There cannot a greater judgment befall a country than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers and more averse to one another than if they were actually two different nations. The effects of such a division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to those advantages which they give the common enemy, but to those private evils which they produce in the heart of almost every particular person. This influence is very fatal. both to men's morals and their understandings; it sinks the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys even

common sense.

A furious party spirit, when it rages in its full violence, exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is under its greatest restraints naturally breaks out in falsehood, detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancor, and extinguishes all the seeds of good-nature, compassion, and humanity.

Plutarch says,1 very finely, that a man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies;-" Because," says he, "if you indulge this passion in some occasions, it will rise of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you." I might here observe how admirably this precept of morality (which derives the malignity of hatred from the passion itself, and not from its object) answers to that great rule which was dictated 2 to the world about an hundred years before this philosopher wrote; but instead of that, I shall only take notice, with a real grief of heart, that the minds of many good men among us appear soured with party principles, and alienated from one another in such a manner as seems to me altogether

'Moral Essays: "How One shall be helped by Enemies."
"By whom? Where is it recorded ?

inconsistent with the dictates either of reason or religion. Zeal for a public cause is apt to breed passions in the hearts of virtuous persons to which the regard of 1 their own private interest would never have betrayed them.

If this party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon our judgments. We often hear a poor, insipid paper or pamphlet cried up, and sometimes a noble piece depreciated, by those who are of a different principle from the author. One who is actuated by this spirit is almost under an incapacity of discerning either real blemishes or beauties. A man of merit in a different principle, is like an object seen in two different mediums, that appears crooked or broken, however straight or entire it may be in itself. For this reason, there is scarce a person of any figure in England who does not go by two contrary characters, as opposite to one another as light and darkness. Knowledge and learning suffer in a particular manner from this strange prejudice, which at present prevails amongst all ranks and degrees in the British nation. As men formerly became eminent in learned societies by their parts and acquisitions, they now distinguish themselves by the warmth and violence with which they espouse their respective parties. Books are valued. upon the like considerations. An abusive, scurrilous style passes for satire, and a dull scheme of party notions is called fine writing.

4

There is one piece of sophistry practiced by both sides, and that is the taking any scandalous story that has been ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known, undoubted truth, and raising suitable speculations upon it. Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often refuted, are the ordinary postulatums of these infamous scribblers, upon which they proceed as upon first principles granted by all men, though in their hearts they know they 1 A regard for. 2 Whose political principles differ from our own. E. g., a stick in a dish of water-the "two mediums" being water and air. 'Things taken for granted.

3

are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If this shameless practice of the present age endures much longer,1 praise and reproach will cease to be motives of action in good 2 men.

3

There are certain periods of time in all governments when this inhuman spirit prevails. Italy was long torn in pieces by the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and France by those who were for and against the League: 4 but it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestuous season. It is the restless ambition of artful men that thus breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning persons to their interest by a specious 5 concern for their country. How many honest minds are filled with uncharitable and barbarous notions, out of their zeal for the public good! What cruelties and outrages would they not commit against men of an adverse party, whom they would honor and esteem, if, instead of considering them as they are represented, they knew them as they are! Thus are persons of the greatest probity seduced into shameful errors and prejudices, and made bad men even by that noblest of principles, the "love of their country."6 I cannot here forbear mentioning the famous Spanish proverb, "If there were neither fools nor knaves in the world, all people would be of one mind."

For my own part, I could heartily wish that all honest men would enter into an association for the support of one another against the endeavors of those whom they ought

In Dante's time the Guelphs were the partisans of the Pope, and the Ghibellines those of the German emperors.

The Guises were at the head of the Confederation of the League, which made war upon the Bourbon princes with great fury from the Massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572) till the accession of Henry of Navarre (1589).

5

Ostensible; pretended.

Find Madame Roland's famous apostrophe to Liberty, as she stood upon the scaffold.

to look upon as their common enemies, whatsoever side they may belong to. Were there such an honest body of neutral forces, we should never see the worst of men in great figures of life, because they are useful to a party; nor the best unregarded, because they are above practicing those methods which would be grateful to their faction. We should then single every criminal out of the herd, and hunt him down, however formidable and overgrown he might appear: on the contrary, we should shelter distressed innocence, and defend virtue, however beset with contempt or ridicule, envy, or defamation. In short, we should not any longer regard our fellow subjects as whigs or tories, but should make the man of merit our friend, and the villain our enemy.1 C.

There is a long and interesting note on party spirit in Addison's time in G. W. Greene's edition of Addison's Works, vol. iv., p. 344.

XXIII.

PARTY PREJUDICE.

[Spectator No. 126. Wednesday, July 25, 1711. Addison.]

Tros Rutulusve fuat, nullo discrimine habebo.

VIRGIL.

In my yesterday's paper, I proposed that the honest men of all parties should enter into a kind of association for the defence of one another and the confusion of their common enemies. As it is designed this neutral body should act with a regard to nothing but truth and equity, and divest themselves of the little heats and prepossessions that cleave to parties of all kinds, I have prepared for them the following form of an association, which may express their intentions in the most plain and simple manner:

We whose names are hereunto subscribed, do solemnly declare that we do in our consciences believe two and two make four; and that we shall adjudge any man whatsoever to be our enemy who endeavors to persuade us to the contrary.

We are likewise ready to maintain, with the hazard of all that is near and dear to us, that six is less than seven in all times and all places, and that ten will not be more three years hence than it is at present.

We do also firmly declare, that it is our resolution as long as we live to call Black black, and White white. And we shall upon all occasions oppose such persons that,1 upon any day of the year, shall call Black white, or White black, with the utmost peril of our lives and fortunes.

Were there such a combination of honest men, who without any regard to places would endeavor to extirpate

1 As.