Webehold daily the most important rights, rights upon which all the others depend, we behold these rights
determined
in the last resort, without the least attention even to the appearance or color of jus
tice; we behold this without emotion, because we have grown up in the constant view of such practices; and we are not surprised to hear man requested to be knave and traitor, with as much indifference as the most ordinary favor were asked; and we hear this request refused, not because most unjust and unreasonable desire, but because this Worthy has already engaged his injustice to another.
tice; we behold this without emotion, because we have grown up in the constant view of such practices; and we are not surprised to hear man requested to be knave and traitor, with as much indifference as the most ordinary favor were asked; and we hear this request refused, not because most unjust and unreasonable desire, but because this Worthy has already engaged his injustice to another.
Edmund Burke
In short, the regular and methodical proceedings of an aristocraqy are more intolerable than the very excesses of a despotism, and, in general, much further from any remedy.
Thus, my lord, we have pursued aristocracy through its whole progress; we have seen the seeds, the
and the fruit. It could boast none of the advantages of a despotism, miserable as those advan tages were, and it was overloaded with an exuberance of mischiefs, unknown even to despotism itself. effect, no more than disorderly tyranny. This form, therefore, could be little approved, even in speculation, by those who were capable of thinking, and could be less borne in practice by any who were capable of feeling. However, the fruitful policy of man was not yet exhausted. He had yet anothei
? growth,
? ? it is
a
'In
? 38 A v1NmoAT1oN
or NATURAL SOCIETY.
farthing candle to supply the deficiencies of the sun. This was the third form, known by political writers under the name of democracy. Here the people transacted all public business, or the greater part of
in their own persons; their laws were made by themselves, and, upon any failure of duty, their offi
to themselves, and to them In all appearance, they had secured by this method the advantages of order and good government,
cers were accountable only.
without paying their liberty for the purchase. Now, my lord, we are come to the masterpiece of Grecian refinement, and Roman solidity, -- popular govern ment. The earliest and most celebrated republic of this model was that of Athens. It was constructed. by no less an artist than the celebrated poet and philosopher, Solon. But no sooner was this political vessel launched from the stocks, than overset, even in the lifetime of the builder. A tyranny immedi ately supervened; not by foreign conquest, not by accident, but by the very nature and constitution of
? An artful man became popular, the people had power in their hands, and they devolved a
democracy.
share of their power upon their favorite and the only use he made of this power was, to plunge
considerable
into slavery. Accident restored their liberty, and the same good fortune produced
men of uncommon abilities and uncommon virtues
them. But these abilities were suffered to be of little service either to their possessors or to the state. Some of these men, for whose sakes alone we read their history, they banished; others they impris oned, and all they treated with various circumstances of the most shameful ingratitude. Republics have many things in the spirit of absolute monarchy, but
those who gave
amongst
? ? it
;
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it,
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? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrx.
39
none more than this. A shining merit is ever hated or suspected in a popular assembly, as well as in a court; and all services done the state are looked upon as dangerous to the rulers, whether sultans or senators. The ostracism at Athens was built upon this principle. The giddy people whom we have now under consideration, being elated with some flashes of success, which they owed to nothing less than any merit of their own, began to tyrannize over their equals, who had associated with them for their com mon defence. With their prudence they renounced all appearance of justice. They entered into wars rashly and wantonly. If they were unsuccessful, in stead of growing wiser by their misfortune, they threw the whole blame of their own misconduct on the min isters who had advised, and the generals who had conducted, those wars ; until by degrees they had cut off all who could serve them in their councils or their battles. If at any time these wars had a happier issue, it was no less difficult to deal with them on account of their pride and insolence. Furious in their adversity, tyrannical in their successes, a commander had more trouble to concert his defence before the people, than to plan the operations of the campaign.
It was not uncommon for a general, under the horrid despotism of the Roman emperors, to be ill received in proportion to the greatness of his services. Agri cola is a strong instance of this. No man had done greater things, nor with more honest ambition. Yet, on his return to court, he was obliged to enter Rome with all the secrecy of a criminal. He went to the palace, not like a victorious commander who had merited and might demand the greatest rewards, but like an offender who had come to supplicate a pardon
~
? ? ? ? 40 A T/'INDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY.
for his crimes. His reception was answerable ; " Exceptusque brevi osculo et nullo sermone, turboe ser vientiurn immixtas est. " Yet in that worst season of this worst of monarchical* tyrannies, modesty, dis cretion, and a coolness of temper, formed some kind of security, even for the highest merit. But at Athens, the nicest and best studied behavior was not a sufficient guard for a man of great capacity. Some of their bravest commanders were obliged to fly their country, some to enter into the service of its enemies, rather than abide a popular determination on their conduct, lest, as one of them said, their giddiness might make the people condemn where they meant to acquit ; to throw in a black bean even when they intended a white one.
The Athenians made a very rapid progress to the most enormous excesses. The people, under no re straint, soon 'grew dissolute, luxurious, and idle. They renounced all labor, and began to subsist them selves from the public revenues. They lost all con cern for their common honor or safety, and could bear no advice that tended to reform them. At this time truth became offensive to those lords the people, and most highly dangerous to the speaker. The ora tors no longer ascended the rostrum, but to corrupt them further with the most fulsome adulation. These orators were all bribed by foreign princes on the one side or the other. And besides its own parties, in this city there were parties, and avowed ones too, for the Persians, Spartans, and Macedonians, supported each of them by one or more demagognes pensioned and bribed to this iniquitous service. The people,
* Sciant quibus moris illicita mi|'m'i, posse etiam sub malis prin cipibus magnos viros, &c. Sec 42, to the end of it. .
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIIJTY.
forgetful of all virtue and public spirit, and intoxi cated with the flatteries of their orators (these court iers of republics, and endowed with the distinguishing characteristics of all other courtiers), this people, I say, at last arrived at that pitch of madness, that they coolly and deliberately, by an express law, made it capital for any man to propose an application of the immense sums squandered in public shows, even to the most necessary purposes of the state. When you see the people of this republic banishing and murder ing their best and ablest citizens, dissipating the pub lie treasure with the most senseless extravagance, and spending their whole time, as spectators or actors, in playing, fiddling, dancing, and singing, does it not, my lord, strike your imagination with the image of a sort of complex Nero? And does it not strike you with the greater horror, when you observe, not one man only, but a whole city, grown drunk with pride and power, running with a rage of folly into the same mean and senseless debauchery and extravagance? But if this people resembled Nero in their extrava gance, much more did they resemble and even exceed him in cruelty and injustice. In the time of Pericles, one of the most celebrated times in the history of that
commonwealth, a king of Egypt sent them a donation of corn. This they were mean enough to accept. And had the Egyptian prince intended the ruin of this city of wicked Bedlamites, he could not have taken a more effectual method to do it than by such an ensnaring largess. The distribution of this bounty caused a quarrel; the majority set on foot an inquiry
into the title of the citizens; and upon a vain pre tence of illegitimacy, newly and occasionally set up, they deprived of their share of the royal donation no
? ? ? ? 4:2 A VINDIGATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
less than five thousand of their own body. They went further; they disfranchised them; and, having once begun with an act of injustice, they could set no bounds to it. Not content with cutting them off from the rights of citizens, they plundered these unfortu nate wretches of all their substance; and, to crown this masterpiece of violence and tyranny, they actu ally sold every man of the five thousand as slaves in the public market. Observe, my lord, that the five thousand we here speak of were cut oif from a body of no more than nineteen thousand; for the entire number of citizens was no greater at that time. Could the tyrant who wished the Roman people but one neck; could the tyrant Caligula himself
? have done, nay, he could scarcely wish for, a greater mis
chief than to have cut off', at one stroke, a fourth of his people? Or has the cruelty of that series of san guine tyrants, the Caesars, ever presented such a piece of flagrant and extensive wickedness? The whole history of this celebrated republic is but one tissue of rashness, folly, ingratitude, injustice, tumult, violence, and tyranny, and, indeed, of every species of wicked ness that can well be imagined. This was a city of wise men, in which a minister could not exercise his functions; a warlike people, amongst whom a gen eral did not dare either to gain or lose a battle; a learned nation, in which a philosopher could not ven ture on a free inquiry. This was the city which ban ished Themistocles, starved Aristides, forced into ex
ile Miltiades, drove out Anaxagoras, and poisoned Socrates. This was a city which changed the form of its government with the moon; eternal conspirm cies, revolutions daily, nothing fixed and established. A republic, as an ancient philosopher has observed, is
? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrr. _ 43
no one species of government, but a magazine of every species ; here you find every sort of and that in the worst form. As there perpetual change, one ris ing and the other falling, you have all the violence and wicked policy by which beginning power must always acquire its strength, and all the weakness by which falling states are brought to complete de struction.
