dunbar05
Author: Unknown
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Essay V

Of the Rank of Nations, and the Revolutions of Fortune

The philosopher, who studies human nature in the closet, will be astonished when he looks abroad into life, and examines, by his theory, the conduct of mankind.

Yet to him who, in the course of observation, and in the commerce of active life, has learned to make no serious appeals to his own constitution, the history of the world will be no less dark and mysterious.

The one is deficient in experience, the other in reflexion; both alike unqualified to judge consistently of the human character.

Had there reigned from the beginning an exact similarity among men, laws had been unnecessary, and government without all foundation. A wide dissimilarity, on the other hand, must have indisposed them for society, and rendered them incongruous parts of the same system.

Distinctions then there are, and ought to be. But these, at first few and inconsiderable, have grown immense in the revolutions of time; and the natural history of the species is scarce able to solve the appearances in civil life.

The operation of climate, in the production of these appearances, seems to have been magnified by the Greeks and Romans. The genius of the Asiatics was supposed to disappear in the climates of Europe, and the genius of Europe to evaporate in the climates of Asia. Thus the genius of the human mind seemed to fluctuate with every migration, and to gravitate to the soil.[A]

Mechanical and local causes, which, in some respects, so visibly predominate, the imagination invests with a dominion that reaches the very essence of our frame. Hence the mutual contempt of nations. Hence the rank which Europe, at this day, usurps over all the communities of mankind.

She affects to move in another orbit from the rest of the species. She is even offended with the idea of a common descent; and, rather than acknowledge her ancestors to have been co-ordinate only to other races of Barbarians, and in parallel circumstances, she breaks the unity of the system, and, by imagining specific differences among men, precludes or abrogates their common claims.

According to this theory, the oppression or extermination of a meaner race, will no longer be so shocking to humanity. Their distresses will not call upon us so loudly for relief. And public morality, and the laws of nations, will be confined to a few regions peopled with this more exalted species of mankind.

Upon the discovery of America, doubts were entertained whether the natives of that country ought not to be accounted a race of the Orang Outangs. Bu the infallible edict of a Roman pontiff soon established their doubtful pedigree;[B] and our right of dominion, in both hemispheres, was asserted, on other pretences, by the casuists of those days.

The investiture of America was conferred on Ferdinand and Isabella by Pope Alexander the Sixth.

In general, all countries discovered to the west of a meridian line, were by this pope assigned to the Spaniards, as all discovered to the east of this line were declared, by the same authority, to be vested in the Portuguese.

In became accordingly a question between the two crowns of Spain and Portugal, to which of them the Molucca Islands should belong. For it had not occurred to this arbiter of the rights of kings, that the grants were as nonsensical as unjust, and that the eastern and western navigators might possibly interfere in taking possession of their respective allotments. But the court of Rome, which authorised so absurd a partition of empire, vindicated, during another pontificate, the honours of the Indian race. The thunder of the Vatican was heard, for once, on the side of humanity; and Europe, in the sixteenth century, was permitted only to usurp the sovereignty, not to insult the pedigree, of nations.

The theory, then, we have mentioned, is, in its utmost extent, of more modern invention. But the opinions which lead to it are of high antiquity; and, being congenial with the passions of a divided world, have resisted the experience of ages. There is scarce any folly or vice, says a late author, [Henry Bolingbroke, Letters on the Study of History, p. 29] more epidemical among the sons of men, than that ridiculous and hurtful vanity, by which the people of each country are apt to prefer themselves to those of every other; and to make their own customs, and manners, and opinions, the standards of right and wrong, of true and false. The same propensity, says another author, [Adam Ferguson, History of Civil Society, p. 145] is the most remarkable in the whole description of mankind.

National vanity is indeed confined to no aera in civil life. If the epithets Greek and Barbarian are opposed to each other in the Greek tongue, epithets, exactly equivalent, are opposed to each other in an Indian tongue, spoken on the coast of Labrador; and, in general, the names by which the rude American tribes wish to be distinguished, are assumed from an idea of their own pre-eminence.[History of America, vol. i. p. 412] If the learned Chinese were mortified with the figure their empire made in the general map of the world, the poor natives of Congo pronounced themselves highly favoured among mortals: and the most wretched of African tribes solace themselves, under all their misfortunes, with the fond persuasion that, whithersoever they go, they shall, one day, return, in life or in death, to their native shores.

Such partiality, when not carried to an extreme, answers a noble end: and the purest patriotism is often founded on local circumstances, and a predilection for established forms. But that preference of affection to our own country, which is the true definition of patriotism, is compatible, surely, with suitable regard and allowances for the various aspects of humanity.

Profound ignorance, and a contrariety, or repugnancy of customs and manners, account for that aversion, or contempt for strangers and foreigners, implied in the partial sentiments of savage and untutored tribes. No information, no experience, no conviction, can always conquer early prejudice: and the Hottentot, who returned from Europe, relapsed, we may believe, with all imaginable ease, perhaps with additional satisfaction, into the established habits of his country.

But such examples are balanced by others of an opposite nature, no less remarkable which history presents to our view: examples of docility, of emulation, of magnanimous preference. Some of these it will be proper to recite, if we would not belie the character of the ruder ages.

