Essay XIII. Of the Hereditary Genius of Nations The empire of the imagination and the passions, by diversifying the natural form, and reaching the organization of man, has appeared to be extensive. But, without invigorating or enervating the principle of mere animal life, perhaps his genius and character in one age may, by the more direct laws of the intellectual oeconomy, affect the original genius and character of succeeding generations. The mode of this oeconomy we pretend not to unfold. It is the order of things; it is the relation of appearances alone, which is the foundation of all just theory with regard to the natural or to the moral world. The connection of cause and effect is, in all cases, a mysterious connection, which no mortal can unveil. Prior then to all theory, let us contemplate some of the appearances in civil life. The separation of families, and the distinction of ranks, are essential to all political establishments. No division of property, no rules of patrimonial succession, no sumptuary, no agrarian laws can long preserve a parity of rank or fortune among any people. The greater number, indeed, in every state, are rendered subservient to the few; are confounded together in one class, and compose the rude vulgar of mankind. Thus, in the plan of the Comita of Rome, the people were distributed into six classes, and every Roman was allowed some share of political power; but the lowest class gradually sunk into neglect. The whole power of the comitia was transferred to their superiors, and those of each class, though equal in their collective capacity, were, as men and as citizens, of very unequal consideration. Theseus instituted at Athens an order of nobility, and debarred the people at large from all the honourable functions of civil government. And if Solon, by permitting every citizen to vote in the public assembly, seemed to confer on the meanest of them a sort of political existence; yet, even by Solon's plan, the Athenians were divided into three classes, according to the extent of their fortunes, while the mass of the people, distinct from these, were legally excluded from all offices of trust or honour. In Sparta alone an equality of fortune was the aim of the legislator, and an avowed maxim of government. But the expedients of Lycurgus were not effectual for that purpose; and, even in the purest ages of the Commonwealth, the distinction of riches and poverty was not totally unknown. Such is the condition of men in the most democratical states. The forms of society require subordination; the details of affairs calls for different occupations; and mankind are distributed into classes, to which belong unequal degrees of importance. That the subdivision of arts, which is so conducive to their perfection, degrades the character of the common artizan, is a proposition consonant to the uniform experience of civilized nations. The most simple manufacture is executed by the joint labour of a number of people, each of whom, being expert only in his own peculiar branch, perceives neither the connection of design, nor the result of the combination. That systematic knowledge belongs only to the master-artist; and the detail of the execution seems to resemble, in some sort, the proceedings of instinct in animal life; where we so often observe, by the wisdom of nature, a regular, though blind, co-operation of numbers towards an unknown end. The manufacture of a pin is a trite example, serving well to illustrate this subdivision of labour. That business is subdivided into about eighteen distinct operations, which are sometimes all performed by distinct hands. In manufactures of a more complicated fabric, and often tend, among the various orders of artizans, to debilitate the body, and to engender disease. But exclusively of this consequence, the life of such an artizan is filled up with a series of actions, which, returning with an insipid uniformity, affords no exercise to genius or capacity. And if the tendency of his occupation is not counteracted by some expedient of government, he is suffered to fall into a torpor of intellect, which implies the absence or annihilation of every manly virtue. Such occupations, in the antient republics of Greece and Rome, were considered as beneath the dignity of free citizens, and were commonly exercised by slaves. In the present state of the arts among the European nations, perhaps the most respectable character among the inferior ranks is bred by the possession of arms. Its functions, which have more compass and variety, are more animated and more interesting than those of a mechanical trade. The whole detail of military exercise polishes and fashions the body, and even confers graces which elevate the mind. In the breast of a private soldier, there often reigns a sense of personal dignity and honour, which scarce ever enters into the mass of the people, and is but rarely to be met with in men of superior affluence and figure. A certain cast of genius and character adheres to every condition. Different degrees of refinement and civility characterise the various orders of citizens; and the dignity or meanness annexed to the sphere in which they move, is, by no violent transition of imagination, transferred to their immediate, and even to remote descendants, and regarded as appendages of posterity. Thus families are formed, where men become destined, from birth alone, to occupy, in civil society, more or less exalted stations. Antiquity of family then implies a