Rome has more venerable aspect than Athens; and she conducted her affairs, so far as related to the ruin and oppression of the greatest part of the world, with greater wisdom and more uniformity. But the domestic economy of these two states was nearly or altogether the same. An internal dissension con stantly tore to pieces the bowels of the Roman com monwealth. You find the same confusion, the same factions, which subsisted at Athens, the same tu mults, the same revolutions, and, in fine, the same slavery; perhaps, their former condition did not deserve that name altogether as well. All other re publics were of the same character. Florence was
transcript of Athens. And the modern republics, as they approach more or less to the democratic form, partake more or less of the nature of those which have described.
We are now at the close of our review of the three simple forms of artificial society and we have shown them, however they may differ in name, or in some slight circumstances, to be all alike in effect: in effect, to be all tyrannies. But suppose we were inclined to make the most ample concessions; let us concede Athens, Rome, Carthage, and two or three more of the ancient, and as many of the mod ern, commonwealths, to have been, or to be, free
? ? ? ;
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a
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? 44: A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
and happy, and to owe their freedom and happiness to their political constitution. Yet, allowing all this, what defence does this make for artificial society in general, that these inconsiderable spots of the globe have for some short space of time stood as exceptions to a charge so general? But when we call these governments free, or concede that their citizens were happier than those which lived under different forms, it is merely ex abundanti. For we should be greatly mistaken, if we really thought that the majority of the people which filled these cities enjoyed even that nominal political freedom of which I have spoken so much already. In reality, they had no part of it. In Athens there were usually from ten to thirty thousand freemen; this was the utmost. But the slaves usually amounted to four hundred thousand, and sometimes to a great many more. The freemen of Sparta and Rome were not more numerous in pro portion to those whom they held in a slavery even more terrible than the Athenian. Therefore state the matter fairly: the free states never formed, though they were taken altogether, the thousandth part of the habitable globe; the freemen in these states were never the twentieth part of the people, and the time they subsisted is scarce anything in that immense ocean 'of duration in which time and slavery are so nearly commensurate. Therefore call these free states, or popular governments, or what you please; when we consider the majority of their inhabitants, and regard the natural _rights of man kind, they must appear, in reality and truth, no bet ter than pitiful and oppressive oligarchies.
After so fair an examen, wherein nothing has been exaggerated; no fact produced which cannot
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY. 45
be proved, and none which has been produced in any wise forced or strained, while thousands have, for brevity, been omitted; after so candid a discus sion in all respects; what slave so passive, what bigot so blind, what enthusiast so headlong, what politician so hardened, as to stand up in defence of a system calculated for a curse to mankind? a curse under which they smart and groan to this hour, without thoroughly knowing the nature of the disease, and wanting understanding or courage to supply the remedy.
I need not excuse myself to your lordship, nor, I think, to any honest man, for the zeal I have shown in this cause;'f0r it is an honest zeal, and in a good cause. I have defended natural religion against a confederacy of atheists and divines. I now plead for"natural society against politicians, and for natural reason against all three. When the world is in a fitter temper than it is at present to hear truth, or when I shall be more indifferent about its temper, my thoughts may become more public. In the mean time, let them repose in my own bosom, and in the bosoms of such men as are fit to be ini tiated in the sober mysteries of truth and reason. My antagonists have already done as much as I could desire. Parties in religion and politics make suffi cient discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober man a proper caution against them all. The monarchic, and aristocratical, and popular partisans, have been jointly laying their axes to the root of all government, and have, in their turns, proved each other absurd and inconvenient. In vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that I fall out only with the abuse. The thing! the thing itself is
? ? ? ? 4:6 A VINDICATION OF' NATURAL SOCIETY.
the abuse! Observe, my lord, I pray yon, that grand error upon which all artificial legislative power is founded. It was observed, that men had ungovern able passions, which made it necessary to guard against the violence they might offer to each other. They appointed governors over them for this reason. But a worse and more perplexing difficulty arises, how to be defended against the governors? eustodiet ipsos custodes? In vain they change from a single person to a few. These few have the passions
of the one ; and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the gratification of their lawless pas sions at the expense of the general good. In vain do we fly to the many. lThe case is worse; their passions are less under the government of reason, they are augmented by the contagion, and defended against all attacks by their multitude.
Qais
? I have purposely avoided the mention of the mixed form of government, for reasons that will be very obvious to your lordship. But my caution can avail me but little. You will not fail to urge it against me in favor of political society. You will not fail to
show how the errors of the several simple modes are corrected by a mixture of all of them, and a proper balance of the several powers in such a state. I confess, my lord, that this has been long a darling mistake of my own; and that of all the sacrifices I have made to truth, this has been by far the greatest. When I confess that I think this notion a mistake, I know to whom I am speaking, for I am satisfied that reasons are like liquors, and there are some of such a nature as none but strong heads can bear. There are few with whom I can communicate so freely as with Pope. But Pope cannot bear every truth. He
? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrr. 47
has a timidity which hinders the full exertion of his faculties, almost as effectually as bigotry cramps those
of the general herd of mankind.
genuine follower of truth keeps his eye steady upon his guide, indifferent whither he is led, provided that she is the leader. And, my lord, if it be properly con sidered, it were infinitely better to remain possessed by the whole legion of vulgar mistakes, than to re ject some, and at the same time to retain a fondnws for others altogether as absurd and irrational.
first has at least a consistency, that makes a man,
however erroneously, uniform at least; but the latter way of proceeding is such an inconsistent chimera and jumble of philosophy and vulgar prejudice, that hardly anything more ridiculous can be conceived. Let us therefore freely, and without fear or prejudice, examine this last contrivance of policy. And, with out considering how near the quick our instruments
may come, let us search it to the bottom.
First, then,'all men are agreed that this junction of
regal, aristocratic, and popular power, must form a very complex, nice, and intricate machine, wl. . c'h being composed of such a variety of parts, with such opposite tendencies and movements, it must be liable on every accident to be disordered. To speak with out metaphor, such a government must be liable to frequent cabals, tumults, and revolutions, from its very constitution. These are undoubtedly as ill effects as can happen in a society; for in such a case, the closeness acquired by community, instead of serv ing for mutual defence, serves only to increase the
danger. Such a system is like a city, where trades that require constant fires are much exercised, where the houses are built of combustible materials, and where they stand extremely close.
But whoever is a
The
? ? ? ? 48 A v1NmcAT1oN or NATURAL SOCIETY.
In the second place, the several constituent 'parts having their distinct rights, and these many of them so necessary to be determined with exactness, are yet so indeterminate in their nature, that it becomes a new and constant source of debate and confusion. Hence it that whilst the business of government should be carrying on, the question Who has right to exercise this or that fimction of or what men have power to keep their ofiices in any function? Whilst this contest continues, and whilst the balance in any sort continues, has never any remission all manner of abuses and villanies i11 officers remain un
? the greatest frauds and robberies in the public revenues are committed in defiance of justice; and abuses grow, by time and impunity, into cus toms; until they prescribe against the laws, and grow too inveterate often to admit cure, unless such as may be as bad as the disease.