The Romans, while yet a rude people, disdained not to appoint an embassy to enquire into the jurisprudence of the Greeks, and to supply, from that fountain, the deficiencies in their civil code.

This embassy seems to have been suggested by Hermodorus, an exiled citizen of Ephesus, who afterwards eminently assisted in interpreting the collection of laws brought from Greece. His public services met with a public reward. A statute was erected to him in the Comitia at the public expence: an honour which the jealousy of Rome would have denied to a stranger in a less generous age. But, at this period she acted from a nobler impulse; and the statue erected to Hermodorus was erected in reality, to her own honour. Yet the name of this Ephesian, which casts a lustre upon Rome, seemed to cast a shade upon his native city; and that people, according to Heraclitus, deserved to have been extirpated to a man, who condemned such a citizen to exile.[C]

The Romans, in other instances, were capable of acting with the same humble dignity.

They disdained not to refer to the court of Areopagus at Athens, the decision of such questions as were too complex or intricate for their own tribunals. This reference, that embassy, may seem worthy of a people who were destined, one day, to be the rulers of mankind. But the policy of rude nations, though seldom called into view unless by that fortune which renders their posterity illustrious, is often, we may believe, conducted with the same spirit.

In the reign of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, references, from the fiercest barbarians, to Rome, were not uncommon. And there occurs an example of policy, in modern ages, less celebrated indeed, but more liberal, perhaps, and magnanimous, than any recorded in Roman annals. It relates to religion, an object certainly the most sublime and interesting that can enter into public councils and deliberations.

A duke of Russia, while his subjects were yet pagans, sent abroad commissioners to inform themselves, on the spot, concerning the religion of Rome, the religion of the Greek church, and the religion of Mohamet, that he might determine, upon the report of those commissioners, which of these several religions it became him to embrace and establish, as a guardian of his people. So much modesty in acknowledging domestic insufficiency; so much candour in weighing the pretensions of foreign institutions, are rarely to be met with in the proceedings of nations reputed civilized. And if we compare the sentiments which those under a different state of the arts are disposed to entertain, we shall find that undistinguished contempt, though mutual in some respects, subsists between them by no means in an equal degree. It is commonly mitigated, on the one side, by credulity and admiration, to which the ruder nations are peculiarly prone;[D] while it is heightened, on the other, by antipathies, which the pageantry of rank, and the exterior of polished life, are apt to inspire.

The congress of mankind, at Constantinople, during the period of the crusades, opened perhaps a fairer field for this comparison, than any other occurrence in the annals of the world. Various people, in different stages of civil culture, convened, as it were, at a general rendezvous, and passing in review before each other, must have impressed the mind with emotions and sentiments corresponding to the variety of their conditions. Historians, spectators of the scene, and animated with the passions of their contemporaries, have describe the impression of this singular interview; and from the descriptions of these historians we may collect the judgment of nations.

The Greeks, exulting in their unrivalled superiority in arts, looked down on all the strangers assembled in their capital, with supercilious contempt, and, on some, even with detestation. The Latins, on the other hand, and in general the ruder strangers of the West, with more modest ideas of their own accomplishments, recognized a degree of refinement in manners and in arts, so far superior to their own, and regarded, with an admiration approaching to enthusiasm, the splendor and magnificence of the Greek empire.

The leaders of the crusades, accordingly, on their return from the Holy Land, abandoned in some sort the rusticity of their manners, and aimed at some reformation in the taste and sciences of Europe. And to these wild expeditions, says an admired historian, [History of Charles V, vol. I.] the effect of superstition or folly, we owe the first gleams of light, which tended to dispel barbarity and ignorance.

In general it may be affirmed, that rude nations are touched with some degree of reverence or admiration at the sight of dignified appearances; that they honour, at some distance, that state of the arts towards which they are tending; and that it is only in cases where the distance is too immense for their prospect or conception, that they acquiesce in their condition with an apparent insensibility, and allow their superiors to possess unenvied greatness.

The rude nations of the North, who subverted the empire of the Romans, after the first efforts of their violence, became converts to the religion of the vanquished, and were even capable of admiring the monuments of ancient learning. ţThe immortal productions of Virgil, Cicero, and Livy,ţ says the Historian of the Roman Empire, [History Roman Empire, vol. iii. p. 523] ţwhich were accessible to the Christian Barbarians, maintained a silent intercourse between the reign of Augustus and the times of Clovis and Charlemagne. The emulation of mankind was encouraged by the remembrance of a more perfect state; and the flame of science was secretly kept alive, to warm and enlighten the mature age of the western world.ţ

The Saracens, notwithstanding the desolation of literature at Alexandria, which marked their first conquests, soon appeared in the scene, as its most zealous champions. Eager to preserve, as before active to destroy, they cultivated its precious remains with unexampled ardour. A novelty was even to appear in public negotiations: a people contending for erudition as for empire, and actually demanding the works of the antients, by express articles, in treaties with the Greek emperors.

There is but one occurrence on the records of antiquity more splendid than this conduct of the Saracens; the conduct of that king of Syracuse, who made it an express condition in a treaty with the Carthaginians, That they should abstain from human sacrifices. It is noble in a people to demand science from their enemies. It is nobler to demand of enemies not to be to themselves inhuman. And of such heroism in politics there is a recent example, if it be authenticated in history, that the court of Russia, in the last treaty of peace with the Grand Segnior, expressly stipulated, That the tribute of slaves, so cruelly exacted from the oppressed provinces of Georgia, Circassia, and Mengrelia, should be remitted and abolished in all future times. The Russian court is certainly attentive to great objects; and pursues, with magnanimous discernment, whatever is most valuable in the arts and policy of more enlightened states.