descent from a series of ancestors long separated from the crowd, and exalted to some eminence in the ranks of life. Now, it will not be denied, that, in the first generation, the resemblance of children to parents is often conspicuous in the features, both of body and mind. The one species of resemblance is sometimes conspicuous where the other is scarce discernible; and the other species is sometimes no less predominant where the former subsists in an inferior, or perhaps in no degree. These principles, though blended occasionally in their operations, seem to be distinct and independent. Various causes, to us unknown, may interrupt the law of resemblance in the outward form. Various causes, alike unknown, may interrupt the law of resemblance in the moral oeconomy. These connections and dependencies we attempt not to explore. We know not how far the character of parents touches, if we may say so, the elements of the amorous passion, or diversifies the mode of instinct, so as to affect the progeny of love. It is sufficient, if general experience declare such connections to have a foundation in nature. Admit then, that certain qualities of mind, as well as body, are transmissible in the first generation, and do not terminate there; is there not reason to expect, from the accumulated efforts of the same causes, that some general inheritance may be derived in a course of ages, and, consequently, that a greater or less propensity to refinement, to civility, and to the politer arts, may be connected with an illustrious, or more obscure original? But this species of influence, which is strictly moral, ought to be variable in every country, with the order, the policy, and the arrangements of civil society. It is the genius of popular and free governments to annihilate, in some sort, family distinctions. Citizens, born to equal privileges, and constituted in similar points of exterior rank, will transmit to posterity more equal proportions of the gifts of nature. Under a more unequal government, where distinctions abound, where reigns the strongest contrast of condition has been cherished and preserved for ages, the more diversity will be more conspicuous; and civil distinctions long maintained, will open a source of natural distinctions in succeeding times. Hereditary characteristics accordingly attracted the attention of mankind, in some degree, under all the antient governments. A regard to descent, which amounted to a species of idolatry among some nations, has not been altogether exploded in free and popular states. In the Gentoo government of Indostan, the distinction of casts or tribes was never violated by promiscuous commerce. And such was the public solicitude of the Indians, about the future generation, that physical education might be said to commence antecedently to birth. A guardian was appointed for an infant yet unborn; and it was his province to lay down a regimen for the mother during the months of pregnancy.[Gentoo Code, p. 283] The improvement of the race of citizens was a favourite object of Spartan policy. And while, with this view, the laws authorised, under certain regulations, a community of wives, and even approved of crossing the breed, they permitted no alliances or intermarriages among the different orders of citizens. Such alliances and intermarriages were also expressly interdicted by the laws of Rome, for upwards of three hundred years. The free spirit of the Romans, indeed, as last rebelled against such odious distinctions, and opened to every citizen the way to civil honours. Yet the Romans themselves, after so glorious a struggle for privilege, against the usurpations of a proud nobility, testified, in the very moment of victory, their reverence for Patrician blood.[Tit. Liv. cap. 6. lib. iv] Imagination surely, in all such cases, influences the judgment of the people; and while it inclines them so often to bestow unmerited preference, it sometimes elevates the character of the individuals to whom that preference is given. Men nobly born are animated with the idea, and think themselves called upon, in a peculiar manner, to emulate the virtues, and to sustain the honours of their name. Et pater AEneas, & avunculus excitat Hector. They feel, not what they are, but what they ought to be; till at last, by feeling what they ought to be, they become what they are not: and thus, by reverencing the dignity of ancestors, they learn to assert their own. But, independently of such sentiments, as well as of all the peculiar incentives to true glory, there is often an invisible preparation of natural causes, which concurs with the civil order of things in prolonging the honours or even the infamy of a race; and hereditary characteristics are interwoven into the genius and essence of the mind. Hence the milder glories of the Valerii; hence the unfeeling obstinacy and insolence of the Appian blood. And, perhaps, it will be found that the judgment of the crowd, in these, as in many instances, though swayed by imagination, has however a foundation in experience, and is, in part, conformable to general laws. To vindicate the principle on which this judgment proceeds, let us review the condition of a family emerging from rudeness into the dignity of civil life. Let us suppose the founders constituted in a state of independence, and of decent affluence; graced with every circumstance that can command respect; improved by all the advantages of moral and of civil culture, and exalted to a mode of thinking, and