Thirdly, the several parts of this species of govern ment, though united, preserve the spirit which each form has separately. Kings are ambitious; the no bility haughty; and the populace tumultuous and ungovernable. Each party, however in appearance peaceable, carries on design upon the others and
owing to this, that in all questions, whether con cerning foreign or domestic affairs, the whole gener
ally turns more upon some party-matter than upon
the nature of the thing itself; whether such
will diminish or augment the power of the crown, or how far the privileges of the subject are likely to be extended or restricted by it. And these questions are constantly resolved, without any consideration of the merits of the cause, merely as the parties who uphold these jarring interests may chance to prevail
punished;
step
? ? is
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it
;
is, it,
a
; it a
a
;
is,
? A VINDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY. 49
and as they prevail, the balance is overset, now upon one side, now upon the other. The government one day, arbitrary power in single person another,
juggling confederacy of few to cheat the prince and enslave the people and the third, frantic and unmanageable democracy. The great instrument of all these changes, and what infuses peculiar venom into all of them, party. It of no consequence what the principles of any party, or what their preten sions are the spirit which actuates all parties the same; the spirit of ambition, of self-interest, of op pression and treachery. This spirit entirely reverses all the principles which benevolent nature has erected within us all honesty, all equal justice, and even the ties of natural society, the natural affections. In word, my lord, we have all seen, and, any out ward considerations were worthy the lasting concern of wise man, we have some of us felt, such oppres sion from party government as no other tyranny can parallel.
Webehold daily the most important rights, rights upon which all the others depend, we behold these rights determined in the last resort, without the least attention even to the appearance or color of jus
tice; we behold this without emotion, because we have grown up in the constant view of such practices; and we are not surprised to hear man requested to be knave and traitor, with as much indifference as the most ordinary favor were asked; and we hear this request refused, not because most unjust and unreasonable desire, but because this Worthy has already engaged his injustice to another. These and many more points am far from spreading to their full extent. You are sensible that do not
put forth half my strength; and you cannot be at vot. 1.
? ? ? 4
I a
it is a
if
a
;
I
a
a
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if a
a
a
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;
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;
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;
a
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? 50 VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
loss for the reason. A man is allowed sufficient free dom of thought, provided he knows how to choose his subject properly. You may criticise freely upon the Chinese constitution, and observe with as much severity as you please upon the absurd tricks, or de structive bigotry of the bonzees. But the scene is changed as you come homeward, and atheism or trea son may be the names given in Britain, to what would be reason and truth if asserted of China. I submit to the condition, and though I have a notorious ad vantage before me, I waive the pursuit. For else, my lord, it is very obvious what a picture might be drawn of the excesses of party even in our own na tion. I could show, that the same faction has, in one reign, promoted popular seditions, and, in the next, been a patron of tyranny: I could show that they have all of them betrayed the public safety at
all times, and have very frequently with equal perfidy made a market of their own cause and their own associates. I could show how vehemently they have contended for names, and how silently they have passed over things of the last importance. And I could demonstrate that they have had the opportunity of doing all this misclnef, nay, that they themselves had their origin and growth from that complex form of government, which we are wisely taught to look upon as so great a blessing. Revolve, my lord, our history from the Conquest. We scarcely ever had a prince, who, by fraud or violence, had not made some infringement on the constitution. We scarcely ever had a Parliament which knew, when it attempted to
set limits to the royal authority, how to set limits to its own. Evils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
evils. Our boasted liberty sometimes trodden down, sometimes giddily set up, and ever precariously fluctu ating and unsettled ; it has only been kept alive by the blasts of continual feuds, wars, and conspiracies. In no country in Europe has the scaffold so often blushed with the blood of its nobility. Confiseations, banish ments, attainders, executions, make a large part of the history of such of our families as are not utterly extinguished by them. Formerly, indeed, things had a more ferocious appearance than they have at this day. In these early and unrefined ages, the jarring part of a certain chaotic constitution supported their several pretensions by the sword. Experience and policy have since taught other methods.
At nunc res agitur tenui pulmone rubetm.
? But how far corruption, vcnality, the contempt of honor, the oblivion of all duty to our country, and the most abandoned public prostitution, are prefer able to the more glaring and violent effects of faction, I will not presume to determine. Sure I am that they are very great evils.
I have done with the forms of government. Dur ing the course of my inquiry you may have observed a very material difference between my manner of rea soning and that which is in 'use amongst the abet tors of artificial society. They form their plans upon what seems most eligible to their imaginations, for the ordering of mankind. I discover the mistakes in those plans, from the real known consequences which have resulted from them. They have enlisted reason to fight against itself, and employ its whole force to prove that it is an insufficient guide to them in the conduct of their lives. But unhappily for us, in pro portion as we have deviated from the plain rule of our
? ? ? 52 A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
nature, and turned our reason against itself, in that proportion have we increased the follies and miseries of mankind. The more deeply we penetrate into the labyrinth of art, the further we find ourselves from those ends for which we entered it. This has hap pened in ahnost every species of artificial society, and in all times. We found, or we thought we found, an inconvenience in having every man the judge of his own cause. Therefore judges were set up, at first, with discretionary powers. But it was soon found a miserable slavery to have our lives and properties pre carious, and hanging upon the arbitrary determina tion of any one man, or set of men. We fled to laws as a remedy for this evil. By these we persuaded ourselves we might know with some certainty upon what ground we stood. But lo ! differences arose up on the sense and interpretation of these laws. Thus we were brought back to our old incertitude. New laws were made to expound the old; and new diffi culties arose upon the new laws ; as words multiplied, opportunities of cavilling upon them multiplied also. Then recourse was had to notes, comments, glosses,
? learned readings: eagle stood against eagle: authority was set up against authority. Some were allured by the modern, others
reverenced the ancient. The new were more enlight ened, the old were more venerable. Some adopted the comment, others stuck to the text. The confusion increased, the mist thickened, until it could be dis covered no longer what was allowed or forbidden, what things were in property, and what common. In this uncertainty, (uncertain even to the professors, an Egyptian darkness to the rest of mankind), the contending parties felt themselves more effectually
reports, responsa prudentum,
? ? ? 4 VINDICATION or NATURAL soomrv. 53
ruined by the delay, than they could have been by the injustice of any decision. Our inheritances are become a prize for disputation ; and disputes and liti gations are become an inheritance.
The professors of artificial law have always walked hand in hand with the professors of artificial theology. As their end, in confounding the reason of man, and abridging his natural freedom, is exactly the same, they have adjusted the means to that end in a way entirely similar. The divine thunders out his anath emas with more noise and terror against the breach of one of his . positive institutions, or the neglect of some of his trivial forms, than against the neglect or breach of those duties and commandments of natural religion, which by these forms and institutions he pre tends to enforce. The lawyer has his forms, and his positive institutions too, and he adheres to them with a veneration altogether as religious. The worst cause cannot be so prejudicial to the litigant, as his advo cate's or attorney's ignorance or neglect of these forms. A lawsuit is like an ill-managed dispute, in which the first object is soon out of sight, and the
parties end upon a matter wholly foreign to that on which they began. In a lawsuit the question is, who has a right to a certain house or farm? And this question is daily determined, not upon the evidence of the right, but upon the observance or neglect of some forms of words in use with the gentlemen of the robe, about which there is even amongst themselves such a disagreement, that the most experienced vet erans in the profession can never be positively assured that they are not mistaken.
Let us expostulate with these learned sages, these priests of the sacred temple of justice. Are we judges
? ? ? ? 54 A v1Nn1cAT1oN or NATURAL SOCIETY.
of our own property? By no means. You then, who are initiated into the mysteries of the blindfold god dess, inform me whether I have a right to eat the bread I have earned by the hazard of my life or the sweat of my brow ? The grave doctor answers me 1n the affirmative ; the reverend serjeant replies in the negative ; the learned barrister reasons upon one side and upon the other, and concludes nothing. What shall I do? An antagonist starts up and presses me
hard. I enter the field, and retain these three per sons to defend my cause. My cause, which two farm ers from the plough could have decided in half an hour, takes the court twenty years. I am however at the end of my labor, and have in reward for all my toil and vexation a judgment in my favor. But hold --a sagacious commander, in the adversary's army, has found a flaw in the proceeding. My triumph is turned into mourning. I have used or, instead of and, or some mistake, small in appearance, but dread ful in its consequences; and have the whole of my success quashed in a writ of error. I remove my suit; I shift from court to court; I fly from equity to law, and from law to equity; equal uncertainty attends me everywhere; and a mistake in which I had no share, decides at once upon my liberty and property, sending me from the court to a prison, and adjudging my family to beggary and famine. I am innocent, gentlemen, of the darkness and uncertainty of your science. I never darkened it with absurd and contradictory notions, nor confounded it with chicane and sophistry. You have excluded me from any share in the conduct of my own cause; the science was too deep for me; I acknowledged it ; but it was too deep even for yourselves: you have made the way
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY. 55
so intricate, that you are yourselves lost in it; you err, and you punish me for your errors.
