Essays on the History of Mankind in Rude and Cultivated Ages
by James Dunbar
1781


Essays on the History of Mankind in Rude and Cultivated Ages.
by James Dunbar, LL.D.
Professor of Philosophy in the King's College and University of
Aberdeen,

The Second Edition, with additions.

London: 
Printed for W. Strahan; T. Cadell in the Strand; and J. Balfour,
Edinburgh.
MDCCLXXXI.

Preface.

     To solve some appearance in civil life, and, by an appeal to
the annals of mankind, to vindicate the character of the species
from vulgar prejudices, and those of philosophic theory, is the aim
of the Volume now delivered to the Public. Its contents are
digested on a regular plan; though the looser form of Essays has
been preferred to a more systematical arrangement.
     He who attempts to reform the world is actuated by a wild
enthusiasm, or by a divine impulse. to stop the career of Vice, is
the ultimate end of well-directed ambition. That ambition was felt
by the great writers of antiquity. They erected a temple to Virtue,
and exhausted on the opposite character all the thunder of
eloquence.
     Animated with the views, not with the genius of the antients,
I occupy the same ground; for on that ground the efforts of
inferior men may be of use.
     Every Author is a candidate for the public favour, and the
public alone is the arbiter of his fate. With such a sanction he
will not need, and without it he ought to decline, even the
patronage of kings.
     The voice of the Public, like the voice of an oracle, it
becomes an Author to hear with respectful silence. Even while it
mortifies, it instructs; while it refuses approbation, it teaches
wisdom. It checks ambition in its wild career; and reminds the
candidate for fame to return into that deceiving path of life, from
which he ought not to have deviated, and which, how mortifying
soever to the Author, is perhaps the happiest for the Man.


Essay I.

