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LONDON,
1 5
PRINTED FOK T. CABELL AND W. DAVIES, STRAND.,
BY A. WILSON, WILD-COURT.
1803.
STACK ANNEX
JC
PREFACE*
Several of the Essays which form this
Volume, were published at irregular periods
while the Author was on the Continent, in
the Autumn of 1802, and the commence- „^(p*^*
ment of 1803.
This is mentioned as an apology for incor-
rectnesses, and errors of the press, which
might not have escaped him ; and particu-
larly for an apparent inattention to several
Publications in England, of considerable
merit, on Finance, Population, Colonies, and
other subjects, here rapidly glanced at, of
a 2 which
i
Of t & ■» T- *-
10486
•' #m>
which the Author had then no knowledge.
He chose the form of short periodical Es-
says, in the hope that Members of the Bri-
tish Legislature might be induced to study
them ; to transfer a considerable portion of
their attention from the intrigues of do-
mestic factions, and the spurious species of
eloquenee it produces and supports, to those
general principles of legislation, those truths
of political ceconomy, and those relations
and laws of nations, for the neglect of which
they are commonly reproached.
That the Author would have succeeded,
in a considerable degree, in a period of tran-
quillity and peace, he had reason to expect
from the reception of the first papers : but
war drew all attention to itself, and to its
immediate dangers. Those dangers will be
diminished, or they w T iil be increased, as
the Members of the Legislature may be or
may not be, induced to attend to their
causes,
causes, in many of those perversions of
truths and principles which are exposed in
these Studies.
In 1789, all Europe was in the condition
of the malade imaginaire ; affected truly
by several slight disorders, but supposing
itself sinking into annihilation, under the
pressure of all possible and incurable dis-
eases.
Among the most calamitous of those
evils, was the perpetual recurrence of war ;
and the empirics who were elevated into
fame by the general folly, had recourse to
war as the universal remedy.
By that dreadful evil, the institutions
of Europe, perfect and imperfect ; those
which were strengthened by the difficulties
of their origin, and those which, by furnish-
ing impediments, were necessary to that
strength, have been involved in indiscrimi-
nate ruin ; on which a despotism is erected,
the
6
the most unlimited and destructive that has
ever appeared among men.
Britain has had its portion of this malady,
and some inclinations to try the remedy ;
but from its good fortune, from its separate
situation, and from the efforts of its govern-
ment, it has escaped the full effect of the
contagion.
The monster, which has whitened the
Continent with human bones, by professions
of forbearance and peace, lulled Britain into
a temporary repose, from which she has been
rouzed by indications of unceasing hosti-
lity, the proofs of a design, which had never
been abandoned, of involving her in the com-
mon slavery and misery of Europe.
At such a time, it may require some del-
iberation, whether the Author shall pursue
his plan, illustrating his observations by
events as they arise, or suspend it to a more
favourable season.
The
7
The British Legislature is summoned * on
an occasion which requires the deliberate
and anxious consideration of every Member
of it.
If these Studies should obtain attention,
it may induce other and abler Writers to
afford their assistance, to withdraw the le-
gislative and public mind from the contests
of interested parties, and the low and ran-
corous ribaldry of personal satire, and to
elevate it to the awful exigency of the mo-
ment.
* November 2, 1S03.
ERRORS.
Tigc
7°
Line 13
for noes.
Read nodes of nerve*.
7*
15
— proportionate,
proportioned.
77
4
Read hypotheses are
principally or wholly,
,&'C.
—
12
For Galilio,
— — Galileo.
S 4
20
— have,
has.
103
S
— defining,
defiring.
III
15
Add and.
131
24
For Machival,
Machiavel.
J 35
23
— thofe,
the.
'45
8
Dele often.
160
23
For republic*,
— governments.
177
8
— philosopher,
— philosophers.
181
11
— until she had acquired,
until she acquire.
i8a
'7
— of riches,
— of the riches.
220
4
— the,
thy.
221
4
— by,
of.
174
17
Dele deemed.
2S3
10
For Prussian*,
— — Russians.
238
15
— returned,
retired.
301
10
— gaoler,
— goaler.
Exhibiting the Prices
present Time; deriv
50 Years, for the firs
■, at different Periods, from the Conquest to the
of Money, according to a Series of Intervals of
IMES.
Wheat 1
per b us he
reciation of Money uc-
ording to the price of
Mean Appre-
ciation by In-
terpolation.
Equivalent
Sums at dif-
1
Tear of our
Lord.
Horse.
12 mis-
cella-
neous
articles
Meat.
Day
Labour
Mean
of all.
ferent peri-
ods.
1050
s. d.
%\
1 17
89
A. D.
105
1 100
1 150
1200
1250
iaoo
1350
1400
1450
1500
1550
1600
1650
l6/5
1700
1720
1740
1750
1760
1770
1780
1790
1795
1 1800
26
34
43
51
60
68
77
83
88
94
100
144
188
210
238
257
287
314
342
384
427
496
53 1
562
800
£. s. d
2l6l 10 8
42
26
1 150
44
12
1 1 1
1250
1 7|
936 13 6
1350
1 10^
18
43
56
75
77
1450
1 5
1550
1 10J
2 2 j
100
. J
100
100
100
100
562
1 600
4 04
)
1625
4 1 1
10'50
5 6
1675
4 6
.5 10
250
239
lOrj
188
210
218 13 6
195 16 4
178 19 7
164 6 6
1700
4 9|
1720
4 4A
1740
3 8
10 d
476
146 7 1
434
260
250
287
13 1 12 3
I76O
3 9i
14
113 6l
60'7
492
400
275
342
105 16 9
1 7 8
1700
1
_ . . J
1705
1 10
19
904:
1
752
5! 1
430"
531;
1706
9 71
I7Q7
6 6
1798
6 Si
»799
8 8|
100
— —
1800
14 6
22
1047
991
888
53
soo
70 5
A TABLE,
Exhibiting the Prices of various Necessaries of Life, and those of Day Labour, in Sterling Money, and also in Decimals, at different Periods, from tin Conquest to the
present Time; derived from respectable Authorities : the Depreciation of the Value of Money ; the Mean Appreciation of Money, according to a Series of Intervals of
: 50 Years, for the first 600 Years; and during the present Century, at shorter Periods, deduced by Interpolation.
THE PRICES OF VARIOUS ARTICLES
^/V DIFFERENT TI \l ZS.
Wta.l
MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.
|„„.
L
Depreciation of Money ac-
cording to the price of
Mian Appre-{
nation l-,j /,.- <
CallU in Httthmdry.
Poultry.
I 1 " 'I'-
?E
as
H
):':■-
Teirofour
—
O*
Co..
_
«*
°—
H„.
!»*
■
%?
Wb»,
:;;;';:,
*"
,:;,:„
Jtrent piri-
idt.
10S0
.. d.
84,
£. ,. J.
1 17 6
89
£. 1- d.
7
20
£■ >-d
060
37
£■ >■ d.
1 3
89
£■ •■ d.
020
J 6
(. d.
I. d.
1. i.
I. d.
.,
.. rf.
a
J. ,r,.
A. D.
1050
1 100
1 150
1200
1300
1350
1 101
14 50
I50O
1550
l6l)0
1650
1675
1700
1721.
1740
1750
17G"
l77o
1780
1700
1795
1800
20
94
4.1
51
68
so
111
100
III
188
.......
'- '7
287
314
42 7
4g0
531
£■ •■ d
2161 10 8
42
11
48
86
1 150
4S
o 12 .'.
4 8}
1 8
J
) 3
2
IV 5
1 71
1 J 1
1 7
17
1 7
1
a
44,
gS6 19
1 lOi
18 4
1 4 6
66
17 2
106
8 7
Si
026
45
9
75
9
6i
31
3
5-1
100
,0
75
77
1450
1 5
1 15 8
15
4 11 j
5 1
64.
O <
i 105
100
1 IS 7
100
II llil
100
1 9 |
100
.1
100
100
SJ
100
1
100
100
1011
H
100
1
100
1 oj
4
100
100
100
100
100
562
1000
4 04
4
j
1 2
D G
10-5
4 1 1
8
1
6*
1050
5 6
j 4
8
4 6
o 10
250
: 11
184
2 17
345
11
856
14
300
182
1 9
45
90
Inn
8
530
850
880
1 3*
(l 7i
n r,
1 : : ■-
810
218 19
H15 16 4
170O
III
9
1720
4 4,
1 11
3
2 2
U H
164 6 6
3 8
10
470
8
437
7 7
884
1
Cl)2
1 15
604
3 6
350
1
2 18
1 6
160
8
180
175
1
800
300
434
3
10
146 7 1
lo: 4 14
866
250
887
131 12 3
119 1
3 II
14
607
8 10
465
7 I
874
1 7
626
1 15
634
5 00
1 10
260
1 10
188
10
200
5J
1 2
930
3
300
498
4 2
U 1 1
-lo.
400
275
:)*■
105 10 a
i;so
—
—
— 1
1700
.
7 10
1
904
10' 8
800
It) 8
8000
118
loll!)
3
800
1
1 6
150
II*
830
250
1 2j-
11G0"
1
752
5 J
1 54
1
121
78S
5 ! I
486
9 7
"
6 6
'70S
6 si
S
100 00
i. no
14
22 U
1047
14
1858
10
a 10
1159
5
1 SI 3
4 II
4 00
2 .
89O
1 8
4
1 6
1801
7
700
P9I
10
1 10
779 no
.
70 5
Vid.- Sir Corse Shuckblirgh Evelyn's Paper, Phil. Trans, l'art I. 1798.
RESULTS
FROM THE FOREGOING TABLE,
VARIOUSLY STATED.
L - J.D. L. s. J.
100 in 1050 is equivalent to 2t6l to 6 ii
I0 . . 1250 9 38 13 6 .,
I"" •■ 1"0 56S 0..
'"0 .. 1720 2 |g la 6 f,
100 .. 1750 178 13 7 ..
1°0 •■ 1730 131 12 3 ..
100 •■ '790 us 6 1 ..
100 •• 1705 105 lfl 9 ..
1'") ■• >7"8 ioo 0..
100 ■■ '''J» 70 5 0..
I 00 -- 1798 (Jo 0..
1798.
1798.
1798.
Depreciation of Money at different Periods.
J 750
1780
1790
70 5
70 5
70 5
70 5
AD. L. ,. J.
1050 ia worth 2161 10 8
i* s 936 is 6
1720 2 18 , 8 g j
'780 131 ,j 3 ;
1790 113 6 , ;
1798 100 i
1 H00.
I 1800.
1800.
1800.
1800.
EGERIA.
FIRST STUDY.
MOTIVES TO THE UNDERTAKING*
Jlhe present period opens as the morning of a
peaceful day. Europe has borne the buffets of
direful storms, supported by high thoughts and
great duties, which ennobled contumely, soothed
its sorrows, and blunted the arrows of a wild
and furious barbarism, whose pastime seemed to
be affliction and death.
It is to prevent the recurrence of similar evils,
that the Author would contribute his efforts.
Bearing no part in the deliberations of those
bodies which are considered as constituting, or
at least representing the country, he can have
but little personal weight. By influencing those
who have, he may be of some utility.
s Every
3
Every thing, but the love of virtue and
mankind, has lately checked all attempts to
ascertain the principles of the most important
of all the sciences : But the Author would be
unworthy of any rank among the friends of
humanity, if, at this time, when Europe seems
to be recovering its disposition to reason, he
could dispense with the duty of declaring his
thoughts. He has hesitated, not from a diffi-
dence of the cause, but of his own powers.
" Nescio quomodo, dum lego assentior, cum
posui librum, assensio omnis ilia elabitur V
It was one of the laws of Solon, that every
citizen should take a part in all public questions.
Such a law, like the -unlimited liberty of the
press, would be in favour of truth, if it were to
allow of no exceptions ; if the real opinions and
the real attachments of all men were truly and
fairly expressed.
This may not be a duty when the commu-
nity is divided into parties, each having a spe-
cific interest, absorbing all private opinion, and
the effect of all discussion. Such parties intro-
duce a worse state of society than modern des-
, i potism ;
* Cicero.
potism ; as the human constitution may sustain
less injury by the total loss of reason, than by
the perverted or interrupted use of it.
In such a state, to record political facts, with
all their modifications ; to seize the circum-
stances of resemblance with candour and impar-
tiality, in order to discover those principles of
connection, on which a real theory may be found-
ed, would require the Author to be patient of
self-denial, calumny, and sometimes oppression ;
impassioned for real, but future glory, and de-
spising present praise. Newton says, in his letter
to Bentley, " If I had foreseen the weight of
opposition that has arisen against me, I would
have left to others the pursuit of an empty sha-
dow."' There is but one philosophical truth
universally interesting to man, the progress of
societies in political economy and legislation. But
this object is nearly excluded from the general
and practical systems of modern education. Py-
thagoras, Plato, and Aristotle taught the prin-
ciples of legislative philosophy, in a manner
which would be extremely useful to the states-
men, legislators, constitutional architects, and
patriotic reformers of the present time.
b % The"
The discovery of a mechanic power; of de-
tached truths in natural philosophy or chemistry;
the establishment of a manufactory ; the for-
mation of a good law ; or the discovery of a new
expedient in finance — are the general claims of
the present period to philosophic honors and
fame ; but, on due reflection, they must appear
unimportant, compared with inquiries concern-
ing systems of legislation, and the structures of
political constitutions ; the objects of all the
sober and wise votaries, of what has been stig-
matised as the philosophy of politics.
" But the difficulties have been proved inso-
luble." The French revolution has offered pro-
blems difficult to solve ; and the combinations
of opposing interests, and the complications of
its errors and evils, would have rendered even
their demonstration of no immediate utility.
The principles of society, in the present con-
dition of mankind, are certainly abstractions;
but not those of metaphysical fancy : they are
formed from the laws, by which all men develop
the powers necessary to their destination ; and
we must appreciate those laws in the first econo-
mies, in savage, pastoral and agricultural com-
binations,
btnations, to obtain true principles. That dis-
coveries in this science have been rare, is owing
to their dependance on a succession or chain of
truths, the first links of which have been sunk
in long* inutility, or perfect darkness.
The dependance of political phenomena, on
any common or general principles, is not accu-
rately and scientifically stated in history ; and
the Esprit de LoLv is the only work in which
reason professes to generalize political facts.
But its immortal author is often reduced to the
expedient of defining a problem by a problem ;
and his authorities seldom form a chain of reason
and truth unsusceptible of violence and injury.
His general corollary or inference is a pru-
dent maxim, not an immutable law, of political
conduct, " that nations can be saved only by
the recovery of their principles. "
It is demonstrable that nations have abandon-
ed their original principles with great advantage,
but not without great hazards, and not without
great obligations, either to what is called for-
tune, or to the coincidence of peculiar talents,
and peculiar situations.
The power of imagining possibilities, and
3 3 comparing
comparing them with facts, and with each other,
is the character of inventive genius. This is
evident in all gradations, from the processes of
a Newton, producing a revolution in the intel-
lectual world, to the wild expedients of political
fanaticism ; which commences its career, by
pressing gradually the bloody drops on the brows
of useful labour, and producing the voracious
and insatiable monsters which consume even
the sources of their own support.
It may be said, that " in attempting to break
the barriers of oppression, reformers generally
break those of society."
As the race of reformers is incessantly repro-
duced—as the disposition to visionary projects
continues attached to superficial philosophers,
to candidates for popular favor, and to political
impostors of all descriptions, it is the principal
purpose of the Essays to check, and to correct
that disposition.
It cannot surely be yet forgotten, that, in the
French revolution, premature attempts at high
political improvements produced worse effects
than the direct restraints of arbitrary power.
In the treatment of the human body, all sudden
revolutions
7
revolutions are ineffectual or hurtful. Even ha-
bits of intemperance must be destroyed with
caution. In the most improved practice, noxious
stimulants are continued and diminished gra-
dually. The serpent renews his skin, and the
bird his feathers, by a gradual and delicate pro-
cess. The political constitution is the serpent
or the bird ; and the reformer, who would strip
him of his skin or feathers, would put him to
death.