Modesty is consistent with the most aspiring views. It is the actual possession of refinement and civil arts, not the efforts made towards acquiring them, which engenders extravagance and conceit. A few frivolous, or at best ornamental distinctions, are mistaken for real differences: and if we survey the circle of human things, the illusions of vanity, and the insolence of pride, will be found most inherent to nations and to ages intoxicated with propensity and affluence.

Commerce, the boast of modern policy, by enlarging the sphere of observation and experience, promised to undeceive the world, and to diffuse more liberal and equal sentiments through the several parts of an extended system. But commerce, it is to be feared, has, in some instances, been productive of the very contrary effects; and by exposing, if I may say so, the nakedness of society, and uniting, in one prospect, its most distant extremes, has heightened the insolence of nations, and rendered their original and natural equality, to a superficial observer, more incredible.

In judging of nations, as well as of individuals, our observations are more frequently directed to circumstances of pomp and outward splendor, than to intrinsic excellence. And countries, accordingly, where no such appearances are to be found, we too hastily conclude to be the mansions of people, who, from a natural inferiority of talent, are incapable of producing them.

This conclusion was drawn first by the Egyptians, and afterwards by the Greeks. The Greeks, more especially, regarded their own country as the seat of every perfection; and policy, and refinement, and arts, as their exclusive privilege.

Extravagant as the opinion now appears, it was the opinion of free and of polished states, in the meridian of their course. It was supported by a comparison with the neighbouring nations; nor then, perhaps, directly contradicted or disapproved by any authentic memorials.

Such presumption, therefore, was more excusable in the antients; but having been, long since, reprobated by the fullest experience, ought to afford a lesson of wisdom and moderation to all succeeding ages.

When it is observed that, in proportion to the age of the world, the known regions of civility are of larger extent; it is not being too sanguine to expect, that, in the lapse of time, the whole habitable globe shall be found compatible with the same improvements.

What avails it that experience refutes so amply the errors of past times, if it corrects not our judgment of the future, nor disengages the mind from the dominion of its former prejudices?

Could the perpetual greatness of one people be set in opposition to the perpetual meanness of another, the plea of natural pre-eminence were exceedingly specious. But it is great conjunctures only which form great men; and there are certain periods in the annals of the most distinguished nations, wherein they appear in no degree superior to their contemporaries.

In that long interval, which elapsed from the age of Alexander to the conquest of Greece by the Romans, there is scarcely an Athenian of eminence upon record. And the observation, with a few exceptions, is applicable, perhaps, to the whole of Greece, from the above age as far down as the Archaean league, when Agis, and Cleomenes of Sparta, and Aratus, and Philopaemen give us some idea of their illustrious ancestors.

When we resolve, therefore, the rise and decline of nations, and the fluctuating character of the same people at different aeras, we must necessarily allow to mankind in those countries at least which have been the principle scene of civil history, and equal rank and importance in the scale of being.

Let us then examine the plea of humble and unaspiring nations, not hitherto supposed to have emerged into distinction, or to have touched the nearest verge of science and the liberal arts. Constituted so long in circumstances so far beneath the standard of our ideas, it may be deemed not unreasonable to impute to them an original inferiority of nature, or a degradation of rank, occasioned by the infallible operation of physical laws.

Were the facts fully ascertained, and otherwise inexplicable, such conclusions might be embraced and warranted upon the principles of sound philosophy. But the facts are destitute of evidence; and, even if we admitted their reality, none of these hypotheses would be necessary to solve the history of the world.

Let us carry our imagination back to an aera more antient than the birth of arts. Let us the suppose an observer, of profound discernment, to predict, from a series of calculation, the eventual fortune of the world, exclusively of all regard to soil or climate, or at least to the supposed influence of the heavens on the human mind. His sagacity, perhaps, might not determine where civil arts should first arise, or shine forth with the fullest lustre: yet far, surely, from expecting them, in all countries, to be coincident in their origin, or to flourish, at once, in the same degree, he would expect considerable intervals between the arrival of different people at points of equal advancement.

So various are the causes which concur to the full establishment of regular and well-constituted government; that no evidence decisive of the relative capacity of any people could be derived from the commencement of their civil aera. Even after the first movements have been successfully made, there are a thousand disasters, which may annoy a political constitution, in its infancy or early youth, and not suffer its principles to ripen into perfection. Circumstances in no degree affecting the genius of a people, are often sufficient to circumscribe their progress; and consistently with the full strength and vigour of the human powers, the reign of ignorance and simplicity may endure for ages.

Although great attainments indeed imply great talents, the want of talent is not implied in disappointment. In the researches, for instance, of science and philosophy, the moderns have not only equalled, but surpassed the antients: yet who, upon this foundation, will arraign the genius of antiquity?