The delay of the law your lordship will tell me, trite topic, and which of its abuses have not been too severely felt not to be complained of? man's
to serve for the purposes of his support and therefore, to delay determination concerning that, the worst injustice, 'because cuts off the very end and purpose for which applied to the judicature for relief. Quite contrary in the case of
man's life there the determination can hardly be too much protracted. Mistakes in this case are as often fallen into as many other and the judgment
sudden, the mistakes are the most irretrievable of all others. Of this the gentlemen of the robe are
themselves sensible, and they have brought into maxim. De morte homimls nulla est cunctatio longa. But what could have induced them to reverse the rules, and to contradict that reason which dictated them, am utterly unable to guess. point con cerning property, which ought, for the reasons have just mentioned, to be most speedily decided, fre
exercises the wit of successions of lawyers, for many generations. Malta virtim volvens durando stecula vincit. But the question concerning man's life, that great question in which no delay ought to be counted tedious, commonly determined in twenty-four hours at the utmost. It not to be wondered at, that injustice and absurdity should be inseparable companions.
Ask of politicians the end for which laws were orig inally designed; and they will answer, that the laws were designed as protection for the poor and weak,
the oppression of the rich and powerful
property
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is
? 56 A v1Nn1cAT1oN or NATURAL socmrv.
But surely no pretence can be so ridiculous; a man might as well tell me he has taken off my load, be cause he has changed the burden. If the poor man is not able to support his suit, according to the vex atious and expensive manner established in civilized countries, has not the rich as great an advantage over him as the strong has over the weak in a state of nature? But we will not place the state of na ture, which is the reign of God, in competition with political society, which is the absurd usurpation of man. In a state of nature, it is true that a man of superior force may beat or rob me; but then it is true, that I am at full liberty to defend myself, or make reprisal by surprise or by cunning, or by any other way in which I may be superior to him. But in political society, a rich man may rob me in an other way. I cannot defend myself; for money is the only weapon with which we are allowed to fight. And if I attempt to avenge myself the whole force of
gins, religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends? It is hard to say, whether the doctors of law or divinity have made the greater advances in the lucrative business of mystery. The lawyers, as well as the theologians, have erected another reason be sides natural reason; and the result has been, an other justice besides natural justice, They have so bewildered the world and themselves in unmeaning forms and ceremonies, and so perplexed the plainest matters with metaphysical jargon, that it carries the highest danger to a man out of that profession, to make the least step without their advice and as
? that society is ready to complete my ruin.
A good parson once said, that where mystery be
? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrr. 57
sistance. Thus, by confining to themselves the
of the foundation of all men's lives and properties, they have reduced all mankind into the most abject and servile dependence. We are ten ants at the will of these gentlemen for everything; and a metaphysical quibble is to decide whether the greatest villain breathing shall meet his deserts, or
with impunity, or whether the best man in the society shall not be reduced to the lowest and most despicable condition it affords. In a word, my lord, the injustice, delay, puerility, false refinement, and affected mystery of the law are such, that many who
live under it come to admire and envy the expedi tion, simplicity, and equality of arbitrary judgments. I need insist the less on this article to your lordship, as you have frequently lamented the miseries derived to us from artificial law, and your candor is the more to be admired and applauded in this, as your lord
knowledge
escape
? noble house has derived its wealth and its
ship's
honors from that profession.
Before we finish our examination of artificial soci ety, I shall lead your lordship into a closer consider ation of the relations which it gives birth to, and the benefits, if such they are, which result from these re lations. The most obvious division of society'is into rich and poor; and it is no less obvious, that the
of the former bear a great disproportion to those of the latter. The whole business of the poor is to administer to the idleness, folly, and luxury of the rich; and that of the rich, in return, is to find
the best methods of confirming the slavery and in creasing the burdens of the poor. In a state of na ture, it is an invariable law, that a man's acquisitions are in proportion to his labors. In a state of artificial
number
? ? ? 58 A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
society, it is a law as constant and as invariable, that those who labor most enjoy the fewest things; and that those who labor not at all have the greatest num ber of enjoyments. A constitution of things this, strange and ridiculous beyond expression ! We scarce believe a thing when we are told which we actu ally see before our eyes every day without being in the least surprised. "suppose that there are in Great Britain upwards of hundred thousand people employed in lead, tin, iron, copper, and coal mines; these unhappy wretches scarce ever see the light of the sun they are buried in the bowels of the earth there they work at severe and dismal task, without the least prospect of being delivered from it; they subsist upon the coarsest and worst sort of fare they have their health miserably impaired, and their lives out short, by being perpetually confined in the close vapor of these malignant minerals. A hundred thou sand more at least are tortured without remission by the suffocating smoke, intense fires, and constant drudgery necessary in refining and managing the products of those mines. If any man informed us that two hundred thousand innocent_ persons were condemned to so intolerable slavery, how should we pity the unhappy sufferers, and how great would be our just indignation against those who inflicted so cruel and ignominious punishment! This an in stance --I could not wish stronger-- of the num berless things which we pass by in their common dress, yet which shock us when they are nakedly rep resented. But this number, considerable as and the slavery, with all its baseness and horror, which we have at home, nothing to what the rest of the world affords of the same nature. Millions
? daily
? ? is
a
I
it is,
is
;
;
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a
;
it,
? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrr. 59
bathed in the poisonous damps and destructive efflu via of lead, silver, copper, and arsenic. To say noth ing of those other employments, those stations of wretchedness and contempt, in which civil society has placed the numerous enfans perdus of her army. VVould any rational man submit to one of the most tolerable of these drudgeries, for all the artificial en
joyments which policy has made to result from them? By no means. And yet need I suggest to yo1u' lord ship, that those who find the means, and those who arrive at the end, are not at all the same persons? On considering the strange and unaccountable fan cies and contrivances of artificial reason, I have some where called this earth the Bedlam of our system. Looking now upon the effects of some of those fan cies, may we not with equal reason call it likewise the Newgate and the Bridewell of the universe ? In deed the blindness of one part of mankind co-operat ing with the frenzy and villany of the other, has been the real builder of this respectable fabric of political society: and as the blindness of mankind has caused their slavery, in return their state of slavery is made a pretence for continuing them in a state of blind ness ; for the politician will tell you gravely, that their life of servitude disqualifies the greater part of the race of man for a search of truth, and supplies them with no other than mean and insufficient ideas. This is but too true; and this is one of the reasons for which I blame such institutions.
In a misery of this sort, admitting some few leni tives, and those too but a few, nine parts in ten of the whole race of mankind drudge through life. It may be urged perhaps, in palliation of this, that at least the rich few find a considerable and real benefit from
? ? ? ? 60
A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
the wretchedness of the many. But is this so in fact? Let us examine the point with a little more attention. For this purpose the rich in all societies may be thrown into two classes. The first is of those who are powerful as well as rich, and conduct the operations of the vast political machine. The other is of those who employ their riches wholly in the acquisition of
As to the first sort, their continual care and anxiety, their toilsome days, and sleepless nights, are next to proverbial. These circumstances are suf ficient almost to level their condition to that of the unhappy majority; but there are other circumstances which place them in a far lower condition. Not only their understandings labor continually, which is the severest labor, but their hearts are torn by the worst, most troublesome, and insatiable of all passions, by avarice, by ambition, by fear and jealousy. No part of the mind has rest. Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue. Pity, benevolence, friendship, are things almost unknown in high stations. Vera: amicitioe rarissime irweniuritu/r" in iis qai in hortoribus reque publica versarttur, says
Cicero. And indeed courts are the schools where cruelty, pride, dissimulation, and treachery are stud ied and taught in the most vicious perfection. This is a point so clear and acknowledged, that if it did not make a necessary part of my subject, I should pass it by entirely. And this has hindered me from drawing at full length, and in the most striking col ors, this shocking picture of the degeneracy and wretchedness of human nature, in that part which is vulgarly thought its happiest and most amiable state. You know from what originals I could copy such pictures. Happy are they who know enough of them
pleasure.