All constitutions, political as well as physical,
have a double organization; one fundamental,
the other superinduced. Changes and trans-
formations may take place in the superinduced;
seldom or never in the fundamental.
Even in despotism, which the Author abhors
equally with any of his Readers, the arrangements
and usages which actually hold the society toge-
ther, are natural and necessary, and the terrors and
fears of power and superstition are accessories.
In a reformation, or renovation, the former must
be preserved, the latter may be mitigated, and
perhaps gradually removed.
The present sect of reformers act like the bo-
tanist, who should imagine all plants in the same
b 4 soil,
8
soil, with similar nourishment, must be the same
>rms and properties. And when they are de-
ranged or receive injuries, they would m>t allow
the time and means to restore or renew the dis-
ordered parts. Eight or ten years are often ne-
cessary to produce certain salutary effects on the
organization of a tree. All plants and all an>
mals destined for duration must grow and un-
dergo changes gradually. Quod cito fit, cito
perit. The reproduction of entire organs in
animals is still more analogous to efforts at po-
litical restoration, which presumption snatches
from the cautious hand of modest philosophy.
Fishes reproduce their scales ; reptiles their skins ;
and birds their bills and feathers ; and the more
perfect the renovation, the greater the duration
of life. Reformers, instead of attending to the
utility and beauty of these processes ; instead of
favouring and cherishing the capacity of a state,
like that of an animal or a plant, to regenerate
injured or diseased parts by its own power, se-
parate and dissolve all its parts by some acts of
indiscretion and violence ; set at liberty the
most unprincipled classes of the people, with-
out considering that the properties of communi-
ties,
lies, like those of all other bodies, are regulated
by the nature of the masses of which they are
composed.
This spirit of dissolution, is the genuine spirit
of Jacoeixism, which spins the webs of So-
phistry, and conceals truths from the common
eye ; whose fatuities have in them cruelty as well
as strength, whose hate is unquenchable, and
whose intention is, that every drop of its venom
shall be mortal. This spirit, in greater or lesser
degrees, has pervaded ail Europe, masked with
the features of reform, and inflictetl on political
bodies, diseases, the contagion of which has
been more afflicting to humanity than any ani-
mal disorders : and it seems to be propagated by
the dreadful laws of contagion. If the Author
be requhed to point out those laws, he candidly
owns it is not in his power : those of animal
contagion are not yet ascertained : the general
disorder and desolation of Europe is, however,
an indisputable proof that moral infections assi-
milate to their infernal essence all things they
come in contact with, and that their activity is
multiplied as they dispense horror, misery and
death.
But
10
But experience in both cases has discovered
checks and antidotes to those evils : and huma-
nity must administer them without waiting for
their analysis.
Preserving spirit of Nature, mild Philosophy!
thou art the antidote to this spirit of destruc-
tion. To thee we must direct our wishes, and by
thy suggestions we must regulate our disposi-
tions and our measures. When Newton con-
templated the errors of the intellectual world,
he did not oppose frenzy to frenzy — he did not
criminate and abuse the visions of Descartes,
or involve himself in opposite reveries. He pa-
tiently considered the modus operandi of the
celebrated Vortices, the genuine types of
Gallic systems of political philosophy. He in-
stituted a series of propositions* and corollaries;
and, while he overturned the general system,
the mode of exciting vertical motion by the ro-
tation of a cylinder or sphere on its axis in a
fluid, was beautifully investigated, and the mo-
tion of every filament of the vortex was ascer-
tained with mathematical precision.
It is a portion of this spirit the Author in-
vokes,
* Principia, Prop. 51, 52, 53, &C.
1!
vokes, to develop the intricacies of involuntary
error, as well as to unmask the features of hy-
pocrisy and imposture, in the political world.
But it will be said, " the public sickens at the
words Theory and System." Yet in every
institution, even the most vile, there must be
theory; and True Philosophy, even in its
speculations, wild never offer any thing beyond
the idea of a complete system belonging to an
imperfect order of actual constitutions.
If -it be estimated with probability that in
three years the human body may be wholly
changed, and consist of new particles, by po-
litical considerations of a similar nature, we shall
discriminate the true and false ideas annexed to
the word Innovation. We actually see that
young states, like young children, live rapidly,
and often change their component parts.
Old states, like old men, are not susceptible
of frequent changes; and all tendencies to sud-
den alterations, are to them dangerous and
alarming symptoms.
But all things in the political, as in the na-
tural world, are in perpetual motion ; and it is
• the
12
the office of human wisdom, perhaps all it can
generally accomplish, to favour all tendencies
and dispositions from evil to good, and to
check those from good to evil.
Difficulties also arise in political disquisitions,
from the imperfections of languages. We have
not yet acquired the power of transmitting by
words the complex ideas of political science, as
we do those of geometry and arithmetic. In
tracing the laws of Nature, among the pheno-
mena of political occurrences, it may be neces-
sary to contrive analytical forms of expression,
to exhibit changes hitherto without denomina-
tions.
" But political causes are superior to human
reason. Events rule men, who seldom may be
said to rule events."
This is not always strictly true. Men not
only improve and profit by events, but some-
times create them.
" In the studies relating to political consti-
tutions and philosophical legislation, all scien-
tific principles are generally absorbed by ana-
fogies. n
ie Many
6
13
ie Many of the errors of the French revolution
were owing to analogies."
All nature is pervaded by analogies. Those
adopted in France were often taken from ro-
mances*, seldom from nature, or from the as-
certained facts of history ; and they misled,
instead of assisting the friends of the revolu-
tion.
The powers scattered around us, particularly
those of the human structure and conformation,
furnish models of all kinds of action and all
forms of life. All the inventions and all the
practical knowledge of man consists in copying
those forms, or copying those who have copied
them, either directly, or by analogies.
Whether we can render political analogous to
Sentient beings; acting from the influence of
external causes, having a perception of those
causes, and a consciousness of that perception ?
— Whether the mind of a society, like that of
an animal, may be so formed as to perceive, re-
solve, and act from the impressions and induce*
ments of what may be called its body? are
questions
* The Social Contract is a romance.
n
questions of great difficulty and great im-
portance.
But mental cowardice only starts at mere
difficulties*.
We use the terms public body, public spirit,
and public mind ; and the antilogies of these
terms influence the feelings and judgements of
all men who are not grossly ignorant or actually
deranged.
Political bodies barely or imperfectly orga-
nized, are impelled by force, like inanimate bo-
dies, which are inanimate because they are un-
organized.
The parts impelled feel and obey the stroke ;
but they have no re-action or perception as
whole bodies, which seem in all cases to be the
result of organization.
To these questions the Reader will be gra-
dually led ; and if the Author should not be
able to command his assent, by demonstrations,
in favour of political and civil liberty justly so
denomi-
* Mr. Locke, and after him Dr. Price, decided these
questions without solving any of their difficulties, and merely
asserted " that societies should be self-governed,"
15
denominated, he may, by those preponderances
of probabilities, which form the common rules
of judgement and practice for mankind.
To give the necessary unity and perspicuity
to the whole work, he may be occasionally
obliged, not only to allude to the observations
of other writers, but to repeat his own. — The
well informed Reader, if he be inclined to fasti-
diousness, should recollect that the candid al-
lowance respecting treatises of considerable
length, should be extended to political above
all other enquiries; and while the Author is
struggling with numerous difficulties, which no-
thing but the love of humanity could have in-
duced him to encounter and determined him to
surmount, the Reader should accompany him
impressed with the sentiment, Verum opere in
longo fas est obrepere somnum.
The occasional freedom of his opinions and
language, will not be blamed by those who shall
understand and know him.
There is not a man, a class, or community in
the world, which he would intentionally mis-
represent or injure on any imaginable consider-
8 ation.
16
ation. If his opinion of his own abilities could
accord Math his wishes, he would assume the
tone as he has all the principles of the Friend
of Europe. At home, he is attached to no
party ; he writes wholly to that public, to that
nation, of which the king, the parliament, and
the administration of the government, are the
legitimate, and he hopes the faithful organs.
PRINTED BV WILSON & CO.
ORIENTAL PRESS,
Wild Court, Lincoln's Inn Fields.
EGERIA.
SECOND STUDY.
ORIGIN OF SOCIETY
JL he English language, according to the Au-
thor's knowledge, will not furnish terms which
approach nearer to his ideas of society, than
those which express its origin and progress, as
proceeding gradually from physical to moral
existence.
The germs of all societies are families * ; the
wants of which, and the offices supplying them,
producing
* See the Mosaic history — Moses describes the earth as
peopled from one family ; and the descendants of Noah existed
c many
18
producing the reciprocal sentiments of parental
and filial affection.
Families are impelled to an union for security
against the fluctuations of the seasons, against
beasts of prey, and against human enemies, who
seek sustenance without labour.
These generate the first rude ideas of power,
and of justice ; the latter of which is checked,
kept dormant, and sometimes wholly absorbed
by the former : hence the early prevalence of
dominion by force *.
Competitions of interests, impulses of pas-
sions, or contentions of violence terminating in
various species of balances, give precarious ex-
istence to those hordes of savages, which may
be called physical societies. The wants of such
societies are supplied by spontaneous produce
tions, and they are strangers to the contrivances
and arts which modify, improve, and multiply
them.
To those arts we owe the birth of genius
and
many generations as pastoral families. — Gen. chap. ix. ver. lp.
and chaps, x. xi. xiii. xxxi.
* The history of Cain and Abel strongly illustrates this
"origin of dominion by force.
19
and folly, and of the first simple ideas of virtue
and vice, which are coeval with the dawn of
political and moral society.
Families, or hordes of families, subsisting on
the spontaneous productions of nature, require
large districts for their support, which they com-
monly desolate — that desolation limits what may
be called the physical existence of such societies.
Necessity and misery produce contrivances and
arts, which, by increasing subsistence, increase
population ; which, in indefinite progression,
multiplies wants, denominated artificial, which
oblige men indefinitely to devise modifications,
improvements, and multiplications of natural
productions.
In these processes the human intellect is ge-
nerated, and political society formed.
In society, as in man, the general intellect,
i. e. the understanding of the society as a body,
is developed", in exact proportion as wants are
multiplied. The eye in darkness expands its
pupil, as the necessity of that expansion is in-
creased.
The intellect becomes active—multiplies its
c 2 own
20
own powers, by suggesting wants for which
those powers might provide.— Wants, perhaps
falsely called artificial, are the circumstances
■which awaken invention, and improve it indefi-
nitely ; raise man above an existence merely
physical — above animal life, supported on the
spontaneous productions of the earth ; give him
the faculties of a social being ; lay the founda-
tions, and suggest the improvements of political
society.
Simple or savage life, though it be the early
destination, does not constitute the happiness of
man ; the faculty of generation impels him to
increase and multiply. Population produces la-
bour, invention, subsistence, industry, and all
the effects which require justice only to render
political society happy. The multiplication of
men cannot take place, without the multiplica-
tion of their wants, and their intelligence.
How the faculty of population, and the power
of subsistence, act and react on each other ; how,
by a mutual stimulus, they produce mutual re-
gulations — are questions of great importance.
The private and public passions which interrupt
and
21
and suspend the progress of reason, under this
influence, furnish the principal subjects of the
histories of nations, from the earliest condition
of society to the present time.
Contentions and wars, whether of savage
hordes, or of disciplined nations, assuming the
honours of civilization, whatever may have been
their motives and pretences, appear to have
checked or vitiated this regulated population,
the probable source of all political blessings.
Wants produce intelligence in proportion to
their nature and number. Necessity, in all
cases, is the mother of invention.
In institutions, where the general apprehen-
sions of a deficiency of subsistence are pre-
cluded ; of which colonies are instances, intelli-
gence is proportionably precluded, and slavery
is the general consequence.
The soldier and the slave, being provided for
like tamed animals, exist, like them, with
checked or stagnated talents, for others, not for
themselves. Without some species of soldiery,
priesthood, slavery, industry, or charity, to con-
sume or dispose of the surplus produce of la-
c 3 bour
£2
bour, it is difficult to imagine how society could
have passed from physical, into moral and poli-
tical existence. The histories of all civilized na-
tions prove (hey have made that transition.
Without the means of disposal, there can be no
regular surplus produce ; there can be no civil
society, properly so called; and no necessity
for government. Families living on spontaneous
productions, and even cultivating for mere sup-
port, constitute neither.
Numbers, however multiplied, are unavail-
ing in the progress of society, without com-
pression, arrangement, and activity. Villages
and towns within certain limitations, and with
certain institutions, greatly accelerate that pro-
gress. The greater the conflux of men, like
the conflux of nerves, the fuller the life, and
the greater the sensibility.
The ends of all societies, and their tendencies
to improvements, like the destinations of men,
are ever pointed out by the nature and number
of their wants; and when villages and towns
have been fixed, they become species of organs
diffused over the body, communicating recipro-
8 cally
23
cally with more or less intimacy, and creating
a national feeling improveable into public opi-
nion and public intellect.
In proportion as society becomes more com-
plicated by these institutions, every member
acquires more points of contact with every
member, and with the whole of surrounding
nature.
The society therefore by accumulating wants,
accumulates a general sensibility. Its accessory
arrangements and institutions assume either
singly or by combination many of the functions
of mechanic and organic powers, the emana-
tions of which are public passions, — the good
and evil of which may in time produce the
sublime and blissful phenomena of public judge-
ment, public reason, and public virtue.
This theory of the origin and destination of
societies, though in many respects different from
that of other writers, is so clearly deduced from
history, that the Author does not think it ne-
cessary to produce proofs.
Montesquieu borrowed from Aristotle the
idea of climate as producing distinctions of na-
c 4 tional
24
tional characters* ; but Montesquieu has greatly
erred in confounding the essential objects of all
constitutions, with the effects of climate on
physical societies, which take from them only a
secondary character*
The peculiar or secondary characters of all
nations have also considerably depended on the
greater or the less rapidity with which their po-
pulation was produced and their wants sup-
plied.
Hordes of savages, disunited by wars, continue
from periods beyond the reach of history, as
individuals, in what is called a state of nature,
subsisting nearly on spontaneous productions.
Their population being checked and bounded ;
their wants, their intelligence, their virtues and
vices are all stationary.
Throughout the world, according to all its
histories, situations affording productions, va-
rious in their nature and quantity, have varied
the dispositions of men to develop their wants
and capacities : but the great and essential ob-
jects
* Aristotle de Rep.
25
jects of society are the same in all situations,
and under all the climates of the o-lobe.
Beyond the immediate impression of wants ;
passions and desires superinduce a new species
of activity and industry in the political body.
The parts and organs of public passions, and
their accurate mechanism and organic sources,
are desiderata, or discoveries to be made, in po-
litical science. — Nations obey public passions,
and men direct and sometimes create them ;
but on no certain or known principles.
The first and most important inventions for
social communication, have had in them so
much of the gradual and insensible effects of
daily want and necessity, that the names of
the inventors, if whole societies may not be
called the inventors, have not been transmitted
to posterity.
The signs of the articulations of the human
voice, the combinations of which form all the
words of all languages, are wonderful objects
of contemplation to philosophers, when the lan-
guages arising from them are displayed in all
their extensive powers and utility. But in
tracing
26*
tracing accurately the progress of man, with
such assistances as we now derive from a know-
ledge of the various conditions of nations, they
appear to us to arise easily and naturally from
his condition, his wants, and his desire of com-
municating and gratifying them.
Languages, the first means of communication
between man and man, village and village,
town and town, are immediate and partial in-
struments ; hieroglyphics, writing, and print-
ing are general; and they indicate different
conditions of society, and passions and desires
of different extent.
But the object of the Author, at this time,
is to keep the attention of the Reader to the
gradations of analogy between animal and mo-
ral bodies, which are equally susceptible, first
of wants, then of passions ; and which, in all
probability, must be regulated and directed by
similar principles.
Wisdom and virtue have similar effects on the
political and physical body ; and all irregular
and excessive passions have similar analogies;
communities having their mental imbecilities,
their
27
their frenzy, and their mania. The effects of
public passions are like those of private. Hope,
joy, confidence, love, produce energy in the
system. Fear, shame, and despondence, sink
and debilitate ; and the organization of pub-
lic, as of private bodies, is deranged by
vices, which act in the manner of deleterious
powers.