On the Primeval Form of Society

     Human Nature, in some respects is so various and fluctuating;
so altered, or so disguised a by external things, that its
independent character has become dark and problematical. The
history of its exertions in their primeval form, would reflect a
light upon moral and political science, which we endeavour in vain
to collect in the annals of polished nations. What pity is it,
that, the transactions of this early period being consigned to
eternal oblivion, history is necessarily defective in opening the
scene of man.
     Consistently, however, with present appearances, and with the
memorials of antiquity, the following changes, it is pretended, may
have arisen successively to the species.
     First, Man may have subsisted, in some sort, like other
animals, in a separate and individual state, before the date of
language, or the commencement of any regular intercourse.
     Secondly, He may be contemplated in a higher stage; a
proficient in language, and a member of that artless community
which consists with equality, with freedom, and independence.
     Last of all, by slow and imperceptible transitions, he
subsists and flourishes under the protection and discipline of
civil government.
     It is the design of this Essay to enquire into the principles
which either superseded the first, or hastened the second state;
and led to a harmonious and social correspondence, antecedently to
the aera of subordination, to the grand enterprises of art, to the
institution of laws, or any of the arrangement of nations. But it
is the order of improvement merely, not the chronological order of
the world, that belongs to this enquiry. Degeneracy, as well as
improvement, is incident to man: and we are not here concerned with
the original perfection of his nature, nor with the circumstances
in which he was placed at the beginning by his Creator.
     There is one general observation strongly applicable, in all
ages, to human nature: the appearance of proper objects is
essential to the exertion of its powers. As therefore talents
belong to individuals, which, for want of their objects, have lain
for ever dormant; so perhaps there are talents inherent in the
species which at no time have been called forth into action, and
which may yet appear conspicuous in some succeeding period. Any
alteration in the human fabric would seem to affect the identity of
our being; but from the novelty and variety of the objects with
which it is conversant, the Soul of man may become progressive;
and, without undergoing any actual transformation in its powers,
may open and expand itself in energy through the successive periods
of duration. The celebrated distinctions of Aristotle will then
appear to have an ample foundation in nature. Thus much is certain,
a mutual intercourse gradually opens latent powers; and the
extension of this intercourse is generally attended with new
exertions of intellect. Withdraw this intercourse, and what is man!
"Let all the powers and elements of nature (says an illustrious
philosopher) conspire to serve and obey one man: let the sun rise
and set at his command: the sea and rivers roll as he pleases, and
the earth furnish spontaneously whatever may be useful or agreeable
to him: he will still be miserable till you give him some one
person at least, with whom he may share his happiness, and whose
esteem and friendship he may enjoy."
     Society then is the theatre on which our genius expands with
freedom. It is essential to the origin of all our ideas of natural
and of moral beauty. It is the prime mover of all our inventive
powers. Every effort, beyond what is merely animal, has reference
to a community; and the solitary savage, who traverses the desert,
is scarce raised so far by nature above other animals, as he is
sunk by fortune beneath the standard of his own race.
     The destitute condition of man, as an animal, has been a usual
topic of declamation among the learned; and this alone, according
to some theories, is the foundation both of social union and of
civil combinations.
     After the population of the world, and the growth of arts,
mutual alliances and mutual support became indeed essential in our
divided system: and it is no wonder if certain appearances in the
civil aera have been transferred, in imagination, to all preceding
times. At first, however, it may be questioned, whether there
reigned not such an independence in our oeconomy, as is observable
in other parts of the creation.
     It is the arts of life which, by enervating our corporeal
powers, and multiplying the objects of desire, have annihilated
personal independence, and formed an immense chain of connexions
among collective bodies. Nor is it perhaps so much the call of
necessity, or mutual wants, as a certain delight in their kind,
congenial with all natures, which constitutes the fundamental
principle of association and harmony throughout the whole circle of
being. But man, it is pretended, by nature timid, runs to society
for relief; and finds an asylum there. Nor is he singular in this:
all animals in the hour of danger crowd together, and derive
confidence and security from mutual aid.
     Danger, however, it may be answered, far from suggesting a
confederacy, tends in most cases to dissolve rather than to confirm
the union. Secure from danger, animals herd together, and seem to
discover a complacency towards their kind. Let but a single animal
of more rapacious form present himself to view, they instantly
disperse; they derive no security from mutual aid, and rarely
attempt to supply their weakness in detail, by their collective
strength. This single animal is a match for thousands of a milder
race. The law of dominion in the scale of life is the strength of
the individual merely, not the number of the tribe; and of all
animals, man almost alone becomes considerable by the combination
of his species.
     In society, animals are rather more prone to timidity from the
prevalence of the softer instincts. Those of the ravenous class,
generally the most solitary, are accordingly the most courageous;
and man himself declines in courage in proportion to the extent of
his alliances: not indeed in that species of it which is the
genuine offspring of magnanimity and heroic sentiment; but in that
constitutional boldness and temerity which resides, if I may say
so, in our animal nature. Hence intrepidity is a predominant
feature in the savage character: hence the savage himself,
separately bold and undaunted, when he acts in concert with his
fellows, is found liable to panic from this public sympathy, this
reciprocal collision of minds. And it is hence, perhaps, according
to the observation of a distinguished writer [A], that the most
signal victories recorded in the annals of nations have been
uniformly obtained by the army of inferior number.
     But to return to the analogy of animals: I am not ignorant
that some are gregarious from necessity, are formed for offensive
or defensive wars, and require joint labour for their subsistence
or accommodation. Yet in such examples the common functions are
directed by instinct rather than by art; and evidence less the
policy of the animal, than, if I may call it so, the policy of
nature. When these provinces [B] are well defined, many of the
appearances we so much admire will no longer be regarded as marks
of invention, or concerted plan. Where no option is, there is no
agency; and within a contracted sphere, while separate acts of
sagacity in various tribes are so often observable, their
concurring efforts are comparatively rare. Each creature below us
is constituted the sole guardian of its own privileges, seems, as
it were, a separate system, and the resources of its own
constitution its natural and its only support. Even the union of
the sexes, formed for the continuance of the kind, is a temporary
union, and dissolves at the instant when its operations are no
longer necessary. As for larger conventions, they are often purely
casual; and the invitation of the same pasture will at times solve
such appearances, without resorting to the ties either of