of acting, superior to vulgar minds. Some traces of this spirit, we may affirm, without being charged with excessive refinement, are likely to adhere to their immediate progeny. But, how scanty or latent soever this inheritance at first, if the causes are not discontinued, the constitutional effect will be more conspicuous in the second generation. If the former impressions are not effaced, the third generation will have their constitution more strongly impregnated with the same elements; till at last, by happy alliances, and by preserving the line on one side long unbroken, there shall result an association of qualities, which, being consolidated into the constitution, form the characteristics of a race. The same reasoning is easily transferred to a family of an ignoble line. Instead of competence, independence, culture, substitute indigence, servility, rudeness. Extend this allotment over an equal series of posterity, and you will probably reverse all the propensities of nature. A thousand circumstances indeed may warp a constitution from any line of character, and be destructive of all hereditary symptoms; but if these symptoms are often found to be concomitants of birth, and are visible in the extremes, they will subsist, though less apparently, in other situations; and our reasoning, how fallacious soever, if applied to individuals, justifies the general conclusion. If that turn of imagination, those infirmities of intellect, which mark insanity, or delirium, or folly, are so often confessed hereditary, shall we not allow to all the noble endowments and talents of the mind the same prerogative? But there is no need to infer from analogy what might be established by the most copious induction, were it not tedious to enumerate particulars, where the experience of common life is so decisive. These communicable qualities are subject to many contingencies: some are obliterated; others, checked in their growth, lie dormant for generations, yet again revive: it is only an assemblage of great talents, or the long predominance of some one striking quality, that attracts the observation of the world. The great qualities of the last Athenian king flourished in the Archons for above three hundred years. The Incas of Peru, during a far longer period, were eminent for every princely virtue. The daughter of Scipio was mother of the Gracchi. The heroism of the younger Brutus was the heroism of his remote progenitor. The houses of the Publicolae, the Messalae, and Valerii, were illustrious for six hundred years. The Decii, retaining, equally long, their primeval character, attempted the revival of Roman virtue in the decline of the empire. And, if expectation might be raised upon such foundations, a Briton might almost anticipate some of the actors on the public stage at some future aera. We have seen a patron of freedom in our days, inferior to no Roman name, commanding the applause of senates, sustaining the vigour of public councils, and leading on a nation to glory. We have seen another, or congenial spirit, presiding in the assembly of the nobles, and dispensing, from the highest tribunal, justice to the people; --- His dantem Jura Catonem. I dare not mention a name among the living -- but that the most illustrious statesman of the present age has left posterity, is matter of general satisfaction to the English nation. The genius of that Great Man, surviving in his race, and cherished by the fond predilection of a generous Pubic, may still be useful to his country. And, if we may judge from some late appearances, the prayer of his contemporaries is already heard by indulgent Heaven; Stet fortuna domus, & avi nimerentur avorum. Yet we are far from considering birth as the criterion of any one perfection of the mind or body. Neither do we suppose, in general, that an exalted station calls forth the greatest talents, or is most favourable to the growth, or communication, of moral or intellectual endowments. Those in the middle ranks of life, in a flourishing and cultivated nation, promise to transmit as fair an inheritance to posterity. The access to refinement, to culture, and to civil honours, which is opened to them in the progress of government, allows them almost every advantage; while they are often exempted from corruptions which are fostered by superior rank. Without drawing invidious parallels, it may be affirmed, that the fluctuation of things, in our age and country, the rotation of employments, the mutual intercourses, intermarriages, and alliances, so often formed, are sufficient to blend and unite different tempers and capacities, so as to prevent hereditary endowments from becoming characteristical of any one order of citizens. Yet the same causes, whose influence in particular families is still sufficient to draw attention, might, in other circumstances of society, have affected the departments of civil life, and the more general divisions of mankind. In antient times, when possessions were hereditary; when intermarriages among different classes were not permitted, or were held dishonourable; when conjugal love was rarely violated, and genealogy was a fashionable science; hereditary talents would be more observable, and their influence in society more strongly defined. On the whole, it must be admitted, that the character of ancestors has influence on the line of posterity; and that a long series of causes, antecedent to birth, has affected, in each individual, not only the mechanical and vital