In political, as in animal bodies, the gradual
and indefinite development of desires and their
gratification, under the direction of justice and
virtue, is the development of understanding,
morality and happiness ; and in this sense
luxury is a blessing.
But all processes have their true and false
principles. False processes, in the same trains,
and in the same gradations, produce diseased
passions, vices, and crimes ; and in these cases
luxury is an evil.
In modern France, where the pride of grand
actions has been throwing into shadows the
errors and crimes of a dreadful revolution, the
noble fanaticism of the sublimest views which
were ever opened to a nation, were exalted into
a species
2S
fc species of frenzy ; and after a paroxysm of in-
toxication and fury ; after the most criminal
and melancholy sacrifices at the bloody altars of
fear and terror; — a general torpor seemed to seize
the heart and arteries of the whole nation ; on
exactly the same principles by which inordinate
exertion occasions diminished action in the
human frame.
Political, like physical bodies, appear to be
susceptible of periods or circles in ideas and
action, from the allotment of periods for the
completion of certain purposes *. Both are af-
fected by annual, lunar, hebdomadal, and diur-
nal habits.
Elective appointments are annual ; literary
occurrences monthly ; religious transaction*
weekly; domestic and individual actions daily.
He must be a superficial observer of human
life,
* All persons of moderate reflection, accustomed to the pe-
riodical recurrence of the symptoms of diseases, will compre-
hend this allusion, though they may not understand the cause*
of that recurrence. The analogy will hereafter be further
noticed.
n
life, who does not perceive the good and evil
effects of such periods or circles.
These views of society are important, as the
author conceives them to be true ; and particu-
larly as those votaries of philanthropy, who in-
cessantly attempt the production of changes,
acquire great skill in availing themselves of
public passions; like all adventurers who convert
men to their purposes, by addressing them-
selves, never to their reason, but always to their
passions.
The sagacious reader may anticipate the au-
thor's purpose, in directing his attention to a
complicated detail of the springs and move-
ments of political constitutions, for the expla-
nation of which the human capacity has hither-
to proved insufficient.
How presumptuous those who would take
to pieces, in order to reconstruct such bodies»
the produce of time and the operation of va-
rious laws of nature. Chymists, even those who
seem to be reviving the extravagancies of al-
chemy, have not yet pretended to dissolve the
human body into elements, in order to improve,
its construction and health.
It
30
It is in the treatment of the political body
only such extravagancies are tolerated. — Who
can calculate the good or evil occasioned by
affecting a single movement in the structure of
a state, which may have been centuries in acquir-
ing, first its general sensibility, then its passions,
and then the considerable or inconsiderable
portions of judgement with which it is directed.
In discussing questions of such magnitude, the
random glances of romantic philosophy or of
poetic fancy will not give the results of nu-
merous and complicated facts, either for pub-
lic utility, or for the satisfaction of minds ac-
customed to apply the arithmetic of probabili-
ties to the occurrences of society, and to appre-
ciate moral phenomena, and the quantity of
good and evil with nearly mathematical pre-
cision.
EGERIA.
THIRD STUDY,
INEQUALITIES OF SOCIAL SITUATIONS.
Hobbes has asserted, that a state of nature
must have been a state of war ; and that the
provisions of society are coercions to maintain
peace.
The pride of man may be mortified by just
views of his origin and early condition.
Eat or be eaten, is a law of nature nearly
coeval with the injunction to " increase and
"multiply."
Every class and order of animated beings
seems competent from fertility to consume the
productions of the globe, and to occupy its
whole surface.
d There
34-
There are animals which produce young, in-
sects which lay eggs, and fishes which spawn,
so as to multiply annually by millions, if there
were provisions for their security and subsist-
ence.
Every class, as it were by instinct, seeks
this security and provision which seems to be
fully destined for none.
The first general movement, in obedience to
this instinct, must have been the general signal
of war. Where the terrific roar of the lion, who
has desolated districts with unabated hunger, is
silenced by living mountains of reptiles, to
whom only a little sagacity is wanting to de-
vour all living beings, and all the means of their
subsistence.
Nature, which produces all the classes of ani-
mated beings, does not provide for the unli-
, mited reproduction of any class. For where an
universal warfare has allotted the general domi-
nion, first to brutal, then to human force, it is
felt that man, with the world before him, is
soon checked in his reproduction by limited
sustenance.
In the struggle and contention for the means
of
35
Of subsistence, the state of war may take place,
which Hobbes calls the state of nature, and on
the general principle of which he founds the
claims of arbitrary government. Theories are
suspected ; facts should also be suspected.
If we allow, as we do, that, while reason was
in her nonage, the contention for sustenance
bestowed power on the strongest ; if we allow
that physical society must have been governed
by physical strength ; by thus ascertaining the
actual origin of public force, we do not prove
its perpetual claim to dominion. Are the ob-
jects of society ever to be, because they have
been, decided by violence and murder, the in-
struments of which are generally selected from
the most atrocious and abandoned of mankind?
Are the principles and practice of social eco-
nomy to be developed, because the dominion of
societies has been usurped, by sacking villages
and towns, wasting fruitful districts, and
throwing a sepulchral silence over the haunts of
men, interrupted only by the moans of misery
in the gripe of brutal force ?
As reason slowly proceeds to maturity, the
councils of experience and prudence are admit-
d 2 ted
36*
ted to influence the operations of force ; and if,
as society advances, it were regulated by ta-
lents proportionally improved, the condition of
the world would be proportionable to its appa-
rent destination.
But this seems not to have been ever the case,
for reasons founded on the laws of nature.
Men, in all conditions and in all societies,
have felt a species of panic at the apprehension*
of want ; and, in the efforts of the most dis-
cerning, or of the strongest, to secure them-
selves and their posterity from them, we may
trace the general sources of the distinctions of
classes, and those various pOAvers which arise
from the various conditions of the general
masses of societies, whose situation has ever
verged on wretchedness, the mother of all
crime.
It is in the impracticability, except in peculiar
situations, of increasing food in proportion to
the increase of population, that we discover the
general sources of moral and political evils.
Political moralists and reformers, instead of
observing with accuracy the repressing causes
of a superabundant or of a vicious population,
instead
37
instead of studying a judicious choice, mitiga-
tion and direction of them; instead of marking
the necessary or habitual proportions and ba-
lances of classes in societies, they have irritated,
on all the occasions offered them, military force
and military customs by random criminations;
and they have been the principal means of in-
vertingfthe scale of moral estimation in respect
to human employments ; of softening into ho-
fioufs the reluctant submissions of dependance,
and of sanctifying pecuniary benefactions,
which, however expedient, are always liable to
censure from scrupulous and abstract moralists.
Sir James Stuart has fully developed * the
doctrine of national population, as depending
on the production of food ; and he has traced
many of the unavoidable inequalities in social
situations, from the different occasions which
must occur to parents more or less robust, and
more or less prolific, of dividing with their off-
spring the productions of the earth, which ne-
ver fully correspond with the utmost effects of
the generative faculty.
d 3 This
* Inquiry concerning Political Economy. B. i. chap, s & 4.
38
This is experienced, though not always un-
derstood, in the first associations or hordes
subsisting on spontaneous productions ; and,
though the effects of labour and cultivation dis-
sipate the apprehension for a time, it recurs
when population and production are nearly
balanced. If reason, and not passion, were
the first effect of misery, it would interpose the
maxims of justice against the first pretensions
of force ; it would, by a shorter process than
that which actually takes place, favour the dis-
position of nature to produce equilibrium in
moral as in physical situations, and would esta-
blish correct proportions in the wants and sup-
plies of society.
An idea of these proportions is the origin of
the claims of rights which have been occa^
sionally obtruded on the career of power.
But those who have asserted these rights have
mistaken their nature, or asserted them without
judgement.
They have generally termed them the equal
rights of equal beings; whereas every just idea
pf correct equality is instantly superseded, at
the formation of all societies — by the unequal
powers
39
powers bestowed by nature — by the unequal
operations of the generative faculty, taxing the
same labour with unequal burthens, and creat-
ing the distinction of rich and poor — and by all
the indefinite though fair efforts of industry, in
the alienations of the unequal surplus of equal
labour.
Rights, like properties, though they may be
balanced, cannot be equal ; because the just
proportions to every man's labour, industry
and ingenuity, must be unequal.
Rights, however, should be equitable ; and
properties equitably or equably distributed.
But millions of hordes and societies, called
civilized, have been or may be formed, and may
consume or devour each other before the doc-
trine of what is called political equality
be generally understood, and reduced to prac-
tical equity.
A wise constitution would bring various men,
as science may bring various weights, to an
equation, who can never be brought to an
EQUALITY.
d4 All
40
All claims should therefore be preferred for
equitable or equable, not for equal lights; the
latter being the portion only of slavery.
Every member of a wise and equitable consti-
tution possesses his proportion of that influence
which is diffused through the whole, as the in-
fluence of every member is diffused through
the natural body, and to every particle of which
it consists; not equally, but in proportion to
its capacity of contribution to the general hap-
piness.
But how distant are the common principles
of pretended philosophy from these truths !
And how unavailing, how extremely hurtful,
the random and intemperate claims of imprac-
ticable and unattainable equality I
Where is the society so constituted as to b©
on all occasions capable of embracing equally,
in its political ceconomy, even the physical
wants and good of all its population ?
After all the inquiries and bloodshed on ac-
count of political disquisitions, two problems
remain unsolved at the very threshold of so-
ciety, and respecting the mass or body of its
consti-
41
constituents — of greater difficulty, and of infi-
nitely greater importance, than any proposed in
science by Bacon or by Newton.
I. A method of proportioning the multiplica-
tion of all the classes of a people to the possibi-
lity of providing their food and employment.
Or,
II. The method of rendering the provision of
food and employment sufficient for an unre-
strained population, or an unlimited exercise of
the generative faculty.
Without the solution of these problems, great
inequalities must necessarily arise in the condi-
tions of men ; and want and misery, which
should only circiunscribe societies, will pene-
trate and invade their laborious and useful
classes.
Such problems are not even objects of atten-
tion, in the early stages of political society ;
and in those denominated civilized, no govern-
ment or legislature has hitherto assigned their
due importance to inventions and measures for
the approximation of the increase of food to
the unrestrained increase of population.
The history of society moves in a circle
bounded
bounded by human misery. Spontaneous pro-
duce sustains population contending for that
produce.
Population produces wants, desires and intel-
ligence, to discover the means of cultivation ;
new sources of produce arise which do not ex-
tricate men from wretchedness while the suste-
nance is below the population: when it exceeds,
or the population is below the produce, as is al-
ways the case in the early exertions of the arts
of cultivation, and in the first progressions of
colonies ; industry arises ; exchanges, trade,
and commerce take place ; and men appear to
be in the road to unbounded happiness :~but
the illusion soon vanishes. The generative fa-
culty multiplies claims in alarming dispropor-
tion to the increase of productions by cultiva-
tion ; and want, or the apprehensions of want,
taking possession of all the classes of industry
as well as those of labour, numerous avenues
are opened to contention, injustice, violence,
and reciprocal destruction.
These complicated evils, as they are more or
less atrocious, produce governments of more or
Jess severity. Some may have the characters of
arbitration,
43
arbitration, and may appear to proceed from
choice ; some are modifications of actual force ;
some rest on opinions of present or future evils
at the disposal of certain orders ; some are mixed
powers, having portions of all these passions : but
they are all composed of passions balancing pas-
sions in the masses of the community to which
they owe their origin: and the horror daily excited
by the morning exercise of an emperor of Mo-
rocco, in striking off a certain number of human
heads, is a check or balance to the atrocity of the
Moorish character, as necessary to an abominable
government, as the mild and equitable temper of
the English executive power, to that willing and
chearful obedience which the English pay to their
laws.
The consecmences of these reactions of pas-
sions, interests and powers, in the governors
and governed, are various as the characters and
situations of the communities; but in all, the
genuine wants and desires of man, the sources
and impulses of general intelligence, are unhap-
pily but necessarily circumscribed ; and some
societies are so unfortunately constituted, that
those desires and their gratifications are denoun-
ced as crimes to the laborious and industrious,
which
44
which are retained in animal stupidity for ani-
mal labour.
This is an humiliating and affecting view of
any portions of human nature. But it will be
seen in these Essays, that the principles and
practice of modern reformers, the most mode-
fate and best intentioned, would aggravate even
these evils.
Hence the long, we sometimes think the
hopeless continuance of human societies, in
conditions susceptible only of passions, from
the operations and counter-operations of cer-
tain classes and orders on each other.
When the mechanism or the organs of those
passions in communities* are understood, phi-
losophy, by directing their utility, will mode-
rate, perhaps terminate their abuse.
In the mean time, and in the present state of
societies, we must consider them as analogous
to moral beings, wholly actuated by passions,
and directed by the views and interests of those
persons
* It is hoped the reader will bear in mind, that the author
never confounds public feelings, and the passions which govern
communities, with those of individuals, which may be criminal
in the best, and virtuous in the worst.
45
persons or classes in them, which have the power
or the wisdom to regulate those passions.
To the maxim of Hobhes we may therefore
add another of equal authority, that the first
state or period of what is called civil society is
generally a state of war.
In this period, every community is actuated
by some predominant passion or passions ; and
all ultimate decisions are either made or influ-
enced by force, or the apprehension of force.
That portion of intelligence, however, which
surmounted all the difficulties of the transition
from savage to civil life, from the predatory
pursuit of subsistence to the cultivation of its
means, never wholly abandons any of the sub-
sequent conditions of mankind.
While absolute tyranny and pure superstition,
which the author supposes to be in the provi-
sions of Providence, analogous to necessary
poisons in those of Nature, coerce and sway all
primitive constitutions of civil government
founded on public passions; that Intelligent
principle, the germ of future improvement,
science, and philosophy, lies sometimes dor-
mant, sometimes partially active ; contending
with
AS
With the governing principles, and with the
passions and prejudices of the governed, some-
times successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully ;
and proceeding through good and evil report,
with slow but sure steps, in the stupendous plan
of governing, not individuals only, but societies
also, by the laws of reason and virtue.
When the author uses the word philosophy,
he is to be understood as referring to this prin*
ciple, either in some or in all its modifications ;
and he is extremely sensible of the numerous
inconveniences he must experience in the use
of a term which has been prostituted to all pur-
poses and all meanings.
Many of the most important provisions of
society have been compromises between this im»
mortal principle and the various passions, which
have constituted either the governments or the
spirit of societies.
This will appear through the whole of these
Essays.
For our immediate consideration, those pro-
visions first offer themselves, which probably
afforded the first intervals of contention, vio-
lence, and warfare, when men determined on
4 culti-
47
cultivation, and to divide, by some permanent
rules, the produce of their labour.
Here we must be satisfied with 'effects ; for
history, as usual, is silent on one of the most
important inquiries of the human mind.
In China, a nation which makes the boldest
pretensions to antiquity, the provisions against
the prevalence of population, over labour and
industry, seem to have been coeval with its first
institutions.
The privileged orders are few; the emperor is
by profession an agriculturist ; the people are
sober, laborious and industrious ; and the soil
is fertile : yet the population so much exceeds
the produce, that parents are allowed to expose
their children ; and with this melancholy in-
dulgence the lower classes are generally reduced
to the verge of famine. There are shops where
dogs, cats, &c. are sold for sustenance ; and
Chinese beggars feed on the vermin of their own
bodies*.
In the vast districts of Tartary, subject to the
dominion of the Lamas, the priests constitute
the only privileged order, filling all offices, civil
and
* Bell's Travels, vol. lu p. 33, and 48.
48
and ecclesiastical ; and with a disinterestedness
which priests only have exhibited, they are de-
voted to celibacy. Husbandmen, labourers,
and artizans, propagate the species. This an-
cient institution is intended to diminish the
sources of population, and it greatly diminishes
those of general misery.
In southern India, where all orders propagate,
parents bring their children for sale to public
markets, or they expose, or they put them to
death, with the connivance of their govern-
ments.