dependence or of love. It is thus the fowls of the air alight so
often on the same field. Thus the ravens and other creatures of
prey convene around the body of a dead animal. And thus the insect
tribes are wont to assemble on the same putrefaction in such
amazing swarms, that naturalists have been seduced, by the
appearance, into the belief of an equivocal generation, as if these
insects were actually produced from the mass of corruption on which
they feed.
     An opinion of intercourse in the lower ranks of being is often
suggested or favoured by a propensity there is in man, to confer on
every creature a portion of his own nature. Suitable to this
propensity, in observing a concourse of animals, however
fortuitous, he magnifies every appearance in favour of the social
principle, and presumes a concert and government where none in
reality subsist. It is the same propensity which gives life to
inanimate objects, and leads us so irresistibly, on some occasions,
to consider them as active and percipient beings. Withdraw the aid
of imagination, and the embellishments of fiction, and much of that
intercourse is destroyed, which we presume to reign in many
departments of the animal world.
     Yet if urgent necessity did not produce a separation, it is
probable that the love of herding would be universal. Animals,
accordingly, that are solitary in one country, are gregarious in
another. Even the antipathies among different tribes necessity
often creates. For in some regions of the globe, where that
necessity does not subsist, animals of prey suspend their
hostilities; and tribes, usually accounted the most implacable by
nature, fulfil, in harmony, their peculiar destinations, without
encroaching on each other's happiness or security[C].
     Upon the whole, we may pronounce that interested intercourse
in the animal kingdom, is greater in appearance than in reality;
that the concourse of a tribe is often accidental; that all regular
oeconomy is under the direction of instinct; and that in all the
freer combinations, the society is held together by the tie of
affection or conscious delight, more than by fear, or mutual wants,
or any necessary call of nature.
     Such is the constitution of the inferior creation. Is the same
analogy observed in man? Was he ever in this independent and
individual state? Or wherein does his pre-eminence consist? Not,
surely, in the mechanism of those instincts which direct him to
procure subsistence. The senses of other animals are as acute as
his. Not in atchievements by bodily strength. For, in that
particular, many of them far surpass him. Not in performing
jointly, what so many creatures can perform apart. Manifestly, that
would be no perfection. But in this his pre-eminence consists, that
being as independent as they in all the corporeal functions,
impelled by no necessity, but by generous passions, he rises to
improvements which flow from the union of his kind.
     In some parts of our constitution, it cannot be denied, we
resemble the other animals. If therefore a time was when those
parts chiefly or alone were exercised, our objects, and pursuits,
and habits of living must have been nearly similar. I am far from
affirming that ever there was no distinction. At all times, in our
walk, there is some nobler aim. There is some inward consciousness,
some decisive mark of superiority in every condition of men. But
the line which measures that superiority is of very variable
extent. Let us allow but equal advantages from culture to the mind
and body; and it is consequential to infer, that savages, in some
of the wilder forms, must be as inferior to civilized man in
intellectual abilities, and in the peculiar graces of the mind, as
they surpass him in the activity of their limbs, in the command of
their bodies, and in the exertion of all the meaner functions. Nor
is this merely specious in theory. Some striking instances of
savage tribes with so limited an understanding, as is scarce
capable of forming any arrangement for futurity, are produced by a
Historian who traces the progress of human reason through various
stages of improvement, and unites truth with eloquence in his
descriptions of mankind.{William Robertson, History of America, v.
i., p. 309, London, 1777}
     In some corners of the globe, if we may credit report, man and
beast lead in the forest a sort of promiscuous life; and the
boundary is scarce discernable which divides the rational from the
animal world. This fact, no doubt magnified by travellers and
historians, and tortured in the theories of philosophy, has however
some foundation, and is in part consonant to our own experience.
The progress of nations and of men, though not exactly parallel, is
found in several respects to correspond: and in the interval from
infancy to manhood, we may remark this gradual opening of the human
faculties. First of all, those of sense appear, grow up
spontaneously, or require but little culture. Next in order, the
propensities of the heart display their force; a fellow-feeling
with others unfolds itself gradually on the appearance of proper
objects; for man becomes sociable long before he is a rational
being. Last in the train, the powers of intellect begin to blossom,
are reared up by culture, and demand an intercourse of minds.
     When we observe, then, this analogy between the individual and
the species; when we observe the gradation of improvement, and the
slow departure of man from the confines of animal life; is there no
intimation here concerning his original state, or rather concerning
that state which human nature uninformed, and unenlightened by
Providence, must have at first assumed? When arts and dependence
grow together, and subsist so nearly in the same proportion, ought
we not to regard them in the relation of cause and effect, and
consequently allow of little or no dependence before the birth of
arts? But the arts are formed in the bosom of society. Society
therefore had another origin than mutual dependence and mutual
wants. It is not, if I may say so, the sickly daughter of calamity,
nor even the production of an aspiring understanding, but the free
and legitimate offspring of the human heart.
     Yet the attempt were vain to refer the origin of large
communities to domestic relation and the ties of blood.
     That natural affection which belongs to man belongs also to
the inferior classes, and subsists among them with equal vigour. In
both, the mechanism is the same, and calculated with the same
design. At first therefore, perhaps, it was proportioned to the
exigency of things, and as in them, so in us likewise, of limited
duration. The period of gestation, in animals, is so contrived as
to prevent all possibility of incumbrance from a second brood. But
the period of pregnancy, it is allowed, were by far too short to
dispense, in the human species, with the parental cares. The
connexion, therefore, is necessarily more durable, its functions
more various and progressive, and suited to the different ages and
circumstances of a connected and rising progeny. Yet the
improvements of social life, by the introduction of order, and by
refining on all the passions and feelings of our frame, have given
to this instinct a perpetuity unknown in the primeval state.
     Prior to single marriages, and the more accurate ascertainment
of families, an uncertainty with regard to the progeny must have
often suppressed the instinct in the breast of one parent; and in
the breast of the other parent, the equal licence of both tended
ultimately to its extinction or decay. It is observable, even in
our own times, that the affections of a woman, mother to several
distinct families, are exceedingly liable to be estranged from the
children of a former bed.[D] This remark o the female character is
at least as ancient as Homer.
     Even Ulysses's queen was not presumed exempt from a frailty so
natural to her sex. The young prince of Ithaca is accordingly
warned by Minerva to return home, before absence and new
engagements had estranged the heart of Penelope from the son of
Ulysses.