Fortune governs events: and the magnitude of genius or capacity, in individuals or in tribes, cannot be fully estimated by the success of its exertions. Even the actual promoters of the most important interests of mankind have seldom anticipated, in idea, the progressive consequences of their own plans. In estimating human attainments, their origin, progress, and perfection, must not be totally ascribed to human wisdom. And, with all due honour to the memory of our forefathers, this judgment may be pronounced on all the arts, sciences, and governments they have delivered down to posterity;

–— Quod divum promittere nemo

Auderet, volvenda dies en attulit ultro!

But, if the approaches to civility are easily made, whence then, it may be asked, have we so many embarrassing theories concerning the origin of language, the rise of political union, and the essential arrangements of social life? While such proceedings, in the judgment of the learned, seem to exhaust all human wisdom and ingenuity, is it not, in reality, more wonderful to find so many nations already emerged from obscurity, within the compass of a few thousand years, than to find so many others still hovering on the confines of a state of nature?

But, in further illustration of this point, let us indulge a few arbitrary suppositions.

Let us suppose, that the number of men, born with the high prerogative of conducting a people eventually within the line of civilized life, is to the rest of the species in a certain fixed proportion.

Let the chance of such men being placed in circumstances favourable to the enterprize, form another proportion. And in circumstances thus favourable, let the chance against disappointment by natural or violent death, or other contingency, form likewise an element in the problem. Then, by compounding these proportions, it follows that one only, out of a determinate number of men, is born to execute this great design.

Now let us imagine the earth already peopled before civilization began, and that the number upon earth, at any one time, is equal or inferior to the number which results from the above proportions; then, judging from the probability of things, one or more generations must pass away, after the earth is fully peopled, before civilization is any where introduced. And, after its introduction into one corner, the numbers in the uncivilized part of the earth, being then less than the whole species, still more generations, commencing from the former aera, must pass away, before the aera of civility to any other people.

In proportion, therefore, to the nations already emerged, the chance for the emergence of any new people must constantly decrease.

The computation indeed supposes no intercourse between the civilized and the barbarous nations. By reason of that intercourse the chance of extending civility rises, no doubt, in an eminent degree. Hence, with regard to countries possessing intercourse, the progress may be exceedingly rapid. But in the other, and sequestered corners of the globe, calculation determines that there is a growing chance against the appearance of a cultivated or polished nation. And, if we reason from actual experience, it is far more probable that, in any barbarous land, the civil arts will owe their original to foreign operations, either hostile or commercial, than to interior efforts.

The Romans were no less the legislators, than the conquerors of the world. While spreading desolation with their arms, and trampling on the liberties of mankind, they were actually anticipating, in every country, the progress of legislation, and the arts of government: and the same people, in their fall, left to their barbarous conquerers the traces of a jurisprudence, to which Europe was principally indebted for its future progress.

Nor are we to regard the Romans as inventors of arts, or as the founders of their own policy. The elements of both were drawn from a foreign source. Even the Greeks, in forming their plans, copied more distant originals. Pythagoras and Plato, Lycurgus and Solon, had read the Pillars of Egypt: and the maxims of the Greeks were drawn from the philosophy, if not the legislation of the East.

Similar observations are applicable to all the freer states: and if, according to Mr Hume, pure despotism, once established, cannot possibly, by its own native force and energy, refine and polish itself, and republican and free governments are the only proper nursery of arts and sciences, we have hence an additional principle to account for their late appearance or stagnation in so many parts of the earth. Perhaps then, since the world began, there are a few only, perhaps but a single people, who owe their rise and illustration to bold and original efforts of the human mind.

If, therefore, a concurrence of such various causes is found requisite, if not to produce, at least to accelerate, the progress of refinement and the arts; that progress must be proportionably retarded by a different contexture of events. But the habitations of barbarism, at any one period, must, in speculation, appear immense, when we farther reflect, that the transition from barbarism to civility is not more incident to mankind than the contrary transition.[E]

How many nations have certainly fallen from that importance, which they had formerly borne among the societies of mankind, let the annals of the world declare! How many more have probably experienced as fatal a reverse, we assume not the province of determining. But revolutions, to us unknown, various nations may have undergone; while, being exposed to our view only in their decline, a judgment has been formed of their general character, from what is peculiar to a certain age.

In examining into the antient state of a country, our opinions may be guided by tradition, or by history, by the genius of language, or of arts, or by the declaration of external monuments. In dubious cases, rational conjecture may rest on one of these modes of evidence, or may be balanced nicely on them all.

Let us imagine a modern traveller to perform the tour of the East. He finds there a country, under the gloom of barbarism, presenting no traces of erudition or civil arts, and, without all tradition or memorial of ancestors, superior to the rude inhabitants. Yet history might inform him, that the natives of this country had once been as conspicuous and flourishing, as their posterity are now obscure. Such, perhaps, is the condition of Babylon, once the wonder of the world. Such is the condition of the antient Colchis, which once, if we believe the writings of Pliny or of Strabo, abounded in riches and in people, and formed the centre of a great commercial system.

Let us next imagine our traveller to arrive in a land as barbarously peopled, and unmentioned, or undescribed, in the writings of any historian. There, however, we will suppose, are preserved some monuments of art and grandeur, far disproportioned to the general aspect of things, and to the actual posture of affairs. Might he not hence distinguish a state of depression from a state of nature, and the last from the first movement of civil society?

