in flame the account by those general massacres which have devoured whole cities and nations; those wast ing pestilences, those consuming famines, and all those furies that follow in the train of war? I have no need to exaggerate ; and I have purposely avoided a parade of eloquence on this occasion. I should
it upon any occasion ; else in mentioning these slaughters, it is obvious how much the whole might be heightened, by an affecting description of the horrors that attend the wasting of kingdoms, and sacking of cities. But I do not write to the vulgar, nor to that which only governs the vulgar, their pas sions. I go upon a naked and moderate calculation,
just enough, without a pedantical exactness, to give your lordship some feeling of the effects of political society. I charge the whole of these effects on politi cal society. I avow the charge, and I shall presently make it good to your lordship's satisfaction. The numbers I particularized are about thirty-six millions. Besides those killed in battles I have said something, not half what the matter would have justified, but something I have said concerning the consequences of war even more dreadful than that monstrous car nage itself which shocks our humanity, and almost staggers our belief. So that, allowing me in my ex uberance one way for my deficiencies in the other,
? despise
? ? ? 26 " A VINDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY.
you will find me not unreasonable. I think the numbers of men now upon earth are computed at five hundred millions at the most. Here the slaugh ter of mankind, on what you will call a small calcu lation, amounts to upwards of seventy times the number of souls this day on the globe: a point _which may furnish matter of reflection to one less inclined to draw consequences than your lordship.
I now come to show that political society is justly chargeable with much the greatest part of this de struction of the species. To give the fairest' play to every side of the question, I will own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature, which will cause innumerable broils, place men in what sit uation you please; but owning this, I still insist in charging it to political regulations, that these broils are so frequent, so cruel, and attended with conse quences so deplorable. In a state of nature, it had been impossible to find a number of men, sufficient for such slaughters, agreed in the same bloody purpose; or allowing that they might have come to such an agreement (an impossible supposition), yet the means that simple nature has supplied them with, are by no
. means adequate to such an end; many scratches, many bruises undoubtedly would be received upon all hands; but only a few, a very few deaths. Society and politics, which have given us these destructive views, have given us also the means of satisfying them. Fromthe earliest dawnings of policy to 'this day, the invention of men hasbeen sharpening and improving the mystery of murder, from the first rude essays of clubs and stones, to the present perfection of gunnery, cannoneering, bombarding, mining, and all those species of artificial, learned, and refined cru
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
27
elty, in which we are now so expert, and which make a principal part of what politicians have taught us to believe is our principal glory.
How far mere nature would have carried us, we may judge by the example of those animals who still follow her laws, and even of those to whom she has given dispositions more fierce, and arms more terrible than ever she intended we should use. It is an incon testable truth that there is more havoc made in one year by men of men, than has been made by all the lions, tigers, panthers, ounces, leopards, hyenas, rhi noceroses, elephants, bears and wolves, upon their several species, since the beginning of the world; though these agree ill enough with each other, and have a much greater proportion of rage and fury in their composition than we have. But with respect to you, ye legislators, ye civilizers of mankind! ye Orpheuses, Moseses, Minoscs, Solons, Theseuses, Ly curguses, Numas! with respect to you be it spoken, your regulations have done more mischief in cold blood, than all the rage of the fiercest animals in their greatest terrors, or furies, has ever done, or ever could do!
These evils are not accidental. Whoever will take the pains to consider the' nature of society will find that they result directly from its constitution. For as subordination, or, in other words, the reciprocation of tyranny and slavery, is requisite to support these societies; the interest, the ambition, the malice, or the revenge, nay, even the whim and caprice of one ruling man among them, is enough to arm all the rest, without any private views of their own, to the worst and blackest purposes: and what is at once lamentable, and ridiculous, these wretches engage
? ? ? ? 28 A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
under those banners with a fury greater than if they were animated by revenge for their own proper wrongs.
It is no less worth observing, that this artificial division of mankind into separate societies is a perpetual source in itself of hatred and dissension among them. The names which distinguish them are enough to blow up hatred and rage.