     Thou know'st the practice of the female train.
     Lost in the children of the present spouse,
     They slight the pledges of their former vows;
     Their love is always with the lover past,
     Still the succeeding flame expels the last.

                    Odyssey, B. xv. v. 24.

     Is love then at first devoted to a single object? Is such
absolute confinement of appetite a maxim of uninstructed nature?
The supposition, though it were not repugnant to every mode of
appetite, and to the wilder range of life, is irreconcileable with
the history of the ruder ages. Some latitude, in this respect, is
almost universal after society has received a form; and by degrees
only is established that stricter rule which is so often violated,
when connected with the moral harmony of the world, and guarded by
the sanctions of divine and human laws. [E] The interest of a
family, the order of society, justifies the restraint. Even the
amorous passion, when associated with moral sentiment, leads to an
exclusive and indissoluble union; and the sweets of domestic life
make ample amends for its most severe engagements. But this
adjustment of things seems to be an improvement, or refinement on
the first oeconomy; owing its original either directly to divine
command, or to the wisdom of human policy.
     In some rude countries, according to the information of modern
travellers, rendered credible by several passages of antiquity, the
women are not only at the head of domestic government, but possess
a voice and ascendency in public councils and deliberations.[F]
     Here then is probably displayed a peculiar and striking effect
of gratitude and natural authority; and the weaker sex, though
destined in the intermediate ages of barbarism to the most
deplorable subjection, have derived from the love and reverence of
children, who know no other parent, a rank and consideration
superior to what rules of gallantry or generosity prescribe among
the most refined nations.
     On the commencement of domestic order, filial reverence, one
of the strongest sentiments that can touch the heart, fails not to
recognize its object, and acts with redoubled vigour when
accumulated in one direction. A variety of circumstances augments
its force; and that natural love which seems not, in any other
species, to ascend from the youth to the parent, ascends in ours
with the first dawnings of reason and morality, and forms a
distinguishing characteristic of human kind.
     But as, in such instances, the paternal instincts are of more
precarious exertion, at an aera farther back, the maternal
instincts likewise may have been constituted in circumstances which
render them fluctuating and temporary.
     It is not then such partial principles which could have formed
or embodied the larger communities of mankind. It is not a parent,
a child, or a brother, but the species itself, that is the object
embraced by humanity. In some cases, perhaps, the patriarchal
government may have furnished the model of a larger plan; but
mankind were before in possession of the sweets of an independent
society. The members of a family become members of this society,
before they became members of a state. A thousand circumstances in
the range of being, convening numbers of the species on the same
stage, must have presented the opportunities of social life. The
only question is, how regular intercourse was formed, how strangers
were converted into acquaintance, and how those who came together
at first by accident, came afterwards to assemble by appointment.
     With similar appetites and congenial passions, the excursions
of individuals will often coincide. They will be found occasionally
on the banks of the same river, or in the same corner of the grove.
The reiterated appearance of the objects slowly and imperceptibly
calls forth new desires. Each interview has its effect. The
brutality of the savage begins to vanish. Some refinement appears.
An appetite for society ripens, which afterwards must be gratified
as well as other appetites. Little plans are carried on in concert;
and at a time when no discordant interests, or various pursuits,
had diversified the seene, a small community might be kept together
by the tie of sociability and reciprocal love.
     In these days of envy, and of interest, we are little able to
conceive its force; nor, if the feelings remained, could artificial
language, in this respect, supply the language of nature. When
similar functions and occupations in civil society prove so often
a bond of union among those of the same order, how immense must
have been the effect of an exact conformity of life! That
resemblance of disposition and of character, which is the cement of
little associations, and is the principle of private friendship,
was the original basis of public union. The history of the Soldurii
in Gaul, of the ancient Germans, and of other public bodies, of
which there are so many examples in the simple ages, evidences the
stability of those sacred bonds and confederacies that originate in
the heart. The history too of some of the South Sea isles, which
the late voyages of discovery have tended to disclose, enables us
to glance at society in some of its earlier forms, and to mark, in
some striking examples, the inviolable fidelity of social love.
     The principles of union are, in the order of things, prior to
the principles of hostility. the former are, in truth, productive
of the latter, which, in a more advanced period, bursting forth,
like a torrent, against other tribes, disfigure the character of
uncivilized nations.
     The affections of the heart are of limited exertion; and that
mutual love, which is confined within a narrow sphere, triumphs, as
it were, over the sentiment which gave it birth, and creates, in a
competition of interests, such fierce animosity among contending
tribes.
     As emigrants in rude ages usually pass their own frontiers
with hostile minds, they are regarded by others with a jealous eye;
and in the penury of language, a stranger and an enemy may receive
one common name. It was thus the ancient Romans, addicted to piracy
and war, and consequently jealous of the designs of others, used
the same term in both these senses; for this is far more probable,
according to the observation of an ingenious modern, that the
solution of Tully, who takes occasion, from this coincidence, to
extol the humanity of his ancestors. But such criticisms affect not
the general history of rude nations. When there is no ground of
variance, the original sentiment revives in all its force, the
rights of hospitality are peculiarly revered, and an unsuspected
stranger is embraced with a fondness and cordiality which redeems
the character of the species.
     Thus have we reached that universal principle which reigns, in
some degree, in every district of nature. The most rapacious of
animals confess its power; and while at war with the rest of the
creation, sympathize with each other, and refuse to taste the blood
of any of their own kind. This harmony of things, so conspicuous in
the inferior orders of like, seems to affront the conduct of the
rational species. Moralists and poets have availed themselves of
this topic, and inveigh with indignant spirit against that
prostitution of sentiment which, forming an exception to a law
almost universal, requires the effusion of human blood. Thus the
Roman poet expostulates with a degenerate age in these admirable
lines:

                    ------ Quando leoni
          Fortior eripuit vitam leo? quo nemore unquam
          Expiravit aper majoris dentibus apri?
          Indica tigris agit rbida cum tigride pacem
          Perpetuam: faevis inter se convenit ursis.
          Ast homini ------
                              Juv. Sat. xv. lib. 5.

Such reproaches indeed are chargeable on mankind; but touch not the
clear dictates of morality, nor the primeval rectitude of the
heart. "Nature," says an animated writer,[Sterne's Letters] "never
made an unkind creature. Ill usage and bad habits have deformed a
fair and lovely creation."
     The great lines of humanity are legible in all communities;
and it is the description of every country under heaven,

               ----- Sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi;
          Sunt lachrymae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.