Nor is the supposition purely imaginary. Within the present century, discoveries have been made in the wilds of Tartary, which seem to declare that country to have been the mansion of a great people; or, at least, to indicate a fall from some of the more elevated forms of society. The scene of these discoveries, lying between Siberia and the Caspian Sea, is now filled with a nation of Calmucs subject to the Russian empire: and on such evidence the Czar Peter founded his opinion, that the arts had made the tour of the globe.[F]

On principles exactly similar, more recent discoveries serve to confirm the large advance of the antient Etrurians, in elegant and polite attainments, before the settlement of any Grecian colony within the limits of Italy.

Nor are such indications confined to any latitude or climate.

The country of Cambodia, [Les Voyages dţun Philosophe, par M. De Poivre, p. 102] in the torrid zone, uncultivated as the natives now are, presents appearances to the traveller, which, unsupported by history or tradition, may be regarded as memorials of former greatness.

Even in the new continent, though, in all probability, more recently peopled than the old, there are indications of a similar import.

The account, published by Mr Kalm, of an expedition across North America, contains some curious information. The expedition was undertaken by a French party from Canada, under the protection of the French government. After traversing immense deserts, a country of a more promising appearance, retaining vestiges of agriculture and civil life, opened to their view. Amidst the wildness of nature, they perceived an artificial face, and recognised the relics of a former age.[G]

The testimony of other travellers is no less decisive. On the shores of the Mississippi, and in other parts of the new continent, there have been found works of great antiquity, which evidence an acquaintance with military science, far above the capacity of rude and untutored tribes.[See Carverţs Travels through North America.]

Well then may it be inferred, that there are large chasms in the annals of many countries; and that we have obtained but an imperfect acquaintance with the fortune of governments, and the vicissitudes of the species.

There are certain corresponding points in the rise and decline of nations, which are liable to be confounded. And apparent motion may be as different from the real, in the political, as in the natural world.

Unacquainted therefore as we are with the stated returns of the civil period, we may mistake the evening for the morning twilight; and imagine a people to be just emerging from the shade, who have, long before, passed their meridian, and are hastening back within the limit of darkness.

The clear testimony of profane history reaches no higher than the Greeks and Romans. There is no piercing through the gloom of remoter ages. And even the contemporary situation of other governments is faintly described, or misrepresented, or passed over in contemptuous silence.

Such facts as the above, it is not pretended, can supply the defect. They may rectify some errors; they may shed some feeble rays of light on nations of dubious existence, but cannot redeem their memory from oblivion. They furnish however new matter to the antiquarian, and a new topic in the circle of the learned.

They do more. They serve to vindicate the prerogatives of the species, and to suggest considerations of some weight in the deductions of philosophy.

Other sources of information unopened by the Greeks remain still to be explored. The grand annals of China, the books of the Bramins, and other immense collections of Oriental records, may form a valuable supplement to the general history of the world. Yet, amidst the darkness and uncertainty in which history and chronology are involved, it appears that the wide differences which have subsisted, or subsist at present, in the actual condition of tribes and nations, are such as, without prejudice to our nature, and exclusive of the unequal influence of the heavens, might, in part, be apprehended from the nice contexture of events, and the complicated operation of moral causes.

But if the honours of nations were, in reality, to be estimated by riches, by population, by the antiquity of arts, or by the stability and duration of civil government, it is not any of the European nations, it is the Chinese, and the Indians, who must be placed at the head of the species.

Let the lovers of paradox [LţHistoire de Astronomie ancienne, par M. Bailly.] contend that these antient people are merely the depositaries of sciences delivered to them, in greater perfection, by a people who flourished in the North of Asia, but have long since disappeared in the political scene.

Let others contend that China was colonized by Egypt, and inherited the sciences from the parent state, who diffused them over the eastern as over the western world. Fix the original mansion in the high latitude of Siberia, or in the torrid zone, it is certain that they devolved on the Chinese and the Indians in an early age; and the uninterrupted possession of so noble an inheritance is their distinguishing privilege.

But the consequences of this privilege are, it must be owned, of a ambiguous nature. And, if the criterion of civility has been rightly defined, [Essay IV] many an obscure people which the proudest nations in Asia, or in Europe, could not boast in the days of their splendor.

If the picture of manners delineated in a performance, which is now read and admired in almost all the languages of Europe, be a faithful copy of an original, it is no paradox to affirm, that the court of Fingal was as highly civilized as the court of Lewis XIV.

In the one the arts were totally unknown; in the other they were at the height of their splendor. But the want of those graces with the arts confer, was more than compensated at the one court, by virtues in which the other was deficient. And if fidelity, generosity, true dignity of mind, are preferable to disingenuity, perfidy, servile adulation; if the former qualities are to be numbered among polite accomplishments, and the latter to be placed in the opposite column; who would not prefer the civilization of Fingalţs court to that of the other, though embellished by all arts and sciences.[H]

Without presuming then to decide the dubious pretensions of mankind, it is our design, in prosecuting these general views, to enquire in what manner the progress of society is connected with local circumstances which do not immediately affect genius, or capacity. And from hence a more accurate judgment will be formed concerning their direct and original influence on the human species.