Examine history; consult present experience; and you will find that far the greater part of the quarrels between several nations had scarce any other occasion than that these nations were different combinations of peo ple, and called by different names: to an English man, the name of a Frenchman, a Spaniard, an Italian, much more a Turk, or a Tartar, raises of course ideas of hatred and contempt. _ If you would inspire this compatriot of ours with pity or regard for one of these, would you not hide that distinction? You would not pray him to compassionate the poor Frenchman, or the unhappy German. Far from it; you would speak of him as a foreigner; an accident to which all are liable. You would represent him as a man ; one partaking with us of the same common nature, and subject to the same law. There is some thing so averse from our nature in these artificial political distinctions, that we need no other trumpet to kindle us to war and destruction. But there is something so benign and healing in the general voice of humanity that, maugre all our regulations to pre vent the simple name of man applied properly, never fails to work salutary effect.
This natural unpremeditated effect of policy on the
unpossessed passions of mankind appears on other occasions. The very name of politician, states
? ? ? a
a
a
it,
? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
man, is sure to cause terror and hatred; it has always connected with it the ideas of treachery, cru elty, fraud, and tyranny ; and those writers who have faithfully unveiled the mysteries of state-freemasonry, have ever been held in general detestation, for even knowing so perfectly a theory so detestable. The case of Machiavel seems at first sight something hard in that respect. He is obliged to bear the iniquities of those whose maxims and rules of government he
published. His speculation is more abhorred than their practice.
But if there were no other arguments against arti ficial society than this I am going to mention, me thinks it ought to fall by this one only. All writers on the science of policy are agreed, and they agree with experience, that all governments must frequent ly infringe the rules of justice to support themselves; that truth must give way to dissimulation;
to convenience; and humanity itself to the reigning interest. The whole of this mystery of iniquity is called the reason of state. It is a reason which I own I cannot penetrate. What sort of a protection is this of the general right, that is maintained by infringing the rights of particulars? What sort of
justice is this, which is enforced by breaches of its own laws? These paradoxes I leave to be solved by the able heads of legislators and politicians. For my part, I say what a plain man would say on such an occasion. I can never believe that any institution, agreeable to nature, and proper for mankind, could find it necessary, or even expedient, in any case whatsoever, to do what the best and worthiest in stincts of mankind warn us to avoid. But no won der, that what is set up in opposition to the state of
? honesty
? ? ? 30 A VINDIOATION or NATURAL SOCIETY;
nature should preserve itself by trampling upon the law of nature.
To prove that these sorts of policed societies are a violation offered to nature, and a constraint upon the human mind, it needs only to look upon the sangui nary measures, and instruments of violence, which are everywhere used to support them. Let us take a review of the dungeons, whips, chains, racks, gibbets, with which every society is abundantly stored; by which hundreds of victims are annually offered up to support a dozen or two in pride and madness, and millions in an abject servitude and dependence. There was a time when I looked with a reverential awe on these mysteries of policy ; but age, experience, and philosophy, have rent the veil; and I view this sanctum somctorum, at least, without any enthusiastic admiration. I acknowledge, indeed, the necessity of such a proceeding in such institutions; but I must have a very mean opinion of institutions where such proceedings are necessary.
It is a misfortune that in no part of the globe nat ural liberty and natural religion are to be found pure, and free from the_ mixture of political adultera tions. Yet we have implanted in us by Providence, ideas, axioms, rules, of what is pious, just, fair, hon est, which no political craft, nor learned sophistry can entirely expel from our breasts. By these we judge, and we cannot otherwise judge, of the several artificial modes of religion and society, and deter mine of them as they approach to or recede from this
? standard.
The simplest form of 'government is
despotism, where all the inferior orbs of power are moved merely by the will of the Supreme, and all that
? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY. 31
are subjected to them directed in the same manner, merely by the occasional will of the magistrate. This form, as it is the most simple, so it is infinitely the most general. Scarcely any part of the world is exempted from its power. And in those few places where men enjoy what they call liberty, it is continu ally in a tottering situation, and makes greater and greater strides to that gulf of despotism which at last swallows up every species of government. The manner of ruling being directed merely by the will of the weakest, and generally the worst man in the society, becomes the most foolish and capricious thing, at the same time that it is the most ter rible and destructive that well can be conceived. In a despotism, the principal person finds that, let the want, misery, and indigence of his
? subjects be what they will, he can yet possess abundantly of everything to gratify his most insatiable wishes.