To evade these cruel duties, crimes and enor-
mities, abominable to human nature, have taken
place in all ages and nations.
In Thibet*, where the privileged order is also
the priesthood in celibacy, the excessive popu-
lation of the laborious and industrious classes is
checked by polyandry, one female associating
her fate and fortune with all the brothers of a
family, without restriction of numbers or age.
As customs regulate passions, marriage, being
renounced by the higher order, is considered,
by all others, as a burthen, if not an odium.
In
* Turner's Embassy, p. 345, 6, 7.
4D
In Turkey, Persia, India, &c. polygamy is
an institution having similar effects with poly-
andry, and probably having its origin in a simi-
lar policy.
The Greek and Roman states were not often
embarrassed with this general difficulty in the
progress of societies ; for their institutions were
warlike, and they kept their population within
bounds by military expeditions, and by colonies
in conquered districts.
The Greeks were, however, obliged to allow
the exposition of children ; and Aristotle* con-
siders it as indispensable.
Strabcl* says it was a law in the isle of Ceos,
that those above sixty years of age should tako
hemlock, to afford subsistence to younger per-
sons; the country being fully cultivated.
Under the Roman dominion and tyranny, the
population of the greater part of the world was
held too low to produce a general demand from
the wants of men.
Communities under despotism have always a
feeble population ; for tyrants, even the most
stupid, seem to discern that as men disentangle
themselves, they become more dense from num-
e bers ;
* R. Geograph. 1. x. + Tournefort, vol. ii. p. 13.
50
bers ; their wants render them inventive; and
acquiring intelligence as political bodies, they
always and necessarily become free.
Modern states, under forms more or less feo-
dal, possess numerous privileged orders ; and
the general policy of feodal chiefs has been to
induce the common people to multiply, without
attention to consequences ; calculating possibly
on the general effects of misery in favour of sub-
mission and servile obedience.
When the habits of the people have ensured
their general misery, the privileged orders have
felt that compassion which is the virtue of indi-
viduals, but frequently the reproach and stigma
of governments ; the first object of which, in
every country, should be to regulate the pro-
portions of its useful population and produce.
But feodal governments being generally war-
like, and armies recruited by misery, a random
population, occasionally running into excess,
and relieved by war, want, famine, or even pes-
tilence, suits their purposes, though it may not
be in their deliberate contemplations*.
Under
* The Prince of Conde, contemplating the effects of a battle
in the war of thirty years, exclaimed, " The strumpets of Paris
will supply the loss in one night." — Schiller, vol. ix. p. 324.
51
Under these governments, influenced by the
principles of christian benevolence, the institu-
tions of public charities have originated ; and
their remains and imitations, often perverted
and misapplied, are numerous and splendid :
they are honourable to the characters of indivi-
duals, and they have proceeded naturally from
the partial influence of Christianity on the spirit
of feodal systems, supported by chieftains whose
prerogatives were monopolies against the classes
of productive peasants and industrious artizans.
Those chieftains, while they deceived them-
selves, and sometimes imagined they evaded the
justice of heaven by numerous and opulent in-
stitutions, repressed millions among the offspring
of the labouring poor, striving in vain to pre-
serve them above famine, by bestowing the pri-
vilege of preservation on children generally of
doubtful utility.
There are institutions applauded for their
charity, which, by relieving the vicious from the
care of their children, enable them to produce
more after their own imasre.
o
By such institutions, the first evil is never
diminished, arising from numbers viciously edu-
cated. 8
The
52
The children themselves are passed into the
mechanic classes, which are always rapidly and
completely filled by demand and high wages ;
and in proportion to the splendour and success
of such charities, additional difficulties and mi-
series are thrown on all those poor and deserv-
ing families engaged in productive labour, who
strain every nerve to support themselves without
assistance.
A sentiment is thus impressed on the whole
community, which considerably checks its po-
pulation : for who will contentedly or patiently
struggle with all the difficulties of bringing up
a large family to labour, under the discourage-
ments of hospitals and workhouses, which how-
ever piously instituted and humanely conduct-
ed, it is to be feared are incautiously filled with
the children of the profligate and the idle, who
are withdrawn from productive labour.
In the formation of civil, as distinguished
from savage society, there are other necessary
causes of inequality, which may have been per-
verted by artifice and ambition into the sources
of unjust and oppressive distinctions; but which,
even without that perversion, must have com-
mitted states for some time generally "and wholl/
to the direction and dominion of passions.
EGERIA.
FOURTH STUDY.
" No matter for your rights," said Sylla to Mithridates ; " obey
" implicitly, or make yourselves stronger than we are."
POLITICAL PASSIONS.
xhe internal arrangement or organization of
savage hordes subsisting on the spontaneous
provisions of nature, produces a considerable
degree of intelligence ; sufficient, in cases of
great importance, to over-rule passion by coun-
sel ; to sustain a simple and general idea of
justice; and, when extreme want has exhausted
all spontaneous resources, to surmount the first
e difficulties
54
difficulties in introducing the appropriation of
animals, and the cultivation of the earth.
In this new situation, the social feelings of
political bodies become complicated ; the pas-
sions formed by them, numerous ; and societies
being deprived of those aged counsels which
tempered the violence of savage resolution, for
age does not then . possess the privilege and
authority of experience, the first internal con-
dition of pastoral and agricultural life becomes
more perplexed and turbulent than that of sa-
vage hordes ; and persons of strong passions and
hasty determinations have not scrupled to pre-
fer savage to civil society, as the happier con^
dition of man.
The care of animals, and the cultivation of
the soil, give the first ideas of property.
Invention, labour, and time are transferred
by man to that care and that cultivation ; and
the subjects, whether animals or land, and their
uses or effects, become properties.
If invention, labour, and employment of time
had only produced sustenance for those em-
ployed, society would have advanced but little
by the art of cultivation.
But
55
But labour produced a surplus ; and the pro*
perty and command of superfluities became the
great objects of contention in all the gradations
of civilized society.
The first claims to superfluities must have
been, by those whose talents found the means of
producing them ; — by aged parents and helpless
infants ; — and by those who, in defending their
country from depredation, were rendered inca-
pable of labour.
Such claims were succeeded by those of arts,
real or imaginary, to mitigate or heal the disor-
ders of body and mind.
How long the property and the disposal of it
remained in the inventor and labourer, cannot
be determined with any degree of probability ;
for there are no records of such subjects.
We know only, that the earliest societies
which history has distinguished as civilized,
had inverted the apparent order of nature, by
transferring the disposal of surplus produce
from the original proprietors, to persons and
classes whose first offices must have been to
preserve the peace.
Why the cultivators could not retain the poli-
e 2 tica
56
tical power which always accompanies the ge-r
neral property, is a question not difficult, but
not necessary here to determine. Perhaps the
principal difficulty in it may be solved by recol-
lecting some observations already made on po-
pulation.
The first inventive and laborious cultivators,
when they had appropriated certain portions of
the general produce to their warriors and priests,
considered what they had retained as competent
to the purposes of unlimited population.
The error must have soon led them into dif-
ficulty and misery ; and the soldier and priest
avoiding that error, and converting the claim
of support into a right of property, a contention
necessarilv arose, in which the cultivators sunk
gradually into tenants and slaves.
If the original proprietors could have regu-
lated their population by their means of subsist-
ence, they might have retained the disposal of
all surplus produce; but such a regulation
could have proceeded from science only, the
last acquirement of human society.
Men are united in communities by an indefi-
nite variety of laws, each of them having cir-
4 cumstances
57
cumstances peculiar to an individual society, as
the ultimate particles of animal bodies are united
by laws of animation, which have each of them
peculiarities suited to individual constitutions.
Political, like human bodies, seem destined to
rise gradually from irrational to rational life.
In communities, as in men, the effects of im-
pulse are extremely different from those of con-
sciousness ; and, in all first societies, the sources
of general feeling have probably been external,
and their actions produced by impulse or force.
The effects of portions of communities which
may be called organic on those portions which
may be termed inorganic ; or the effects of go-
vernments on mere multitudes, or on incidental
combinations speedily decomposed by their vices
or by time, furnish no principles but those of
force ; and the earliest governments are there-
fore those of force.
At this time we know not either the combina-
tions of principles, or the laws of attraction
which produce irritability, the first property of
animal life ; much less do we comprehend that
more complex organization, of which sensibi-
lity is the result. We perceive only homoge-
e 3 neous
58
neous relations in nature which produce regu-
larity of form.
The difference of irritability and sensi-
bility in animal bodies is a very late discovery.
In political science, though its effects must
be immense, it is wholly overlooked. Let us
hope a Haller may arise in the political as in
the natural world, and accurately ascertain this
important difference. Our advances in social
and political may. then proceed further than
those in physical knowledge, under the direc-
tion of an experience truly philosophic ; we may
ascertain the arrangements and combinations
which, in any given cases, may produce public
feeling, thought, reason, will, or, as it may be
properly called, the public mind.
But the Author must not pursue these ideas
in the present Essay. He wishes only to assign
reasons, to be more fully explained in time, that
societies are not immediately improved in their
condition, in their conduct, or their principles,
by the transition from a predatory to a pastoral
and agricultural life ; that the internal compe-
titions of interests become more numerous, com-
plicated, and hostile; that civil liberty, a bless-
in a:
59
ing enjoyed by savages in a considerable de*
gree, is wholly lost in the lirst communities of
pastoral and agricultural societies ; and the in-
tercourse of nations becomes as hostile as that
of hordes, with the difference of being regulated
at the pleasure of temporary or hereditary mas-
ters, instead of aged and parental counsels.
We see that vegetables and imperfect animals
have few, imperfect, or no ideas, not only in
proportion to their senses, but to the union of
those senses in a common centre or sensorium —
a vegetable, without a centre of union for its
fibrils, would have no common sense of heat or
cold ; and the actions of closing its petals, and
other modes of common defence and preserva-
tion, could not take place.
An animal is perfect or imperfect, as the
nerves of all its frame are perfectly or imperfectly
united in a common sensorium. And an assem-
blage of men is a political body, or it is not;
it has a constitution, or it has not; or, hav-
ing a constitution, it is perfect or imperfect, as
there is or is not a sympathy and connection,
or according to the perfection or imperfection of
the sympathy and connection of the sensorium
with every individual of the assemblage.
e 4 The
60
The principle of this common feeling is un-
known ; so is that of gravitation : but we may
hope the laws of the former may be ascertain-
ed, like those of the latter. Then, but not till
then, will political philosophers be able to point
out precisely those differences of constitutional
structures which produce differences of sensibi-
lity, perception, action, and character in poli-
tical bodies ; which at this time no art can, with
certainty, assimilate to the general objects of
human society.
We now know only that savage hordes, how-
ever miserable, possess councils analogous to the
animal brain, and that in the transition to civi-
lized society they become destitute of those coun-
cils ; that the small portion they possessed of
self-government is exchanged for the govern-
ment of force or privilege ; and that, in a long
succession of ages, they acquire only those pro-
perties which depend on passive organs, or con-
stitutions analogous to those of animals which
have no brain, and whose characters are deter-
mined by their irritability and their passions,
not by their minds.
The Author, in this species of detail, does not
pretend to interpose his opinion of what ought
TQ
61
to have taken place, in contrast to actual
facts. Whether it be presumed that the universe
is governed by an intelligent being, or by
unintelligible laws, it is probable that its
fate is more desirable than if any system of
philosophical reveries could have been substi-
tuted.
It is a fact, that societies, like animals, obey
some general laws, which lead them as
bodies from agitated infancy, into a turbulent
youth, and thence in some cases into a reason-
able and happy manhood. Philosophical em-
pirics have pretended to improve upon or
change these laws ; but all their experiments
have been injuries ; the laws of nature have re-
covered their dominion ; and they continue to
produce, destroy, and re-produce the bodies of
political societies, as they do those of animals,
in indefinite varieties, and with all their cha-
racteristic perfections and imperfections.
The histories of all nations describe the effects
of abortive efforts to counteract them. The
consequences of gradual and general discoveries
in them we may anticipate by probable and
modest analogies, but we never anticipate them
in practice without multiplying our miseries.
In
62
In Nature, when the interpretation is once
justly made, the advantage is obtained. In the
vicious policies produced by checking or cor-
recting her progress, the cyphers of false phi-
losophy or of imposture may seem to make sense,
without giving her meaning.
Produce, population, wants, passions, habits,
and intelligence, with all their trains of conve-
niences and inconveniences, are the creative
principles of every thing in society ; and these
principles in regular succession form their own
laws, from which there is no appeal, and which
can never be either violated or reformed with
impunity. Left to their own spontaneous ope-
rations, and to the regulations which these
operations suggest, they proportion the popu-
lation to the produce: the wants, passions, de-
sires, and intelligence, to the general circum-
stances of the political body ; and this propor-
tion is the law of political equity ; the rirst law
of society.
But the violations of this equity, by the ex-
cesses of necessary passion, and by the undue
restraints of power on those excesses, retard the
progress of political causes and effects, and
oblige societies, as they oblige individuals, to
proceed
6$
proceed to manhood through the miseries as
well as the infirmities of infancy, and the vices
as well as the errors of youth.
Architects of Constitutions, instead of
observing these laws of real nature, seem to re-
gard those of romance only ; affect to imitate
Jupiter in the production of Minerva, and to
exhibit constitutions formed at once, and pos-
sessing all the properties and powers of mature
and perfect institutions.
All the social establishments of mankind, in
imitation of the great productions of nature, are
generated by successive expansions of powers.
Those powers by repeated experiments are
formed into social habits, which become
new powers, and either combine with or ob-
struct the progressive improvement and moral
character of the institution. On the happy co-
incidence of the natural powers and acquired
habits, the character of this progressive exist-
ence of societies greatly depends : for, if the
passions or principles do not form habits, all
actions must continue to be detached and faint
experiments ; and if habits supersede the ge-
neral passions or principles of the state, its ca-
pacity
64
pacity will be protruded and attracted into
special and partial dispositions, and never acquire
the general balanced and composite motions;
constituting those dispositions and actions,
which are the virtues and the happiness of all
bodies actuated by intelligence, whether animal
or political.
If the mechanism of social functions were
understood, we should not be under the neces-
sity of perpetually recurring, as we now do, to
the analogies between social and animal beings.
But while treating of ideas which have no
names, we have no method of distinguishing,
but by comparing them with sensible objects
which have names.
Beings of the same kind are drawn to each
other by a law of attraction, similar to that of
cohesion in chemical particles; and political
bodies are formed by the attraction of compo-
sition, or by some circumstances, for which we
have yet no names, similar to those affinities
which take place between substances of different
characters.
There are political, like natural bodies, with
constitutions unascertained — such constitutions
are
65
are easily decomposed or destroyed ; but in all
probability not without decomposing the gene^-
ral chain of moral beings.
Nations, as individuals, may be defective, or
they may be excessive in what may be called
the irritability of the political body, and the
passions immediately engendered by it. — What
js the remedy ? Are we to reason with that irri-
tability, or with those passions ? Or must we
have recourse to the modern practice of dissolv-
ing the society ?
States, like persons, acquire habits in the
progress of their existence; and those habits
may obstruct and derange their efforts to im-
prove, or to acquire an intellectual and moral
character. Those partial and subordinate
powers, whether popular or unpopular, whe-
ther in princes or demagogues, are never bene-
ficially repressed by violence ; but by a patient,
judicious, and enlightened energy.
The political, in the same manner with the
animal organs, are influenced by associated ideas.
States are susceptible of associated trains of
motions, as the ideas of man are formed into
tribes. Hence arises L'Esprit de Corps, — the
spirit of nations, — the spirit of party, &c.
. The
66
The constituted portions of the people, like
the muscles and organs of man, act together, or
act in succession, from the impulse of the di-
recting powers ; and by the repetition of such
actions, they are indissolubly united, or asso-
ciated in trains and tribes which afterwards act
together. This facilitates all the operations of
general action ; but requires the most deliberate
and profound consideration when any of its de-
viations and derangements are to be removed.
What havoc, among such admirable processes,
must be made by the destructive hatchet of a
modern reformer !