     The love of the species is the grand principle of attraction,
as essential to the rational, and, in some degree, to the animal,
as gravitation to the material world: nor wilder were the attempt
to expound the harmony of the solar system from the limited
attraction of magnetism, than to expound the combination of tribes,
and the moral harmony of nations, from the operation of partial
instincts. Even pride, the passion which divides mankind, was
originally a principle of union. It was a sense of the dignity of
the species, not an opinion of superiority among individuals; and,
with exalted notions of their own rank, they reserved for the
inferior creatures that sovereign contempt which they can now
bestow so liberally on their fellowmen.
     In such circumstances it was impossible for mankind not to
meditate, from the beginning, a separation from the life of brutes.
They must have conceived the plan of holding the dominion of the
world; and, actuated with a decent pride, the consciousness of
their own pre-eminence, they became daily more and more susceptible
of reason, of morality, and of religion. Thus are the foundations
laid, upon which were afterwards reared, by slow advances, the
superstructure of policy and arts. In society the faculties have an
object. The springs of ingenuity are put into motion; and the
language of nature gradually participates of art. The efforts of
genius excite admiration. The acquisitions of industry, or
invention, confer a right which suggests the idea of property; and
the distinctions of natural talents lay a foundation for
corresponding distinctions in society.
     But these inventions and improvements, which do honour to our
nature, tended at the same time to divide mankind. On this account
it may be questioned, whether the enlargement of our faculties, and
all the advantages from arts, counterbalance the feuds and
animosities which they soon introduced into the world. The serene
and joyous interval between the rudeness of mere animal life, and
the dissensions of civil society, constituted, perhaps, that short
but happy period, to which antiquity refers in her descriptions of
the golden age.
     No theory, indeed, in morals, or in government, was then
devised. Yet moral rules were seldom broken, when an equal and
generous commerce was the rule of government. And it is amusing to
observe into what absurdities speculative men have been so often
carried upon these subjects by presumption, by affection, or by the
love of paradox.
     Hence a variety of theories, ancient and modern, concerning
the origin of moral sentiment; hence the absurdities of the
Epicurean school.
     Epicurus, observing the external advantages resulting to the
individual from moral conduct, pursued the idea so far as to allow
superior advantages, and pleasures of a higher relish, altogether
to escape his notice. It is indeed strange, that any observer
should omit this obvious comment on human life, That to be the
object of love, of esteem, and of respect, is in itself far more
desirable than all the consequences with regard to external ease
and security that can be derived from that fountain. But Epicurus
could contemplate beauty neither in nature nor in man. And what
better could be expected from the philosopher who had ascribed the
origin of worlds to a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Yet the life
of Epicurus himself formed a contradiction to his system; and
whoever attempts to vindicate his humanity, will be led to question
his candor.
     A Writer of the last age, in the composition of a
philosophical romance, is still more extravagant.
     All virtue, according to him, consists in obedience to the
public magistrate; and all moral obligations are the offspring of
civil government.
     But has government, it may be asked, any creative power? Or
whence the duty of allegiance, if there was no primeval law? Would
not Amphion and Orpheus have strung their lyres in vain?
     It is no wonder that the same Writer should arraign the genius
of the ancient republics, and condemn to the flames all Greek and
Roman learning as a sovereign expedient for strengthening the hands
of government.[G]
     But I am not called upon, by my subject, to explain or to
refute such systems. And I shall content myself with observing,
that a late publication, much read and admired in our fashionable
world, is more dangerous than any speculative theory to the morals
of the rising generation. As patrons of licentiousness, Epicurus
and Hobbes, and even Machiavel and Mandeville, must bow to the
noble author.
     It is in the spirit of his performance to separate the
bonestum from the decorum of life; to insult whatever is venerable
in domestic alliance; to substitute artificial manners in the room
of the natural; to raise superficial above solid accomplishment,
and to hold up dissimulation and imposture as the essentials of
character.
     This is a species of refinement avowed in no former age. It
contains a solecism in education, and in the oeconomy of civil
affairs.
     To exalt the Graces above Virtue, is, if I may say so, to
exalt creatures above their Creator. The Graces are chiefly amiable
as emblems of Virtue. Break this alliance, and they are no more.
Unite them with the opposite character, and this fantastical
conjunction renders a monster still more deformed. For my own part,
I had as soon behold the monster itself in all the horrors of its
native deformity, as in such insolent attire.
     The Graces are the handmaids of Virtue, not the sovereigns;
and all their honours are derived. But Virtue, though naked and
unadorned, were Virtue still.

          Quam ardentes amores no excitaret sui, si videretur!

     How different was the conduct of a Roman statesman, when, in
the person of a father, he delivered instructions to youth! The
instructions of the Roman fill the young with rapture. Those of the
Briton excite indignation in the aged. But I ask pardon of the
reader, when I name the British author in the same breath with
Cicero. And if the system of the noble lord was designed merely for
the courtier, with the courtier let it rest. Without the formality
of system, the strict observance of moral rules is dispensed with
in the negociations of courts.
     Let if be numbered then among courtly privileges to patronize
deceit. When perfidy and dissimulation are declared by patent to
belong to the members of the diplomatic body, they will become,
perhaps, more emphatically, the representatives of kings.
     But while things are thus adjusted to the meridian of courts;
while the civil code, in many countries, is no more than the breath
of kings; and, in all countries, may be dissolved by legislative
power; the moral code, which is paramount to all civil authority,
and from which all civil obligations arise, remains eternally in
force.
     It was delivered from heaven to the people, and to maintain
its authority is the jus divinum of nations.
     With these sentiments I close the Essay: and such sentiments
are addressed more particularly to the British youth by one of
their public guardians, who then only feels the full importance of
his station when he animates the rising generation in the pursuits
of honour.

NOTES.

NOTE [A], p. 9.

     Sir William Temple, in an Essay on Heroic Virtue, descends
into the following detail, which, on account of its importance, I
lay before my Readers, in the words of that intelligent and
agreeable writer.