He does more. He finds that these gratifications in crease in proportion to the wretchedness and slavery of his subjects. Thus encouraged both by passion and interest to trample on the public welfare, and by his station placed above both shame and fear, he pro ceeds to the most horrid and shocking outrages upon mankind. Their persons become victims of his sus
The slightest displeasure is death; and a disagreeable aspect is often as great a crime as high treason. In the court of Nero, a person of learning, of unquestioned merit, and of unsuspected loyalty, was put to death for no other reason, than that he had a pedantic countenance which displeased the emperor. This very monster of mankind appeared in the beginning of his reign to be a person of vir tue. Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of
picions.
? ? ? 32 A VINDIGATION or NATURAL SOCIETY.
history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding. And to prevent the least hope of amendment, a king is ever sur rounded by a crowd of infamous flatterers, who find their account in keeping him from the least light of reason, till all ideas of rectitude and justice are ut terly erased from his mind. When Alexander had in his fury inhumanly butchered one of his best friends and bravest captains; on the return of reason he began to conceive an horror suitable to the guilt of such a murder. In this juncture his council came to his assistance. But what did his council? They found him out a philosopher who gave him comfort. And in what manner did this philosopher comfort him for the loss of such a man, and heal his con science, fiagrant with the smart of such a crime? You have the matter at length in Plutarch. He told him, " that let a sovereign do what he will, all his actions are just and lawful, because they are his. " The pal aces of all princes abound with such courtly philoso phers. The consequence was such as might be ex pected. He grew every day a monster more aban
doned to unnatural lust, to debauchery, to drunken ness, and to murder. And yet this was originally a great man, of uncommon capacity, and a strong pro pensity to virtue. But unbounded power proceeds step by step, until it has eradicated every laudable principle. It has been remarked, that there is no prince so bad, whose favorites and ministers are not worse. There is hardly any prince without a favor ite, by whom he is governed in as arbitrary a manner as he governs the wretches subjected to him. Here the tyranny is doubled. There are two courts, and
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrr.
33
two interests; both very different from the interests of the people. The favorite knows that the regard of a tyrant is as unconstant and capricious as that of a woman ; and concluding his time to be short, he makes haste to fill up the measure of his iniquity, in rapine, in luxury, and in revenge. Every avenue to the throne is shut up. He oppresses and ruins the people, whilst he persuades the prince that those mur murs raised by his own oppression are the effects of disaffection to the prince's government. Then is the natural violence of despotism inflamed and aggra vated by hatred and revenge. To deserve well of the state is a crime against the prince. To be popu lar, and to be a traitor, are considered as synonymous terms. Even -virtue is dangerous, as an
? aspiring quality, that claims an esteem by itself, and indepen
dent of the countenance of the court. What has been said of the chief, is true of the inferior officers of this species of government; each in his province exercising the same tyranny, and grinding the people by an oppression, the more severely felt, as it is near them, and exercised by base and subordinate persons. For the gross of the people, they are considered as a mere herd of cattle; and really in a little time be come no better; all principle of honest pride, all sense of the dignity of their nature, is lost in their slavery. The day, says Homer, which makes a man a slave, takes away half his worth; and, in fact, he loses every impulse' to action, but that low and base one of fear. In this kind of government human nature is not only abused and insulted, but it is actually degraded and sunk into a species of brutal ity. The consideration of this made Mr. Locke say,
with great justice, that a government of this kind VOL. I. 3
? ? ? 34; A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
was worse than anarchy: indeed it is' so abhorred and detested by all who live under forms that have a milder appearance, that there is scarcely a rational man in Europe that would not prefer death to Asi atic despotism. Here then we have the acknowledg ment of a great philosopher, that an irregular state of nature is preferable to such a government; we have the consent of all sensible and generous men, who carry it yet further, and avow that death itself is preferable ; and yet this species of government, so
justly condemned, and so 'generally detested, is what infinitely the greater part of mankind groan under, and have groaned under from the beginning. So that, by sure and uncontested principles, the greatest part of the governments on earth must be concluded tyrannies, impostures, violations of the natural rights of mankind, and worse than the most disorderly anarchies. How much other forms exceed this we shall consider immediately.