Such discussion will lead us to enquire how far local circumstances, which, in a variety of ways, may prove beneficial or malignant, are rendered subject to our dominion and controul. And, having thus contemplated man as, in some sort, the arbiter of his own fortune, a question will arise, no less curious than important, whether the perfections and imperfections of his character in one age, may not act, with a direct influence, on the original fabric of posterity.

This is the field of speculation, which, in the order here stated, it is proposed to touch in the following pages.

NOTES.

NOTE [A]

Livy, in the person of a Roman Consul, has described in strong colours the degeneracy of the antient Gauls settled in Asia, and of the Macedonians dispersed over various climates of the world.

Galli, says he, jam degeneres sunt; mixti et Gallograeci vere, quod appellantur. Sicut in frugibus pecudibusque, non tantum semina ad servandam indolem valent, quantum terrae proprietas coelique, sub quo aluntur, mutat. Macedones, qui Alexandriam in Aegypto, qui Seleuciam ac Babyloniam, quique alias sparsas per orbem terrarum colonias habent, in Syros, Parthos, Aegyptios degenerarunt.

Liv. lib. 38. cap. 17.

These are perhaps the exaggerations of Roman eloquence. But if the degeneracy existed in the full extent of the description, it may probably be ascribed not more to physical than moral causes: and it is not climate, but rather a communication of manners, that assimilates the different races of mankind.

If the antient Gauls, who emigrated into Asia, enervated by the reigning manners of Bithynia, degenerated, according to Livy, from the character of their hardy ancestors; the modern French, who have occupied the Isle of Bourbon for a full century, are described, by a well-informed writer, as equal to the most athletic of the European nations.

Ormţs Military Transactions, vol. i. p. 95.

NOTE [B]

This memorable edict was issued by Paul the Third, in the year 1537. But, if the doctrine of some late publications had made its appearance in the sixteenth century, it might have superseded the necessity of this edict, by shewing that Orang-outangs are, in reality, the aborigines of all nations. Such is the illustrious pedigree of mankind!

Unfortunately, indeed, for this hypothesis, it has been demonstrated by an able anatomist, that the Orang-outangs are, from the texture of their organs, incapable of forming speech. Yet, might not the organ change with the exigencies of civil society? And is there not the more reason to admire this temporizing harmony of things!

See Mr Camperţs Account of the Orang-outang in the Philosophical Transactions for 1779.

NOTE [C]

Although there is no mention of Hermodorus in Livy, it is clear, from the testimony of other writers, that this citizen of Ephesus was very instrumental in directing the attention of the Romans to the Grecian jurisprudence.

Whatever relates to this celebrated embassy is an object of learned curiosity. The selection therefore of a few passages from antient authors, tending to authenticate the particulars mentioned in the text, may not prove unacceptable to some of my readers.

The pretentions of Hermodorus are acknowledged, in the Pandects of Justinian, in the following passage:

Alias duas ad easdem tabulas adjecerunt: Et ita ex accidentia appellatae sunt leges duodecim tabularum: quarum serendarum auctorem suisse Decemviris Hermodorum quemdam Ephesium exulantem in Italia quidam retulerunt.

Digest. lib. i. tit. 2. sect. 4.

The erection of the statue is mentioned by Pliny:

Fuit et Hermodori Ephesii in comitio legum quas Decemviri scribebant, interpretis, publici dicata (viz. statua).

Pliny. Nat. Hist. lib. 34. cap. 11.

Cicero quotes Heraclitus thus:

Est apud Heracitum physicum de principe Ephesiorum Hermodor; universos ait Ephesios esse morte multandos, quod, cum civitate expellerent Hermodorum, ita locuti sunt: Nemo de nobis unus excellat: sin quis extiterit, alio in loco et apud alios sit.

Tusc. Disput. lib. 5. cap. 36

The same quotation from Heraclitus, I find in Strabo, lib. 14. with only this difference, that the Ephesians under age are not involved in the condemnation.

The same anecdote is likewise related by Diogenes Laertius, in the life of Heraclitus.

NOTE [D]

In ages of ignorance and simplicity, mankind are so prone to credulity and admiration, that these propensities, prior to reasoning, seem to lead savages into the acknowledgment and adoration of invisible powers, and to introduce, in every country, the rude element of popular superstition.

From hence, therefore, a cultivated people derives an importance, which has often been abused, though so capable of being directed to the best interest of society.

The natives of the West Indies regarded Columbus and his companions as superior beings, sprung from heaven, who had descended to visit the earth, and were worthy of divine honours.

– Nova progenies coelo dimittitur alto.

How honourable then would it have been for the European nations, had they extended their authority in the new hemisphere by persuasion, not by arms, and had a reverence for their religion, their virtue, and superior wisdom, conducted them to empire?

NOTE [E]

Our physical and moral systems, says a Writer whose eloquence is not always sufficient to support his philosophy, are carried round, in one perpetual revolution, from generation to corruption, and from corruption to generation; from ignorance to knowledge, and from knowledge to ignorance; fro barbarity to civility, and from civility to barbarity. Arts and sciences grow up, flourish, decay, die, and return again, under the same or other forms, after periods which appear long to us, however short they may be, compared with the immense duration of the systems of created being. These periods are so disproportionate to all human means of preserving the memory of things, that, when the same things return, we take frequently for a new discovery, the revival of an art or science long before known.

Bolingbrokeţs Phil. Works, vol. ii. P. 224.