     "The second observation I shall make upon the subject of
victory and conquest is, that they have in general been made by the
smaller numbers over the greater; against which I do not remember
any exception in all the famous battles registered in story,
excepting that of Tamerland and Bajazet, whereof the first is said
to have exceeded about a fourth part in number, though they were so
vast on both sides that they were not very easy to be well
accounted. For the rest, the numbers of the Persians with Cyrus
were small to those of the Assyrians: those of the Macedonians were
in no battle against the Persians above forty thousand men, though
sometimes against three, four, or six hundred thousand.
     "The Athenian army exceeded ten thousand, and, fighting for
the liberties of their country, beat about six score thousand
Persians at Marathon.
     "The Lacedemonians, in all the famous exploits of that state,
never had above twelve thousand Spartans in the field at a time,
and seldom above twenty thousand men with their allies.
     "The Romans ever fought with smaller against greater numbers,
unless in the battles of Cannae and Thrasymene, which were the only
famous ones they lost against foreign enemies; and Caesar's army at
Pharsalia, as well as in Gaul and Germany, were in not proportion
to those he conquered. That of Marius was not above forty thousand
against three hundred thousand Cimbers. The famous victories of
AEtius and Belifarius against the barbarous northern nations were
with mighty disproportion of numbers, as likewise the first
victories of the Turks upon the Persian kingdom; of the Tartars
upon the Chinese: and Scanderbeg never saw together above sixteen
thousand men in all the renowned victories he atchieved against the
Turks, though in number sometimes above a hundred thousand.
     "To descend to later times, the English victories so renowned
at Cressy, and Poictiers, and Agincourt, were gained with
disadvantages of numbers out of all proportion. The great
atchievements of Charles VIII in Italy, of Henry IV in France, and
of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, were ever performed with smaller
against greater numbers; and among all the exploits which have so
justly raised the reputation and honour of Mons. Turenne for the
greatest Captain in his time, I do not remember any of them were
atchieved without disadvantage of number; and the late defeat of
the Turks at the siege of Vienna, which saved Christendom, and has
eternized the memory of the duke of Lorrain, was too fresh and
great an example of this assertion to need any more, or leave it in
dispute."
     Upon these incontestible facts the argument proceeds thus:
     "If it be true, which I think will not be denied, that the
battle is lost where the fright first enters, then the reason will
appear why victory has generally followed the smaller numbers;
because, in a body composed of more parts, it may sooner enter upon
one than in that which consists of fewer, as likelier to find ten
wise men together than an hundred, and an hundred fearless men than
a thousand. And those who have the smaller forces endeavour most to
supply that defect by the choice discipline and bravery of their
troops; and where the fright once enters an army, the greater the
number the greater the disorder, and thereby the loss of the battle
more certain and sudden."
     The truth of the above might be illustrated by more recent
examples, and a more copious induction. The observation, since our
author's time, is confirmed by the experience of another century.
In the memorable battle of Plassy, the English army under Lord
Clive defeated an enemy which outnumbered them ten to one.
     The king of Prussia's battles in the last war would form a
series of splendid examples in support of the same conclusion, if
the superior abilities of that great Prince were not alone
sufficient to account for his superiority in arms.
     But the facts above specified are fully sufficient for the
ascertainment of so curious a phaenomenon, on the causes of which
our Author had descanted with so much ability.

NOTE [B], p. 9

     There are certain principles in the constitution both of men
and animals, which lead blindly and irresistibly to unknown edns.
To these we give the name of instinct; and to define its exertions
in all their variety and extent, forms one of the nicest questions
in philosophy. The province of reason having been confined to
abstract conclusions, it has been doubted whether it belongs at all
to animals; and habits and instincts have been deemed sufficient to
account for their whole oeconomy. Jealous of our prerogative, we
would not have inferior creatures to claim, in this particular, any
kindred with the human mind.
     It is however certain, that animals are capable of
recollection, and of foresight; and by consequence possess the
faculty which infers the future from the past. Many of them too
discover an inventive faculty; and when drawn into artificial
circumstances beyond their usual tract of life, extricate
themselves with an address and sagacity that would be deemed
rational in man. Admitting then to animals some degree of reason,
as well as instinct, it is of importance to define their respective
functions.
     It is one criterion of instinct to be uniform in its
proceedings: reason is various, and supposes a choice. The one
principle, as far as it extends, is infallible in its
determinations; but the other principle is liable to error. The one
acquires maturity at once, and supersedes experience, and is
incapable of culture. The other is guided by experience, and stands
in need of culture, and arrives gradually at different stages of
perfection.
     Instinct is fixed and immutable, not in the fabric only of a
single animal; the same exertions of it are common to the species.
But reason, which becomes more or less perfect in the same
individual, is dealt out in various measure and proportion to the
several individuals of the kind.
     These principles seem counterparts to each other in the system
of creation. In proportion as the one is denied, the other comes in
aid of the defect.
     The perfection of reason would supersede the necessity of
instinct; but its imperfection calls aloud for this auxiliary.
     Instinct accordingly is, in the human species, more
conspicuous in infancy than in manhood; and reigns most absolutely
in all the meaner departments of animal life. The fowls of the air,
the fishes of the sea, and the insect tribes, seem wiser, in this
respect, than he who styles himself Lord of the Creation.
     But is this the wisdom of the animal? It is rather the wisdom
of nature.

          ---- Hinc ille avium concentus in agris,
          Et laetae pecudes, & ovantes gutture corvi.

     Nature has drawn a veil over this part of her proceedings, and
that veil what mortal can remove? At least sure I am, I may apply
to my own speculations on this mysterious theme what the poet
Simonides, when revolving on the nature of the gods, observed to
the King of Syracuse,

          Quanto diutius considero, tanto mihi res videtur
obscurior.


NOTE [C], p. 12.

     A Navigator, whose present voyage, we hope, for the honour of
civilized nations, will not be disturbed by the present
hostilities, thus describes, in a former voyage, the condition of
animals on a sequestered island, near Statenland in the South Sea.