The properties of societies, some of which may
be partially, some fully, and all differently ani-
mated, should be correctly arranged and un-
derstood in the mind of the reformer, as well as
the statesman. If a Marat, or a Thomas Paine,
who were alwavs ready to dissolve societies for
reconstruction, had been asked, — What are
those various qualities or principles on which
the various phenomena of political bodies de-
pend ; and which constitute their several de-
grees of animation, life, and capacity of action ?
They would have said at random they were
passions, that passions are the principles of
2 crimes ;
67
crimes ; and therefore the bodies comprising
them should be dissolved, taken out of the di-
rection of nature, and delivered over to them,
for what they called reconstruction.
In political bodies, from the causes already
mentioned, there are portions acting, and por»
tions acted upon. The great object of atten-
tion, no doubt, is the moving principle;
but reformers, even those denominated philo-
sophical, declare war on it; and in such efforts
of correction or improvement, the analogies
are not taken from any ascertained processes of
nature, or from any accurate theories of any
animated beings.
A real philosopher would not interrupt the
operations in the constitutions of states, until
he had made experiments on a scale so extensive
that the formula might answer any questions,
and include any possible cases ; leaving nothing
to speculative and vain hypotheses.
The French reformers, whose misfortunes
throw a veil over their errors, were all wiser in
their opinions than in their experience ; the
most virtuous and the best intentioned of them,
were men who never had access to the various
situations
68
situations of human societies, and could not
estimate the necessary effects of all the modi-
fications of human powers under the direction
of social passions or social habits.
They therefore confounded general feeling,
passions, habits, and principles, in one common
dissolution, and vainly hoped that a better sen-
sibility, better habits, better passions, and bet-
ter principles would instantly arise, by the en-
chantment of philosophical phrases, or by some
miracle performed by reason.
This proved a vain hope : and it is of the
utmost importance to understand, that it has
been owing, not to the external obstructions
which now bear the blame, but to laws of
nature, which will ever produce similar effects
in similar circumstances.
EGER1A,
FIFTH STUDY,
PUBLIC IMAGINATION AND PUBLIC MIND,
W e are gradually approaching the secret la-
boratory of modern philosophy, where the
most extravagant visions of the ancients are
moulded into new systems ; where experience
is abandoned for hypothesis ; and where wisdom
and sophistry, virtue and hypocrisy, mingle
their sober and romantic, and their honest and
insidious pretensions.
We have observed, that all bodies, political
as well as natural, have a general feeling. Every
impression or stimulus is communicated in them
by some medium. Anatomists affirm, that me-
dium in the more perfect animals is the irritable
f fibre
70
fibre which acts on the next fibre, as men on
men, in proper arrangements, and induces the
perception of impression on the senses, or what
is called sensibility. These instruments of ge
neral sensation are of the first necessity in the
formation of all animated bodies, and we know,
though some possess nothing more than the
feeling resulting from them, that none can exist
without them. They may exist without brain,
without mind, and even without volition ; but
not without some instruments of general feeling.
Insects have sensation, though they have only
noes of nerves instead of brains ; and in this
they resemble foederal governments, whose bo-
dies have the principle of life so divided, as to
be incapable of collecting an united sensibility
into a common judgment or action. Even
worms have a perceptible sensation, though
their nerves have not been discovered.
The growth and consolidation of political
bodies, like gradations of animal life, stop at
certain points ; and their forms are variously
changed by circumstances, either into tyran-
nies of princes, into aristocracies of chiefs, or
into- mixed bodies.
In
7\
111 these changes men feel the necessity of
new* ideas ; and it is this necessity that impels
the progress of knowledge, whether real dr pre-
tended.
Here, as in all the fluctuating conditions of
political bodies, imagination is the brilliant
and successful substitute of sober and simple
reason. It rapidly satisfies, or seems to satisfy,
the feeling of want, and agitates it with lively,
though sometimes destructive pleasure.
The Imagination is to the mind, either poli-
tical or natural, as fermented liquors are to the
body ; it rouzes and vigorously employs the
faculties; but, previous to the birth of reason,
when used unsparingly and without judgment,
it blunts the rising faculties, and prolongs the
debility and Ignorance of those constitutions it
seems to stimulate into light, knowledge, and
enjoyment.
Here the utility of a regulating mind, in po-
litical as in natural bodies, suggests itself to the
r'i?al as well as to' the pretended philosopher;
but the one favours the attainment bv observing-
the progress of society under the direction of
natural and social laws ; the other, by forcing
f 2 premature
73
premature and summary provisions, checks and
destroys that progress, or forces it into some
vicious direction.
On such important subjects it would seem
probable, that no man pretending to philosophy
could overlook the great and numerous difficul-
ties in calculating the phenomena accompany-
ing the resistance of active beings, compared
with those attending the impressions and resist-
ances of bodies unanimated ; especially as their
analogies are extremely slight. But whether
impulse or resistance to change, be by bodies
organized or unorganized ; whether by water,
air, ether, or by passions, principles, minds, and
souls, their laws should be first discovered, that
their mutual actions may be estimated, and that
all changing forces may accurately exhibit their
indications, characters, and measures, in all
changes of action.
No — Sophists, like poets, enter at once the
region of ideal nature; and, like them, in parox-
ysms of frenzy*, produce models of imaginary
states.
This is the general practice of the votaries of
fancy.
* Demopritos says, no man can be a poet without madnes?.
f*ncy. Phrysne, the mistress of Praxitelles,
furnished his model of the Goddess of Love.
The ancient artists exposed their mistresses to
public adoration in the names of different divi-
nities ; and the bust of Alcibiades was, for some
time, the Mercury of the Athenians *.
To such persons the human species may ap-
pear to more advantage in our workshops than
in our families. Models preserving the finest
symmetries and features of every species of
beauty, are pleasing objects ; and they should
possess those beauties, to be occasionally re-
produced by the imagination of the artist who
studies them. In the mind of the poet, or
poetic philosopher f , such studies produce divi-
nities : but philosophic or poetic divinities are
not practicable beings ; they are not even dra-
matic ; for the drama never admits of elevated
characters without obvious infirmities.
In all the provinces of science, and even of
the arts, general ideas are formed, but can
never be reduced to practice.
It is a law of nature, the reasons of which
f 3 we
* Clem. AIx.— Ad. Gent. p. 47.
, i Vide Plato in Tim. t, 3, p. 29 and 99.
n
we may never comprehend, that ideal perfection
and ideal beauty, though objects of perpetual
ambition, are unattainable. Nature herself, in
all her productions, seems to fall short of her
own intentions; as the forms she commonly
produces are at a distance from those great and
general ideas of good and beautiful, by which
she appears to be actuated. Abstract nature,
and individual nature, in all their productions,
and in all their imitations, are as remote from
each other, as the abstract ideas of moral truth,
or of political wisdom, are from the actual morals
of men, or from the actual condition of human
societies.
In the production of blossoms and fruits,
which is an annual operation of nature, she
seems to evade rather than overcome destruc-
tive principles, by a profusion and an apparent
waste of life. Even in her high and important
production, that of man, the greater proportion
perishes immaturely.
If this be the case in nature, is it wonderful
the contrivances of man, to form a principle of
political life, which shall surmount the nume-
rous obstructions to its progress, should in
their
75
their greater proportions also be abortive? why
do not the votaries of ideal perfection, who
ridicule all actual and practical objects, blas-
pheme nature, or nature's God, on the same
account ?
In a natural and moral system, which admits
of deviations and derangements, and to which
those deviations and derangements seem essen-
tial, though under the government of a being
infinitely powerful, it would be folly to pre-
tend to a political system, which would admit
of no counter actions, no hostile energies ob-
structing its purposes , and that system con-
trived by beings defective both in wisdom and
goodness.
The idea of perfection is, however, present in
every effort of real genius, and every such effort
rightly directed is an approximation j indeed,
the best standards of perfection in nature are
only approximations. This idea of perfec-
tion has ever induced philosophers to imagine,
that reason may in all things become practice ;
and those who have seen no further than the
point of their pen have expected it when they
have written their determinations. On this
p 4> subject,
76
subject, their errors have been extremely impor-
tant : For the reason or intellect of an individual
should not, even on their principles, govern so-
ciety : It is often governed by a principle that
has little analogy to that faculty. This principle
is an intellect more or less perfect, generated by
the constitution itself, which may exhibit ap-
parent contradictions ; wise and good men being
members of a vicious state, and unprincipled in-
dividuals members of a M'ise community.
All the phenomena of political constitutions,
when not controlled, are produced by their pas-
sions, their minds, or what may be called their
spirit of animation, compounded of two ingre-
dients differently proportionate, private and
public interest. But historic, like physical facts,
relating to subjects of such difficulty and im-
portance, induce speculation rather than induc-
tion. Physic examines substances producing
considerable changes on the living svstem : and
the facts of natural history and natural philo-
sophy furnish data for analogies. It is by seiz-
ing analogies of a similar nature, that disco-
veries or improvements are made in politics.
The political, as well as the natural philosopher,
should
77
should not mistake an hypothesis for a theory*
The wings of all hypothetical phantoms are
cemented with wax. Theory is a system found-
ed on facts. Hypotheses, principally, are
wholly founded on conjectures. An hypothesis
however may arrange experiments, lead to facts,
and prepare for theories. An hypothesis, even
when refuted, may add to our treasure of facts.
Astronomy was the science of reveries, as
politics may at this time be considered, before
Kepler discovered the laws of planetary motions,
Gallilio the uniform acceleration of gravity,
Pascal the pressure of the atmosphere, and
Newton the laws of attraction. Truths of
similar importance must be ascertained in poli-
tics, before its theories can afford deductions
which will prove, in all cases, fair representations
of the intellectual phenomena of nature as ex-
hibited in society.
As in geometry, we suppose a point, a straight
line or a circle, so in morals, and in politics, we
are now obliged to assume fixed principles which
we cannot perfectly and accurately reduce to
practice. The great skill of a real statesman is
in combining those principles to the greatest
public
78
public advantage, with national and domestic
circumstances.
We call a nation a body or a being, and attri-
bute to it the properties of a being both corpo-
real and intellectual; because political, like
animal systems, are induced to act — first, by ex-
ternal impressions, — secondly, by desire and
aversion — thirdly, by public will or public rea-
son — and fourthly, by association or sympathy.
Similar laws take place in the formation of
organized bodies, whether natural or political,
and in the phenomena they display. The for-
mation of a natural body depends on the rela-
tion of its materials to each other; that of the
political depends not on the fancies of projec-
tors and fabricators of constitutions, but on
the reciprocal relations of men, which are to
each other in society, as the particles of matter
are in the living bod} 7 . Apolitical constitution,
acting wholly from its sensibility, its judg-
ment, or its mind, and of which every member
of the community forms an active but relative
particle, is yet but an hypothesis.
Attempts in France to reduce it to a system
proved abortive. The French reformers orga-
4 nized
79
wized primary assemblies, municipalities, &c t
and were confident they should illustrate their
principles by demonstrations ; but they had
neither abilities, knowledge, or proper mate-
rials, to render their theory practicable. They
learnt the contrivance and use of particular
powers, but they- understood not all the lateral
connections, and all their relative situations, and
were confounded and lost when it became ne-
cessary to check the simple but violent motions
of parts that were near, with the compound in-
fluences of parts that were distant.
It is possible, however, though reformers must
long wait for the event, that men may acquire an
influence over political and moral bodies, similar
to that theyexerciseover thosewhich are natural.
Society is an aggregation pf families, having
fundamental Jaws forming its constitution, and
civil laws securing its tranquillity. But what
is that principle of which reformers have so
much vaunted, and in the apparent direction of
which they have committed so much evil?
\Vhat is it which seems diffused through the
organization of an animal to give it life and
sense ? — The answer would assist in giving life
and sense to political bodies.
Architects
80
Architects of constitutions act as if political
unity consisted in juxta-position or accretion ; it
is not so in animal nature, it cannot be so
in society. There is a principle, the conti-
nuity and equable distribution of which renders
any number of people in the pursuit of their re-
spective interest a political unit. What is the
law in nature or in science which regulates the
distribution of this principle ? No man should
presume to form or change the constitution of a
State who cannot answer this question.
It seems to be generally agreed, that the ar-
rangements of the whole political body, when
formed by social wants, social feelings, habits
and intelligence, may constitute one organ ana-
lagous to the general system of the natural body ;
and that the natural movements, positions and
feelings of this organ may, by means of a coun-
cil or sensorium, be rendered the materials of
public reason and public will. But all bodies
are influenced by counteracting principles, and
to render politics a science, it should be em-
ployed in specifying and estimating those pow-
ers.
Statesmen have hitherto considered communi-
ties
81
tics as passive inert masses ; it is the business of
philosophy not to demolish those communities,
not always to criminate those statesmen, but to
demonstrate that societies, justly instituted, are
analagous to living bodies, having always a con-
siderable portion of irritability, sometimes prin-
ciples of reason and will diffused through their
organs.
In taking living bodies as models, the Author
does not mean to embarrass himself with theo-
logical questions ; it is not of importance in his
present inquiries, whether the human body have
or have not a distinct and immaterial soul : he
considers only the actual powers possessed by
organized matter ; that species of life or mind,
and those functions diffused equally to all the
orders of the animal kingdom, even where the
presence of a distinct substance has never been
pretended. Indeed, ail the analogies he wants
might be deduced by any skilful botanist from
the vegetable kingdom, where the existence of
an immaterial spirit hath never been maintained.
The similarity of physical and political bodies
rests on the following facts — 1st, That the phe-
nomena of life are produced in them by the ope-
8 ration
ration of agents on their organization, whether?
perfect or 'imperfect— 2d, When those agents
are accommodated by their quality and mode of
operation to their peculiar structure, they are na-
tural to them, whatever they may be in the views
or imaginations of philosophers — .'3d, When they
are not thus accommodated, either by excess or
defect, they are unnatural, and stand not in need
©f empirics to destroy them. Good and evil to
communities of this sort are only "different states
of those powers, as health and sickness are of
those which affect the natural body.
Affections, arising from the condition of par-
ticular parts, from noxious circumstances debi-
litating or inflaming them, are subjects of mu-
nicipal correction, to prevent any commotion in
the general system, which may produce a con-
stitutional disease, and require those constitu-
tional remedies which can be administered only
by the wisest men, as all their effects are rapidly
diffused through the whole frame of the political
body.
Political as well as physical bodies are excel-
lent only as we can ascribe life or the power of
action to them, not as they may be the instm--*
incuts-
85
mcnts of other bodies. Political as well as ani-
mal constitutions are free exactly in proportion
to their sensibility and intellect. Those who,
by the number and quality of their organs, are
capable of transmitting all possible information
to a central council or sensorium, in perfect
sympathy with them, are capable of developing
the highest political intellect, a public mind, and
a will directing public functionaries and public
actions. And the gradations in communities of
this intellect, from absolute political freedom to
absolute political slavery, are exactly propor-
tioned to the gradations in the quantity and qua-
lity of the organs of general information, and of
the capacity communicated to the sensorium of
developing a public mind.
The community is a congeries of smaller bo-
dies corporate or domestic, which have each their
particular affections, and are united by the ge-
neral affection called sympathy : if one become
torpid, the whole will sympathize either by yield-
ing to the torpor, or rouzing into action to avoid
it. They obey similar laws with the associated
organs of man. The health and relative strength
of all bodies depend on the proportioned quan-
tities
84
tities of their social and voluntary powers. The
will must balance the sensibility of the whole
body, and the sensibility must balance the will.
It is said a great nation cannot deliberate and
act, and hence the necessity of representation.
If it be meant that all individuals cannot al-
ways be present in the deliberations and actions
of the community, this is true of all nations,
great or little. But if it be meant that portions
of the political body cannot deliberate or act for
the other portions possessing their general con-
sent and sympathy, it is a sophism incompatible
with the analogy on which alone the political
body is formed. Portions of this body may be
called the council, the immediate or principal
seat of the will; other portions may be the prin-
cipal seats of active or executive powers; but
neither of those powers are representations of the
body ; they are appropriated parts of that con-
stitution, which have determined that mode of
regulating its own actions by laws which shall
be explained hereafter.