In all parts of the world, mankind, however de based, retains still the sense of feeling; the weight of tyranny at last becomes insupportable ; but the remedy is not so easy: in general, the only remedy by which they attempt to cure the tyranny is to change the tyrant. This and always was, the case for the greater part. In some countries, however, were found men of more penetration, who discovered " that to live one man's will was the cause all men's misery. " They therefore changed their former method, and assembling the men in their several societies the most respectable for their understanding and fortunes, they confided to them the charge of the public welfare. This originally formed what called an aristocracy. They hoped would be impossible
? ? ? it
is
by
of
is,
? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
that such a number could ever join in any design against the general good; and they promised them selves a great deal of security and happiness from the united counsels of so many able and experienced per sons. But it is now found by abundant experience, that an aristocracy, and a despotism, diifer but in name ; and that a people who are in general excluded from any share of the legislative, are. to ail intents and p\n'poses, as much slaves, when twenty, indepen dent of them, govern, as when but one domineers. The tyranny is even more felt, as every individual of
the nobles has the haughtiness of a sultan; the peo ple are more miserable, as they seem on the verge of liberty, from which they are forever debarred; this fallacious idea of liberty, whilst it presents a vain shadow of happiness to the subject, binds faster the chains of his subjection. What is left undone by the natural avarice and pride of those who are raised above the others, is completed by their suspicions, and their dread of losing an authority, which has no sup port in the common utility of the nation. A Genoese or a Venetian republic is a concealed despotism; where you find the same pride of the rulers, the same base subjection of the people, the same bloody maxims of a suspicious policy. In one respect the aristocracy is worse than the despotism. A body politic, whilst it retains its authority, never changes its maxims ; a despotism, which is this day horrible to a supreme de gree, by the caprice natural to the heart of man, may, by the same caprice otherwise exerted, be as lovely the next; in a succession, it is possible to meet with some good princes. Ifthere have been Tiberiuses, Caligulas, Neros, there have been likewise the serener days of Vespasians, Tituses, Trajans, and Antonines;
? ? ? ? 36 A vINn1cAT1oN or NATURAL SOCIETY.
but a body politic is not influenced by caprice or whim, it proceeds in a regular manner, its succession is insensible; and every man as he enters eithe1 has, or soon attains, the spirit of the whole body. Never was known that an aristocracy, which was
haughty and tyrannical in one century, became easy and mild in the next. In effect, the yoke of this spe cies of government so galling, that whenever the people have got the least power, they have shaken
oif with the utmost indignation, and established popular form. And when they have not had strength enough to support themselves, they have thrown themselves into the arms of despotism, as the more eligible of the two evils. This latter was the case of Denmark, who sought refuge from the oppression of its nobility, in the strong hold of arbitrary power. Poland has at present the name of republic, and
one of the aristocratic form but well known that the little finger of this government heavier than the loins of arbitrary power in most nations. The people are not only politically, but personally slaves, and treated with the utmost indignity. The republic of Venice somewhat more moderate; yet even here, so heavy the aristocratic yoke, that the nobles have been obliged to enervate the spirit of their subjects by every sort of debauchery they have denied them the liberty of reason, and they have made them amends by what base soul will think more valua ble liberty, by not only allowing, but encouraging them to corrupt themselves in the most scandalous manner. They consider their subjects as the farmer does the hog he keeps to feast upon. He holds him fast in his sty, but allows him to wallow as much as he pleases in his beloved filth and gluttony. S0
? ? ? is is a
it is
a
;
it is is
a ;
it is
a it
it,
? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
scandalously debauched a people as that of Venice is to be met with nowhere else. High, low, men, women, clergy, and laity, are all alike. The ruling nobility are no less afraid of one another than they are of the people; and, for that reason, politically enervate their own body by the same efieminate lux ury by which they corrupt their subjects. They are impoverished by every means which can be invented; and they are kept in a perpetual terror by the horrors of a state inquisition. Here you see a people deprived of all rational freedom, and tyrannized over by about two thousand men; and yet this body of two thou sand are so far from enjoying any liberty by the sub
jection of the rest, that they are in an infinitely severer state of slavery; they make themselves the most degenerate and unhappy of mankind, for no other purpose than that they may the more eifectu ally contribute to the misery of a whole nation. In short, the regular and methodical proceedings of an aristocraqy are more intolerable than the very excesses of a despotism, and, in general, much further from any remedy.