     "It is amazing to see how the different animals which inhabit
this little spot are mutually reconciled. They seem to have entered
into a league not to disturb each others tranquillity. The sea-
lions occupy most of the sea-coast; the sea-bears take up their
abode on the isle; the shags have post in the highest cliffs; the
penguins fix their quarters where is the most easy communication to
and from the sea; and the other birds chuse more retired places. We
have seen all these animals mix together, like domestic cattle and
poultry in a farm-yard, without any one attempting to molest the
other. Nay, I have often observed the eagles and vultures sitting
in the hillocks among the shags, without the latter, either young
or old, being disturbed at their presence. It may be asked how
these birds of prey live? I suppose on the carcases of the seals,
and birds which die by various causes; and probably not a few, as
they are so numerous."

               A Voyage towards the South Pole, &c.
                    by James Cook. vol. ii. p. 206.

NOTE [D], p. 19.

     It is the tendency of a second marriage to weaken the ties of
filial, as of parental love: and this effect is by far more
conspicuous in the second marriage of a mother than of a father; a
circumstance which suggests a curious question in the theory of
moral sentiment, an ingenious solution of which may be seen in the
philosophy of Hume.
               Treatise of Hum. Nat. v. ii. p. 140.

NOTE [E], p. 21.

     The plan of domestic society is various in different ages and
nations. In different climates and situations it becomes more or
less expedient to controul the love of variety, and the natural
licentiousness of desire.
     A community of wives was allowed in Spatra. A latitude of the
same kind was indulged at Rome. such communities were found
established among the ancient Britons, and take place among various
tribes of Barbarians. In other cases, the irksome situation of
fathers under an impression of a dubious progeny, has led to a
system of restraint, and prevention, no less barbarous than
inhuman. Some nations, distrustful of all the moral guardians of
female virtue, prevent, by physical expedients, the possibility of
transgression. The modern Arabians in particular, among whom
jealousy is the reigning passion, are guilty of a species of
violence too shocking for description.
     Polygamy however, in some form or other, appears to have been
almost universal. The moderation indeed of the ancient Germans is
mentioned by Tacitus; yet among them a plurality of wives was not
without example. Even a plurality of husbands, according to Strabo,
took place in certain provinces of the Median empire: and such
plurality is recognized in the Gentoo code.
     The abolition therefore of polygamy has been represented by
some writers as a sort of sumptuary law, founded on the exigencies
of civil society.
     But against one species of polygamy the want of the
ascertainment of the father forms an insuperable objection. Nor is
it by any means clear that polygamy, in its more admissible form,
and how ell soever regulated, is conducive to population or public
prosperity; and the near equality in the number of each sex,
sufficiently arraigns the justice of this establishment. Where that
proportion subsists, a community of wives, though deservedly
exploded as tending to relax or to annihilate the paternal tie, is,
perhaps, more defensible than the exclusive possession of a
plurality. But should the proportion be interrupted or broken by
pestilence, by war, of other signal calamity, a well-ordered
polygamy might possibly serve as a temporary expedient for
repairing the depopulation of mankind.
     On such emergency it was allowed at Athens; and from a
conviction, no doubt, of its propriety, Socrates and Euripides
availed themselves of the indulgence. But such conjunctures are
rare; and an exclusive polygamy must, in general. be regarded in a
less favourable light, as the most dangerous monopoly that ever
claimed the protection of government, and in its origin and
progress as an usurpation of the powerful and opulent on the equal
pretensions of mankind.
     Perhaps the liberty of divorce tended, at least in the more
temperate climates, to reconcile all ranks to a more equal plan.
     The institution of single marriage accordingly was in Greece
as ancient as Cecrops, and was adopted by the Romans as the most
perfect plan of domestic life. Yet even under this institution, the
perpetuity of the marriage-union may be vindicated on solid
grounds: and a rising progeny, the offspring of mutual love, tends
to consolidate the alliance, as well as to render its obligations
indissoluble. It is accordingly remarkable, that divorces, though
permitted by law, were, during a period of five hundred years,
unprecedented in the annals of Rome.
     It is no less remarkable, according to the observation of a
learned prelate, [The Bishop of Llandaff] that the number of
divorces in the present reign equals the accumulated number upon
record, in all preceding reigns, in the annals of England.
     The decline of public manners is surely alarming, and calls
perhaps, for the interpotion of legislative power. But it is seldom
in the power of government to mend the morals of a people, while
ill-digested attempts may serve rather to hasten corruption.
     Whether it is possible for the wisdom of a British Parliament,
to recal, in our age, the dignity of domestic life, I pretend not
to decide. Let is suffice to observe, that, in the dissolute ages
of antiquity, this liberty of divorce, authorized on so slight
pretences by the legislation of Greece and Rome, and even tolerated
under the Jewish oeconomy, became a source of the most odious
corruption. The circumstances of the world called aloud for
reformation. A latitude in this article was found alarming to the
peace and order of society, and was finally reprobated and
abolished by the maxims of our holy religion.
     Upon the whole, it may be affirmed, that the institution of
marriage, more or less perfect in different countries, is regulated
in the best manner possible, under the Christian system. Chastity
is a dictate of morality; celibacy is repugnant to nature. The
liberty of divorce is dangerous, a community barbarous, and
polygamy unjust.
     It may farther be observed, that the laws of most countries,
relative to incest, though not the immediate suggestions of
instinct, are founded on obvious views of expediency and public
order. Incest in the ascending and descending lines is so uniformly
odious and shocking, that the prohibition may be regarded as the
unalterable and declared sense of mankind, wherever these relations
are known. The incestuous marriages of the Assyrians, Persians, and
some others, which seem to militate against this conclusion, are
rightly imputed to dictates of a false religion, which is found, in
so many instances, to triumph over the clearest maxims of reasons
and morality
     There is no ground then to accuse such salutary regulations,
or envying the unlimited indulgence of other times, to exclaim, in
the intemperate language of the Poet,

               -------- Felices quibus ista licent!
                   ---- human malignas
               Cura dedit leges: & quod natura remittit
               Invida jura negant.
                                   Ovid. L. 10

NOTE [F], p. 22.