In the succeeding Essays or Studies, these
principles will be applied to actual constitutions,
ancient and modern.
SIXTH STUDY.
PHILOSOPHICAL INSPIRATION,
Ox a Sunday morning after the publication of
my last Number, meditation and literary labour
having rendered my night restless, I fell into a
slight sleep ; and, without being conscious of
any previous circumstances, associating real
incidents with reveries, or having perused
Virgil in the last twenty years, my imagina-
tion represented me in the character of ^Eneas,
at the gate of A vermis, — a sibyl guiding my
steps. Roused by the awful perplexities of my
situation, I perceived a female standing near
me, whose symmetry and beauty were exqui-
site expressions of such intelligence and good-
ness as I had never before seen,
q Awake,
86
Awake, (she said, in a penetrating though
gentle tone, ) — let thy soul awake to the voice of
humanity. I will explain to thee the best use
of these studies. — Start not at my proposal ;
— I mean not to render thee an abstruse dog->
matist, or a mystic prophet ; — distant futurity
dwells, even to me, in impenetrable shadows*
But the earth has been drenched with blood, —
Europe is whitened with human bones ; and
the spirits of the murdered friends of mankind
demand their apology and their fame. Thou
hast seen them sink in the abyss of perfidy and
carnage, — produced by a combination of every
thing politically detestable in Europe.
EDITOR.
I have seen guilt and shame the companions
of all crimes ; — but who art thou, gentle and
benignant being, who thus rousest sorrows,
mellowing into serenity? and what dost thou
require of me ?
EGERIA.
I am that spirit, whom thou hast not mis-
taken in calling gentle and benignant, whose
$ peculiar
87
peculiar province it is to check those ruthless
fiends who send forth at pleasure the liveried
instruments of desolation to ravage and to
destroy. I am Egeria, whose name is affixed
to thy lucubrations. I meliorated the Ptoman
character by a mixture of superstition, — the
only ingredient that would then blend with it.
I mingled the spirit of chivalry with the ferocity
of the feodal system ; — I encouraged the cru-
sades ; — I urged the sale or division of heredi-
tary principalities ; — and favoured the introduc-
tion of commerce.
When superstition elevated a Priest to con-
tend with Patriarchs and Emperors, — I dug up
the Pandects, — revived a taste for Letters, — and
produced the art of Printing. I directed the
effects of that art to the emancipation of new
portions of the earth ; —and I shall soon be on
the wing to check the abuses of a general and
violent revolution, which may operate to the
disadvantage of the human race.
EDITOR.
But why not have prevented its horrors ?
g 2 ege-
88
EGERIA.
They were not to be prevented. — But my bu-
siness relatesprincipally to those personsand prin-
ciples which now fan the dying flame of discord,
which would tempt, with frantic rage, all the
world around them to renew the fierce orgies of
the demon war, at whose howl all Europe has
so long throbbed and sickened. It is my object,
by diffusing real knowledge, to diifuse the heal-
ing gale of peace, and effectually to close the
wounds of wretchedness.
editor.
The blessings of the world will attend thee.
The long silence and inaction of genius and
talents are justly lamented as public crimes and
public calamities. But to do good is extremely
difficult ; — to do evil, always eas}\
EGERIA.
This is the language of timidity, not of pru-
dence. It is the duty of every man to contri-
bute to his country the fair contingent of his
reason and information.
6 EDI-
89
EDITOR.
I hesitate, because, on mature meditation, —
on consulting the best powers of my mind, — I
feel the subjects agitating mankind, in all their
nature and consequences, too unwieldy for my
intellectual force. I have hoped, great occa-
sions might produce great minds, who would
scatter their godlike ideas on the tempest, and
sooth the world to wisdom and tranquillity.
• EGERIA.
In me behold their harbinger and their herald.
Be my instrument in sinking into infamy those
exalted miscreants -who can wield only the
besom of destruction ! and in assisting the best
talents, and their possessors, to calm the passions
and awaken the reason of mankind.
EDITOR.
I should toil only to reap toil ; for the task is
hopeless. Fairy fancy may touch with happy co-
lours the distant landscape ; but now the recol-
lection of the yell of Uhlans spreading de-
solation, vibrates more gratefully on the hearts of
pretended statesmen, than the voice of a bene-
c 3 volent
90
volent philosopher studying the interests of
mankind.
EGERIA.
Where is that philosopher ? — When reason and
prejudice took the field in France, what philo-
sopher warned his country that armies were not
their proper weapons ?
Europe has blazed with fires, not yet ex-
tinguished, that may purify, or may consume
it. Receive the instructions I now give thee :
— Communicate them to the Senate of thy
country ; for by thy means I would thus ad-
dress that Senate.
" Legislators, You have been assembled
on the most important occasion that has oc-
curred in the history of the world.
" Whether you consist of a selection of in-
dividuals that may save Europe, as well as your
country, time will speedily discover.
" Patriotic and selfish principles, like the liv-
ing and decaying powers of animal bodies, are
now in agonizing struggles ; and you are the
produce of one or other of them : for political,
like natural life, is a perpetual circle of renova-
tion and decay.
" You,
91
u You, Legislators, are denominated Re-
pkesentatives ; — whether correctly or not, I
may soon have occasion to consider. You are
selected by a Law, in political societies, for
which there will be no name until the processes
on which it is founded be clearly understood.
The brain of every animal, whether good or mis-
chievous in its dispositions, is furnished with
particles, which some men may call representa-
tives, by a law similar to that which produces
the council of every nation. Every choice must
be under the absolute direction of that public
spirit, or of that depraved selfislmess, which ac-
tuates those parts of the community in which
the right of actual election is vested.
" On subjects immediately affecting the general
happiness, awful events have lately warned you
to be guided by experience and history, more
than by the reasonings of speculative writers ;
who generally commence their works by hypo-
theses on man by nature ; and those hypothe-
ses are insinuated as principles of political sci-
ence.
''Thus Plato and Aristotle in ancient, and
Hobbs, Montesquieu, Fenelon, and Rous-
G 4 SEAU»
92
seau, in modern times, have had their sectaries.
Of these, the most dangerous arethePlatonists;
as, by an air of mysticism in their manner and
style, they acquire a superiority which imposes
on the multitude ; and, by spiritualizing, they
soothe the vanity of weak minds, without touch-
ing the real principle that actuates and improves
political institutions.
"Rousseau, the modern Plato, colours all his
doctrines, paradoxes and precepts, with this ge-
neral principle — " Every thing is good in na-
ture, the work of God : Every thing is evil in
society, the work of man." This is mystic
jargon, which may be rendered captivating in ex-
pression, though pernicious in effect. When can
any thing be out of nature, or out of the juris-
diction and power of its Creator ? Legislators,
every man is as much within the influence of
Nature and the power of his Creator, when sus-
pended to a gallows for his crimes, as when first
entering the world, or produced by a midwife.
"Experience and history will inform you, that
the first* combinations of men are those of sa-
vages, whose ferocity is occasionally suspended
only
• Vide Second Study, page 18, &c.
93
only by necessity and force. Nature never ope-
rates so advantageously to humanity as in the
complex processes of civilized societies ; arid
man approaches his God only by the gradations
of civilization.
" The earth, by human labour, multiplies sub-
sistence — Love impels man to increase and mul-
tiply. Population produces wants which all the
efforts of labour and invention have not hitherto
been able to satisfy. Hence * the origin of in-
equality, and the inlet of all evil. Multitudes
cannot be produced without proportional wants.
In a state of political freedom, those wants would
generate proportional intelligence, which re-
quires only the assistance of impartial justice to
convert them into blessings. But errors f, un-
avoidable in early national institutions, perpe-
tuate the hostile spirit of savage tribes ; and
produce War, the parent and the offspring of
despots — which produces a vicious population —
which checks the sources of the most useful in-
dustry — and which fetters intelligence, the au-
thor of all human happiness.
"This
* Vide Third Study, page 36.
f Vide Fourth Study, page Go.
94
tl This evil, interwoven with the origin of all
Societies, and which has lately menaced their
dissolution, is, Legislators, the first and most
important object of your attention.
' ' I mean not to discuss general principles, so as
to be detained by sophistical exceptions to them.
" Allwars are loathsome to human!! t*
Even those pretended to be defensive, have gene-
rally circumstances in them which stain the
characters of their abettors with indelible oppro-
brium.
" In War, the conqueror and the conquered
lose their liberties ; for it is essential to political
liberty, that the- people should have the disposal
of their own property and their own blood ; and
it is essential to a warlike government, that the
military should be disproportionate to the civil
power, and dispose of the lives of its subjects.
" War, however its events may be blazoned,
however fools may be amused by its pageantry,
is a perversion of science; it is cruelty method-
ised ; and it requires an early education to study
it without horror *.
" Where soldiers are annexed to a particular
power,
* The Chinese hold the state of a soldier dishonourable.
95
power, they may be traced to a disease in the
constitution, which they often render mortal.
Peasants and mechanics inlist to flee the mise-
ries of domestic want. In States daily exhibit-
ing odious contrasts, in the secure maintenance
of the soldier, and the precarious subsistence of
the labourer ; the one, though taken from the
refuse of the world, or rescued from the gallows,
receiving bread, as the Israelites did from Hea-
ven ; the other, after painful labour and perpe-
tual anguish, obtaining a scanty and insuffi-
cient meal, and dreading the view of his wife
and children like starving shadows around him ;
■ — in such States, is it wonderful man should be
hardened by despair, abandon his home, and, un-
terrified by the fate of his fellows, plunge into
vice and peril more tolerable than lingering and
hopeless suffering ?
" Thus arises a distinct profession from that of
Defenders of their Families and their Country ;
that of men who deal in human blood. The most
ferocious brute tears his prey from hunger ; — ■
man feeds not on man. How wretched must be
his condition when he can be led into the field
of slaughter by aspiring and destructive ambi-
tion,
96
tion, to maintain slr.thfal glutton}" or polluted
hypocrisy ! or when he may be induced to em-
ploy his arms against his oppressed fellow-citi-
zens !
"It is true, LEGiSLATORs,manyof you know
little more of war than its dreadful fame. The
abodes of industry and innocence around you
have not been desolated ; your slumbers and
enjoyments have not been destroyed by the
shrieks of helpless infancy, or the desponding
moans of insulted and expiring age.
r Salva.
TION."
EGERIA,
NINTH STUDY.
IDEAS OF LIBERTY, ANCIENT AND MODERN.
vJ,v quitting the court, we joined Plat<
Aristotle, and John Locke; who gene
rally applauded the observations of the judge.
But said—
PLATO.
Oratory, and oratorical writers, I perceive,
will be soon expelled the province of political
philosophy.
ARISTOTLE.
i :
It was certainly not the intention of Minos
to discredit eloquence in its proper provinces.
n He
146
He justly stigmatised orators of slaughter,
sanguinary sages, and the hypocritical priests
of desolation : impetuous spirits, who have
always viewed with hatred the mild but per-
manent glory of those who have sought, with
philosophic modesty, the recluse abode of
science, or those who have patiently attempted
to harmonize the various and complicated plans
of general good.
The brilliancy of evil is more easily acquired.
Mere fury may touch, with infernal fire, coun-
cils of death or cabinets of blood.
LOCKE.
The fiends of war, on earth, have been lately
wearied, and seem disposed to retire to their
native Tartarus. Shall the ambition of one man
be suffered to assume the voice of virtue, reli-
gion or patriotism, to call them back, and to
stimulate them to wider scenes of slaughter?
The prince of darkness, shrouded with idola-
trous and fanatical superstition, is again assum-
ing the name of the most high, that his bloody
altars may be holy, and his priests inviolate ; and
despotism openly to destroy the independence
and
147
and laws of nations, wears the form, and uses
the lano-iiao*e of Liberty.
PLATO.
Despotism must have more sagacity than I
have ever possessed — for I have not yet heen
able to learn either its nature or its form.
[At this moment Moses, Mines and Alfred
entered the grove; followed by Zoroaster,
Confucius, attending to the great masters of hu-
man reasoning, Bacon, Newton, Euclid, Archi-
medes, §c. §c. The grove was crowded ; if the
expression may be applied to a numerous assem-
blage of the spirits of the greatest men, of all
ages and nations, desirous of hearing or assist-
ing in conversations interesting to humanity*
held in the presence o/Egeria.]
LOCKE.
I do not wonder at it. For, in the plan of
thy republic, thou hast commenced with an
arbitrary division of the people into three
classes : the class of warriors or guardians of
the state ; that of sages, to perform the offices
of magistrates; and that of the labouring mul-
n 2 titude
148
ti tude, which thou hast denominated mercena-
ries, to avoid the appellation of slaves.*
ARISTOTLE.
We, whom you call the ancients, had cer-
tainly no idea, such as some modern philoso-
phers would realize ; that of a society uniting
or forming into one mind all the minds of the
people ; having the sensibility and moral facul-
ties of an individual; possessing passions, a will
and understanding.
In such a state, which is yet imaginary, no-
thing intellectually or morally wrong, could be
politically right ; necessity could never sanc-
tion injustice ; and Newton, the first intel-
lectual spirit, would be the first magistrate of
the earth.
LOCKE.
I would appeal to that great master of hu-
man reasoning, (looking at Newton) by M'hose
conversations I have lately corrected many of
my
* Plat, de Rep. L. II;
149
my favourite ideas; whether the men who de-
preciate politics, by comparing the supposed
uncertainty of its principles with those of ma-
thematics, either can or will see, that those
sciences are, and ever will be, in precisely simi-
lar situations.
When mathematicians can determine the
value to which quantities, in infinite progres-
sion, incessantly approach but never attain ; the
political philosopher will apply a similar pro-
cess, with similar certainty, to the calculation
of moral effects.
In politics, as in mathematics, the theories
which determine the ratios of evanescent quan-
tities, and which, by various processes, deduce
from those ratios the proportions of magnitudes,
have precisely the same results, though not the
same social effects. This distinction was
not perceived by Condorcet (regarding him)
one of the honest, but mistaken enthusiasts of
the French Revolution.
There is no difference, in scientific result or
accuracy, between the effects of what is called
the calculus of infinities, Sec. when applied
either to mathematical or political problems.
N 3 But
150
But they are not studied by persons equally
qualified or prepared ; and the difference is
great in soctal effect. In mathematics, all
the superfluous portions are thrown into an.
imagined infinite space; but in politics there
is no vacuum ; every atom, -every person, is
part of a mass or body of interested sensibility;
and in modern times every person is a politi-
cian. Orators, poets, women, men of all pro-
fessions, and even of all trades, even when they
have failed in their destined occupations, never
hesitate in issuing; dogmas in the most intricate
and most difficult of all the sciences.
EGER1A [TO LOCKE.]
I should have perceived the effects of thy
conversations with Newton, if thou hadst not
so candidly acknowledged them.
The next employment of that immortal spi-
rit, or of some genius of similar powers, may
be the improvement of political science. He
has ascertained the principal laws which regu-
late natural phenomena ; and it is to be hoped,
the same certaint)" may be soon introduced into
the moral world, by ascertaining its laws.
It
151
It is, however, a consolation to humanity,
that no considerable progress is made in one,
without affecting every science. It is by the
application of theories and methods, belonging
to departments of knowledge, overlooked by
tyranny, that men may ascertain those politi-
cal truths which observation, experience and
meditation may offer; until methods appro*
priate to the science itself be invented, afford-
ing additional instruments to genius in attain-
ing the discoveries it ardently pursues, or in
leading to others which it never expected or
imagined. But let us return to the subject first
started: or we shall not recover Plato from
the region of reveries into which I perceive he
is relapsing.
ARISTOTLE.
I do not suppose we can prove the ancient re-
publics to have possessed Li beiity. Locke will
assert, that all bodies, whether natural or politi-
cal, having no general will, cannot be free.
It appears to me, that all communities, how
ever imperfect their organization, are suscepti-
ble of some general feeling, as the most imper-
n 4 feet
152
feet animals have a sense of touch ; and that
a political constitution, conferring on a whole
people the capacity of energetic and active
volition, is an idea only.
