ESSAY XIV.

Ο, ~, μὲν πρὸς τὸν 18 ὅλου πλοῦτον, μᾶλλον δὲ πρὸς τὶ φάντασμα πόλεω; ἀπάσης, ὅ πανταχῆ καὶ οὐδαμῇ ἑςὶ, φέρει μάθημα καὶ ἐπιτήδευμα, τοῦτο χρήσι μον καὶ σόφον τὶ δοξασθήσεται· τῶν δὲ ἄλλων καταγελᾷ ὁ πολιτικὸς. Ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν χρὴ φάναι τοῦ μήτε ἄλλο καλὸν, μήτε τὰ πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον μεγαλοπρέπως ἀσκεῖν τὰς πόλεις, τῶν πολίτων μάλ' ἐνίοτε οὐκ ἀφυῶν ὄντων δυσ τυχούντων σε μήν. Πῶς λέγεις; Πῶς μὲν οὖν αὐτοὺς οὐ λέγοιμ' ἄν παράπαν δυστυχεῖς, οις γε ἀνάγκη διὰ βίου πεινῶσι τὴν ψυχὴν ἀεὶ τὴν αὐτῶν διεξελθεῖν. PLATO.

Whatever study or doctrine bears upon the wealth of the whole, say rather on a certain phantom of a state in the whole, which is everywhere and nowhere, this shall be deemed most useful and wise; and all else is the state-craftsman's scorn. This we dare pronounce the cause why nations torpid on their dignity in general, conduct their wars so little in a grand and magnanimous spirit, while the citizens are too often wretched, though endowed with high capabilities by nature. How say you? Nay, how should I not call them wretched, who are under the unrelenting necessity of wasting away their life in the mere search after the means of supporting it?

IN the preceding essay I treated of what may be wisely desired in respect to our foreign relations. The same sanity of mind will the true patriot display in all that regards the internal prosperity of his country. He will reverence not only whatever tends to make the component individuals more happy, and more worthy of happiness; but likewise whatever tends to bind them more closely together as a people;-that as a multitude of parts and functions make up one human body, so the whole multitude of his countrymen may, by the visible and invisible influences of religion, language, laws, customs, and the reciprocal dependence and re-action of trade and agriculture, be organized into one body politic. But much as he desires to see all become a whole, he

*De Legibus, viii.-The Greek is chiefly taken from the beginning of this book of the Laws; but it is not taken consecutively; some of the expres sions are from other parts of Plato, and some seem to be the Author's own-Ed.

places limits even to this wish, and abhors that system of policy which would blend men into a state by the dissolution of all those virtues which make them happy and estimable as individuals Sir James Steuart, after stating the case of the vine-dresser, whc is proprietor of a bit of land, on which grain (enough, and nc more) is raised for himself and family, and who provides for their other wants, of clothing, salt, &c. by his extra labor as a vinedresser, observes :- From this example we discover the difference between agriculture exercised as a trade, and as a direct means of subsisting. We have the two species in the vinedresser he labors the vineyard as a trade, and his spot of ground for subsistence. We may farther conclude, that as to the last part he is only useful to himself; but as to the first, he is useful to the society and becomes a member of it; consequently were it not for his trade the state would lose nothing, although the vinedresser and his land were both swallowed up by an earthquake.'*

Now this contains the sublime philosophy of the sect of economists. They worship a kind of nonentity under the different words, the state, the whole, the society, and so on, and to this idol they make bloodier sacrifices than ever the Mexicans did to Tescalipoca. All, that is, each and every sentient being in a given tract, are made diseased and vicious, in order that each may become useful to all, or the state, or the society,—that is, to the word, all, the word state, or the word society. The absurdity may be easily perceived by omitting the words relating to this idol-as for instance-in a former paragraph of the same (in most respects) excellent work: 'If it therefore happens that, an additional number produced do no more than feed themselves, then I perceive no advantage gained from their production.'† What! No advantage gained by, for instance, ten thousand happy, intelligent, and immortal beings having been produced !— O yes! but no advantage to this society.-What is this society, this whole, this state? Is it any thing else but a word of convenience to express at once the aggregate of confederated indi· viduals living in a certain district? Let the sum total of each man's happiness be supposed = 1000; and suppose ten thousand men produced, who neither made swords nor poison, nor found corn nor clothes for those who did-but who procured by their labor food and raiment for themselves, and for their children ;

*Polit. Econ. vol. i. c. 14.-Ed.

+ Ib.-Ed

would not that society be richer by 10,000,000 parts of happi ness? And think you it possible, that ten thousand happy hu man beings can exist together without increasing each other's happiness, or that it will not overflow into countless channels,* and diffuse itself through the rest of the society?