     Tacitus, Plutarch, and others, bear testimony to the
honourable rank of the other sex among the ancient Gauls. -- They
are even said to have conferred the supreme judicature on their
wives, supplanted, however, in that function by an artful
priesthood. The women were no less honoured among the ancient
Britons. They were not only suffered to vote in public assemblies,
but raised occasionally to the sovereignty of provinces, and even
to the command of armies. Their importance among the ancient
Germans, and in general under the Gothic constitutions, is
established by a Writer who has illustrated the liberal genius of
feudal associations, and vindicated, in some material points, the
character of our remote ancestors. [See a View of Society in
Europe, by G. Stewart, LL.D.]
     The provinces of each sex in civil life, which seem to be
defined by nature, were, in some measure, interchanged in antient
Egypt. The more active occupations were allotted to the women; to
the men, the more sedentary. And it was, accordingly, by law
incumbent on the daughters, not the sons, to maintain their parents
in declining age.
     In several countries of Africa the women are still permitted
to vote in public; and a multitude of similar examples might be
drawn from the annals of uncivilized nations. but the Author of the
Essay on the History of Civil Society, [Dr Adam Ferguson] in
delineating the character of rude nations, prior to the
establishment of property, explains the facts alluded to somewhat
differently.
     He admits, that children are considered as pertaining to the
mother, with little regard to descent on the father's side. He
admits, that domestic functions are committed to the women, that
the property of the household is vested in them, and even that the
hunter and the warrior are numbered as a part of their treasure;
but contends, "at this species of property is in reality a mark of
subjection; not, says he, as some writers allege, of their having
acquired the ascendant."
     But should we admit to this ingenious Author, that the
occupations allotted for the women are accounted more inglorious
than the toils of war, and would even be thought to sully and
debase the character of the warrior or hero; yet such arrangements,
without derogating from the prerogative of the superior sex, must
render the condition of the inferior more eligible far than in
several of the succeeding stages in civil society. "And if," to use
the language of our Author, "in this tender, though unequal
alliance, the affections of the heart prevent the severities
practised on slaves; we have in the custom itself, as, perhaps, in
many other instances, reason to prefer the first suggestions of
nature to many of her after-refinements."
     In such circumstances too, the matrons, as the only
ascertained parents of the rising generation, could not fail to
command exclusively that respect and reverence which is the usual
tribute of filial love. The due balance of domestic authority being
maintained by the equal ascertainment of both parents, where the
descent is dubious on one side, the balance must incline strongly
to the other; and though it is scarcely credible that mankind ever
carried their jealousy of this authority so far, as to undermine
its foundations, by changing the children as soon as born; [Diod.
Sicul.] we may believe that uncertainty of descent on the father's
side contributed to the importance at which the women arrived in
Britain, in Gaul, in Sparta, and other states.
     When it was observed by one of another country to the wife of
Leonidas, that at Sparta alone the women ruled the men, she
replied, with becoming spirit, "We are the only women who bring
forth men."
     The love of war and of women is combined, according to
Aristotle, in the character of nations. And it must be admitted,
that a spirit of gallantry, and a generous protection of the weaker
sex, which form distinguishing features of the heroic age, are by
no means unexercised in the earliest arrangements of the human
species.
     The fair sex commanded more veneration among the ancient
Celtic nations of Europe than among the Greeks and Romans, whom we
are accustomed to regard as the most civilized nations of
antiquity. And their condition, though not to be envied, was less
unhappy among the rude tribes in North America, than in the
cultivated empires of Peru and Mexico, in other respects the most
enlightened governments of the new hemisphere.

NOTE [G], p. 35.

     In this judgment Mr Hobbes was certainly consistent with
himself. For the dignity of human nature, which resists the
establishment of civil tyranny, will be asserted by every people,
conversant in the immortal productions of Greece and Rome.
     "Quae natio," says Cicero, in the generous triumph of
humanity, "Quae natio non comitatem, non benignitatem, non gratum
animum, et beneficii memorem diligit? Quae superbos, quae
malificos, quae crudeles, quae ingratos non aspernatur, non odit?"
               De Leg. lib. I.

     Cicero, in the same Treatise, in which he opens the source of
all law and government, has animated distant ages with the spirit
of his own times, and with that enthusiasm of public virtue,

          Et maribus Curiis, et decantata Camillis.

     The example of the Roman Orator is peculiarly instructive, in
this free country, to aspiring youth. He formed himself to
eloquence on the Grecian model; and Plato was his favourite among
the philosophers. On his entrance into public life, he was called
the Greek, and the Scholar. But he acquired and merited a superior
title: a title, which exalts him above conquerors and heroes, and
which, while yet unprostituted by the adulatio of slaves, implied
the consummation of human glory. He was saluted Father of his
Country by a free people:

               -------- Roma parentum,
          Roma, patrem patriae, Ciceronem libera duxit.

     To vindicate the honours of man, nothing more is necessary
than to transcribe the antients. But there are, it must be owned,
anomalous productions in the moral, as in the natural world. The
Leviathan was born in the last age. A more singular phaenomenon has
appeared in ours. A Stanhope has appeared among our contemporaries,
who, in an attempt to delineate and embellish human nature, has
only descanted on his own deformity.