springs, but, in some degree also, the constitutional arrangements of his intellectual nature. The circumstance therefore of birth alone, may be regarded as more or less auspicious; and may be allowed, on some occasions, to heighten or to depress expectation; but cannot, without palpable and egregious absurdity, enter farther into the account, or be rendered a topic of exultation or reproach in the estimation of personal merit. Iphicrates, an upstart Athenian, replied with becoming spirit to a person of noble birth, who had dared to arraign his pedigree, "The honours of my family begin with myself; the honours of yours end in you." How often might those in a humbler sphere, exchange places with men who sit in the cabinet of kings? how often, as in the Roman government, might we call a Dictator from the plough? The distinction here opened, far from flattering the arrogance, or justifying the usurpations of men, if extended from individuals, and families, to the larger associations of mankind, will help to explain the history of the world with the least possible violence to the common prerogatives of the species. A cultivated and polished nation may, in some respects, be regarded as a standing family. The one is, relatively to the greater number of the communities of mankind, what the other is, relatively to the greater number of citizens under the same civil oeconomy. The conduct of the one, and of the other, towards their supposed inferiors, is often exactly similar. Both carry themselves with equal insolence, and seem alike to forget or to deny the inherent and unalienable rights of the species. Nations, however, as well as families, may have some inheritance to boast; and the progeny of savages or barbarians may be distinguishable, both in outward and inward form, from the progeny of a cultivated people. A long series of civilization may exalt and refine certain principles congenial with our frame. A long series of ages spent in rudeness or barbarity, may blunt and disfigure, though it can never obliterate, in any tribe, the great outlines of human nature. While one series of causes tends more effectually to the perfection of the animal powers, another series may prove more auspicious to some parts of the intellectual oeconomy. Many savage tribes are remarkable for abilities in one line, while no less deficient in another. Some discover singular, and almost incredible propensities to manners approaching to brutality. The indolicility of others is perfectly astonishing. And in general, as if reluctant to divest themselves of the habits of their ancestors, they shew an unfitness to receive the graces and refinements of polished life. Such appearances are ascribed by some writers to a fixed and immutable diversity in the races of mankind; and the regions that by accident have been the scene of rudeness and barbarity, are pointed out as the permanent and natural habitations of inferior mortals. But these innate and constitutional differences have been shewn, in the preceding pages, to be fluctuating and contingent; and therefore consistent with parity of rank, and one common origin of nations. Allow to the most unpromising tribes such advantages in the political scene, as belong occasionally to the rudest vulgar, under any civil establishment; and as the latter emerge into dignity among their fellow- citizens, so shall the former among the society of nations. The inheritances of all the families with a state, reckoning from its first foundation, are, perhaps, nearly balanced in the revolution of the great year of government. The inheritances of tribes and nations, in all countries of the globe, may be also balanced in the revolution of that greater year which completes the destiny of man. Illustrious rank is no more to be regarded as a criterion of perfection in forming the general estimate of nations, than in forming the particular estimate of the several families or members of the same community. The greatest nation is not always blessed with the most equal government, nor adorned with the most accomplished citizens. The collective wisdom of a people is not to be estimated by that proportion of it which actuates their public councils, or even by the detail of their civil government. Yet that government is certainly, in one respect, well constituted, that calls abilities and distinguished worth into public view. Sir William Temple has pronounced this eulogium on the constitution of the United Provinces of Holland, though rather at the expence of the national character: "Though perhaps the nation," says that Writer, "generally be not wise, yet the government is, because it is composed of the wisest of the nation, which may give it an advantage over many others, where ability is of more common growth, but of less use to the public, if it happens that neither wisdom nor honesty are the qualities which bring men to the management of state affairs, as they usually do in this commonwealth." It is, however, no small point of wisdom to distinguish superior worth; and the men who are disposed to regard with just admiration noble talents, are inferior only to the men who possess them. But it may be questioned, whether the happiest periods, even of free governments, are the periods most conducive to the perfections of mankind. Perhaps the highest national, as well as private virtue, is bred in the school of adversity. A nation certainly may derive splendour from those very circumstances which sink the character of its citizens. The