The faculty of selecting the means of obtain^
ing good and avoiding evil, may be imparted
to classes and orders, but I think not to the
organization of the whole community. — And,
if that be case, modern as well as ancient states
must be destitute of liberty.
Indeed Burke has asserted, in the face of
Europe, that wherever the French nobles and
priests reside, there we are to find France.
LOCKE,
But this is now generally considered as one
of the extravagancies of his imagination ; which,
tinged with superstition, was not at the time
without its method or its views.
It has ever been a maxim of the court of
Home, Ubi Papa, ibi Roma; the residence of
the pope being always deemed Rome.
This is the ground on which the Roman
Catholics of Ireland continue their claims to
its estates ; on which the abbey-lands of Eng-
land A
153
land, whoever may possess them, are deemed
the property of the church; and on which the
whole island of Great Britain, in Cambrian tra-
ditions, is said to be the property of the descen-
dants of Cambrian princes and nobles, generally
reduced to the lowest occupations, plunged into
mines, or roving as beggars.
The voice of Burke, on this subject, may, like
that of St. Patrick, be hailed through Ireland
and Wales by the populace of those regions ; but
will not affect the real definition of a country,
by those who regulate its fate.
It is true, as Aristotle has observed, that I ob-
ject to the application of the word Liberty to
communities that have no capacities of volition.
The ancient Republics, as they were called, pos-
sessed large masses, in the lower orders of their
population — whether denominated people or
slaves, which had feelings of pain and pleasure,
no doubt; but no general consciousness and
general perception, producing a collective opi-
nion or judgment.
These powers are in exact proportion to the
excellence of the arrangements of the people, cal-
led
154
led their organization ; for these artificial bodies,
when acted upon by the same powers, exhibit si-
milar phenomena with natural bodies, and there-
fore possess similar properties.
The defector imperfection of the ancient re-
publics from the general slavery of the indus-
trious and laborious, affected their capacity, to
develope any thing analogous to a general will,
the source of general liberty. A constitution,
•without an organic arrangement of all the peo-
ple, would be like an animal without the sense
of general feeling, incapable of forming any
thing like volition or judgment.
ARISTOTLE.
It appears to me that the wisdom of Provi-
dence, a phrase I now prefer to that of the wis-
dom of Nature, has its purposes to serve, by gra-
dations in the political as in the natural world ;
that the little tyrannies of the earth, like its lit-
tle reptiles, have been necessarily and usefully
generated ; and that no other political bodies
could have been formed in the same circum-
stance^
The
155
The moderns seem, therefore, to differ from
us more in the order wherein they are placed, than
by the political talents they have exerted.
I would appeal to the great master of political
organization, the British Alfred, whether the
emancipation of servants in modern societies with-
out suitable regulations, and the unlimited license
of the lower orders to burthen the public with a
vicious population, be not inconveniences as
great as those of slavery ; as it renders those or-
ders equally unsusceptible of that common sen- -
sibility and sympathy which are the foundations
of liberty.
ALFRED.
I wish not, at this time, to engage in the de-
bate ; but I will so far answer the question of
Aristotle, that the idea entertained by modern
philosophers of political liberty, of a state go-
verning itself by a senate, council or sensorium,
furnished by the sensibility and will of all the
people, is impracticable in the present condition
of its populace and servants.
ARISTOTLE.
156
ARISTOTLE.
I really think, adopting thf analogy of Locke,
respecting natural bodies, that many of the an-
cient and modern tyrannies have existed in con-
ditions more natural, and enjoying more civil
liberty than any of those institutions called Re-
publics.
I will not dispute on the seat or size of their
sensoria or brains, or the connection between
their sensibility and their will.
I might, however, play with analogies in his
way, and, directly in favour of monarchy, ob-
serve, that the brain 01 sensorium of the worm
is a single nerve, with ramifications, undulating
to the skin. In insects it assumes different
forms ; is larger in fish ; more so in birds; and
gradually increases as the animal is endued
with sagacity, until it becomes the organ of
man, which no anatomist has proved to consist
of more than one nerve, formed into a complex
organ, and sending its ramifications to every
part of the body.
LOCKE.
I do not dispute that great portions of civil
liberty
157
liberty have been enjoyed, where no ideas of/w-
litical liberty were ever entertained.
Even in Turkey, under wise and benevolent
princes, the administration of justice, and the
regulations of civil intercourse, have been oc-
casionally admirable. The monarchy of France,
which admitted no claim of political liberty, or
of a power in the people to affect the constitu-
tion of its government, and the formation of the
laws, seemed disposed to soften and improve by
the improvements of the times, and to allow in
the general administration of the laws, the opera-
tion of many of the wisest maxims of civil li-
berty. But in such circumstances the end of
society, civil liberty, is only occasionally ob-
tained ; it depends on fortuitous circumstances;
and is not essential to the constitution and go-
vernment of the state.
This, I believe, is a modern discovery, pre-
sented to mankind, in its full form and effect, by
Alfred — I mean the discovery of National
Representation.
As in the human body the senses are formed
to convey to the mind the arrangements and
dispositions
158
dispositions of things that may affect it, colours
and sound, heat and cold ; so in communities,
by the discovery of Alfred, the council or se-
nate, or mind of the state, is furnished with in-
formations, the means of wisdom, according to
the nature and number of those organs or senses
communicating with them.
ALFRED.
I must again interpose — Whether Locke
justly or unjustly ascribes to me the discovery
of what he calls the doctrine of Representa-
Tiox, may be considered on another occasion.
He is guilty of an error, which, iwcler the di-
rection of the best and most benevolent of his
disciples*, has been the source of numerous ca-
lamities. I never included, in my political or-
ganization, the loiter orders of the people, at-
tached to the soil and in a state of slavery-
LOCKE.
* See the Models of all the late constitutions ofFrance in The
Idea of a Common-wealth ; in Letters on Political
Liberty j and in the Account of the Ancient Division
of the English Nation into Hundreds and Tithing*.
159
LOCKE.
They have been, since that time, generally
emancipated, and may therefore be included in
the organization of a state.
ALFRED.
But how? That to me is the grand problem
of political science. Point out the mode of ren-
dering the condition of the laborious and indus-
trious classes so easy, so comfortable, as to en-
sure in them sufficient morality (for there is no
morality in hopeless misery) to confide to them
those functions you call their rights, I will im-
mediately sue for leave to revisit the earth, and,
on the venerable fabric which still distinguishes
my country, I will establish a political constitu-
tion perfectly free.
PLATO.
God speed thee ! It is not from verbose ora-
tors, 1 must confess ; it is not from the interested
votaries of havoc and blood, that Europe can ex-
pect its recovery from the effects of its late mad-
ness, or to see several of its constitutions re-con-
structed;
16*0
structed ; but from men, who, meditating on the
graduated series of all animated existence, dis-
cern the laws by which all sensibility and all
action are produced, in all degrees of arrange-
ment and organization ; from the most simple
and feeble to the most complicated and forcible.
Such men as Alfred — such men alone, can
ascertain the construction, the analogies and rela-
tions of political constitutions, and point out
the laws that govern their union, their growth,
their remedies, and their dissolution,
EGERIA.
Much as I venerate the name and talents of
Alfred, I cannot adopt all the enthusiasm and
poetry of Plato. Societies cannot be rapidly
modified by the will or the power of individuals
without incalculable injuries. I wish, therefore,
to have the comparative views of ancient and
modern states completed, before we consider the
modifications, reforms, and regenerations, which
are to improve and perfect them.
LOCKE.
I do not affirm that the republics of modern
4 times,
lrjl
times, are more republican than those of anti-
quity ; not being, as they were not, equally
formed from all parts of their population and
territories.
Germany, Russia, and the Northern Powers,
have all their characters, or, what may be call-
ed, their ruling intentions ; but they are not
generally in favour of Liberty.
France, before its Revolution, was an abso-
lute 'monarchy, claiming all political powers,
which were checked and directed in their ex-
ercise by the improving customs and manners
of the times.
By the Revolution it was plunged into a
chaos ; from which it is emerging with min-
gled, but menacing dispositions.
Britain is the only State in which the modern
principles of political liberty have had a real,
permanent effect.
America does not yet offer an example.
Its political principles cannot be put to any
trial, until the population of its States overflows
on the States themselves, instead of being dis-
posed of by advantageous emigrations.
The example of America, in the pretended
o reforma-
1$2
reformation of ancient European States, has
therefore heen pleaded and adopted without
judgment.
Its revolution had a general effect; not so
much hy the writings which discussed the
Rights of Man ; for those writings repeated old
tales which reached readers only : it was the
rumour which penetrated the most enslaved
portions of the most enslaved nations, that the
lowest classes of the people had rights, and that
those classes in America had wrested them from
their oppressors.
But in America, there were no classes analo-
gous to those which constitute the greater part
of the population of Europe.
The small number of slaves it possessed were
not counted in its population, and had no
political effect. It had scarcely any ser-
vants, which in Europe form a class of the ut-
most importance ; for by its intercourse with
all the classes of tradesmen in every country,
and by perpetually passing the most expert
of its adventurers into those classes, it acts
as a perpetual and poisonous spring on
the morals of those orders which are the first
4 links
163
links of the social chain; and forms the first and
necessary intercourses of respectable families
with their neighbourhood, into a complex sys-
tem of dishonesty and fraud.
America had no populace, which in
Europe constitutes a formidable portion, if not
the majority of the inhabitants of its great
towns. This is created by its surplus popula-
tion, unknown in America; and that surplus
consisting of persons born and educated to sub-
sist by stratagem.
It is this superabundant population, the ge-
neral inlet of misery, which first tries the na-
ture and force of political institutions ; and
those of America, not having undergone this
trial, cannot be adduced as examples for the
reformation or regeneration of European States;
for their nature and effects in similar circum-
stances have not been ascertained.
ARISTOTLE.
If America, the constitutions of which are
said to be improvements on the best of modern
States, furnish no certain example of superior
liberty — ■
J 64
liberty — you must leave the question doubt-
ful, Whether the moderns have materially ad-
vanced in political science ?
LOCKE.
I have not asserted that the Americans fur-
nish no useful hints on the subject of Liberty ;
but that their constitutional arrangements are
not proper examples for the reformation of
European States.
Britain alone has furnished the most prac-
ticable — France, the most terrific, and perhaps
the most useful, lessons, on the principles and
the progress of Liberty.
France would lead us into a tedious and
difficult discussion ; and her Revolution has
hitherto produced nothing which can be de-
cidedly ascertained in favour of Liberty. But
the Constitution of England, in its ge-
neral construction, and in many of its provi-
sions in favour of personal and political Liber-
ty, contains improvements peculiar to the mo-
derns ; superadded to all the advantages of
ancient institutions.
EG E It I A.
J&5
EGERIA.
These are the truths I wish to have pointed
out in a clear, but summary manner.
I also wish the subject to be treated, not
in the common order, as suggested by the Bri-
tish History. The origin of its Parliament, its
Charter, its Petition of Rights, its Habeas Cor-
pus, and its Trial by Jury, are universally and
justly admired. They are not, however, with-
out their difficulties : but the general result,
the pecuniary power, the monied interest, is an
enigma in political science, to the greater part
of the world ; perhaps even to those who wield
that power, and direct that interest.
It would be useful to my views, that the
acknowledged excellencies of the British Con-
stitution be assumed, and their effects, parti-
cularly those of its pecuniary power, be deve-
loped.
ARISTOTLE.
Egeria, therefore, evades the question of
comparative Liberty ?
EGERIA.
166
EGERIA.
No ! I only change the order which you
seem to have intended for the subjects : know-
ing the principal ground on which Locke will
proceed, that of National Representation, will
be disputed by a most formidable enemy ; and
my present services to Europe depending greatly
on right ideas of property, and particularly of
money, the instrument of its circulation — I am
desirous to have the subject discussed.
LOCKE.
I have no objection, as it does not really
violate the order of our Inquiries, as property,
and something analogous to money, have cer-
tainly been objects of attention, previous to
those which may be denominated forms of go-
vernment, or constitutions of society.
[The spirits moved in an airy and beautiful
column to another scene ; where a dialogue en-
sued on mq^ey, the subject of the next Study.]
EGERIA.
TENTH STUDY.
MONEY.
ce Rien precieux
Plus puissant que L' Amour, qui peut tout sur les Dieux.
La Fontaine,
JLhe airy column halted in a region which
Egeria denominated the dominion of Plutus;
because the inhabitants, like those of other
probationary regions allotted to departed spirits,
are subject to regulations suited to the disposi-
tions acquired on earth, and the vices or faults
they are encouraged to correct.
Groups of financiers, stock-jobbers, bankers,
contractors, monopolists, and swindlers, were
scattered over spaces that might form terrestrial
p kingdoms :
170
kingdoms : and having borne with them, from
the earth, the errors, prejudices, or vices, which
had actuated their pursuits, they either rehears-
ed their former follies, or they underwent correc-
tive processes for iheir re-appearance ; or they
were pronounced incorrigible, and destined,
at their final judgment, to those confines of Tar-
tarus which terminated, by an ocean of molten
metals, the dreary and melancholy portion of
their peculiar horison.
On the verge of this region, is the general
abode of the (Economists, whose minds on
earth have been occupied without being wholly
corrupted and enslaved by riches and money.
Egeria immediately pointed out Abel, the
father of agriculture, industry, and legitimate
property; as Cain is of war, depredation,
and the rights of conquest and violence; Joseph
and Enoch, in conversation with Quesnat,
and James Stewart*; and numerous other
spirits,
* The Inquiry on Political (Economy, by Sir James
Stewart, is the most comprehensive and profound Treatise ex-
isting in that- province of human knowlcge ; but to peruse it
with pleafure and profit, requires preparatory fcience, and a
habit
171
spirits, appertaining to ages and nations, of
which history had not furnished me with ^.ny
intimations or knowlege.
T.IOSES TO THE ASSEMBLY.
Whether any of the distinguished spirits
assembled here, may be soon transferred into
human society, to diminish the perplexities
of economical and financial ignorance — is not
within our knowledge ! — but it is, that we
should be prepared by a discussion of those
subjects which are immediately connected with
human events.
Europe has been lately desolated by war; in
p 2 which
habit of developing intricate combinations. It is therefore ftudied
by a few perfons only ; fome of whom become celebrated
Authors, by detailing portions of its treasures.
It is not the wish or the interest of the writer of this Note,
to detract from the fame or utility of the Hiftory of the Wealth
of Nations. It is a valuable work of detail and illuftration ;
but all its important truths and maxims are stated in the In-
quiry : yet Adam Smith never mentions Sir fames Stewart.
What would have been faid of the vanity of Burke if he had
attempted to obscure Longinm f or never alluded to his Treatife
on the Sublime, from which he drew hh principal maxims ?
17-2
which avarice as well as ambition has had its
influence.
Desolation, arousing consideration and
thought in detached philanthropists, is daily
depriving the votaries of war of their sophisms
and pretences ; and, by the appearance in these
regions of the gentle Nymph of Peace, we
may presume the benefit of our present delibera-
tions will soon reach the human race.
The atrocity of Cain on Abel, has been
continued, in nearly uninterrupted succession,
by the moral descendants of the one, on the
moral descendants of the other; by ambition,
violence, and fraud ; on labour, industry, and
integrity.
It is our business to prepare for that period,
when the souls of all the votaries of violence, »
cruelty, and perfidy, shall finally wear the forms
of lions, tygers, panthers, and hyenas ; when
human societies shall be directed by principles
analogous to the affections and reason of men;
not the cunning and the passions of brutes.
Divine Egeria ! Behold before thee, the
principal authors of the truths and errors
now
173
now actuating Europe on the subject of riches.
Their discussions may assist some of thy pur-
poses, which are always benevolent, always
directed to the peace and happiness of man-
kind.
EGERIA.
It is one object of my mission, to disentangle
the complicated ideas which discussions on
riches and money have produced among men ;
and I cannot be more competently instructed
than by attending to this assembly.
MOSES.
I need not inform thee, amiable and intelli-
gent nymph, this assembly is at a great distance
from infallibility and perfection.