? ? ? ? A v1Nn1cATioN or NATURAL SOCIETY.
Thus, my lord, we have pursued aristocracy through its whole progress; we have seen the seeds, the
and the fruit. It could boast none of the advantages of a despotism, miserable as those advan tages were, and it was overloaded with an exuberance of mischiefs, unknown even to despotism itself. effect, no more than disorderly tyranny. This form, therefore, could be little approved, even in speculation, by those who were capable of thinking, and could be less borne in practice by any who were capable of feeling. However, the fruitful policy of man was not yet exhausted. He had yet anothei
? growth,
? ? it is
a
'In
? 38 A v1NmoAT1oN
or NATURAL SOCIETY.
farthing candle to supply the deficiencies of the sun. This was the third form, known by political writers under the name of democracy. Here the people transacted all public business, or the greater part of
in their own persons; their laws were made by themselves, and, upon any failure of duty, their offi
to themselves, and to them In all appearance, they had secured by this method the advantages of order and good government,
cers were accountable only.
without paying their liberty for the purchase. Now, my lord, we are come to the masterpiece of Grecian refinement, and Roman solidity, -- popular govern ment. The earliest and most celebrated republic of this model was that of Athens. It was constructed. by no less an artist than the celebrated poet and philosopher, Solon. But no sooner was this political vessel launched from the stocks, than overset, even in the lifetime of the builder. A tyranny immedi ately supervened; not by foreign conquest, not by accident, but by the very nature and constitution of
? An artful man became popular, the people had power in their hands, and they devolved a
democracy.
share of their power upon their favorite and the only use he made of this power was, to plunge
considerable
into slavery. Accident restored their liberty, and the same good fortune produced
men of uncommon abilities and uncommon virtues
them. But these abilities were suffered to be of little service either to their possessors or to the state. Some of these men, for whose sakes alone we read their history, they banished; others they impris oned, and all they treated with various circumstances of the most shameful ingratitude. Republics have many things in the spirit of absolute monarchy, but
those who gave
amongst
? ? it
;
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it,
a
it
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? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrx.
39
none more than this. A shining merit is ever hated or suspected in a popular assembly, as well as in a court; and all services done the state are looked upon as dangerous to the rulers, whether sultans or senators. The ostracism at Athens was built upon this principle. The giddy people whom we have now under consideration, being elated with some flashes of success, which they owed to nothing less than any merit of their own, began to tyrannize over their equals, who had associated with them for their com mon defence. With their prudence they renounced all appearance of justice. They entered into wars rashly and wantonly. If they were unsuccessful, in stead of growing wiser by their misfortune, they threw the whole blame of their own misconduct on the min isters who had advised, and the generals who had conducted, those wars ; until by degrees they had cut off all who could serve them in their councils or their battles. If at any time these wars had a happier issue, it was no less difficult to deal with them on account of their pride and insolence. Furious in their adversity, tyrannical in their successes, a commander had more trouble to concert his defence before the people, than to plan the operations of the campaign.
It was not uncommon for a general, under the horrid despotism of the Roman emperors, to be ill received in proportion to the greatness of his services. Agri cola is a strong instance of this. No man had done greater things, nor with more honest ambition. Yet, on his return to court, he was obliged to enter Rome with all the secrecy of a criminal. He went to the palace, not like a victorious commander who had merited and might demand the greatest rewards, but like an offender who had come to supplicate a pardon
~
? ? ? ? 40 A T/'INDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY.
for his crimes. His reception was answerable ; " Exceptusque brevi osculo et nullo sermone, turboe ser vientiurn immixtas est. " Yet in that worst season of this worst of monarchical* tyrannies, modesty, dis cretion, and a coolness of temper, formed some kind of security, even for the highest merit. But at Athens, the nicest and best studied behavior was not a sufficient guard for a man of great capacity. Some of their bravest commanders were obliged to fly their country, some to enter into the service of its enemies, rather than abide a popular determination on their conduct, lest, as one of them said, their giddiness might make the people condemn where they meant to acquit ; to throw in a black bean even when they intended a white one.
The Athenians made a very rapid progress to the most enormous excesses. The people, under no re straint, soon 'grew dissolute, luxurious, and idle. They renounced all labor, and began to subsist them selves from the public revenues. They lost all con cern for their common honor or safety, and could bear no advice that tended to reform them. At this time truth became offensive to those lords the people, and most highly dangerous to the speaker. The ora tors no longer ascended the rostrum, but to corrupt them further with the most fulsome adulation. These orators were all bribed by foreign princes on the one side or the other. And besides its own parties, in this city there were parties, and avowed ones too, for the Persians, Spartans, and Macedonians, supported each of them by one or more demagognes pensioned and bribed to this iniquitous service. The people,
* Sciant quibus moris illicita mi|'m'i, posse etiam sub malis prin cipibus magnos viros, &c. Sec 42, to the end of it. .
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIIJTY.
forgetful of all virtue and public spirit, and intoxi cated with the flatteries of their orators (these court iers of republics, and endowed with the distinguishing characteristics of all other courtiers), this people, I say, at last arrived at that pitch of madness, that they coolly and deliberately, by an express law, made it capital for any man to propose an application of the immense sums squandered in public shows, even to the most necessary purposes of the state. When you see the people of this republic banishing and murder ing their best and ablest citizens, dissipating the pub lie treasure with the most senseless extravagance, and spending their whole time, as spectators or actors, in playing, fiddling, dancing, and singing, does it not, my lord, strike your imagination with the image of a sort of complex Nero? And does it not strike you with the greater horror, when you observe, not one man only, but a whole city, grown drunk with pride and power, running with a rage of folly into the same mean and senseless debauchery and extravagance? But if this people resembled Nero in their extrava gance, much more did they resemble and even exceed him in cruelty and injustice. In the time of Pericles, one of the most celebrated times in the history of that
commonwealth, a king of Egypt sent them a donation of corn. This they were mean enough to accept. And had the Egyptian prince intended the ruin of this city of wicked Bedlamites, he could not have taken a more effectual method to do it than by such an ensnaring largess. The distribution of this bounty caused a quarrel; the majority set on foot an inquiry
into the title of the citizens; and upon a vain pre tence of illegitimacy, newly and occasionally set up, they deprived of their share of the royal donation no
? ? ? ? 4:2 A VINDIGATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
less than five thousand of their own body. They went further; they disfranchised them; and, having once begun with an act of injustice, they could set no bounds to it. Not content with cutting them off from the rights of citizens, they plundered these unfortu nate wretches of all their substance; and, to crown this masterpiece of violence and tyranny, they actu ally sold every man of the five thousand as slaves in the public market. Observe, my lord, that the five thousand we here speak of were cut oif from a body of no more than nineteen thousand; for the entire number of citizens was no greater at that time. Could the tyrant who wished the Roman people but one neck; could the tyrant Caligula himself
? have done, nay, he could scarcely wish for, a greater mis
chief than to have cut off', at one stroke, a fourth of his people? Or has the cruelty of that series of san guine tyrants, the Caesars, ever presented such a piece of flagrant and extensive wickedness? The whole history of this celebrated republic is but one tissue of rashness, folly, ingratitude, injustice, tumult, violence, and tyranny, and, indeed, of every species of wicked ness that can well be imagined. This was a city of wise men, in which a minister could not exercise his functions; a warlike people, amongst whom a gen eral did not dare either to gain or lose a battle; a learned nation, in which a philosopher could not ven ture on a free inquiry. This was the city which ban ished Themistocles, starved Aristides, forced into ex
ile Miltiades, drove out Anaxagoras, and poisoned Socrates. This was a city which changed the form of its government with the moon; eternal conspirm cies, revolutions daily, nothing fixed and established. A republic, as an ancient philosopher has observed, is
? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrr. _ 43
no one species of government, but a magazine of every species ; here you find every sort of and that in the worst form. As there perpetual change, one ris ing and the other falling, you have all the violence and wicked policy by which beginning power must always acquire its strength, and all the weakness by which falling states are brought to complete de struction.