science of mechanics, which is the glory of human reason, has enlarged the abilities, and dignified the aspect of nations. Yet the lower classes of artizans and manufacturers, in most of the civilized governments of modern Europe, who are so instrumental in promoting public opulence and commercial prosperity, may be pronounced to be themselves in a state of intellectual debasement, to which there is scarce any parallel in the history of rude barbarians. It is active and progressive virtue; it is refinement of manners, or vigour of sentiment, and the habits of intellectual exertion, which confer real honour on families; it is the more general and diffusive influence of similar habits, that exalts a people in a moral light, and enriches their genius for generations to come. But the genius of man is so flexible, so open to impressions from without, so susceptible of early culture, that between hereditary, innate, and acquired propensities, it is hard to draw the line of distinction. It were necessary that the natives of one country should be bred up and educated, from their earliest infancy, among the natives of another, in order to make fair experiments with regard to original talents. Under such circumstances, individuals are occasionally presented to view. A Theban may be bred at Athens, an Athenian in Boeotia. And, if the whole tribes of mankind could be placed in similar situations, we might then indeed contemplate them in their innate, as well as in their acquired characteristics; observe the one mingling with, or checked by the other, and mark, in a variety of combinations, their accumulated influence. Qualities, however, that resist for ages the change of government and of climate, must be allowed to be congenial and hereditary to the tribes among whom they are found to predominate. Perhaps the history of the Jews furnishes an example of a race, whose peculiar qualities, thus circumstanced, have descended through a long course of generations. No people, it may be affirmed, have ever figured on the theatre of nations with a destiny as singular as theirs. Their history, whether drawn from sacred or profane records, whether regarded as miraculous, or in the order of nature, affords matter of abundant speculation. The maxims of their religion and policy preserved them in all the revolutions of fortune, as a distinct people. After the final dissolution of their government, and dispersion all over the habitable globe, a system of prejudices peculiar to themselves, but directed, in its operations, to fulfil the ends of Providence, has preserved their genealogy, and prevented alliances or inter-marriages with any other race. Certain marks of uniformity are accordingly discernible among them in every period. The same spirit which was so untractable under their own governors, disposed them to mutiny and rebellion when a Roman province; and that perverseness of temper, which left them so often to apostasy and to idolatry, when in possession of the true faith, has rendered then tenacious of a false religion. As numerous, perhaps, at this day, as when a settled nation, the relation of consanguinity, under all the various governments and climates where their lot is cast, marks their character. Yet, had this insociable people remained in their antient possessions, and, without foreign connections or inter-marriages, had subsisted under the same political establishment, the most singular, surely, that ever was formed, the lineaments of their character, both of inward and outward form, had, we may well believe, been still more strongly defined. In general it may be observed, that the confined intercourse of the species tends ultimately to the formation of a peculiar genius and temper. Thus, in the antient Germans, the uniformity of individuals was as astonishing as the diversity of all from every other people; and, from the singularity of these appearances, the Roman Historian supposes them a pure and distinct race, not derived from Asia, from Africa, from Italy, or from any other region. [Tact. de Mor. Germ.] The new hemisphere presented appearances exactly similar. The astonishing resemblance which was there observed among mankind, seems to evidence that it was peopled originally by the same race, and at an eara of no high antiquity. The branches, though widely spread, had probably not been long separated from the common stock; or perhaps a similarity in the modes of life contributed, more than any other cause, throughout that immense continent, to exclude variety in the human species. The modern Athenians are distinguished, at this day, amidst the wretched subjects of a barbarous and despotic government, for some of those qualities that illustrated and adorned their ancestors. The history of Indostan, where the Aborigines are so clearly defined from the other natives of the same regions, might be mentioned as another striking example of a genius and constitution which consanguinity has in part contributed to cherish and preserve for ages. When emigrants from different countries, fixed in one settlement, and under one political oeconomy, preserve, however, for a length of time, distinguished characteristics, the diversity cannot be altogether ascribed to circumstances posterior to birth. The temper of the British nation, which is attributed by some writers to local situation, flourishes with equal vigour in another hemisphere. The spirit which now animates American councils, was the spirit of Britons in a former age; and