PART VII.

ON SOCIETY, GOVERNMENT, AND POLITICS.

If I were to select a person the most competent to give an opinion on any great national question, it would not be a man officially engaged in the administration of the state. He is too much occupied with his own department, or with local and personal considerations, to form views otherwise than circumscribed and partial. It should be the individual who combines the philosopher with the man of the world; who looks on life as from a distant eminence, witnessing the movements and aspects of men and events, without feeling their influence.

The boundaries between civilized and savage life are much narrower than certain philosophers and theorists would have us to suppose. The greater part of the people in cultivated states, appear to be much on an equality with the most advanced of those nations that are commonly regarded as barbarous. A considerable number, situated in remote districts, receive scarcely the

slightest tincture of the passing improvement. In respect to sense and ingenuity, multitudes among savage tribes equal, if not surpass, our peasantry; and are probably considered as belonging to an inferior race, merely because their language and manners, and perhaps their colour, differ from our own.

We may doubt whether it is more consolatory or more mortifying, that no individual is of much consequence in the system of society.

It would scarcely be correct to affirm, that modern times do not produce so many specimens of physical hardihood and strength as remoter periods, although we have many more persons of feeble constitutions. Owing to improvements in medical science and modes of life, thousands are now reared who would have sunk under the rigorous circumstances of former days.

ness.

The epochs in which intellect flourishes most, are not always those of the greatest public happiIn England, for example, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may perhaps be viewed as the seasons most distinguished for the vigour and luxuriance of the national mind. Yet the political aspect of those periods was marked by despotism on the one hand, and commotion on the other; while the paucity of comforts among the people at large, suggests little in favour of their social condition.

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There is no dearth of genius among the ordinary mass of society, as appears in times of great political commotion, when a multitude of superior minds are generally developed, that otherwise might have slumbered in obscurity, or died in embryo.

With several disadvantages arising from separation between the higher and lower classes, there is at least one benefit; their respective vices and follies are less known to each other. Perhaps this circumstance may illustrate the fact, that the most violent opponents of popular claims have frequently been persons who have themselves risen from the body of the people.

A frequent cause why the state of things in preceding times is praised to the disparagement of the present, is only a contracted unphilosophical spirit, which is open to passing circumstances or annoyances, but incapable of estimating any thing remote. The disadvantages of the present age are considered great, because they are felt; those of former periods are overlooked or depreciated, because they are past.

It may be questioned whether any of the military exploits of antiquity equal, in point of skill, the celebrated ones of modern times. Most of the famous battles of the Greeks, for instance, were fought with effeminate people, or with

undisciplined barbarians. Military tactics appear to have been very superficially understood by the ancients.

A public step, though it may have originated in partial or cursory views, is often decisive of subsequent conduct, through a regard to consistency. It is necessary, therefore, to deliberate well, before this last and governing direction be given to the course of action.

It is a rare thing for the leaders of parties, however mild or equitable themselves, to discover the assumption or injustice of their adherents, towards persons of opposite sentiments.

Perhaps it is doubtful whether the invention of fire arms has increased the destruction of human life. Mind bears the sway, and would shortly obtain the supremacy under any other system or discovery.

It is a relief, in perusing the accounts of the wars and devastations by which different countries have at various periods been afflicted, to recollect that, in general, only the surface of society is touched by any great national or political events.

Some persons are willing enough to look at both sides of a question, within certain precincts; but once touch their own sentiments or party, and their seeming impartiality vanishes.

The unsettled state of some public questions is a cause of regret, chiefly as an obstacle to the consideration of more important ones.

In estimating the comparative evil of one oppressing many, or many oppressing one, we are to take into account the influence of tyranny on the mind by which it is exercised. This consideration might lead us to suppose, that in the latter case there is a preponderance of evil; for the indulgence of wrong dispositions is more to be deprecated than the sacrifice of personal rights or comforts. On the other hand, it would be unfair to overlook the pernicious effects which oppression generally produces on the moral feelings and character of the oppressed.

We are arrived at that state of society and the arts, in which there is so great a disproportion between the necessaries and the luxuries of life, that the former are very dear, and the latter very cheap.

Men of comprehensive and vigorous minds are often more vehement in reprobating erroneous or foolish measures than to others seems necessary. The fact is, they have a deeper insight into the absurdity and possible ill consequences of what they oppose, than the generality dream of.

It would be easy to draw such a picture of the laws and institutions of almost any country, as,