Rome has more venerable aspect than Athens; and she conducted her affairs, so far as related to the ruin and oppression of the greatest part of the world, with greater wisdom and more uniformity. But the domestic economy of these two states was nearly or altogether the same. An internal dissension con stantly tore to pieces the bowels of the Roman com monwealth. You find the same confusion, the same factions, which subsisted at Athens, the same tu mults, the same revolutions, and, in fine, the same slavery; perhaps, their former condition did not deserve that name altogether as well. All other re publics were of the same character. Florence was
transcript of Athens. And the modern republics, as they approach more or less to the democratic form, partake more or less of the nature of those which have described.
We are now at the close of our review of the three simple forms of artificial society and we have shown them, however they may differ in name, or in some slight circumstances, to be all alike in effect: in effect, to be all tyrannies. But suppose we were inclined to make the most ample concessions; let us concede Athens, Rome, Carthage, and two or three more of the ancient, and as many of the mod ern, commonwealths, to have been, or to be, free
? ? ? ;
a '
Ia
if,
a
a
it,
is a
? 44: A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
and happy, and to owe their freedom and happiness to their political constitution. Yet, allowing all this, what defence does this make for artificial society in general, that these inconsiderable spots of the globe have for some short space of time stood as exceptions to a charge so general? But when we call these governments free, or concede that their citizens were happier than those which lived under different forms, it is merely ex abundanti. For we should be greatly mistaken, if we really thought that the majority of the people which filled these cities enjoyed even that nominal political freedom of which I have spoken so much already. In reality, they had no part of it. In Athens there were usually from ten to thirty thousand freemen; this was the utmost. But the slaves usually amounted to four hundred thousand, and sometimes to a great many more. The freemen of Sparta and Rome were not more numerous in pro portion to those whom they held in a slavery even more terrible than the Athenian. Therefore state the matter fairly: the free states never formed, though they were taken altogether, the thousandth part of the habitable globe; the freemen in these states were never the twentieth part of the people, and the time they subsisted is scarce anything in that immense ocean 'of duration in which time and slavery are so nearly commensurate. Therefore call these free states, or popular governments, or what you please; when we consider the majority of their inhabitants, and regard the natural _rights of man kind, they must appear, in reality and truth, no bet ter than pitiful and oppressive oligarchies.
After so fair an examen, wherein nothing has been exaggerated; no fact produced which cannot
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY. 45
be proved, and none which has been produced in any wise forced or strained, while thousands have, for brevity, been omitted; after so candid a discus sion in all respects; what slave so passive, what bigot so blind, what enthusiast so headlong, what politician so hardened, as to stand up in defence of a system calculated for a curse to mankind? a curse under which they smart and groan to this hour, without thoroughly knowing the nature of the disease, and wanting understanding or courage to supply the remedy.
I need not excuse myself to your lordship, nor, I think, to any honest man, for the zeal I have shown in this cause;'f0r it is an honest zeal, and in a good cause. I have defended natural religion against a confederacy of atheists and divines. I now plead for"natural society against politicians, and for natural reason against all three. When the world is in a fitter temper than it is at present to hear truth, or when I shall be more indifferent about its temper, my thoughts may become more public. In the mean time, let them repose in my own bosom, and in the bosoms of such men as are fit to be ini tiated in the sober mysteries of truth and reason. My antagonists have already done as much as I could desire. Parties in religion and politics make suffi cient discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober man a proper caution against them all. The monarchic, and aristocratical, and popular partisans, have been jointly laying their axes to the root of all government, and have, in their turns, proved each other absurd and inconvenient. In vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that I fall out only with the abuse. The thing! the thing itself is
? ? ? ? 4:6 A VINDICATION OF' NATURAL SOCIETY.
the abuse! Observe, my lord, I pray yon, that grand error upon which all artificial legislative power is founded. It was observed, that men had ungovern able passions, which made it necessary to guard against the violence they might offer to each other. They appointed governors over them for this reason. But a worse and more perplexing difficulty arises, how to be defended against the governors? eustodiet ipsos custodes? In vain they change from a single person to a few. These few have the passions
of the one ; and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the gratification of their lawless pas sions at the expense of the general good. In vain do we fly to the many. lThe case is worse; their passions are less under the government of reason, they are augmented by the contagion, and defended against all attacks by their multitude.
Qais
? I have purposely avoided the mention of the mixed form of government, for reasons that will be very obvious to your lordship. But my caution can avail me but little. You will not fail to urge it against me in favor of political society. You will not fail to
show how the errors of the several simple modes are corrected by a mixture of all of them, and a proper balance of the several powers in such a state. I confess, my lord, that this has been long a darling mistake of my own; and that of all the sacrifices I have made to truth, this has been by far the greatest. When I confess that I think this notion a mistake, I know to whom I am speaking, for I am satisfied that reasons are like liquors, and there are some of such a nature as none but strong heads can bear. There are few with whom I can communicate so freely as with Pope. But Pope cannot bear every truth. He
? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrr. 47
has a timidity which hinders the full exertion of his faculties, almost as effectually as bigotry cramps those
of the general herd of mankind.
genuine follower of truth keeps his eye steady upon his guide, indifferent whither he is led, provided that she is the leader. And, my lord, if it be properly con sidered, it were infinitely better to remain possessed by the whole legion of vulgar mistakes, than to re ject some, and at the same time to retain a fondnws for others altogether as absurd and irrational.
first has at least a consistency, that makes a man,
however erroneously, uniform at least; but the latter way of proceeding is such an inconsistent chimera and jumble of philosophy and vulgar prejudice, that hardly anything more ridiculous can be conceived. Let us therefore freely, and without fear or prejudice, examine this last contrivance of policy. And, with out considering how near the quick our instruments
may come, let us search it to the bottom.
First, then,'all men are agreed that this junction of
regal, aristocratic, and popular power, must form a very complex, nice, and intricate machine, wl. . c'h being composed of such a variety of parts, with such opposite tendencies and movements, it must be liable on every accident to be disordered. To speak with out metaphor, such a government must be liable to frequent cabals, tumults, and revolutions, from its very constitution. These are undoubtedly as ill effects as can happen in a society; for in such a case, the closeness acquired by community, instead of serv ing for mutual defence, serves only to increase the
danger. Such a system is like a city, where trades that require constant fires are much exercised, where the houses are built of combustible materials, and where they stand extremely close.
But whoever is a
The
? ? ? ? 48 A v1NmcAT1oN or NATURAL SOCIETY.
In the second place, the several constituent 'parts having their distinct rights, and these many of them so necessary to be determined with exactness, are yet so indeterminate in their nature, that it becomes a new and constant source of debate and confusion. Hence it that whilst the business of government should be carrying on, the question Who has right to exercise this or that fimction of or what men have power to keep their ofiices in any function? Whilst this contest continues, and whilst the balance in any sort continues, has never any remission all manner of abuses and villanies i11 officers remain un
? the greatest frauds and robberies in the public revenues are committed in defiance of justice; and abuses grow, by time and impunity, into cus toms; until they prescribe against the laws, and grow too inveterate often to admit cure, unless such as may be as bad as the disease.
Thirdly, the several parts of this species of govern ment, though united, preserve the spirit which each form has separately. Kings are ambitious; the no bility haughty; and the populace tumultuous and ungovernable. Each party, however in appearance peaceable, carries on design upon the others and
owing to this, that in all questions, whether con cerning foreign or domestic affairs, the whole gener
ally turns more upon some party-matter than upon
the nature of the thing itself; whether such
will diminish or augment the power of the crown, or how far the privileges of the subject are likely to be extended or restricted by it. And these questions are constantly resolved, without any consideration of the merits of the cause, merely as the parties who uphold these jarring interests may chance to prevail
punished;
step
? ? is
a
it
;
is, it,
a
; it a
a
;
is,
? A VINDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY. 49
and as they prevail, the balance is overset, now upon one side, now upon the other. The government one day, arbitrary power in single person another,
juggling confederacy of few to cheat the prince and enslave the people and the third, frantic and unmanageable democracy. The great instrument of all these changes, and what infuses peculiar venom into all of them, party. It of no consequence what the principles of any party, or what their preten sions are the spirit which actuates all parties the same; the spirit of ambition, of self-interest, of op pression and treachery. This spirit entirely reverses all the principles which benevolent nature has erected within us all honesty, all equal justice, and even the ties of natural society, the natural affections. In word, my lord, we have all seen, and, any out ward considerations were worthy the lasting concern of wise man, we have some of us felt, such oppres sion from party government as no other tyranny can parallel.
