by nothing but the fear of punishment or the hopes of reward; that is, by self-interest, the great principle that ope-. rates in the political world in the same manner that attraction does in the natural, preserving order and restraining every thing to its proper course by the continual endeavours of every individual to draw all power and property to himself.* If we descend to the examination of particular forms of government, we shall see them all exactly correspond with this general plan; we shall find that none of them owe their origin to patriarchal power, the divine right of Princes, or the uninfluenced choice of the people; things which never existed but in the idle dreams of visionary politicians; but all to the struggles of ambition and self-interest, subsiding at last into some kind of policy; either into absolute monarchy or some species of popular government more or less remote from it, as the different parts of it have had strength or fortune to prevail; all which must be carried on by the same vicious methods of violence or corruption, and consequently be productive of numberless, if not of equal, evils. : In absolute monarchies, for instance, great violence must be exercised to keep men, by nature equal, in so unnatural a subjection; this must produce plots, rebellions, civil wars and massacres; and these must require more violence to repress them but this violence cannot be used without much corruption; for it is not the person of the sovereign, his crown and scepter, that can preserve his authority, nor can he destroy thousands with his own hand, like a hero in a romance; a powerful army must be kept in pay to enslave the people, and a numerous clergy to deceive themt; whose * There is indeed one other method of government frequently made use of by the most illustrious Princes and Legislators, that is fraud; but, as this operates only by the appearance of self-interest, it may properly be comprehended under that head. It has been represented as if the author by this designed to insinuate that the whole business of the clergy was to de ambition, avarice, luxury and cruelty must be satiated with the blood and treasures of that very people as a reward for their services: hence infinite evils must arise, the lives, liberties and properties of all must be dependent on the capricious will of one, or, what is worse, on the wills of his pimps, flatterers and favourites: justice must be perverted by favour, and that favour can seldom be obtained but by adulation, servility and treachery: this produces all kinds of Moral Evils, and these beget more Political. In democratical governments, if there is less violence there is more corruption; which in these indeed is the basis of all power, and productive of the most mischievous effects ;here all things are at the disposal of an ignorant and giddy multitude, always led to their own destruction by the flimsy eloquence and pretended patriotism of knaves, fools, and enthusiastic madmen; or commonly of some extraordinary genius, formed for popularity by a lucky composition of allthese excellent ingredients. Mixed governments, though perhaps productive of fewer Evils than either of the former, yet must necessarily partake of those belonging to both, and be supported by more or less of violence, as they more or less approach the despotic; or of corruption, as they come nearer to the democratical principles: the further they shrink from the iron scourges of the one, the more will they be entangled in the golden fetters of the other; for corruption must always increase in due proportion to the decrease of arbitrary power, since where there is less power to command obedience, there must be more bribery to purchase it, or there can be no government at all. These have besides many Evils peculiar to themselves, the very excellence of these sort of constitutions being produc ceive the people; than which nothing can be more distant from his intentions: all that he means is, that men will not easily submit to tyranny. unless their consciences are first enslaved; or that popery is the most effectual support of arbitrary power: a proposition which he supposes no one will presume to contradict. tive of inconveniences: for this excellence consisting principally in this, that their different parts are able to counteract each other's mischievous intentions, the reins of government are kept tight only by each pulling a different way, and they subsist by a perpetual contention, like a body kept alive by the opposite effects of contrary poisons: a very precarious and uneasy kind of existence! This exposes them in some measure to all the Evils incident to both absolute and popular governments, to the oppression of the one, and the licentiousness of the other, to factions at home, weakness abroad, and infinite expence in all parts of their administration. All these Evils arise from the nature of things and the nature of man, and not from the weakness or wickedness of particular men, or their accidental ascendency in particular governments: the degrees of them may indeed be owing to these, but their existence is immutable. So long as the imperfection of human nature continues, so long will princes, for the most part, convert that power with which they are trusted for the sake of public utility, to the ignoble ends of their own avarice, luxury or ambition; so long will the people prefer present self-interest to remote benefits arising from national prosperity; and so long will corrupt ministers employ this popular venality to their own private advantage. : Should one enumerate all the evils of this kind, which cannot be excluded from government without the total alteration of human nature, they would be endless; to instance but a few all political bodies, like the natural, must have the seeds of their own dissolution sown in their very essence, and like them be destroyed by every excess; by excess of poverty or riches, of slavery or liberty, of ignorance or knowledge, of adversity or prosperity: a strong proof of their imperfection, that they cannot bear excess even of the greatest good, and yet they cannot be formed of more durable materials, so long as they are constituted of human creatures. All power trusted in the hands of so imperfect a creature as man, must be pernicious and oppressive, and yet somewhere such power must be trusted. All human laws must be liable to misconstruction, and uncertainty, yet without laws property cannot be secured. All popular elections must be attended with corruption, licentiousness, and the perversion of justice, yet without them the liberty of no country can be preserved. All national provisions for the poor must not only be encouragements to idleness, but productive of contests, and oftentimes of cruelty, yet without such many honest but unfortunate people must inevitably perish. All religious tests, and subscriptions, are in their own natures subversive of truth and morals; yet the folly of one part of mankind, and the knavery of the other, will scarcely permit any government to subsist without them. Trade and wealth are the strength and the pursuit of every wise nation, yet these must certainly produce luxury, which no less certainly must produce their destruction. All war is a complication of all manner of Evils natural and moral, that is of misery and wickedness; yet without it national contentions can never be determined. No government can be carried on, nor subordination preserved, without forms and ceremonials, pomp, and parade; yet all such, from the inferiority of human nature giving itself airs of grandeur and magnificence, and the despicable expedients it is obliged to have recourse to, to support it, must always have something mean and ridiculous in them to exalted understandings. All governments are in a great measure upheld by absurd notions infused into the minds of the people, of the divine right of some particular person or family to reign over them; a foolish partiality for some particular spot of ground; an outrageous zeal for some religion which they cannot understand, or a senseless pursuit of glory which they can never attain; these are all false principles, yet without them, or some like them, no nation can long subsist: they can never be defended by reason, yet reason can produce no others that can supply their places. Every flourishing nation endeavours to improve arts, and cultivate reason and good sense; yet if these are extended too far, or too universally diffused, no national government or national religion can long stand their ground; for it is with old establishments as with old houses, their deformities are commonly their supports, and these can never be removed without endangering the whole fabric. In short, no government can be administered without in some degree deceiving the people, oppressing the mean, indulging the great, corrupting the venal, opposing factions to each other, and temporising with parties. It is this necessity for Evil in all government, which gives that weight and popularity, which usually attends all those who oppose, and calumniate any government whatever; appearing always to have reason on their side, because the Evils of all power are conspicuous to the meanest capacity, whereas the necessity for those Evils are perceivable only to superior understandings: every one can feel the burthen of taxes, and see the inconveniences of armies, places, and pensions, that must encrease them, but very few are able to comprehend that no government can be supported without them in a certain degree. The most ignorant can perceive the mischiefs that must arise from corrupt ministers and venal parliaments; but it requires some sagacity to discern, that assemblies of men unconnected by self-interest will no more draw together in the business of the public than horses without harness or bridles; but, like them, instead of being quietly guided in the right road of general utility, will immediately run into riot, stop the wheels of government, and tear all the political machine to pieces. The wise man knows that those Evils cannot be eradicated, and that their excess only can be prevented; that thus far every honest man will endeavour to his utmost, but to proceed farther only fools will hope for, or knaves pretend. He knows that though a single man may possibly prefer public utility to private advantage, it is utterly impossible, that the majority of numerous bodies should be actuated by the same generous and patriotic principles; these can spring |