Thus, my lord, we have pursued aristocracy through its whole progress; we have seen the seeds, the
and the fruit. It could boast none of the advantages of a despotism, miserable as those advan tages were, and it was overloaded with an exuberance of mischiefs, unknown even to despotism itself. effect, no more than disorderly tyranny. This form, therefore, could be little approved, even in speculation, by those who were capable of thinking, and could be less borne in practice by any who were capable of feeling. However, the fruitful policy of man was not yet exhausted. He had yet anothei
? growth,
? ? it is
a
'In
? 38 A v1NmoAT1oN
or NATURAL SOCIETY.
farthing candle to supply the deficiencies of the sun. This was the third form, known by political writers under the name of democracy. Here the people transacted all public business, or the greater part of
in their own persons; their laws were made by themselves, and, upon any failure of duty, their offi
to themselves, and to them In all appearance, they had secured by this method the advantages of order and good government,
cers were accountable only.
without paying their liberty for the purchase. Now, my lord, we are come to the masterpiece of Grecian refinement, and Roman solidity, -- popular govern ment. The earliest and most celebrated republic of this model was that of Athens. It was constructed. by no less an artist than the celebrated poet and philosopher, Solon. But no sooner was this political vessel launched from the stocks, than overset, even in the lifetime of the builder. A tyranny immedi ately supervened; not by foreign conquest, not by accident, but by the very nature and constitution of
? An artful man became popular, the people had power in their hands, and they devolved a
democracy.
share of their power upon their favorite and the only use he made of this power was, to plunge
considerable
into slavery. Accident restored their liberty, and the same good fortune produced
men of uncommon abilities and uncommon virtues
them. But these abilities were suffered to be of little service either to their possessors or to the state. Some of these men, for whose sakes alone we read their history, they banished; others they impris oned, and all they treated with various circumstances of the most shameful ingratitude. Republics have many things in the spirit of absolute monarchy, but
those who gave
amongst
? ? it
;
a
it,
a
it
a
? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrx.
39
none more than this. A shining merit is ever hated or suspected in a popular assembly, as well as in a court; and all services done the state are looked upon as dangerous to the rulers, whether sultans or senators. The ostracism at Athens was built upon this principle. The giddy people whom we have now under consideration, being elated with some flashes of success, which they owed to nothing less than any merit of their own, began to tyrannize over their equals, who had associated with them for their com mon defence. With their prudence they renounced all appearance of justice. They entered into wars rashly and wantonly. If they were unsuccessful, in stead of growing wiser by their misfortune, they threw the whole blame of their own misconduct on the min isters who had advised, and the generals who had conducted, those wars ; until by degrees they had cut off all who could serve them in their councils or their battles. If at any time these wars had a happier issue, it was no less difficult to deal with them on account of their pride and insolence. Furious in their adversity, tyrannical in their successes, a commander had more trouble to concert his defence before the people, than to plan the operations of the campaign.
It was not uncommon for a general, under the horrid despotism of the Roman emperors, to be ill received in proportion to the greatness of his services. Agri cola is a strong instance of this. No man had done greater things, nor with more honest ambition. Yet, on his return to court, he was obliged to enter Rome with all the secrecy of a criminal. He went to the palace, not like a victorious commander who had merited and might demand the greatest rewards, but like an offender who had come to supplicate a pardon
~
? ? ? ? 40 A T/'INDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY.
for his crimes. His reception was answerable ; " Exceptusque brevi osculo et nullo sermone, turboe ser vientiurn immixtas est.