The spirit and disposition which first actuat-
ed Cain to obtain, by violence, the fruits of
his brother's attention and care, is the spirit of
war and conquest ; and the general origin of
that property, which has not been produced by
labour, industry, and the useful exercise of ge-
nius and talents.
To
174
To prevent superfluous discussion, I shall
state those previous truths in political economy,
from whence we may proceed to the question
before us.
The reason of man, directing labour in col-
lecting spontaneous, ai r l creating artificial pro-
ductions, supplies all the necessaries and con-
veniences of lire.
Reason, putting labour in motion, and col-
lecting its surplus produce, forms capital,
which furnishes means of multiplying that
labour.
Division of labour multiplies the surplus pro-
duce; and the disposal of that surplus creates
exchanges, first by barter, then b} r money ; and,
giving rise to trade and commerce, introduces
new principles of economy, and even of mo-
rals.
Here you stand.
EGERIA.
Nothing would be more useful to Europe,
at this time, than a conviction that this road to
riches cannot be shortened by war and depreda-
tion.
175
tion. It lias been desolated by religious wars,
which left scarcely a virtuous principle in auy
of its states. — And it is now actuated by a spirit
of hostility, 7 , on the subject of commercial
prosperity, which retards and prevents that
prosperity. England has not surmounted all
her errors on riches, and particularly on com-
merce. France, at least the government of
France, seems to be wholly actuated by pre-
judices.
ALFRED.
I do not mean to interrupt the present discus-
sion — but the difference between Britain and
France is very important, from che different
condition of their people, and their different
capacity, or susceptibility of public sentiments
and principles. — Britain is so arranged, its dif-
ferent classes are so connected, and in such a
state of sympathy, that it possesses a general
sensibility to all national sentiments.
France has not yet risen above what Hal-
LER would denominate irritability, of
which it possesses a great portion. France is
alive
176
alive to all impressions ; but they may be vari-
ous, contradictory and destructive of each
other, at the will of the impressing power. —
I his is not owing* to any defect in Frenchmen
as individuals, who are not inferior to any indivi-
duals in Europe; but to the various causes,
particularly to the wars, which have held the
organization of the people in its first state, that
of irritability; perhaps the most favourable
to the formation of modern armies, and the sta-
bility of modern tyrannies.
I interpose these sentiments from a love of
justice.
QUESXAI.
It is in thy usual manner, most equitable and
admirable prince ! — If the government of France,
at this important period, were under the direc-
tion of a spirit analogous to thine, M r e should
not be insulted with the barbarous phrases of
conquering Peace, and conquering Commerce.
The habits of England lead to commercial
monopolies ; those of France to war. By a
conquest of English territories, or even of
England, France would not succeed to its com-
6 mercial
177
mercial wealth; nor would England, by tlic
destruction of France, succeed to the possession
of its military spirit.
STEWART.
It is a pleasure to discuss such a subject with
such a mincKas that of Quesnai.
For the reason assigned by the great Alfred,
the most estimable philosopher of France, and
no nation abounds with philosophers more esti-
mable, are obliged to consider questions of this
nature in the abstract. Britain, who has ad-
vanced beyond all other nations in commercial
experience, has advanced by steps necessary in
the commencement of such undertakings ; i. e.
by the formation of companies, and the creation
of monopolies.
In certain conditions of nations, individuals
never travel but in parties or caravans ; and ne-
ver trade but in companies. When those com-
panies should be dissolved, is not a question of
abstract speculation, or often a consideration of
government : at the proper time they dissolve,
or discontinue themselves ; and they are never
justifiable
justifiable subjects of war, but when defended
from violence and depredation.
QIPESNAI.
But Britaix has formed its commercial es-
tablishments into political and military states
in subordination to itself, and to make war on
those subordinate states, it considers, not only
as making war on itself, but on commerce.
Whereas France sees, in those states, only the
abuses of monopoly ; and when it attempts
their destruction, it means only to destroy in
Britain the oppressive system of monopoly.
STEWART.
It was with similar apologies that Rome made
war on the prosperity of Carthage; but its
actuating reasons were, a general ambition, and
the vain imagination which now actuates the
government of France, and which is founded
on a similar ignorance of the nature of riches
and money ; that, by seizing and subduing
rich settlements and rich states, it must succeed
to all their riches.
' When
179
When Rome bad conquered Carthage, it
bestowed on Sctpio a false renown, which his-
tory will erase, when history is instructed in its
duties, and converted extensive and fertile re-
gions into oceans of barren sands; these are
the uniform and necessary effects of military
conquests. Military leaders, and military go-
vernments, know nothing of riches and money,
but in contributions to support troops. It is
possible that Scipio found not, in the whole city
of Carthage, as much of that sort of money
as he might have seized in the baggage of a
proconsul returning to Rome, after a success-
ful predatory administration. And London,
where fortune will never lead a French army in
the present temper and condition of Britain :
London is, of all the cities in the world, the
most destitute of what such calculators as Buo-
naparte and his brethren in arms, call money.
QUESNAI.
But it is the power conferred on Britain b}"
its monopolies, and the use it makes of that
power in Europe, that ever irritates the govern-
ment of France against her.
STEWA*RT.
180
STEWART.
I will not attempt to justify all the uses made
by Britain of her power, unless you should
wish to compare her, in that respect, with
France. But I affirm that her power is not
owing to her monopolies : many of them weaken
her ; and yet they cannot be abandoned, with-
out greater injury than can arise from that re-
duction of strength. Manv of the most opu-
lent of her settlements, though they enrich in-
dividuals, bestow on the country only the very
doubtful effect of a balance, which, by entering
a full circulation, raises prices against the labo-
rious and industrious.
The power of Britain arises from the nature
and state of its labour and industry ; from that
sympathetic arrangement of all its orders and
classes, which may be truly called its organisa-
tion, which bestows a real sensibility on all the
sound and healthy parts of the body of the na-
tion, which renders it susceptible of a higher
degree of public spirit, and capable of a more
uniform
181
uniform and permanent exertion, than any na-
tion on earth.
In France, which approaches the nearest to
it, but whose pretensions are much superior,
public declarations, sentiments and events, have
seldom any instantaneous effects beyond the
walls of Paris; in Britain, they instantly vi-
brate from the Orkneys to the Land's End.
QUESNAI.
I wish France would remain at peace until
she had acquired this sensibility, this capacity
of public principle.
STEWART.
I often hoped it would have been the indem-
nity for the complicated miseries of its revolu-
tion ; but its repetition of organisations and re-
organisations, have been the mockeries of ad-
venturers, who used them as sheaths, variously
disguised and decorated, for the same bloody
sword, destined to rule and enslave it.
In this state of France, rich in military re-
sources, and possessing a vast territory in the
centie
centre of Europe ; an enlightened plan of po*
licy and commerce ; and a liberal tolerance of
other powerful nations, which is a necessary part
of such a plan, is not to be expected. Britain
itself is not more interested in its own general
commerce, than France is in that commerce; it
is not so much interested in its own monopolies.
The first part of this proposition has been re-
peatedly proved in my inquiry ; more at large
in the History of the Wealth of Nations;
and still more in various commentaries and ex-
planations of that work.
The latter part I will illustrate by a supposed
example. If the French expedition to Egypt
had succeeded to the expulsion of the English
from India, the consequence would have been,
not a transfer of ri.ches of India to France, for such
riches cannot be transferred, hut an extinction
of many branches of commerce, now affording
subsistence and comfort to millions, with very
little, perhaps no abatement, of the real strength
of Britain. On the other hand, if France.
or until France can acquire a national mind, if
its government could be instructed to trade to
India,
183
India, after the manner of America, with supe-
perior advantages, it might act on truly philo-
sophical principles of commerce, and leave to
Britain the equivocal effects of its necessary
monopolies. It would soon obtain the cream
of that commerce. No! says a military hero,
I will seize the cow ; and in the 'attempt the
animal is killed.
QUESNAt.
I am not a politician, I am only an econo-
mist. I know no immediate remedy for this
menacing evil; it must operate the effects it
produced by the prevalence of Rome over Car-
thage, and by the universal despotism, igno-
rance, and darkness it produced.
EGEIUA.
That remedy is similar to all the remedies pro-
jected in the French revolution, which all com-
menced with the dissolution or destruction of
the thing to be remedied. In the medical
world, the semi-quacks, who have pretended to
ascertain the various sorts of air which com-
3 pose
184
pose the human body, and proposed to fur-
nish any that may be wanting in its composi-
tion, have not yet proceeded to the extrava-
gance of proposing its dissolution, in order
to recompose it. This is precisely the proposi-
tion of modern reformers. The Roman hypo-
crisy rested* simply on the pretence of assisting
the oppressed in other states, against their op-
pressors, covering the determination to involve
both in destruction.
One of the principles of French reform-
ers has been copied from the Roman policy, of
interference with the internal administration of
other nations ; and if the experiment, now sup-
posed to be intended on Britain, could have
been made in 1792, we might have had the
story of Rome and Carthage repeated. But
at this time it seems impracticable : for though
Fiance may have greatly added to her military
skill and strength, Britain has acquired una-
nimity; she has purged her political body of
those nests of vermin, called political societies,
which had nearly burrowed into her vitals, and
she now appears in a healthy and vigorous con-
dition.
Carthage
185
Carthage was sacrificed to her own divi-
sions, rather than to the valour of Roman ban-
ditti, called armies : no banditti can subdue
Britain, if she continue, as she now seems to
be, true to herself.
The cases are not similar in several respects;
and I hope, for the interest of humanity, the
event will be very different. The similarity
consists principally in the error concerning
riches, and the lure of plunder, held out to
depraved and unprincipled armies, by ambitious
and ferocious leaders.
Those leaders are assiduous in fostering prin-
ciples, which would disgrace hordes of savages,
in their intercourse with each other.
I expect not that chiefs, bred in camps, and
enured to bloodshed and misery, would sacri-
fice the smallest gratification of their ambition
to considerations of public good or humanity ;
but I should hope to influence Britain by
considerations of a public nature, added to
those of the interest of all its inhabitants.
The spurious, unnatural power, generated by
the French revolution, would not only extin-
ct guish
186
guish every spark of civil and political liberty
in Europe; but it would be particularly grati-
fied in destroying that beautiful system of
credit, which is peculiar to Britain ; which
a government, like that of France, can never
establish, and which is a perpetual stigma on
that government.
LOCKE.
This is a novelty in politics : how often have
the prophets of destruction foretold the ruin of
Britain from its credit.
STEWART.
I do not affirm there can be no riches
without such a system ; but I am sure there can
be no money, properly so called ; and it would
be a less misfortune to humanity if all the
armies of Europe, and all their leaders (some
of whom however are most respectable men)
were obliterated from the earth, than that the
discovery made in Britain of the nature and
use of money, and the system of credit
erected on it, should be affected or destined.
QUESNAI.
187
QUESNAT.
This is rather severe. When the French re-
formers first stated their pretensions and plan
of government, I said, ' It is the young oak,
whose roots may he firmly fixed by a storm.'
But the plan has been defeated ; and every
blockhead can exclaim, the vanquished are in
the wrong i The errors of that event have pro-
duced numerous and powerful armies, in which
the general government of Europe is now in-
vested : armies thus constituted are perpetual
checks on the progress of national improve-
ments, and the instruments of national ruin:
armies, and the despots* generally leading them,
think they find their glory and their interests
in interrupting the acquisitions of knowledge,
and dissipating the accumulations of sober and
honest industry. Substituting personal for so-
cial properties, they annihilate domestic morals
and the felicities of general society. They dif-
fuse a licentious ferocity and rapacious injus-
tice ; the effects of which are generally hostile
- that can be wished from the
answer be granted, peace is restored*; what is
called the vicious circulation, by war, is di-
minished ; and money consolidates and stag-
nates. Can even your sanguine imagination
presume, that a circulation could be substituted,
equal to all the present taxes of Britain, ex-
pended, perhaps, principally in the occupations
of destruction ? The real price of work is ge-
nerally forced below that of a comfortable sub-
sistence ; and the diminution of taxes could
hardly ever be effected without the extinction
of some portion of industry.
TURGOT.
* Written before the war was determined upon in 1803.
260
TURGOT.
I thought the opinion of Queen Elizabeth, a
maxim of political economy in England, ' The
" treasures of a Prince are never so well placed
1 as in the pockets of his subjects.'
STEWART.
The truth of such a maxim does not affect the
present question. The accumulations of sur-
plus wealth, which take the denomination of
National Debt, and whose interest raises prices
by creating taxes, could not be hoarded by in-
dividuals without extinguishing half the indus-
try of Britain. And if heavy taxes, when im-
posed, were suddenly taken off, the large sums
circulated by them would disappear. It is de-
mand for exchange by circulation that creates
money. Taxes raise prices, and require addi-
tional portions or denominations of money as
the means of payments. When the taxes cease,
the additional money, instead of being distri-
buted among those who paid them, will cease to
exist and act as money.
The cessation of taxes may therefore, if not
counteracted by prudent provisions, very inju-
riously
231
i'iously interrupt the industry and employment
of the people.
RICHARD PRICE.
The subject has always been differently un-
derstood in Britain ; and even a Bishop * has
lately grasped at popularity, by proposing that
the National Debt should be at once extin-
guished by every man's allotment of an equi-
table portion of his property.
STEWART.
The Bishop might have found more useful
occupation, by a residence in his diocese, than
by enlisting among those political theorists and
projectors who never consider consequences.
If rive hundred millions were at once thrown
into a circulation, already full from the in-
terest alone, where are the faculties either of
labour, industry, or commerce which could
absorb them ? Such a measure would produce a
revolution of greater violence, and of more
calamitous consequences than any suggested by
the wild imagination of Wakefield. Wakefield
was punished for his extravagancies. — I do not
wish
* Dr. Watson, Bishop of LlandafF,
£6 ( 2
wish the punishment of the Bishop. — J have nd
objection to his promotion, except that it should
be the consequence of this project, as the re-
ward would befal ignorance.
Were all the landlords of Britain to offer their
lands for sale, they would first sink their value
and then find no market ; circulation would be
immediately glutted, and interest would fall to
nothing.
But I will not proceed among these direful
consequences.
TURGOT.
Commodities may produce as much in effect
by their exchange, though they may sink in
denomination.
STEWART.
So it may appear in theory; but the expe-
rience of Spain, Portugal, and other countries
where great and sudden changes took place in
the denominations of money, warrant no such
conclusions.
If the pound sterling should advance five per
cent, in value by withdrawing taxes, as it has
sunk by laying them on, who shall guard
either an individual or the public from being
2 obliged
26*3
obliged to pay a just and fair annuity or salary
in the same number or denomination ? And
would not this be discharging contracts, ac-
cording to language/ and not according to
things ?
The removal of the public debt cannot be of
any considerable benefit to the people at large ;
when they have fully acquired the habit of unit-
ing ideas of low value to high denominations of
money. Debtors and purchasers will profit by
deductions; but when the action of the sinking
fund is generally felt, and taxes are removed ;
unless the government instruct the people, by
making fair conversions in the receipt of taxes ;
unless commodities be obliged to follow the pro-
portions of apparent depreciation, by new regu-
lations of assize, and by occasionally distribut-
ing tables of prices, and of all the consequences
of the variations of coins; they must become
the prey of jobbers in all the articles of alien-
ation.
TURCOT.
I fear you have hinted at provisions which
will never be made.
A a Laws
26*4
Laws on money, are made by lawyers, who
are generally place-men, pensioners, or persona
having- some permanent contracts against the
people.
These contracts — to which there is actually
but one party, are made in times of agitation,
of war, or of some supposed distress, when money
is depreciated ; and they are discharged in
peace, perhaps in perpetuity, by the same deno-
minations of money, but greatly increased in
value.
STEWART.
In this, as in every discussion, I have con-
sidered all human measures as mingled good
and evil.
The general error of political philosophers
has been to treat of them as un mingled. The
anticipation of revenues, and the contraction of
debts, they have pronounced to be the infliction
of evil; and the removal of that evil in any
manner, or by any means, an unquestionable and
most desireable benefit.
Facts, which always represent the condition
of humanity as a mingled state, never separate
good and evil; and in the administration of re-
medies
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