The poor vine-dresser rises from sweet sleep, worships his Maker, goes with his wife and children into his little plot-returns to his hut at noon, and eats the produce of the similar labor of a former day. Is he useful? No, not yet. Suppose then, that during the remaining hours of the day he endeavored to provide for his moral and intellectual appetites, by physical experiments and philosophical research, by acquiring knowledge for himself and communicating it to his wife and children. Would he be useful then? He useful! The state would lose nothing although the vine-dresser and his land were both swallowed up by an earthquake! Well then, instead of devoting the latter half of each day to his closet, his laboratory, or to neighborly conversation, suppose he goes to the vineyard, and from the ground which would maintain in health, virtue, and wisdom, twenty of his fellow-creatures, helps to raise a quantity of liquor that will disease the bodies and debauch the souls of a hundred-Is he useful now? O yes! a very useful man, and a most excellent

citizen.†

In what then does the law between state and state differ from that between man and man? For hitherto we seem to have discovered no variation. The law of nations is the law of common honesty, modified by the circumstances in which states differ from individuals. According to my best understanding, the difference may be reduced to this one point: that the influence of example in any extraordinary case, as the possible occasion of an action apparently like, though in reality very different, is of * Well, and in the spirit of genuine philosophy, does the poet describe such beings as men

Who being innocent do for that cause
Bestir them in good deeds

Wordsworth.

Providence, by the ceaseless activity which it has implanted in our nature, has sufficiently guarded against an innocence without virtue.

So in Jollie's and Hutchinson's History of Cumberland, the writer speaks of a small estatesman, bred to a rural life, who can not betake himself from an indolent habit to manufacturing and labor !—Introd. p. 39, 1830.

M

considerable importance in the moral calculations of an individual; but of little, if any, in those of a nation. The reasons are evident. In the first place, in cases concerning which there can be any dispute between an honest man and a true patriot, the circumstances, which at once authorize and discriminate the measure, are so marked and peculiar and notorious, that it is incapable of being drawn into a precedent by any other state under dissimilar circumstances; except perhaps as a mere pretext for an action, which had been predetermined without reference to this authority, and which would have taken place, though it had never existed. But if so strange a thing should happen, as a second coincidence of the same circumstances, or of circumstances sufficiently similar to render the prior measure a fair precedent; then, if the one action was justifiable, so will the other be; and without any reference to the former, which in this case may be useful as a light, but can not be requisite as an authority. Secondly, in extraordinary cases it is ridiculous to suppose that the conduct of states will be determined by example. We know that they neither will, nor in the nature of things can, be determined by any other consideration but that of the imperious circumstances, which render a particular measure advisable. But lastly, and more important than all, individuals are and must be under positive laws and so very great is the advantage which results from the regularity of legal decisions, and their consequent capability of being foreknown and relied upon, that equity itself must sometimes be sacrificed to it. For the very letter of a positive law is part of its spirit. But states neither are, nor can be, under positive laws. The only fixed part of the law of nations is the spirit: the letter of the law consists wholly in the circumstances to which the spirit of the law is applied. It is mere puerile declamation to rail against a country, as having imitated the very measures for which it had most blamed its ambitious enemy, if that enemy had previously changed all the relative circumstances which had existed for him, and therefore rendered his conduct iniquitous; but which, having been removed, however iniquitously, can not without absurdity be supposed any longer to control the measures of an innocent nation, necessitated to struggle for its own safety; especially when the measures in question were adopted for the very purpose of restoring those circumstances.

any

There are times when it would be wise to regard patriotism as a light that is in danger of being blown out, rather than as a fire which needs to be fanned by the winds of party spirit. There are times when party spirit, without unwonted excess, may yet become faction; and though in general not less useful than natural in a free government, may under particular emergencies prove fatal to freedom itself. I trust I am writing to those who think with me, that to have blackened a ministry, however strong or rational our dislike may be of the persons who compose it, is a poor excuse and a miserable compensation for the crime of unnecessarily blackening the character of our country. Under this conviction, I request my reader to cast his eye back on my last argument, and then to favor me with his patient attention while I attempt at once to explain its purport and to show its cogency.

Let us transport ourselves in fancy to the age and country of the patriarchs, or, if the reader prefers it, to some small colony uninfluenced by the mother country, which has not organized itself into a state, or agreed to acknowledge any one particular governor. We will suppose this colony to consist of from twenty to thirty households or separate establishments, differing greatly from each other in the number of retainers and in extent of possessions. Each household, however, possesses its own domain, the least equally with the greatest, in full right; and its master is an independent sovereign within his own boundaries. This mutual understanding and tacit agreement we may well suppose to have been the gradual result of many feuds, which had produced misery to all and real advantage to none; and that the same sober and reflecting persons, dispersed through the different establishments, who had brought about this state of things, had likewise coincided in the propriety of some other prudent and humane regulations, which from the authority of these wise men on points, in which they were unanimous, and from the evident good sense of the rules themselves, were acknowledged throughout the whole colony, though they were never voted into a formal law, though the determination of the cases, to which these rules were applicable, had not been intrusted to any recog nized judge, nor their enforcement delegated to any particular magistrate. Of these virtual laws this, we may safely conclude, would be the chief: that as no man ought to interfere in the