the Britons, in the same province, are distinguished from every other tribe. The concourse of so many tribes proved, in the British colonies, a fertile source of animosity and dissension; and unfortunate, surely, was that policy in the parent state, which could so far subdue the antipathies, and reconcile the prejudices of so mixed a people, as to unite them in one general confederacy against her government. Yet perhaps this temporary and precarious union may dissolve apace; the seeds of internal discord may revive; and their mutual jealousies, if not controuled by superior wisdom, may one day shake the foundations of this rising empire, or reunite it to the British government. But were all memorials of these settlements rescinded from modern annals, there might be observed, for ages to come, constitutional distinctions in the same province, where the greater number, from contributional resemblances, might boast of one lineage with Britons. Yet, these resemblances, and those distinctions, time must annihilate. And, from a new order of things, there must finally arise that peculiar association of qualities, which is properly called national, as distinguishing a people long under the same physical and moral oeconomy, from the rest of the world. Much latitude, however, is allowed in the genius and character of every people, without violation of the general law. What variety among children of the same parents, do we observe to consist with a family resemblance? Consistent, in the same manner, with family characteristics, is a certain national uniformity; and consistent with national characteristics, are the essentials of a common nature, and a common descent. Such varieties ought not to create antipathies, or unhinge, or even relax the social ties. On the contrary, if it hold in man, that crossing the brood tends occasionally to improvement, this consideration, which forms a natural argument against incest, so justly prohibited on political and moral grounds by all civilized and enlightened governments, authorises and invites all nations to form mutual connexions and alliances. Thus we may observe mankind essentially the same, yet, in different regions of the globe, varying continuity from a fixed standard; breathing at first, if I may use the expression, unequal proportions of the aetherial spirit; excelling in the rational, in the moral, or in the animal powers; born with a superior fitness for refinement, for arts, for civil culture; or cast in a rougher mould, and by native temper more indocible and wild. Yet all the capital distinctions in individuals, families, or tribes, flow from causes subsequent to birth; from education, example, forms of government; from the order of internal laws, from the maxims and genius of religion, from the lights of science and philosophy; in some degree, from the infallible operations of the external elements; but above all, from the free determinations of the will. To run the parallel of nations, and decide on their comparative perfections, were a design too aspiring for the Author of these Essays; yet the appearances in civil life we may pronounce to be often delusive. The manners, the crimes of illiterate savage tribes, are apt enough to appear to us in their full dimension and deformity; but the violations of natural law among civilized nations have a solemn varnish of policy, which disguises the enormity of guilt. The greatness too of a community dazzles the eye, and confers an imaginary value on its members. It eclipses the milder lustre of more humble tribes. Yet the virtue of nations, as of individuals, frequently courts the shade, and the beautiful figure of the poet is equally applicable to both: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. History, which ought to be the mistress of human life, affects magnificence, and seems to descend from her dignity in recording the transactions of little States. She forgets that men may grow less by elevation, and permits the honours of nations to be distributed by the hands of fortune. It is hence the Greeks and Romans are regarded by us, with a veneration so far above all the nations of antiquity. Hence Europe, in modern times, boasts a pre-eminence that seems to insult the rest of the world. It belongs to reason and philosophy to rejudge mankind; and, under an endless variety of appearances, more or less equivocal, to observe and fix the principles which affect, in every age and country, the proportion of human happiness, and of human perfection. Let not nations then, or individuals, regard themselves as single in the creation; let them view their interests on the largest scale; let them feel the importance of their station to themselves and to the system; to their contemporaries, and to future generations; and learn, from the established order of second causes, to respect, to adorn, and to exalt the species. Nor is the detail of the meanest tribes unimportant in philosophy. If human nature is liable to degenerate, it is capable of proportionable improvement from the collected wisdom of ages. It is pleasant to infer, from the actual progress of society, the glorious possibilities of human excellence. And, if the principles can be assembled into view, which most directly tend to diversify the genius and character of nations, some theory may be raised on these foundations, that shall account more systematically for past occurrences, and afford some openings and anticipations into the eventual history of the world. THE END