The moderns, however, may frequently be considered as original in discoveries and inventions anticipated by the genius of a former age.

The true solar system was taught probably by Pythagorus, above two thousand years ago; yet Copernicus was not indebted for his knowledge of to the Pythagorean schools. Nor would it necessarily derogate from the merit of modern discoveries, should we admit a proposition maintained in a late performance, which abounds in curious erudition. Quţil nţest presque pas une des descouvertes attribuees aux modernes, qui nţait ete, nonseulement connue, mais meme appuyee par de solides raisonnemens des anciens.

Recherces par M. Dutens.

It is well observed by a Writer, who illustrates the nature of genius with the happy precision of a philosopher, that more of it is often exerted in perfecting an art, than in the first invention. On this account he ranks the Greeks above the Egyptians in the scale of genius; and seems to question the frequency of its appearance among the Chinese, who have not hitherto been able to advance the arts beyond that mediocrity to which they had attained in ages the most remote.

See Dr Gerardţs Essay on Genius, p. 19, 25.

But this Author has not affirmed, that all genius is confined to the Greeks, or denied to the Chinese. It was reserved for a Writer, fond of paradox, to maintain, that the other races of mankind can only reach the perfection of their nature by the imitation of the Greeks, and of a few favourite tribes of men, whom heaven has delighted to honour.

Antient Metaphysics, p. 494.

NOTE [F]

Mr Voltaire, in his description of the country of the Calmucs, gives the following account of these discoveries. Cţest-la quţon a trouve en 1720, un maison souteraine de pierres, des urnes, des lampes, des pendans dţoreilles, une statue equestre dţun prince Oriental portant un diademe sur sa tete, deux femmes assises sur des trones, un rouleau de manuscrits, envoye par Pierre le Grand a lţAcademie des Inscriptions de Paris, et reconnu pour etre en langue du Tibet: tous temoignages singuliers que les arts ont habite ce pays aujourdţhui barbare, et preuves subsistantes de ce quţa dit Pierre le Grand plus dţune fois, que les arts avoient fait le tour du monde.

Hist. de lţEmpire du Russi, tom. i.

The subterraneous house, mentioned in this passage by Mr Voltaire, is described more particularly, by our English traveller Mr Bell, as a regular edifice, situated in the midst of a desert, on the banks of the river Irtish, and distinguished by the name of the Seven Palaces.

According to the tradition of some Tartars, it was built by Tamerlane the Great: according to that of others, By Gengischan. But certain countries of Tartary, of a more northern situation, which, according to Mr Bellţs information, the arms of Tamerlane had in vain attempted to subdue, appear to have been once the scene of great transactions; and contain the spoils of nations of high antiquity, and no stranger to the arts.

Some Calmuc manuscripts were purchased by Mr Bell at Tobolsky; and, having been presented by him to Sir Hans Sloan, are now deposited in the British Museum.

See Bellţs Travels, vol. i. p. 209.

There is another species of evidence, which, in the opinion of some writers, is still more conclusive.

The existence of a great nation in the north of Asia, long before the dates of our most antient memorials, has been lately contended for, on astronomical principles, by M. Balli, a writer of great learning and ingenuity. He contends, that the original feat of mankind was situated in the high latitude of 49 or 50 degrees; that the primitive migrations were from North to South; and that we find in the East the fragments only of sciences which were carried thither by the primitive emigrants, but which were never generally known to the Indians or other Orientals.

I cannot attempt in a note to examine the foundations of this theory. It is sufficient to observe, that it has not as yet been able to shake the established conviction of the learned.

M. Balli, in a series of letters addressed to the late M. Voltaire, labours to convert that author to his opinions; and from a sympathy, no doubt, which reigns among congenial spirits, he espouses an hypothesis of Mons. Buffon, concerning the earth and the whole planetary system, still more fanciful than his own concerning the origin of nations, and the progress of arts and sciences.

NOTE [G]

These intelligent travellers, having sojourned in the country for some time, had an opportunity of examining it with attention.

The country is situated at the distance of nine hundred French miles west of Montreal. And, besides other monuments of antient cultivation, there were found in it pillars of stone, of great magnificence, manifestly erected by human hands, but of which there remained no tradition among the Indian tribes. Unfortunately, these pillars contained no inscriptions, whence any conjecture could be formed concerning their original. At length, however, a large stone, in the form of a pillar, was discovered, and fixed in it a smaller stone covered with unknown characters. This stone, severed from the larger mass, being carried to Canada, and from thence to France, was delivered into the custody of M. Maurepas, at the time secretary of state.

NOTE [H]

A well-known Writer in politics affects to have ideas of the state of mankind so mathematically precise, that he divides the Indians of America into three classes, mere savages, half savages, and almost civilized.

The savages he describes, in all respects, as a blood-thirsty, unfeeling race, destitute of every human virtue. The missionaries of Paraguay, we are told, can transform these infernal savages into the most benevolent race under heaven. A metamorphosis which, though celebrated by a dignitary of the church, will hardly command belief in this sceptical age: yet it serves to support a new theory of government, which is founded on the total debasement of human nature, and is now opposed to a theory that asserts its honours, and derives from a happier origin the image of a free people.