Webehold daily the most important rights, rights upon which all the others depend, we behold these rights determined in the last resort, without the least attention even to the appearance or color of jus
tice; we behold this without emotion, because we have grown up in the constant view of such practices; and we are not surprised to hear man requested to be knave and traitor, with as much indifference as the most ordinary favor were asked; and we hear this request refused, not because most unjust and unreasonable desire, but because this Worthy has already engaged his injustice to another. These and many more points am far from spreading to their full extent. You are sensible that do not
put forth half my strength; and you cannot be at vot. 1.
? ? ? 4
I a
it is a
if
a
;
I
a
a
a
if a
a
a
a
;
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a
is
a
;
is
;
a
is,
? 50 VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
loss for the reason. A man is allowed sufficient free dom of thought, provided he knows how to choose his subject properly. You may criticise freely upon the Chinese constitution, and observe with as much severity as you please upon the absurd tricks, or de structive bigotry of the bonzees. But the scene is changed as you come homeward, and atheism or trea son may be the names given in Britain, to what would be reason and truth if asserted of China. I submit to the condition, and though I have a notorious ad vantage before me, I waive the pursuit. For else, my lord, it is very obvious what a picture might be drawn of the excesses of party even in our own na tion. I could show, that the same faction has, in one reign, promoted popular seditions, and, in the next, been a patron of tyranny: I could show that they have all of them betrayed the public safety at
all times, and have very frequently with equal perfidy made a market of their own cause and their own associates. I could show how vehemently they have contended for names, and how silently they have passed over things of the last importance. And I could demonstrate that they have had the opportunity of doing all this misclnef, nay, that they themselves had their origin and growth from that complex form of government, which we are wisely taught to look upon as so great a blessing. Revolve, my lord, our history from the Conquest. We scarcely ever had a prince, who, by fraud or violence, had not made some infringement on the constitution. We scarcely ever had a Parliament which knew, when it attempted to
set limits to the royal authority, how to set limits to its own. Evils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
evils. Our boasted liberty sometimes trodden down, sometimes giddily set up, and ever precariously fluctu ating and unsettled ; it has only been kept alive by the blasts of continual feuds, wars, and conspiracies. In no country in Europe has the scaffold so often blushed with the blood of its nobility. Confiseations, banish ments, attainders, executions, make a large part of the history of such of our families as are not utterly extinguished by them. Formerly, indeed, things had a more ferocious appearance than they have at this day. In these early and unrefined ages, the jarring part of a certain chaotic constitution supported their several pretensions by the sword. Experience and policy have since taught other methods.
At nunc res agitur tenui pulmone rubetm.
? But how far corruption, vcnality, the contempt of honor, the oblivion of all duty to our country, and the most abandoned public prostitution, are prefer able to the more glaring and violent effects of faction, I will not presume to determine. Sure I am that they are very great evils.
I have done with the forms of government. Dur ing the course of my inquiry you may have observed a very material difference between my manner of rea soning and that which is in 'use amongst the abet tors of artificial society. They form their plans upon what seems most eligible to their imaginations, for the ordering of mankind. I discover the mistakes in those plans, from the real known consequences which have resulted from them. They have enlisted reason to fight against itself, and employ its whole force to prove that it is an insufficient guide to them in the conduct of their lives. But unhappily for us, in pro portion as we have deviated from the plain rule of our
? ? ? 52 A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
nature, and turned our reason against itself, in that proportion have we increased the follies and miseries of mankind. The more deeply we penetrate into the labyrinth of art, the further we find ourselves from those ends for which we entered it. This has hap pened in ahnost every species of artificial society, and in all times. We found, or we thought we found, an inconvenience in having every man the judge of his own cause. Therefore judges were set up, at first, with discretionary powers. But it was soon found a miserable slavery to have our lives and properties pre carious, and hanging upon the arbitrary determina tion of any one man, or set of men. We fled to laws as a remedy for this evil. By these we persuaded ourselves we might know with some certainty upon what ground we stood. But lo ! differences arose up on the sense and interpretation of these laws. Thus we were brought back to our old incertitude. New laws were made to expound the old; and new diffi culties arose upon the new laws ; as words multiplied, opportunities of cavilling upon them multiplied also. Then recourse was had to notes, comments, glosses,
? learned readings: eagle stood against eagle: authority was set up against authority. Some were allured by the modern, others
reverenced the ancient. The new were more enlight ened, the old were more venerable. Some adopted the comment, others stuck to the text. The confusion increased, the mist thickened, until it could be dis covered no longer what was allowed or forbidden, what things were in property, and what common. In this uncertainty, (uncertain even to the professors, an Egyptian darkness to the rest of mankind), the contending parties felt themselves more effectually
reports, responsa prudentum,
? ? ? 4 VINDICATION or NATURAL soomrv. 53
ruined by the delay, than they could have been by the injustice of any decision. Our inheritances are become a prize for disputation ; and disputes and liti gations are become an inheritance.
The professors of artificial law have always walked hand in hand with the professors of artificial theology. As their end, in confounding the reason of man, and abridging his natural freedom, is exactly the same, they have adjusted the means to that end in a way entirely similar. The divine thunders out his anath emas with more noise and terror against the breach of one of his . positive institutions, or the neglect of some of his trivial forms, than against the neglect or breach of those duties and commandments of natural religion, which by these forms and institutions he pre tends to enforce. The lawyer has his forms, and his positive institutions too, and he adheres to them with a veneration altogether as religious. The worst cause cannot be so prejudicial to the litigant, as his advo cate's or attorney's ignorance or neglect of these forms. A lawsuit is like an ill-managed dispute, in which the first object is soon out of sight, and the
parties end upon a matter wholly foreign to that on which they began. In a lawsuit the question is, who has a right to a certain house or farm? And this question is daily determined, not upon the evidence of the right, but upon the observance or neglect of some forms of words in use with the gentlemen of the robe, about which there is even amongst themselves such a disagreement, that the most experienced vet erans in the profession can never be positively assured that they are not mistaken.
Let us expostulate with these learned sages, these priests of the sacred temple of justice. Are we judges
? ? ? ? 54 A v1Nn1cAT1oN or NATURAL SOCIETY.
of our own property? By no means. You then, who are initiated into the mysteries of the blindfold god dess, inform me whether I have a right to eat the bread I have earned by the hazard of my life or the sweat of my brow ? The grave doctor answers me 1n the affirmative ; the reverend serjeant replies in the negative ; the learned barrister reasons upon one side and upon the other, and concludes nothing. What shall I do? An antagonist starts up and presses me
hard. I enter the field, and retain these three per sons to defend my cause. My cause, which two farm ers from the plough could have decided in half an hour, takes the court twenty years. I am however at the end of my labor, and have in reward for all my toil and vexation a judgment in my favor. But hold --a sagacious commander, in the adversary's army, has found a flaw in the proceeding. My triumph is turned into mourning. I have used or, instead of and, or some mistake, small in appearance, but dread ful in its consequences; and have the whole of my success quashed in a writ of error. I remove my suit; I shift from court to court; I fly from equity to law, and from law to equity; equal uncertainty attends me everywhere; and a mistake in which I had no share, decides at once upon my liberty and property, sending me from the court to a prison, and adjudging my family to beggary and famine. I am innocent, gentlemen, of the darkness and uncertainty of your science. I never darkened it with absurd and contradictory notions, nor confounded it with chicane and sophistry. You have excluded me from any share in the conduct of my own cause; the science was too deep for me; I acknowledged it ; but it was too deep even for yourselves: you have made the way
? ? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL SOCIETY. 55
so intricate, that you are yourselves lost in it; you err, and you punish me for your errors.