See a Work by Dean Tucker, Part II containing, as the Writer modestly declares, the true basis of civil government, in opposition to the system of Mr Locke and his followers.

When the benevolence of this writer is exalted into charity, when the spirit of his religion corrects the rancour of his philosophy, he will learn a little more reverence for the system to which he belongs, and acknowledge, in the most untutored tribes, some glimmerings of humanity, and some decisive indications of a moral nature.

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The above note has had the singular fortune of being dissected, in a late Performance, by the hand of the great master to whom it relates. This act of violence I might have endured in silence, and bowed, with reverence, to the Priest of God. But when he endeavours to impress on the Public a conviction that affects my honour, I am bound by no law, human or divine, to acquiesce to his chastisement.

He charges me with detecting him in manuscript, and exposing him, in that naked and defenceless state, to the eye of the world. I never saw him but in the full armour of print.

He supposes me to have made that detection by a communication of papers from Dr Campbell, against all the rules of honourable war. That conjecture, unfortunately for my accuser, is destitute of all foundation.

But he charges me with dragging him, prematurely and reluctantly, before the tribunal of the Pubic, and with making him responsible to the world for a performance, which was declared, by an advertisement prefixed, to be designed only for experiment, in a select circle of the learned. I was not possible to divine its contents; and, instructed as I now am, I venture to affirm, that the fragment of the Deanţs book, above quoted, will be found, in the construction both of law and of common sense, to possess all the requisites of a publication. It was dispersed, by his own acknowledgement, into many hands; it had appeared in a public shop; and, when stripped of the advertisement, bore not even an equivocal character. I examined, indeed, but one limb of a monster, and enquired not into the history of its birth.

What then is the amount of my offence? It is that I collected not the fragments of the Dean, like the leaves of the Sybil, with pious industry; and that, in judging of so singular a production, I suppressed not the sentiments natural to a Briton, nor the indignation that became a man.

The case, it is alleged, is rather new. Then review the case, Mr Dean, and make some allowances for human frailties. But whatever vengeance you denounce against so atrocious an offender, you will not, for the conduct of one individual, condemn a system. You will not, to use your own incomparable language, banish the system of Locke from the society of men, and say of all its partizans,

– Crimine ab uno disce omnes.

In your admirable plan of government there are other ideas of distributive justice. And, unworthy as I am, I may look for some indulgence, as a member of that learned body you profess to have admired during a full revolution of Saturn. [I have admired, says the Dean, the literati of Scotland for upwards of thirty years.] But I owe you even personal acknowledgments; and, in return to your polite insinuation, that I seem capable of becoming an useful writer, I am bound to observe, that there was a time when Dean Tucker might have aspired to that distinction.

That time, I fear, is no more. Of a younger candidate there is hope. But reformation seldom visits us in our decline. And should there exist a man, in church or state, sunk in malevolence as in years; crafty in politics, jesuitical by system; declining public preferment with the solemnity of an oath, yet expecting, in secret, a courtierţs reward; profaning the tombs of the dead — a reviler of his fellow-citizens — the calumniator of one-half the globe; — it is, surely by a miracle, if such a man re-assert his primaeval honours, put forth, in the winter of his days, the fair blossoms of the spring, and, recanting all the errors of this life when on the verge of another descend, at last, unspotted to the grave.

I now hasten to inform my Readers, that the Fragment in question, which I attempted in vain to redeem from obscurity, has been succeeded by a more luminous performance, enlightened and adorned by rays of learning and ingenuity from different corners of the land.

ţAll historians agree,ţ says the Dean in his more perfect work, ţwithout one exception, that the savages, in general, are very cruel, and vindictive, full of spite and malice; and that they have little or no fellow-feeling for the distress even of a brother of the same tribe — and none at all, no not a spark of benevolence towards the distressed members of an hostile tribe.ţ

Who, that avows such sentiments, will usurp the name of an historian? The original of this picture is to be found only in the registers of the damned. All historians agree, that the character of rude tribes is various and dissimilar, like that of more enlightened nations. The Indians of the new hemisphere, though of various description, are, in general, supposed, on good grounds, to have resembled, in genius and modes of life, the character of the antient Germans. Dr Robertsonţs description of savage life, though not indulgent, is credible and consistent; and he allows the Indians to possess, in an eminent degree, the benevolent instincts of nature. The Indians of Paraguay are a timid race; and the Jesuits, heightening, perhaps, the imbecilities of their character by the dictates of superstition, have been able to reduce them under some regular scheme of government. But the natives of Brazil, untutored by Jesuits, are described, by well-informed historians, as an innocent and happy people, flourishing in the virtues of peace and of humanity.

On this subject I might refer our learned Divine to the first reception of Columbus in the New World, to the more recent voyages of discovery in both hemispheres, and to the indelible character of the human species, which has fitted them for society and for government in every country under heaven. I might almost refer him to an authority he reveres; the authority of those Fathers who conduct their missions on the principles of deceit, who belie the Saviour of the world, and number submissions to the domination of tyrants among the evangelical virtues. But, of the Deanţs last Treatise on Government, I would neither be the encomiast, nor the detractor. It can only deserve an answer, when it excites the attention of the Public. I opened it merely to vindicate my own character; and, unless provoked by future injuries, am now ready to close it for ever. — Salve aeternum, aeternumque vale.