The delay of the law your lordship will tell me, trite topic, and which of its abuses have not been too severely felt not to be complained of? man's
to serve for the purposes of his support and therefore, to delay determination concerning that, the worst injustice, 'because cuts off the very end and purpose for which applied to the judicature for relief. Quite contrary in the case of
man's life there the determination can hardly be too much protracted. Mistakes in this case are as often fallen into as many other and the judgment
sudden, the mistakes are the most irretrievable of all others. Of this the gentlemen of the robe are
themselves sensible, and they have brought into maxim. De morte homimls nulla est cunctatio longa. But what could have induced them to reverse the rules, and to contradict that reason which dictated them, am utterly unable to guess. point con cerning property, which ought, for the reasons have just mentioned, to be most speedily decided, fre
exercises the wit of successions of lawyers, for many generations. Malta virtim volvens durando stecula vincit. But the question concerning man's life, that great question in which no delay ought to be counted tedious, commonly determined in twenty-four hours at the utmost. It not to be wondered at, that injustice and absurdity should be inseparable companions.
Ask of politicians the end for which laws were orig inally designed; and they will answer, that the laws were designed as protection for the poor and weak,
the oppression of the rich and powerful
property
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? 56 A v1Nn1cAT1oN or NATURAL socmrv.
But surely no pretence can be so ridiculous; a man might as well tell me he has taken off my load, be cause he has changed the burden. If the poor man is not able to support his suit, according to the vex atious and expensive manner established in civilized countries, has not the rich as great an advantage over him as the strong has over the weak in a state of nature? But we will not place the state of na ture, which is the reign of God, in competition with political society, which is the absurd usurpation of man. In a state of nature, it is true that a man of superior force may beat or rob me; but then it is true, that I am at full liberty to defend myself, or make reprisal by surprise or by cunning, or by any other way in which I may be superior to him. But in political society, a rich man may rob me in an other way. I cannot defend myself; for money is the only weapon with which we are allowed to fight. And if I attempt to avenge myself the whole force of
gins, religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends? It is hard to say, whether the doctors of law or divinity have made the greater advances in the lucrative business of mystery. The lawyers, as well as the theologians, have erected another reason be sides natural reason; and the result has been, an other justice besides natural justice, They have so bewildered the world and themselves in unmeaning forms and ceremonies, and so perplexed the plainest matters with metaphysical jargon, that it carries the highest danger to a man out of that profession, to make the least step without their advice and as
? that society is ready to complete my ruin.
A good parson once said, that where mystery be
? ? ? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrr. 57
sistance. Thus, by confining to themselves the
of the foundation of all men's lives and properties, they have reduced all mankind into the most abject and servile dependence. We are ten ants at the will of these gentlemen for everything; and a metaphysical quibble is to decide whether the greatest villain breathing shall meet his deserts, or
with impunity, or whether the best man in the society shall not be reduced to the lowest and most despicable condition it affords. In a word, my lord, the injustice, delay, puerility, false refinement, and affected mystery of the law are such, that many who
live under it come to admire and envy the expedi tion, simplicity, and equality of arbitrary judgments. I need insist the less on this article to your lordship, as you have frequently lamented the miseries derived to us from artificial law, and your candor is the more to be admired and applauded in this, as your lord
knowledge
escape
? noble house has derived its wealth and its
ship's
honors from that profession.
Before we finish our examination of artificial soci ety, I shall lead your lordship into a closer consider ation of the relations which it gives birth to, and the benefits, if such they are, which result from these re lations. The most obvious division of society'is into rich and poor; and it is no less obvious, that the
of the former bear a great disproportion to those of the latter. The whole business of the poor is to administer to the idleness, folly, and luxury of the rich; and that of the rich, in return, is to find
the best methods of confirming the slavery and in creasing the burdens of the poor. In a state of na ture, it is an invariable law, that a man's acquisitions are in proportion to his labors. In a state of artificial
number
? ? ? 58 A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
society, it is a law as constant and as invariable, that those who labor most enjoy the fewest things; and that those who labor not at all have the greatest num ber of enjoyments. A constitution of things this, strange and ridiculous beyond expression ! We scarce believe a thing when we are told which we actu ally see before our eyes every day without being in the least surprised. "suppose that there are in Great Britain upwards of hundred thousand people employed in lead, tin, iron, copper, and coal mines; these unhappy wretches scarce ever see the light of the sun they are buried in the bowels of the earth there they work at severe and dismal task, without the least prospect of being delivered from it; they subsist upon the coarsest and worst sort of fare they have their health miserably impaired, and their lives out short, by being perpetually confined in the close vapor of these malignant minerals. A hundred thou sand more at least are tortured without remission by the suffocating smoke, intense fires, and constant drudgery necessary in refining and managing the products of those mines. If any man informed us that two hundred thousand innocent_ persons were condemned to so intolerable slavery, how should we pity the unhappy sufferers, and how great would be our just indignation against those who inflicted so cruel and ignominious punishment! This an in stance --I could not wish stronger-- of the num berless things which we pass by in their common dress, yet which shock us when they are nakedly rep resented. But this number, considerable as and the slavery, with all its baseness and horror, which we have at home, nothing to what the rest of the world affords of the same nature. Millions
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? A VINDICATION or NATURAL socmrr. 59
bathed in the poisonous damps and destructive efflu via of lead, silver, copper, and arsenic. To say noth ing of those other employments, those stations of wretchedness and contempt, in which civil society has placed the numerous enfans perdus of her army. VVould any rational man submit to one of the most tolerable of these drudgeries, for all the artificial en
joyments which policy has made to result from them? By no means. And yet need I suggest to yo1u' lord ship, that those who find the means, and those who arrive at the end, are not at all the same persons? On considering the strange and unaccountable fan cies and contrivances of artificial reason, I have some where called this earth the Bedlam of our system. Looking now upon the effects of some of those fan cies, may we not with equal reason call it likewise the Newgate and the Bridewell of the universe ? In deed the blindness of one part of mankind co-operat ing with the frenzy and villany of the other, has been the real builder of this respectable fabric of political society: and as the blindness of mankind has caused their slavery, in return their state of slavery is made a pretence for continuing them in a state of blind ness ; for the politician will tell you gravely, that their life of servitude disqualifies the greater part of the race of man for a search of truth, and supplies them with no other than mean and insufficient ideas. This is but too true; and this is one of the reasons for which I blame such institutions.
In a misery of this sort, admitting some few leni tives, and those too but a few, nine parts in ten of the whole race of mankind drudge through life. It may be urged perhaps, in palliation of this, that at least the rich few find a considerable and real benefit from
? ? ? ? 60
A VINDICATION OF NATURAL SOCIETY.
the wretchedness of the many. But is this so in fact? Let us examine the point with a little more attention. For this purpose the rich in all societies may be thrown into two classes. The first is of those who are powerful as well as rich, and conduct the operations of the vast political machine. The other is of those who employ their riches wholly in the acquisition of
As to the first sort, their continual care and anxiety, their toilsome days, and sleepless nights, are next to proverbial. These circumstances are suf ficient almost to level their condition to that of the unhappy majority; but there are other circumstances which place them in a far lower condition. Not only their understandings labor continually, which is the severest labor, but their hearts are torn by the worst, most troublesome, and insatiable of all passions, by avarice, by ambition, by fear and jealousy. No part of the mind has rest. Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue. Pity, benevolence, friendship, are things almost unknown in high stations. Vera: amicitioe rarissime irweniuritu/r" in iis qai in hortoribus reque publica versarttur, says
Cicero. And indeed courts are the schools where cruelty, pride, dissimulation, and treachery are stud ied and taught in the most vicious perfection. This is a point so clear and acknowledged, that if it did not make a necessary part of my subject, I should pass it by entirely. And this has hindered me from drawing at full length, and in the most striking col ors, this shocking picture of the degeneracy and wretchedness of human nature, in that part which is vulgarly thought its happiest and most amiable state. You know from what originals I could copy such pictures. Happy are they who know enough of them
pleasure.
? ? ? ? A v1Nn1cATioN or NATURAL SOCIETY.
